Armed Virginia Gun Owners Rally at Capitol as Magpul Distributes PMAGs

Armed Virginia Gun Owners Rally at Capitol as Magpul Distributes PMAGs. iStock-513753478

Hundreds of Virginia gun owners gathered outside the Virginia State Capitol last weekend to protest a slate of sweeping gun-control bills recently passed by the Democrat-controlled legislature and now awaiting action from Governor Abigail Spanberger. The rally drew widespread attention after footage showed armed citizens demonstrating peacefully outside the Capitol while activists distributed standard-capacity AR-15 magazines donated by Magpul.

Video from the event was documented by independent journalist Ford Fischer and circulated widely on X. The footage showed demonstrators openly carrying rifles and handguns while listening to speakers warn that the legislation heading to the governor’s desk would criminalize some of the most common firearms and accessories owned by law-abiding Americans.

For many attendees, the protest was about more than a single bill. Activists say Virginia lawmakers advanced an aggressive anti-Second Amendment agenda during the closing days of the legislative session, sending multiple firearm restrictions to the governor for consideration. Among them is SB 749, which would ban the future sale of certain semi-automatic rifles while also imposing new limits on magazine capacity. Other measures, including SB 27 and HB 21, would create new “responsible conduct” standards for firearm manufacturers, distributors, and retailers—an approach critics say is designed to open the door to politically motivated lawsuits against the firearms industry.

The most widely shared moment from the rally involved the distribution of Magpul PMAGs outside the Capitol. Volunteers handed out boxes of the polymer 30-round magazines to demonstrators attending the event. According to individuals present, the magazines were donated by Magpul and distributed as a direct response to legislation targeting standard-capacity magazines.

2) Under the anticipated Virginia law, sale of 30-round magazines would be illegal beginning this summer.

Magpul donated boxes of 30-round AR-15 magazines which were distributed to the crowd for free, whose possession would theoretically be grandfathered in. pic.twitter.com/EkNlNEEj9X

— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) March 14, 2026

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For anyone familiar with the AR-15 platform, the symbolism was obvious. PMAGs are among the most widely used rifle magazines in the United States and have become the industry standard for AR-pattern rifles. Tens of millions are already in circulation across the country among civilian gun owners, competitive shooters, law enforcement agencies, and military personnel. Handing them out at the rally served as a visual reminder that lawmakers are attempting to ban items that are already in widespread lawful use across the country.

That reality has become central to modern Second Amendment litigation following the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which requires gun regulations to be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm ownership. Gun-rights advocates argue that bans on standard-capacity magazines fail that test because such magazines are owned by millions of Americans and are standard equipment for modern sporting rifles.

While the rally focused heavily on the proposed firearm and magazine bans, another controversy emerging from the legislative session has further angered gun owners. As the Virginia session came to a close, lawmakers passed SB 727, legislation that would outlaw the carrying and transportation of many common firearms on public property. However, the bill includes language explicitly exempting members of the legislature from its own restrictions.

The text of the bill states that “the provision of this section shall not apply to any member of the General Assembly,” effectively allowing lawmakers to carry firearms in situations where ordinary citizens would be prohibited from doing so.

That exemption drew sharp criticism from the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action. In a statement released after the session, Executive Director John Commerford accused Virginia Democrats of hypocrisy for advancing restrictions that do not apply to themselves.

“Rules for thee but not for me, that’s the mantra the radicals in Richmond and anti-gun politicians across the country live by,” Commerford said. “Whether it’s exempting themselves from extreme gun-control measures, or spending exorbitant amounts of money on armed security while their constituents are left disarmed and helpless, these political figures are once again showing they care more about their own self-interests than the safety of the people they have been elected to represent.”

For many gun owners attending the rally, the exemption reinforced their belief that the legislation is less about public safety and more about restricting the rights of ordinary citizens while political elites remain protected.

Virginia has long been a battleground state in the national fight over gun policy. The Commonwealth has a deep firearms culture rooted in hunting, competitive shooting, and defensive training. When lawmakers in Richmond have attempted to pass sweeping gun restrictions in the past, the response from gun owners has often been immediate and visible.

This latest protest appears to follow that pattern. The presence of armed citizens exercising their right to open carry outside the Capitol served as a reminder that Virginia’s gun-owning community remains highly engaged in the political process.

Now the focus shifts to Governor Spanberger. The bills passed by the legislature—including restrictions on semi-automatic rifles, magazine capacity limits, and new regulatory pressure on the firearms industry—are currently awaiting her decision. If she signs the measures into law, legal challenges are widely expected to follow.

Across the country, similar firearm and magazine bans are already being fought in federal courts, with gun-rights organizations arguing that such restrictions violate the constitutional protections reaffirmed by the Supreme Court. Many observers believe Virginia could soon become the next major battleground in that ongoing legal fight.

