Supreme Court Denies Patrick Tate Adamiak Case as Resentencing Looms

Former Navy sailor Patrick Tate Adamiak is still fighting for his freedom after a 20-year sentence tied to demilled gun parts, ATF overreach, and serious double-jeopardy concerns.

On Monday, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Patrick Tate Adamiak’s case. His only hope remains a June resentencing or a presidential pardon.

Mr. Adamiak was a decorated Navy sailor who served as a Petty Officer 1st Class (E-6, Master-at-Arms). He was slated for BUD/S training to become a Navy SEAL. In 2016, he started a side business selling firearm parts and military surplus on GunBroker.com and his own website, Black Dog Arsenal. He rose to one of the top 500 dealers on GunBroker, generating over $10,000 in legal sales per month. He never sold functional firearms or National Firearms Act (NFA) items.

In late 2021, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) started an investigation into Adamiak after a paid informant (facing his own charges) told the ATF that Adamiak was selling machine guns. The paid confidential informant hired Adamiak to broker a deal between a GunBroker seller and an undercover ATF agent. Mr. Adamiak sold the undercover agent cut-up/demilled receivers (e.g., PPSh-41, PPS-43, Thompson) and other parts. The parts were cut with a bandsaw and not a torch. The ATF claimed that these cuts were insufficient to render the items inert.

On April 7, 2022, the ATF and more than 40 law enforcement officers raided Adamiak’s Virginia Beach home. The agents seized demilled machine gun parts (e.g., cut-up WWII-era kits), inert anti-tank missile launchers, and other non-functional replicas or display items. None of the items were functional, but to the ATF, it did not matter.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) under the Biden administration indicted the young sailor. They charged him with receiving and possessing unregistered firearms, possessing and transferring machine guns, and possessing unregistered destructive devices. Prosecutors claimed he dealt in illegal machine guns online. The ATF rebuilt each gun to prove it was a machine gun. For an RPG, the ATF welded closed the holes cut in the tube and added a trigger pack to make it functional. Gun owners viewed it as the definition of overreach.

A jury convicted him, and in June 2023, he received a 20-year sentence (with a projected release around 2042). He has been held at FCI Fort Dix in New Jersey.

After unsuccessful appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and a denial of certiorari from the Supreme Court, his only hope is a resentencing hearing in June or a presidential pardon. The case is fraught with problems. None of the items was functional; the informant was desperate to reduce his own charges; and, most importantly, his case might violate double jeopardy.

Petty Officer Adamiak was charged with receiving and possessing an unregistered firearm (primarily a PPSh-type machine gun) in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d) (National Firearms Act), and possessing and transferring a machine gun in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(o). He received 10 years on each charge, but both charges were identical, meaning he was sentenced twice for the same crime.

The 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d) charge was for having an unregistered NFA firearm. Since the passage of the Hughes Amendment in 1986, it has been impossible to add any machine guns to the registry. The items that Adamiak had—in the ATF’s eyes—were machine guns, which were impossible to register. This means he was charged with violating a law he could not comply with.

The second charge was a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(o), which is the same offense under the Hughes Amendment. Adamiak should never have been charged with both. In fact, the United States Attorney’s Manual forbids the DOJ from charging defendants with both. This contradiction leads directly to double jeopardy, which violates Petty Officer Adamiak’s constitutionally protected rights.

9-63.516 of the U.S. Attorneys’ Manual

The manual reads: “Section 922(o) of Title 18 makes it unlawful to transfer or possess a machinegun made after May 19, 1986. In addition, under the NFA, it is unlawful to manufacture or possess a machine gun without first registering it with the Secretary of the Treasury and paying applicable taxes. 26 U.S.C. §§ 5822, 5861. As a result of the enactment of 18 U.S.C. § 922(o), the Secretary of the Treasury no longer will register or accept any tax payments to make or transfer a machinegun made after May 19, 1986. Accordingly, because it is impossible to comply with the registration and taxation provisions in the NFA, prosecutors should charge the unlawful possession or transfer of a machinegun made after May 19, 1986, under § 922(o).”

Since the charges never should have been filed, his sentence should be significantly reduced at resentencing in June. It is also a smoking gun pointing to a political prosecution rather than one in the name of public safety. The U.S. Attorney’s Manual isn’t something federal prosecutors never consult.

According to AmmoLand News sources inside the DOJ, the charges had to go through multiple levels of approval before they could be levied against the defendant. It is much more likely that the Biden-era Justice Department intentionally ignored the guidelines than that extreme incompetence caused the failure to consult them. It is believed that the DOJ and ATF wanted to send a message to other sellers by getting the harshest sentence possible, even if that meant locking away for decades a person who dedicated their life to defending the country from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

None of the items Adamiak had were ever traced to any crimes. The items that led to Adamiak’s arrest were brokered between an ATF informant and an ATF agent. The destructive device was demilled and purchased at a California flea market. These charges appear to be trumped up to set an example.