For now, the images from Richmond have already become a powerful symbol in the debate. Armed citizens gathered outside the Capitol while boxes of standard-capacity PMAGs were handed out to the crowd—a scene that for many gun owners perfectly captured what they see as the growing divide between lawmakers pushing new gun restrictions and the millions of Americans who continue to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

Minnesota Senate Committee Advances Semi-Auto Rifle and Magazine Ban on Party-Line Vote

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The Hughes Amendment Explained: How a 1986 Voice Vote Banned New Machine Guns for Americans

On the morning of April 10, 1986, the U.S. House of Representatives chamber buzzed with exhaustion and political scheming. Lawmakers had been debating the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act (FOPA), a bill long championed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) as a corrective to decades of alleged Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) overreach. The legislation promised to ease interstate gun sales, protect travelers carrying guns across state lines, narrow the definition of who needed a dealer’s license, and raise the bar for prosecuting technical violations from “knowing” to “willful.” It was set to pass overwhelmingly.

Then New Jersey Democrat Rep. William J. Hughes rose. As chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Hughes offered a last-minute amendment. It would make it unlawful for any private citizen to “transfer or possess a machinegun” manufactured after the bill’s effective date. Only those already legally registered under the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) would be grandfathered. The amendment, numbered H.Amdt.777, was brief and sweeping: it added subsection (o) to 18 U.S.C. § 922.

Presiding over the Committee of the Whole was New York Democrat Rep. Charles Rangel. He called for a voice vote. “All in favor say ‘aye,’” Rangel intoned. Ayes echoed. “All opposed, ‘no.’” The nays shouted louder according to multiple eyewitness accounts and later video analysis circulating in gun rights circles. Yet Rangel declared, “The ayes have it.” Republicans immediately demanded a recorded vote. Rangel pressed forward. The amendment was recorded as having passed by voice vote. Minutes later, the full FOPA package passed the House by a vote of 292-130. On May 19, President Ronald Reagan signed Public Law 99-308 into effect.

Thus, the Hughes Amendment was born, the single most reviled provision in modern firearms law among Second Amendment advocates. Forty years later, in 2026, it remains the iron curtain separating civilians from newly manufactured machine guns.

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The civilian registry of transferable pre-1986 machine guns is frozen at roughly 240,000–250,000 units (exact figures fluctuate slightly with ATF reports and include samples held by manufacturers). Prices have exploded: a transferable MAC-10 that sold for $350 in the early 1980s now commands $15,000–$25,000. A select-fire M16 that once traded for under $2,000 routinely exceeds $30,000. Drop-in auto sears, once cheap conversion parts, have hit $28,000 or more. Legal ownership requires ATF Form 4 approval, fingerprints, photos, a $200 tax stamp, and often months of waiting, assuming your state even permits it.

The controversy is not simply economic. Gun rights organizations such as Gun Owners of America (GOA) and the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) call the amendment’s passage procedurally illegitimate, a “midnight special” rammed through when many pro-gun members had left the floor believing the bill was safely pro-Second Amendment. C-SPAN footage on that day, widely analyzed on sites like YouTube, shows Rangel gaveling through demands for a roll-call vote. Critics insist the “nays” clearly carried the voice tally. Official congressional records list only “passed by voice vote.” No recorded tally of individual lawmakers exists for the amendment itself, a fact that fuels accusations of parliamentary sleight of hand.

Hughes himself never hid his intent. A moderate Democrat with a record of supporting some gun control measures while backing environmental causes, he argued the amendment would prevent the proliferation of fully automatic weapons in civilian hands. Machine guns, he and his supporters contended, were weapons of war, not sporting arms. With Democrats holding the House majority and enough votes present that evening, the amendment sailed through without a recorded division that might have exposed the margin or forced absent members to take a stand.

The irony stood thick. FOPA itself was the product of years of NRA lobbying to undo what many viewed as the worst excesses of the 1968 Gun Control Act. That earlier law, passed in the emotional consequences of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, imposed dealer licensing, record-keeping, and interstate sale restrictions that critics said ensnared law-abiding collectors and hobbyists. ATF enforcement tactics, warrantless inspections, seizures without due process, and felony prosecutions for paperwork errors became legendary horror stories in gun magazines of the era. Senate passage of FOPA (S. 49) had been lopsided: 79-15 on July 9, 1985. In the House, Rep. Harold Volkmer (D-MO) used a rare successful discharge petition to force floor debate, substituting a strong pro-gun version for the Judiciary Committee’s watered-down bill.

Hughes had already tried multiple amendments that day, some tightening dealer definitions, others limiting interstate transport, most of which failed on recorded votes. The machine-gun ban was the one that stuck. NRA leadership, desperate to salvage the wider reforms after a seven-year legislative slog, chose not to wage an all-out floor fight. Former NRA lobbyist Richard Feldman later described a dinner conversation with then-rising star Wayne LaPierre: the decision was made to swallow the amendment to secure the rest of the bill. “He said, ‘I want to do it. I think we have to do it,’” Feldman recalled in a 2013 NPR interview. Years later, some NRA insiders regretted the choice, saying it haunted the organization as grassroots members viewed it as a betrayal.

President Reagan, a popular Republican president who once carried a .44 Magnum as governor of California, signed the bill without public comment on the Hughes provision. The law took effect immediately on May 19, 1986. The civilian supply of new machine guns slammed shut.

The economic consequences were foreseeable yet staggering. Supply fixed; demand unchanged. Collectors and investors bid up the finite pool of pre-ban transferable machine guns. What had been a niche market for devotees and Class III dealers became a high-stakes investment arena. Today, owning a transferable M249 SAW or a registered MP5 costs more than a new luxury car. Destroyed or worn-out guns permanently shrink the registry. Post-1986 “dealer samples” exist only for law enforcement and military, and even those are tightly controlled.

Anti-gun advocates hail the amendment as a quiet success. Gun violence researcher Robert Spitzer of SUNY Cortland told NPR in 2013 that the 1986 freeze was “a fairly small step” on top of the already burdensome 1934 NFA, which required $200 tax stamps (thousands in today’s dollars), fingerprints, and registration. He argued machine guns had never been common in civilian hands; the ban simply prevented any resurgence. Crime statistics back the rarity argument: ATF data and independent analyses show legally registered machine guns have been used in extraordinarily few violent crimes, and some studies cite near-zero incidents involving pre-1986 registered firearms by lawful owners. The weapons’ primary documented misuse has been by criminals converting illegal semi-automatics or using smuggled military surplus.

Second Amendment purists reject the safety rationale. They point out that the Founding-era militia concept explicitly included the use of military arms. The Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller decision described machine guns as “dangerous and unusual” in dicta, but the post-2022 Bruen ruling, which demands historical analogues for gun regulations, has opened new legal paths.

In August 2024, U.S. District Judge John W. Broomes in Kansas dismissed charges against a man possessing unregistered machine guns, holding that the Hughes Amendment and broader NFA restrictions fail Bruen’s text-history-tradition test. The case is under appeal, but it represents the first significant federal crack. Other challenges percolate in conservative circuits. Gun rights groups argue the amendment lacks any founding-era parallel for banning an entire class of arms.

Repeal efforts have repeatedly failed. Bills introduced by Reps. Steve Stockman, Virgil Goode, and others died in committee. The NRA, once accused of softness on the issue, now routinely includes repeal language in its legislative scorecards. Groups like Gun Owners of America push harder, drafting model state legislation exploiting the amendment’s narrow exemption for transfers “to or by” a state. In the 2025–2026 legislative session, West Virginia and Kentucky lawmakers introduced bills creating state agencies to manufacture or transfer post-1986 machine guns to citizens, testing the federal loophole. None have yet succeeded, but the creativity underscores frustration.

The individual stories are poignant. Veterans who carried M16s in Vietnam could once buy civilian equivalents affordably. Today’s young enthusiasts face a de facto ban. Manufacturers stopped producing civilian-legal full-auto firearms decades ago. Innovation in the machine-gun space shifted entirely to military and law enforcement contracts. Collectors speak wistfully of the pre-1986 era, when a Class III dealer could order a new UZI or MAC-10 and have it delivered after paperwork was completed.

Politically, the Hughes Amendment crystallized the modern gun control divide. On one side, it is a sensible regulation of weapons of mass destruction. To the other, it is the clearest example of Congress using procedural trickery to erode constitutional rights. The absence of a recorded vote denies posterity any accountability no list of who voted to freeze the registry exists. Critics note that many pro-gun Democrats and Republicans had already left the floor after earlier votes, assuming victory on the core FOPA reforms.

In the decades since, the amendment has withstood constitutional challenges under pre-Bruen standards. Lower courts uniformly upheld it, citing Heller’s dicta and the government’s interest in preventing automatic-fire proliferation. But Bruen changed the analytical system. Scholars and litigators now argue that 18th- and 19th-century laws never banned an entire category of bearable arms outright. The NFA’s original 1934 tax-and-register scheme was upheld as a revenue measure, not a ban. The 1986 addition crossed into prohibition.