This case was prosecuted under the Biden DOJ. A sailor who dedicated his life to the defense of liberty has had his freedom stolen. If the Trump administration wants to prove that it is different from the anti-gun Biden regime, then it should fix the injustice that has stripped Petty Officer Patrick Tate Adamiak of his freedom. It is time to free him and let him rebuild his life.

Why the US Supreme Court Skipped AR-15s This Term — And Why It’s Coming

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About John Crump

Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people from all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons, follow him on X at @right2bear, or at www.crumpy.com.

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Bruen’s Text-and-History Test Spreads Beyond the Second Amendment

“The U.S. Court of Appeals just took the Heller and Bruen playbook — founding-era text, founding-era dictionaries, founding-era silence — and ran it through a First Amendment case. Every yard they gained for the Establishment Clause is a yard also banked for the Second Amendment.” – Professor Mark W. Smith, Four Boxes Diner

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has handed down an en banc decision in Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District, No. 25-50695 (5th Cir. Apr. 21, 2026), upholding a Texas law requiring public-school classrooms to display a poster of the Ten Commandments. The 9–8 majority, written by Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, held that the Texas law does not violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. That alone is a big deal. But more importantly for Second Amendment supporters, the en banc court embraced the “text and history” methodology used by the Supreme Court in its Second Amendment decisions.

In other words, the high court’s Second Amendment jurisprudence is being injected more and more into the bloodstream of American constitutional law.

A Bruen-Style Inquiry, Just Pointed at the First Amendment

The Fifth Circuit did exactly what District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), and New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), tell courts to do with the Second Amendment — only this time the target was the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. The majority started with the constitutional text, locked in the founding era (1791) as the relevant time period, and asked what an ordinary American at ratification would have understood the words to mean.

Judge Duncan’s majority opinion put it this way: “If a modern law is challenged under the Establishment Clause, courts must test that law against what the founding generation would have regarded as an establishment of religion. … That is a familiar task. Courts often decide whether modern practices fall within the original public meaning of constitutional phrases — for instance, ‘search and seizure,’ ‘keep and bear arms,’ ‘Recess of the Senate,’ or ‘Officers of the United States.’”

Read that again. The en banc Fifth Circuit just dropped “keep and bear arms” into the same originalist sentence as “search and seizure” — treating the Second Amendment as one more constitutional phrase whose meaning was fixed when the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791. That is the methodological lockstep our right to self-defense needs.

The Dictionaries Heller Used

Further proof of how Second Amendment precedents are going mainstream can be found in Nathan’s footnotes. To define what “an establishment of religion” meant in 1791, the Fifth Circuit reached for two founding-era dictionaries: Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed. 1773) and Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) — the exact same two dictionaries Justice Antonin Scalia leaned on in Heller to define “keep,” “bear,” and “arms.” Footnote 14 of the Nathan opinion cites Noah Webster by name. The court even pulled William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (another source cited by SCOTUS in Heller) off the shelf to explain what an established church looked like in pre-revolutionary England.

When a federal court deploys Johnson, Webster, and Blackstone to interpret the meaning of the 1791 Bill of Rights, the anti-gun lobby’s favorite cheat code — relying on late-19th-century Black Codes and post-Reconstruction disarmament statutes — gets harder to play.

Justice Joseph Story, Across the Hall From Himself

This is the part I most want you to see. The Fifth Circuit’s majority quotes Joseph Story’s Commentaries on the Constitution § 1874 (1833): “An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation.”

Joseph Story is not a random treatise writer. He is one of the most famous Supreme Court justices of all time. Story was appointed to the Supreme Court by President James Madison — the architect of the Constitution itself — and confirmed at age 32, making him the youngest justice ever to sit on the Court. And the same Joseph Story, in the same 1833 Commentaries, wrote the sentence every Second Amendment lawyer should know by heart: “The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers.”

One book. One author. One founding-era authoritative voice for interpreting the Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment.

The End of the Myth of the “Expert Historian” in Constitutional Litigation

Personally, I intend to spike the ball here because the Fifth Circuit found that testifying “expert” historians should not be viewed as authoritative in legal fights over constitutional meaning. In my article in the Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy, I explain in detail why it is improper for courts to outsource to “expert historians” their decisions about the meaning of the Second Amendment. And I am happy to report that the Fifth Circuit agrees with me!

The district court in Nathan had let hired law professors testify about whether displaying the Ten Commandments was historically an “establishment.” The Fifth Circuit shut that down, explaining the difference between “legislative facts” and “adjudicative facts.” Legislative facts are historical facts relevant to the legal question about what a law, such as the Second Amendment, means. Adjudicative facts are facts about the parties themselves for juries to decide, such as “Did Mark run the red light?” or “Did Mark rob the bank?”