As of today, the registry remains closed. No new civilian machine guns roll off assembly lines. Prices continue their inexorable climb. A cottage industry of brokers, Class III dealers, and trust attorneys thrives on transfers. Meanwhile, illegal machine guns converted AR-15s with auto-sears or “Glock switches” appear in some urban crime scenes, but those are unrelated to the legal pre-1986 pool.

Rep. Hughes died in 2019 at age 87, his obituary noting environmental achievements and a long congressional career. The amendment bearing his name continues to serve as a symbol. Gun rights activists mark May 19 annually as a day of mourning. Repeal petitions circulate on the White House website. Conservative lawmakers introduce symbolic bills every Congress.

The deeper controversy transcends procedure. It touches the fundamental question of what arms the Second Amendment protects. If machine guns, the very arms carried by the militia in the founding era’s understanding, can be banned for civilians via a voice vote with no recorded dissenters, what precedent does that set for semi-automatic rifles, handguns, or any modern firearm? Supporters counter that public safety and the rarity of machine-gun crime justify the line drawn in 1986.

Forty years on, the Hughes Amendment remains one of the most consequential and contested pieces of firearms legislation in U.S. history. It changed a once-accessible class of firearms into multimillion-dollar collectibles. It exposed the weakness of legislative procedure when passions run high. And it continues fueling the national debate over the right to keep and bear arms in its most literal, military form.

Whether future courts or Congress will reopen the registry remains uncertain. But one thing is clear: the voice vote heard around the gun world in April 1986 still echoes loudly today.

Texas Gun Club Files Federal Lawsuit Challenging 1986 Machine Gun Ban

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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 @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.

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WA Dems Ram Through Background Check Fee Hike, Sheriff Silencing Bills

Anti-gun Democrats in Washington state passed legislation to hike background check fees and silence pro-Constitution sheriffs. IMG iStock-1172423251

As the Democrat-controlled Washington Legislature wrapped up its 2026 session, two bills that anti-gunners supported while gun owners opposed were rammed through and sent to anti-gun Democrat Gov. Bob Ferguson to sign, one hiking background check fees and the other a measure essentially designed to silence county sheriffs who publicly oppose gun control laws.

On the plus side, bills which died in committee include legislation which would have restricted possession of firearms in state or local public buildings, parks, playgrounds and county fairs, another measure limiting bulk purchases of firearms and ammunition, and a bill establishing so-called “safe storage” requirements for firearms in vehicles and residences.

However, House Bill 2521 allows the Washington State Patrol (WSP) to adjust its background check fees by setting “an amount reasonably calculated to cover the direct and indirect costs to the Washington state patrol incurred in administering the firearm background check program.”

Critics say the legislation “gives the WSP a blank check to charge whatever they want on a comprehensive background check. Now $18 per transaction will go up to possibly $35 now. This poll tax is a violation of Article 1, Section 24 of the Washington State Constitution.”

The new fee bill is scheduled to take effect May 1, 2027, if Ferguson signs it, which is expected.

The other measure isn’t directly related to guns, but it definitely is linked to gun control. House Bill 5974 was supported by the billionaire-backed, Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility, which openly acknowledged they wanted to rein in county sheriffs who had refused to enforce certain restrictive gun control laws over the past few years. In an unscientific poll of its viewers, Seattle’s KOMO News—the local ABC affiliate—showed a whopping 86 percent of respondents oppose the notion that a state board could be empowered to remove elected sheriffs. Several lawmen testified in opposition

Other gun control bills probably perished because Democrats got into an ugly battle over a far different piece of legislation, the so-called “millionaire income tax,” which Republicans uniformly opposed as a violation of the state constitution.

Lately, however, the state constitution hasn’t seemed to stall Democrats when they were pushing gun control legislation, despite specific language in Article 1, Section 24 which states, “The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired, but nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain or employ an armed body of men.”

Grassroots gun rights activists in the Evergreen State consider gun laws already passed in the state to be “impairments,” including bans on so-called “assault rifles” and “large-capacity magazines.” Those bans are being challenged in court, and the magazine ban case has made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, where justices have so far not accepted it for review. The case is known as Gators Custom Guns v. Washington. The case has been distributed for conference by the justices at least seven times.

HOWEVER, as offensive as gun laws have become in Washington, there are proposals at the far end of the country that also have gun owners in two states on edge.

In Connecticut, according to WFSB News, lawmakers are considering legislation seeking to ban certain pistols which can allegedly be converted to fire full auto at a rate of “up to 1,200 rounds per minute.” Gov. Ned Lamont supports the proposed ban because some pistols may be altered via a Glock switch (Glock is not named in the legislation), which is already illegal. Opponents, including the Connecticut Citizens Defense League (CCDL), contend such a ban would only affect honest citizens. By no small coincidence, the president at CCDL is Holly Sullivan, who also serves on the Board of Directors of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, which is based in Washington state.