By finding that historical questions about the meaning of the First Amendment could not be decided by just asking a historian, the Fifth Circuit made clear that testifying experts are unnecessary for interpreting and applying the Constitution. This is borne out by Supreme Court precedent, given that no testifying experts were used in any modern Second Amendment cases from Heller to McDonald to Bruen to Caetano to Rahimi, and so on.

The Spider Web

Here is why Second Amendment supporters must understand all areas of constitutional law, including the First Amendment.

Constitutional methodology is a spider web — when one strand moves, the whole web moves.

The Fifth Circuit just yanked the originalism strand hard, and every other strand, including the Second Amendment strand, moved with it. Nathan v. Alamo Heights is likely going to the Supreme Court. When it gets there, it will land on a bench whose 6–3 conservative majority handed down Bruen and Rahimi and whose precedent shelf already holds Heller, McDonald, and Caetano. The Bruen “text and history” methodology is consolidating.

The road into 1791 is becoming the only road for constitutional interpretation, and supporters of the right to bear arms should rejoice at this trend.

DOJ Is Finally Fighting Hardware Bans. Now SCOTUS Needs To Step In.

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About Mark W Smith

Constitutional attorney and bestselling author Mark W. Smith, host of the Four Boxes Diner Second Amendment channel on YouTube, is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court Bar. His Second Amendment scholarship has been cited by many attorneys and judges, including by attorneys in legal briefs submitted to the Supreme Court in NYSRPA v. Bruen and in U.S. v. Rahimi.

His most recent book is DISARMED: What the Ukraine War Teaches Americans about the Right to Bear Arms.

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Trump Endorses Ken Paxton as Gun Owners Remember Cornyn’s Record

President Donald Trump just made the Texas U.S. Senate runoff a lot clearer.

President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Ken Paxton puts John Cornyn’s gun-control record back in the spotlight as Texas Republicans head into the May 26 Senate runoff. IMG Jim Grant

Trump has given Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton his “Complete and Total Endorsement” in the Republican runoff against Sen. John Cornyn, calling Paxton a “true MAGA Warrior” and specifically citing his commitment to “Protect our always under siege Second Amendment.”

That last line should get the attention of every gun owner in Texas.

This race is not just another Republican primary fight. It is now a direct test of whether Texas gun owners want to send another establishment Republican back to Washington after years of excuses, compromises, and “bipartisan” gun-control deals, or whether they want a fighter who has actually gone to court against the Biden gun-control machine.

Paxton and Cornyn advanced to the May 26 runoff after the March 3 primary, with Rep. Wesley Hunt finishing third. The winner will face Democrat James Talarico in November.

Cornyn’s record is no mystery to Second Amendment voters. Gun-rights groups, AmmoLand, and grassroots activists have already covered it extensively. Cornyn was not a passive bystander in the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. He was one of the Senate Republicans who made the Biden-backed gun-control package possible.

The Senate passed that bill on June 23, 2022, by a 65-33 vote. Cornyn is more responsible than any other senator for shepherding the legislation through the Senate.

That bill was sold, as gun control always is, as “reasonable,” “targeted,” and “commonsense.” In practice, it expanded federal gun-control infrastructure, funded crisis-intervention programs that include red-flag-style schemes, expanded scrutiny of young adult gun buyers, and gave the anti-gun lobby a federal win after decades of pressure.

They remember who sat at the table with Democrats after Uvalde. They remember who helped Joe Biden sign the first major federal gun-control bill in decades. They remember the lectures about how this supposedly would not affect law-abiding gun owners. And they remember the same old Washington move: give ground on the Second Amendment, call it a victory, and expect Republican voters to clap.

Ken Paxton’s record looks different and has already emerged as the Second Amendment choice in Texas.

As Texas Attorney General, Paxton sued the Biden Administration over the ATF’s pistol brace rule, partnering with Gun Owners of America in litigation against one of the most abusive federal gun-control moves of the Biden era. His office also recently touted a legal victory preserving an injunction against the Biden-era ATF rule targeting private firearm sales.

Gun Owners of America endorsed Paxton for U.S. Senate, saying he has “stood shoulder to shoulder with GOA in the fight to defend the Second Amendment against unconstitutional gun control.”

That is the difference between talking about the Second Amendment when campaign season rolls around and actually fighting for it when the federal government comes after gun owners.

Trump’s endorsement also matters because of what comes next. The Democrat waiting in the general election, James Talarico, is not a pro-gun moderate no matter how carefully he tries to package himself.

Talarico’s own campaign platform calls for passing “commonsense gun safety laws,” which is the same soft-focus phrase Democrats use before pushing bans, background-check expansions, waiting periods, registration schemes, and red-flag laws. His legislative record includes measures such as HB 22, dealing with reports of certain multiple firearm and magazine sales, and HB 236, which called for national instant criminal background checks in connection with private firearm transfers and created a criminal offense.