House Bill 5043 has already had a public hearing. It discusses “convertible pistols” which are defined in the legislation as “any semiautomatic pistol with a cruciform trigger bar that can be readily converted by hand or with a common household tool into a machine gun solely by the installation or attachment of a pistol converter…”

Meanwhile, in neighboring Massachusetts, an arrest in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston got the attention of Jim Wallace, head of the Gun Owners Action League (GOAL) because a report on the bust by the Boston police contained a term he had never heard before: “Fully Automatic-Capable Firearm.”

Ammoland contacted the Boston police to ask about this. An officer in public information said he wasn’t sure where this term originated, but that it apparently was how the recovered firearm in the arrest was described that way in an officer’s report.

The gun, a Glock pistol, was fitted with a Glock switch. The suspect was facing multiple charges. Wallace is concerned the term could become the basis for even more legislation similar to that in Connecticut, seeking to ban such handguns because they *might* be converted illegally.

Considering the Connecticut situation, Wallace’s concerns are not without merit.

The common denominator in all three states is that their legislatures and governors’ offices are controlled by the same political party: Democrats.

New Court Split Could Force Supreme Court to Decide Magazine and AR-15 Ban Cases

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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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Old Dominion Terror Attack Exposes the Myth of Gun Tracing

Old Dominion Terror Attack Exposes the Myth of Gun Tracing, iStock-945999932

The gun used in the terror attack on Old Dominion University was a stolen .22 caliber handgun that uses 10-round magazines. The pistol was untraceable for two common reasons. First, the gun was stolen. This breaks any chain of custody. A trace only goes to the first retail purchaser. When a gun is stolen, there is no link from the legal purchaser to the thief. From apnews.com:

The man charged Friday, Kenya Chapman, told federal agents in an interview that he stole the gun from a car in Newport News, Virginia, about a year before the shooting and recently sold it to Jalloh, according to an affidavit filed in court. Chapman said he met Jalloh at work and that Jalloh told him he needed the gun for protection as a delivery driver, the affidavit says.

The second reason the pistol was untraceable was that the serial number was partly obliterated. From unionbulletin.com:

Jalloh was still on supervised release from a 2017 prison sentence — and barred from carrying firearms — when he barged into an Army ROTC classroom at Old Dominion University on Thursday morning.

He was carrying a loaded Glock 44 .22-caliber pistol with a partially obliterated serial number, according to the newly filed court documents in U.S. District Court in Norfolk.

When a firearm’s serial number is obliterated or altered, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to trace. There are other common reasons why the firearms tracing system is almost never used to solve crimes of violence. The most common reason gun traces are not useful for solving violent crimes is that they are seldom found at the scene of the crime. When guns are found at the scene of a violent crime, they are often found with the person who used them, as happened in this case. When the person who used the firearm is already known, a trace does nothing to solve the crime.

Another common reason firearms become untraceable is their age. Once a firearm is more than ten years old, tracing becomes difficult. Guns are sold, change hands through estates, are given, traded, and stolen, as was the gun in this case.  There are hundreds of millions of firearms in the United States that are more than 10 years old. There are hundreds of millions of firearms in the United States that are untraceable.  In 1987, almost 30 years ago, there were 198 million privately owned firearms in the United States.

The investigators in the Old Dominion Islamic terrorist attack did not find the person who sold the pistol to the terrorist through the tracing system. They found him through an analysis of the terrorist’s telephone records. It has become harder and harder to do anything without leaving an electronic trail that can be unwound.

The entire firearms tracing system is obsolete and cost-ineffective.

Even systems that require complete registration for the legal ownership of firearms are seldom helpful in solving violent crimes. Canada has required all handguns to be registered since 1934. In 1995, Canadian officials could not identify a single instance in which handgun registration helped solve a crime.

Registration systems are even more expensive and intrusive than the failed gun “tracing” system in the United States.

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About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.

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Minnesota Senate Committee Advances Semi-Auto Rifle and Magazine Ban on Party-Line Vote

A Springfield Armory Hellion semi-automatic rifle. Minnesota lawmakers are advancing legislation that would ban many rifles with similar features, including detachable magazines and pistol grips. IMG Jim Grant

The battle over the Second Amendment in Minnesota escalated dramatically on March 13, 2026, when the state Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee passed SF 3655, a comprehensive ban on semi-automatic rifles and standard capacity magazines. The vote was 6 to 3, with all six Democrats supporting the measure and all three Republicans opposed. The bill now advances to the Senate Finance Committee, bringing Minnesota one step closer to enacting some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation.