Texas gun owners have seen this act before. “Commonsense gun safety” is the marketing language. The product is always more government control over peaceable citizens.

That is why securing Paxton as the Republican nominee matters for gun rights. Texas cannot afford to sleepwalk into November with a weakened, compromised Republican nominee carrying the baggage of the Biden gun-control bill while Democrats rally behind a polished anti-gun candidate who knows how to speak in moderate tones while backing the same old restrictions.

Republican voters are allowed to demand better from candidates than their only qualification being that they are “not as bad as the Democrat.”

The Second Amendment is not a bargaining chip. It is not a Senate talking point. It is not something Republican senators should trade away so Washington journalists can call them brave.

Texas deserves a senator who understands that the right to keep and bear arms is not up for negotiation.

Paxton has fought the ATF. Cornyn helped pass the Biden gun-control package. Talarico is already signaling the usual Democrat “commonsense” gun-control agenda.

That is the choice. Trump’s endorsement simply put a spotlight on it. Gun owners should do the rest.

Why the US Supreme Court Skipped AR-15s This Term — And Why It’s Coming

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About Duncan Johnson:

Duncan Johnson is a lifelong firearms enthusiast and unwavering defender of the Second Amendment—where “shall not be infringed” means exactly what it says. A graduate of George Mason University, he enjoys competing in local USPSA and multi-gun competitions whenever he’s not covering the latest in gun rights and firearm policy. Duncan is a regular contributor to AmmoLand News and serves as part of the editorial team responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

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Book on Roman Republic Has Insights for Today’s Freedom Advocates

What they did was fundamental in establishing who we are.

Horns were blaring. Traffic was backed up for a mile. People in cars and trucks, or on the sidewalk cheering the procession on, were waving flags and screaming in triumph.

It was San Antonio, and evidently the Spurs had just advanced and edged closer to some sort of playoff victory. My younger son texted me a clip he’d recorded when he was caught up in the spontaneous parade while driving home from work.

Sports have never been my thing, and I generally pay no attention to any of them (except when teams or players do something stupid, subversive, and anti-gun). Longtime readers know I’ve frequently remarked on how when I die and go to hell my punishment will be to be forced to watch games.

“I’m afraid I will never understand,” I texted back.

“Me neither, but it was fun driving in it,” he replied.

“I’m sure,” I responded, and felt I should explain.   “I’m reading a book right now written by a friend about Rome, and I see many parallels between Americans literally obsessed with entertainment and sports trivialities and Romans being distracted by their corrupt and tyrannical rulers with bread and circuses. It does not end well.”

The book is The Roman Republic, History, Myths, Politics, and Novelistic Historiography, and the author is Miguel A. Faria Jr., “retired neurosurgeon and neuroscientist, medical editor and author, medical historian and medical ethicist, public health critic and advocate for the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”  I began following his work after reading his landmark “The Perversion of Science and Medicine (Part III): Public Health and Gun Control Research,” in which he documented how the government was promoting a naked political agenda masked as “science” to advance a citizen disarmament agenda. His has become one of the few voices I listen to without finding concerns.

Faria’s experience with the costs of tyranny is firsthand. His parents were Cuban underground freedom revolutionaries, and at 13, he escaped with his father from the communist Castro regime. He wrote about that and more in Cuba in Revolution: Escape from a Lost Paradise. He has also established himself, along with all his other achievements, as a published authority on communism and totalitarianism, and further, is the author of Medical Warrior: Fighting Corporate Socialized Medicine, and Vandals at the Gates of Medicine: Historic Perspectives on the Battle over Health Care Reform.

I’ve relied on Faria’s “Perversion of Science” to offer credible counterarguments to  fraudulent anti-gun “research,” and have also reviewed some of his books here on AmmoLand and for Firearms News, including:

• ‘America, Guns, and Freedom’ Offers Antidote to Anti-Gun Quackery
• A Tale of Two Revolutions: Revisiting the American and French Revolutions

Those and curated posts on The War on Guns blog  show the many reasons I believe Dr. Faria’s work is essential for dedicated Second Amendment advocates, and although not specifically focused on the right to keep and bear arms, ancient Rome provided the bedrock on which the foundations for our own Republic were set.

That said, it’s a serious read, and while compelling, it requires a commitment, making it fair to consider the tremendous commitment required to research and write the book. All told, it’s 522 pages, including parts and chapters, illustrations, appendices, notes, the bibliography and index. Because so much of my work involves reading source material to use in my own writing, it took me longer than most, oftentimes only progressing a few pages at a time, to find my way to the end long after I started.

It’s not about the rise and fall of the Roman Empire but the rise and end of the Roman Republic, with Julius Caesar assuming powers that essentially ended republican governance.  Per the synopsis:

“The history of the Roman Republic has been shrouded in myth, assailed by gaps in historical knowledge, and even immersed in political biases. But in this book, the author has succeeded in penetrating the mist, using both ancient and modern sources, as well as numismatic information and other illustrative materials and artforms. He narrates the history of ancient Rome—from its beginnings with the legendary seven kings of Rome, the founding and struggles of the Republic, the wars of conquests and civil wars, to the collapse of the Republic and the inception of the Roman Empire with Augustus. Peace is finally established, and the Augustan Renaissance and the Pax Romana followed, hinting at the course of Western civilization. One lesson is learned: Liberty and civic duties are too valuable to be forsaken for the material safety of ‘bread and circuses’ because in the end citizens so partaking may end up with neither liberty nor safety.”

Throughout the covered history the reader will see familiar names like Hannibal and Spartacus (and Scipio Africanus and Crassus, who respectively defeated them), names that ring a bell for many although what they did and stood for may be less understood, like Cicero and Pompey, and more contemporarily “famous names” like Caesar, Mark Antony, Cleopatra…

Then there are names less familiar to modern readers, like citizen-patriot and former consul Cincinnatus who, tired of politics, declined reelection and retired to his farm. When Rome was threatened, a delegation found him plowing in his field and informed him he had been made dictator. After he defeated the threat, he returned to his field (and was made dictator a second time years later at age 80 to put down a conspiracy/rebellion).

“Two millennia later…George Washington exemplified those virtues just like Cincinnatus,” Faria reminds his readers.

Another name that stands out is Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who, after military victories, was subjected to betrayals and intrigues, but after prevailing, being confirmed dictator, and restoring the power of the Senate and the laws of the Republic, “abdicated the dictatorship, became a private citizen, and died in 79 BC while in retirement.” You can read about him in an excerpt from The Roman Republic posted at RealClear History, and get a feel for the stories and understandings awaiting readers in the rest of Faria’s book.

Faria also provides a critique on author Colleen McCoulough’s commercially acclaimed “Masters of Rome” historical fiction series, giving credit for scholarly accuracy and insights where due, but also pointing out where her own political bias unjustly disparaged some Roman leaders while presenting Caesar as essentially flawless and brilliant.

There’s plenty more, too much to include in a review, but a few other impressions merit being called out. Having been a voracious reader of his science fiction work when younger, I confess ignorance that author Isaac Asimov was also an accomplished historian of Rome and was pleased to find his work extensively cited. I also didn’t know that Faria was a collector of Roman coins, and note many photographic examples credit “Author’s private collection.”

It’s a cliché to say a book is a wealth of information, but it’s true, and if you are interested in history, and believe it’s essential to understanding the past to seeing how it affects where we are today to make sense of it all, and if you understand that learning is a process best achieved with effort, you may find the read as rewarding as I did. It may not be as immediately gratifying as going wild over a regional sports win by latter-day gladiators but should serve your substantive interests a lot better in the long run.

You can get a hardback or ebook copy of The Roman Republic, History, Myths, Politics, and Novelistic Historiography by Miguel A. Faria, Jr. at Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Why the US Supreme Court Skipped AR-15s This Term — And Why It’s Coming

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About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

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Ghost Gun Crackdowns Expose the Dirty Secret of Gun Control

So-called ghost gun bans are increasingly being used to justify broader restrictions on digital files, 3D printers, CNC machines, and lawful gun owners. iStock-1432499275

Once again, in a story about guns and crime—in this case a story about why police worry that a ban on so-called “ghost guns” won’t prevent criminals from using them—the quiet part, that “dirty little secret” of gun control, is stated out loud, albeit in the third paragraph of a Washington Examiner report.

“Despite a growing wave of state crackdowns, law enforcement officials and experts say legislation banning ghost guns does little to actually stop criminals from using the untraceable firearms,” the Washington Examiner stated.

Underscoring this revelation (perhaps for the umpteenth time), the Justice Department in Boston announced May 1 the indictment by a federal grand jury of a man identified as Angel Negron, 47, for being a “felon in possession of a firearm and for possession of a machinegun.” Authorities allegedly found “Three privately made firearms (ghost guns), four machine gun conversion devices, a 3D printer, five magazines and 31 privately made firearm receivers…during a search on March 31.”

This is nothing new anywhere, and especially in Boston. Back in October 2023, the Boston Herald published an editorial about a piece of legislation aimed at banning so-called “assault style weapons.” Buried in this editorial were what, in the Second Amendment community, might be called “gems of wisdom,” or at least common sense.

“Criminals who carry unlicensed guns are highly unlikely to secure permission before entering another’s home with a firearm,” the editorial noted. “Training happens on the street, when members of that ‘core group’ discharge weapons during commission of a crime.”

The editorial referred to the opposition of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association to the legislation, HD 4607. At the time, the association’s executive director was matter-of-fact: the bill “simply won’t reduce crime,” the newspaper said.

And then the Herald added, “We need to get illegal guns off the streets to make our communities safe. Having law-abiding gun owners jump through more hoops doesn’t help the cause.”