The MN Gun Owners Caucus, the largest gun rights organization in the state, immediately sounded the alarm on social media. In a tweet posted after the vote, the organization announced that the “SEMI-AUTO & MAG BAN PASSES SENATE JUDICIARY” and urged supporters to take action, sign petitions, and donate to fight the bill’s progress. The Caucus also reported that it had been blocked from testifying at the hearing, with committee staff telling them the schedule was “full” even as anti-gun groups were given time slots. The organization bluntly called this “rigging the hearing.”

SEMI-AUTO & MAG BAN PASSES SENATE JUDICIARY
Next stop: Senate Finance

6-3
All DFL in support
ALL GOP opposed

TAKE ACTION: https://t.co/SsV2znACl1
SIGN A PETITION: https://t.co/UJSW8hxVDO
JOIN THE FIGHT: https://t.co/4kPIH1TA6r
BECOME A 2A DEFENDER:…

— MN Gun Owners Caucus (@mnguncaucus) March 13, 2026

SF 3655, authored by Senator Zaynab Mohamed of Minneapolis and introduced last month, targets semi-automatic rifles that accept a detachable magazine and have one or more features such as pistol grips, adjustable stocks, flash suppressors, or threaded barrels. This language effectively covers most modern sporting rifles, including AR-15 style platforms. The bill also bans all magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds.

The bill’s provisions extend far beyond a simple prohibition. Owners who possessed a banned firearm before August 1, 2026, may apply for a state-issued certificate of ownership from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension by February 1, 2027, at an unknown fee that must be renewed every three years. Perhaps most controversially, law enforcement may inspect a registered owner’s home for safe storage compliance without a warrant. Registered firearms may only be kept at the owner’s home or at a licensed firing range, effectively banning their use for hunting on public land. The firearms cannot be sold, gifted, or even inherited by family members. Violations constitute a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $25,000 fine.

Gun rights organizations have mounted fierce opposition. The NRA Institute for Legislative Action stated that SF 3655 “bans commonly owned gas-operated semiautomatic firearms and magazines in excess of 10 rounds, directly violating the Second Amendment’s ‘common use’ standard.” The organization also noted it would “become a crime to use any banned firearms for the purpose of hunting in the state.”

The National Shooting Sports Foundation published a detailed analysis calling the legislative push a politically motivated package lacking voter or crime data support. The NSSF stressed that modern sporting rifles, with over 32 million in civilian circulation, clearly meet the commonly possessed for lawful use standard established by the Supreme Court. On the magazine ban, NSSF estimated there are at least 717,900,000 such magazines in consumer hands, calling politicians’ reasonable compromise framing “blindly unsubstantiated at best and grossly misleading at worst.”

The Sportsmen’s Alliance called the bills “a direct assault on the tools and rights sportsmen use to put food on the table and to manage our state’s wildlife.” They highlighted that the use restrictions amount to a de facto hunting ban, since even registered firearms are confined to private property or a licensed range.

The MN Gun Owners Caucus argues the bill violates the Second Amendment’s common use standard established in D.C. v. Heller and reinforced by NYSRPA v. Bruen. The Caucus has announced a 2026 Rally to Defend the Second Amendment at the Minnesota State Capitol Rotunda on April 11, 2026. With the Minnesota House split 67 to 67 under a power-sharing agreement, the bill’s path through the full legislature remains uncertain. But gun owners across the state are preparing for what they see as the most significant threat to their constitutional rights in a generation.

New Court Split Could Force Supreme Court to Decide Magazine and AR-15 Ban Cases

Minnesota Advances Semi-auto Firearm Ban Allowing Warrantless Home Inspections of Gun Owners

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About José Niño

José Niño is a freelance writer based in Charlotte, North Carolina. You can contact him via Facebook and X/Twitter. Subscribe to his Substack newsletter by visiting “Jose Nino Unfiltered” on Substack.com.

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Gun Owners Challenge New Jersey Hollow Point Ban in Federal Court

Hollow point ammunition is the most commonly used self-defense handgun ammo in the United States and is at the center of a federal lawsuit challenging New Jersey’s carry restrictions. iStock-944927240

A coalition of gun owners and Second Amendment advocacy organizations is asking a federal court to strike down New Jersey’s long-standing restriction on hollow point ammunition, arguing the law violates the Constitution and fails the historical test required by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, is being brought by New Jersey gun owner Heidi Bergmann-Schoch along with the Coalition of New Jersey Firearm Owners, Gun Owners of America (GOA), and Gun Owners Foundation. The plaintiffs are challenging New Jersey statute N.J.S.A. § 2C:39-3(f)(1), which criminalizes possession of what the state calls “hollow nose or dum-dum” bullets in most public settings.

The plaintiffs recently filed a memorandum supporting summary judgment, asking the court to rule that the law is unconstitutional without requiring a full trial.