So-called “ghost guns” make news all the time, perhaps because they have no serial numbers, and perhaps even more likely, coverage of these guns distracts public attention from other, more serious matters.

A while back, the National Rifle Association posted an interesting piece on its website headlined “Why Gun Control Doesn’t Work.”

“Criminals, by definition, do not obey the law. Gun control laws only affect law-abiding people who go through legal avenues to obtain firearms,” NRA explained.

The article also noted, “Background Checks Aren’t Effective.” That statement is underscored by a look at just a handful of notorious cases over the past few years.

• Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas mass shooter who killed 60 people and wounded dozens more on Oct. 1, 2017. Over the course of a few years, he had amassed a lot of firearms, all purchased legally, according to investigators.
• Elliot Rodger, the notorious “Isla Vista killer,” bought three handguns in California over the course of many months. He passed three California background checks and endured three waiting periods. He used only 10-round California-compliant pistol magazines. He killed three of his victims by stabbing and slashing them, so the state gun laws had absolutely no preventive impact on his crimes.
• Omar Mateen, the terrorist who shot up The Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in 2016, legally purchased the rifle and pistol used in the shooting, even though he was described as a “person of interest” to the FBI as early as 2013 or 2014, according to Wikipedia.
• Nidal Hasan, the former Army major who opened fire at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. He passed a background check.

This sort of information can be repeated several times about several different people. Gun control laws didn’t stop any of them.

In the midst of this, PCMag has published an opinion revealing how the “government’s ghost gun battle is taking aim at something much bigger.” The article, by Michael Lydick, reveals how Washington state lawmakers “quietly crossed a line that may seem small on paper but feels significant to me…”

“With the passage and signing of House Bill 2320,” Lydick writes, “the state didn’t just target untraceable firearms. It reached upstream into the ecosystem that makes them possible, regulating digital firearm files, restricting their distribution, and explicitly pulling 3D printers and CNC machines into the legal framework.”

A few paragraphs later, Lydick makes a disturbing assertion: “From my vantage point, state governments don’t just want to ban ghost guns. They want to control your 3D printer. This should alarm advocates of both the First and Second Amendments.”

Many in the gun rights community have said for years this issue is not about guns, it’s about control. Whether the bogeyman is a criminal with a gun, or an unserialized firearm, gun control proponents—which some Second Amendment journalists have recognized as gun prohibitionists—will use whatever means at their disposal to achieve their ultimate goal.

Such efforts can be stopped. Look what just happened in Minnesota, when anti-gun Gov. Tim Walz’s gun control scheme went down, as the Daily Caller headlined, “in flames.”

All of this combined is a wake-up call; a reminder that the battle between gun rights and gun control is not a spectator sport. You’re all on the playing field, and if you lose, there’s no rematch.

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About Dave Workman

Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.

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Virginia “Assault Firearm” Ban Challenged With Emergency Injunction

GOA, VCDL, John Crump, and other plaintiffs are asking a Virginia court to block enforcement of the state’s new “assault firearm” and magazine restrictions before they take effect. img Duncan Johnson

Virginia gun owners are not waiting around for Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s new gun-control scheme to become another legal trap.

The plaintiffs challenging Virginia’s new so-called “assault firearm” ban have now asked a Lancaster County court for emergency relief, filing a motion for a Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction against the state’s new restrictions on common firearms and standard-capacity magazines.

The motion was filed in John Crump, Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners Foundation, Virginia Citizens Defense League, and Virginia Citizens Defense Foundation v. Colonel Jeffrey S. Katz, the lawsuit brought against the Superintendent of the Virginia State Police in his official capacity.

The underlying case challenges the gun-control package signed by Gov. Abigail Spanberger, which is scheduled to take effect July 1, 2026.

The message from the plaintiffs is simple: do not let this law take effect while the courts decide whether Virginia Democrats just trampled the Commonwealth’s own constitutional protection for the right to keep and bear arms.

The latest motion asks the Circuit Court for Lancaster County to block enforcement of the state’s new “assault firearm” and “large capacity ammunition feeding device” restrictions while the case moves forward. It relies on an accompanying memorandum for the detailed legal arguments, but the motion itself lays out exactly what the plaintiffs want stopped.

At the top of the list is Virginia’s new definition of “assault firearms,” along with the ban on the import, sale, manufacture, purchase, or transfer of those firearms. The motion also targets the related penalties and derivative crimes that would flow from the new regime.

As AmmoLand previously reported, the complaint argues that Virginia’s law reaches a broad class of ordinary rifles, pistols, shotguns, magazines, and firearm configurations commonly owned by law-abiding Americans.

Virginia Democrats can call them “assault firearms” all day long. Gun owners know what is really being targeted: common semi-automatic firearms and magazines that millions of Americans use for self-defense, training, competition, collecting, and lawful commerce.

The motion also asks the court to block Virginia’s public-carry restriction for “assault firearms.” That part of the law is especially alarming because the complaint says the definition can sweep in firearms ordinary Virginians would recognize as standard defensive handguns or commonly owned long guns.

In other words, this is not just about future sales. It is about whether the Commonwealth can brand ordinary arms as politically unacceptable and then restrict how law-abiding citizens acquire, transfer, and carry them.

The plaintiffs are also seeking to block Virginia’s ban on the import, sale, barter, transfer, or purchase of “large capacity ammunition feeding devices.” That is the gun-control lobby’s preferred phrase for magazines that are standard equipment for many of America’s most popular firearms. There is nothing “large capacity” about a magazine that comes standard with a common defensive pistol or rifle. The phrase is political marketing. The practical effect is a state-imposed limit on the tools citizens may use to exercise a constitutional right.

The motion further targets the forfeiture provision that would allow prohibited “assault firearms” and “large capacity ammunition feeding devices” to be seized. That is where the threat becomes very real. Gun control is sold as paperwork, definitions, and “common sense.” Then the penalties arrive, and the forfeiture language shows up. Then ordinary citizens find out the state has turned yesterday’s lawful property into tomorrow’s felony.

The case is also notable because the complaint is brought under Article I, Section 13 of the Virginia Constitution, which states that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The plaintiffs argue that Virginia’s own constitutional protection is at least as strong as the Second Amendment.

Either Article I, Section 13 means what it says, or it is just another constitutional promise politicians may ignore when the target is gun owners.

The complaint attacks not only the scope of the ban but also its vague language. The challenged laws use feature-based terms and definitions that leave ordinary people guessing what conduct is lawful, while giving police and prosecutors enormous discretion after the fact.

That is the pattern with modern gun control. Lawmakers who do not understand firearms write sweeping restrictions on firearms. Then gun owners, dealers, trainers, manufacturers, and journalists are told to hire lawyers and hope for the best.

John Crump’s role in this case is crucial. He is a law-abiding Virginian, concealed handgun permit holder, firearms journalist, YouTuber, and AmmoLand contributor whose work involves receiving, testing, reviewing, and discussing the types of firearms and magazines Virginia now seeks to restrict.

Crump made clear that the emergency motion is not the end of the fight. It is the opening move.

“As I have said from the beginning, this law is repugnant of the United States and Virginia Constitutions,” Crump told AmmoLand. “We, as Virginians, will use everything in our power to prevent the law from taking effect. The motion for a TRO and PI is just the start of our legal strategy.”

Virginia gun owners should not be forced to wait until July 1, get trapped by a confusing and unconstitutional law, and then beg the courts for relief after the damage is done. The whole point of emergency relief is to prevent the government from enforcing a statute that violates fundamental rights.

Once July 1 arrives, the damage is not theoretical. Lawful commerce will be banned. Events and competitions get altered or canceled. Gun owners stop buying, selling, carrying, and training because the state has made the rules broad, punitive, and unclear.

Anti-gun politicians understand that. Sometimes the point is not immediate confiscation. Sometimes the point is to make the exercise of a right risky, expensive, confusing, and legally exhausting.

This motion asks the court to stop that game before it starts.

Virginia has now become one of the major Second Amendment battlegrounds in the country. A separate federal lawsuit is also challenging Virginia’s new ban. Spanberger and anti-gun Democrats are trying to drag the Commonwealth into the same failed blue-state playbook used in places like California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Illinois: demonize common firearms, relabel standard magazines, criminalize ordinary transactions, and dare gun owners to spend years fighting in court.

GOA, VCDL, John Crump, and the other plaintiffs are refusing to wait.

The court should grant the injunction and keep Virginia from enforcing this law while the case proceeds. A constitutional right is not supposed to be violated while politicians experiment with new ways to restrict it.

Virginia gun owners are not asking for special treatment. They are asking the court to enforce the plain promise of their own constitution: “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

DOJ Is Finally Fighting Hardware Bans. Now SCOTUS Needs To Step In.

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About Duncan Johnson:

Duncan Johnson is a lifelong firearms enthusiast and unwavering defender of the Second Amendment—where “shall not be infringed” means exactly what it says. A graduate of George Mason University, he enjoys competing in local USPSA and multi-gun competitions whenever he’s not covering the latest in gun rights and firearm policy. Duncan is a regular contributor to AmmoLand News and serves as part of the editorial team responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

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Why the US Supreme Court Skipped AR-15s This Term — And Why It’s Coming

“The Supreme Court didn’t skip the AR-15 case this term out of hostility or neglect — they ran out of bandwidth on a generational docket, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh has already telegraphed that the AR-15 case is coming as soon as October 2026.” — Professor Mark W. Smith, Four Boxes Diner Host

I’m often asked why the Supreme Court didn’t take an AR-15 or “large-capacity” magazine case this term. The implication is usually that the Court is dodging the Second Amendment. But there is another, more basic explanation: the Justices have one of the most packed, precedent-setting dockets in living memory, and Chief Justice John Roberts decided to ration the Court’s political capital for now.