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At the center of the dispute is a New Jersey law dating back to 1978 that bans ordinary citizens from carrying hollow point ammunition in public for self-defense. While residents may possess hollow points in limited circumstances, such as inside their homes or at shooting ranges, the state prohibits their use for everyday defensive carry.

The lawsuit argues that this restriction stands in direct conflict with modern Second Amendment precedent established by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“This case involves a constitutional challenge to New Jersey’s atextual and ahistorical ban on the transportation and carrying of widely available and commonly owned hollow point self-defense ammunition,” the plaintiffs wrote in their filing.

New Jersey, often considered one of the most anti-gun states, is an outlier with their hollow point law. Banning hollow point ammunition is widely regarded as one of the most idiotic and draconian firearm regulations in the United States.

Under the statute, possession of hollow point ammunition outside a narrow set of exceptions can be charged as a fourth-degree crime. Conviction can carry penalties of up to 18 months in prison and fines reaching $10,000.

The law does include limited exceptions. Residents may keep hollow point ammunition in their homes, transport it from the place of purchase, or use it at shooting ranges and while hunting. But the law does not allow licensed handgun carriers to carry commonly used ammunition in public for self-defense.

According to the plaintiffs, that prohibition effectively forces New Jersey gun owners to carry less effective ball ammunition in their defensive firearms.

The lawsuit relies heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which dramatically reshaped how courts evaluate firearm regulations.

Under Bruen, governments must demonstrate that firearm laws are consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of gun regulation. Modern policy arguments about public safety are no longer sufficient.

The brief argues that New Jersey cannot meet that burden.

“The Framers never restricted the types of ammunition people could carry,” the filing states. “The same is true of the Reconstruction generation, which saw the introduction of conical bullets, brass cartridges, and thereafter hollow point ammunition, but never banned any of it for public carry.”

According to the plaintiffs, there is no historical precedent for banning specific types of ammunition for defensive carry.

The document points out that hollow point bullets were introduced in the late 1800s, but were not banned in New Jersey until nearly a century later. That gap, they argue, undermines any claim that the restriction reflects a longstanding American tradition.

The lawsuit also addresses a question that has become increasingly important in Second Amendment litigation: whether ammunition is protected under the Constitution in the same way as firearms themselves.

The plaintiffs argue the answer is clearly yes.

Courts have repeatedly recognized that ammunition is protected by the Second Amendment. “Without bullets, the right to bear arms would be meaningless,” the brief notes while citing prior court decisions recognizing the obvious link between firearms and ammunition.

The filing further argues that bullets themselves fall within the historical definition of “arms,” since they are the projectile used in defensive weapons.

“Hollow point bullets are quite literally the ‘thing … cast at [and which] strike another,’ being projectiles which are fired from firearms in self-defense,” the plaintiffs wrote. “Thus, just as previous generations understood ‘bows and arrows’ to be “Arms,” so too are ‘firearms and bullets’ today.”

Ammunition is necessary to make firearms functional. The lawsuit contends that restrictions on ammunition must be treated as restrictions on arms themselves.

Another central argument in the case is the Supreme Court’s “common use” standard established in District of Columbia v. Heller. In that ruling, the Court held that weapons commonly used by Americans for lawful purposes, particularly self-defense, are protected under the Second Amendment.

The plaintiffs argue that hollow point ammunition clearly meets that definition. Interestingly, the lawsuit uses the approximate number of 200,000 stun guns in Caetano and compares that to the widespread and much more common use of hollow point bullets by not only civilians but also government and state agencies. Clearly, if 200,000 stun guns fall under common use, then the same must apply to hollow point ammo.

“Hollow point bullets are the most common bullet for law enforcement and civilian self-defense,” the brief states, emphasizing that they are widely available and widely used across the United States.

Retailers and manufacturers routinely market hollow point ammunition specifically as defensive ammunition. According to the lawsuit, this reflects a nationwide consensus among gun owners and law enforcement agencies about the effectiveness of the design.

Hollow point bullets are designed to expand upon impact, reducing the risk of over-penetration and increasing the likelihood of stopping a threat quickly. For that reason, many police departments issue hollow point ammunition as standard equipment. Gun owners across the country prefer the use of hollow point ammunition for those same reasons.

The plaintiffs argue that banning such ammunition for civilians while allowing it for police undermines the right to armed self-defense.

The lawsuit includes both individual and organizational plaintiffs. Heidi Bergmann-Schoch, a New Jersey resident and firearms instructor, says she regularly carries a handgun for self-defense but avoids carrying hollow point ammunition due to the state law. According to the filing, she would immediately begin carrying hollow points if the law were struck down.

The advocacy organizations involved in the lawsuit say they represent thousands of members affected by the restriction across the state.