To be the smartest person in the room on this, you have to start with the institutional reality. The Supreme Court hears roughly 60 to 70 cases per term on the merits docket. Every granted case demands briefing, oral argument, conference deliberation, opinion drafting, concurrences, and dissents, and the Justices have themselves and a small group of clerks. Behind the merits docket sit thousands of cert petitions a year, each one screened and assessed. And on top of all that is the emergency docket (sometimes called the “shadow docket”), which consists of urgent applications like the one Virginia just filed and lost trying to engage in mid-decade redistricting. Those applications get no oral argument but still consume enormous attention.

The Generational Docket That Crowded Out The AR-15 Ban Cases

Let’s look at what is on the merits docket this term. The Court is deciding birthright citizenship — whether children of illegal aliens and tourist visa holders are automatically American citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment. It’s deciding Mullin v. Al Otro Lado, the Remain in Mexico fight, as well as Mullin v. Doe, the case over President Trump’s authority to revoke the Temporary Protected Status that Biden handed to Haitian nationals. It has already decided Learning Resources v. Trump, addressing the President’s authority concerning tariff policy — a loss for the administration, but a separation-of-powers ruling that will be read by scholars and students for decades to come.

Then there is the executive-power blockbuster: Trump v. Slaughter, teed up to overturn Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935). For ninety years, that New Deal-era precedent has forced Republican presidents to keep Democrat holdovers operating their executive agencies. If Humphrey’s Executor goes into the trash bin of history, the deep state’s statutory immunity largely goes with it.

The Court has already handed down Louisiana v. Callais and Allen v. Caster (Alabama)–two decisions that held federal judges cannot use the Voting Rights Act to force red states to draw racial majority-minority districts where the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments prohibit using race in governmental decisions. Those rulings reshaped the 2026 midterm map and served up a terrible blow to the Democrats.

On the cultural front, Chiles v. Salazar struck down Colorado’s one-way talk-therapy regime as a First Amendment violation, i.e., Colorado law said talk therapists could help individuals transition to a new gender, but those same therapists could not discourage gender transitioning. And West Virginia v. B.P.J. is teed up to decide whether states can keep biological boys out of girls’ high school sports consistent with federal Title IX.

These groundbreaking, precedent-setting cases were sitting in front of the Justices when the AR-15 and magazine cert petitions were being considered.

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The AR-15 Fight Didn’t Make the Cut-For Now

Here is the part the cynics leave out: The Court granted cert in two important Second Amendment cases this term.

United States v. Hemani asks whether the federal government can disarm unlawful users of marijuana under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3). Wolford v. Lopez asks whether Hawaii can set as a default law that every place generally open to the public (restaurants, gas stations, laundromats, etc.) is a government-mandated gun free zone unless a CCW holder can first procure express permission to carry from the owners. Both decisions will land by the end of June. Neither is an AR-15 case, but they are precedential rulings that will shape Second Amendment doctrine for years to come.

Remember the distinction I always draw: every case is important to the parties in it, but not every case is precedential. Hemani and Wolford are precedential. The Court took the Second Amendment seriously this term. It just couldn’t take every 2A case.

Next Term Is Likely the AR-15 Term

Justice Kavanaugh signaled in spring 2025 that the Court needed to take an AR-15 case in the next term or two. That phrasing was not accidental. He was looking down the chessboard. With the executive-power, immigration, redistricting, and tariff cases eating up this term, the AR-15 fight likely gets pushed into the October 2026-June 2027 term — exactly the term Kavanaugh had telegraphed.

I think the vehicle is already in the pipeline. The Seventh Circuit’s Barnett case out of Chicago and the Third Circuit’s Cheeseman/ANJRPC case out of Philadelphia both involve state-level “assault weapons” bans, and the Trump DOJ has already weighed in on both. One of those will likely be the cert vehicle.

So when someone asks whether the Supreme Court is afraid of the AR-15 question, my answer is no. The Justices ran out of room this term due to an insanely-significant docket.

The history of the future has yet to be written, but the chessboard tells me the AR-15 case is coming next term — and when it does, the Second Amendment is going to win hugely.

DOJ Is Finally Fighting Hardware Bans. Now SCOTUS Needs To Step In.

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About Mark W Smith

Constitutional attorney and bestselling author Mark W. Smith, host of the Four Boxes Diner Second Amendment channel on YouTube, is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court Bar. His Second Amendment scholarship has been cited by many attorneys and judges, including by attorneys in legal briefs submitted to the Supreme Court in NYSRPA v. Bruen and in U.S. v. Rahimi.

His most recent book is DISARMED: What the Ukraine War Teaches Americans about the Right to Bear Arms.

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