The plaintiffs are seeking summary judgment, asking the court to rule that the law violates the Second and Fourteenth Amendments and permanently block its enforcement. If the court agrees, the decision could invalidate one of New Jersey’s worst firearm restrictions.

The case also has the potential to influence other legal challenges involving ammunition regulations and the broader scope of the Second Amendment after Bruen.

As courts across the country continue to apply the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, we will continue to see an erosion of the years of bad laws that states, such as New Jersey, have passed. For now, the question before the federal court is straightforward: whether a state can prohibit law-abiding citizens from carrying the most widely used self-defense ammunition in America.

New Court Split Could Force Supreme Court to Decide Magazine and AR-15 Ban Cases

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How President Trump’s ATF Can Help Tate Adamiak

Opinion

Patrick “Tate” Adamiak is starting his third year of a 20-year prison sentence even though he committed no crime. (Photo courtesy Adamiak family).

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives under President Donald J. Trump is now focused solely on arresting violent criminals—armed bad guys—not turning law-abiding gun owners into felons. That promise came from President Trump’s new ATF Director, Robert Cekada.

Unlike those Joe Biden picked to run the ATF, Cekada is not an outsider. He is a 20-year ATF veteran, and before that worked at the NYPD and two other local law enforcement agencies. His selection received strong backing from the country’s firearm community, which still hopes he can de-weaponize the powerful agency and stop targeting good folks who have done nothing wrong.

While Cekada’s new goal is certainly laudable, the ATF still faces a massive problem: What to do about the law-abiding gun owners who were falsely targeted and imprisoned by Joe Biden’s ATF, like Patrick “Tate” Adamiak.

Adamiak was a gun collector who only sold legal gun parts. He had no previous criminal history until a paid ATF informant—who was facing his own felony charges—falsely reported that Adamiak had a Mk-19 grenade launcher. The informant’s lies led to a search warrant and ridiculous charges.

Adamiak’s legal dispute centers on whether the ATF falsely classified replicas, inert training devices, display artifacts and unregulated gun parts as firearms under federal law.

Adamiak has already served more than three years of his 20-year federal prison sentence, even though he did nothing wrong. We have published more than 30 stories describing his innocence and how he was framed by the ATF after they found nothing illegal in his home.

Let’s return to Director Cekada. What is he supposed to do about Adamiak and the others whom his agency falsely charged and illegally imprisoned? How can he help these innocent Americans who were targeted by Joe Biden’s out-of-control ATF?

Here are some suggestions. Each one falls within Director Cekada’s authority. Each one could help Adamiak obtain some relief.

1. Order a new technical review of the evidence seized during the search warrant of Adamiak’s home. The reports would clearly show whether the evidence met the statutory definitions that prosecutors relied upon to get their conviction.
2. Meet with prosecutors and acknowledge that this case did not properly use ATF technical expertise. In fact, ATF’s technical expert may have lied under oath about the evidence he examined.
3. Send a letter to the Department of Justice regarding the prosecution, which outlines ATF’s concerns about how the government’s evidence may have been fabricated by ATF’s own staffers.
4. Endorse Adamiak’s bid for a pardon because of the false evidence presented during his trial.
5. Send a letter to Adamiak’s sentencing court explaining how the methods used by the prosecution were not consistent with ATF’s enforcement practices.
6. Send a letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Department of Justice leadership agreeing to support Adamiak’s bid for relief, emphasizing that while the issues arose under the previous ATF leadership, the current ATF leadership strongly supports correcting them.

It is definitely time for ATF new leadership to take responsibility for Adamiak’s false arrest, fictitious prosecution and undeserved incarceration. If the ATF ever wants to become a respected federal law enforcement agency, they need to admit and correct their previous mistakes. They simply can no longer be ignored. ATF’s current leadership needs to do the right thing.

Patrick “Tate” Adamiak did nothing wrong. Each second he spends behind bars is undeserved and reflects poorly upon those who put him there, which was the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, regardless of who was in charge.

It is now time to see what, if anything, ATF current leadership is willing to do about it.

Robert Cekada testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing to lead the ATF. Screenshot via Senate Judiciary Committee video.

This story is presented by the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project and wouldn’t be possible without you. Please click here to make a tax-deductible donation to support more pro-gun stories like this.

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About Lee Williams

Lee Williams, who is also known as “The Gun Writer,” is the chief editor of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project. Until recently, he was also an editor for a daily newspaper in Florida. Before becoming an editor, Lee was an investigative reporter at newspapers in three states and a U.S. Territory. Before becoming a journalist, he worked as a police officer. Before becoming a cop, Lee served in the Army. He’s earned more than a dozen national journalism awards as a reporter, and three medals of valor as a cop. Lee is an avid tactical shooter.

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