27 States Tell Supreme Court AR-15 Bans Violate the Second Amendment

Tennessee, Kansas, and 25 other states are urging the Supreme Court to hold that Illinois and Connecticut cannot ban commonly owned AR-15s and similar semiautomatic rifles. IMG Tim Potter

Tennessee, Kansas, and 25 other states say Illinois and Connecticut cannot ban rifles owned by tens of millions of Americans for lawful purposes.

Twenty-seven states are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down Illinois’ and Connecticut’s bans on AR-15s and similar semiautomatic rifles, arguing that lawmakers cannot decide Americans have no “need” for one of the country’s most popular firearms.

The September 4, 2026, amicus brief was filed in support of the gun-owner petitioners in Viramontes v. Cook County, No. 25-238, and Grant v. Higgins, No. 25-556. The Court agreed in June to hear the two consolidated challenges, putting the constitutional status of commonly owned semiautomatic rifles directly before the justices.

Tennessee and Kansas lead the coalition, joined by Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Their argument is straightforward: The Second Amendment protects firearms commonly possessed for lawful purposes.

AR-15s and comparable semiautomatic rifles easily meet that standard because tens of millions are in civilian hands, their owners overwhelmingly possess them lawfully, and rifles appear far less frequently in violent-crime data than handguns and several non-firearm weapon categories.

The states identify the underlying constitutional problem immediately. Lower courts have allowed legislatures and judges to substitute their own opinions about acceptable firearms for the Second Amendment’s actual text.

“The result? A fundamental right that is subject to legislative caprice and judicial speculation about what the right-holder really ‘needs.’”

That is not how constitutional rights work. Government does not get to ban a protected arm merely because politicians believe another firearm should be good enough.

A Constitutional Right Cannot Depend on Geography

The states warn that allowing Illinois and Connecticut to prohibit commonly owned rifles would leave the scope of the Second Amendment dependent on where an American lives.

“Decisions that narrow the scope of the Second Amendment—and affirm the outright ban of the AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles—leave constitutional rights dependent on geography and invite States (and the federal government) to enforce restrictions on the Second Amendment that this Court’s precedents do not permit.”

The coalition recognizes that states ordinarily have broad authority to address policy questions within their borders. Federalism, however, does not authorize a state to erase an enumerated constitutional right.

Quoting District of Columbia v. Heller, the states emphasize that “the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table,” including “a wholesale ban on semiautomatic rifles in common use for lawful purposes.”

This is a different argument from the militia-arms amicus brief AmmoLand previously examined. That filing emphasized the AR-15’s suitability for militia service but undercut its originalist reasoning by conceding that automatic firearms fall outside the Second Amendment.

The states take a cleaner route based on common ownership, lawful use, defensive utility, American history, and comparatively rare criminal misuse.

AR-15s Are Unquestionably in Common Use

The coalition builds its argument on the Supreme Court’s established common-use doctrine. Under Heller, the Second Amendment protects weapons “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.” Bruen reaffirmed that weapons in common use cannot be treated as “dangerous and unusual.” AR-15s plainly meet that standard.

The brief cites estimates showing that more than 32 million modern sporting rifles have been manufactured in or imported into the United States since 1990. Other cited research places between 24 million and 28 million AR-15s and comparable rifles in circulation. Depending on the survey, between 16 million and 24.6 million Americans own or have owned an AR-15 or similarly styled rifle.

The Supreme Court itself unanimously recognized in 2025 that “the AR-15 is the most popular rifle in the country” and is “widely legal and bought by many ordinary consumers.”

The states’ conclusion is appropriately direct:

“Against that backdrop, it is ‘beyond debate’ that AR-15s and similar rifles meet the requisite ‘common use’ threshold.”

The brief adds:

“Any conclusion to the contrary blinks reality.”

These are not rare, exotic, or unusual weapons. They are ordinary semiautomatic rifles found in gun safes, hunting camps, competition bays, patrol vehicles, farms, and homes across America.

The brief also cuts through one of the gun-control movement’s favorite deceptions. Although an AR-15 may resemble an M16 externally, it lacks the M16’s defining capability of automatic fire. The filing notes that the similarities reflect ergonomic and design features that are useful in both military and civilian firearms.

It further explains in a footnote that “AR” refers to the original ArmaLite brand. It does not mean “assault rifle.”

The Evidence of Common Ownership Is Growing

The states’ brief relies in part on William English’s 2021 National Firearms Survey, updated in 2022. The evidence subsequently presented to the Court is even stronger.

As AmmoLand recently reported, English’s 2026 National Firearms Survey estimates that approximately 26.4 million American adults own a combined 60 million AR-15-type and similarly styled semiautomatic rifles. That total includes approximately 40 million AR-15-type rifles and 20 million comparable semiautomatic rifles.

That newer research was cited in the petitioners’ Supreme Court brief, not the September 4 states’ filing. Together, however, the filings present the justices with a growing body of evidence showing that AR-15s are unquestionably common.

Calling tens of millions of rifles “unusual” does not make them so.

Americans Own AR-15s for Lawful Purposes

Millions of Americans use AR-platform rifles for target shooting, competition, hunting, predator control, and defense of themselves and their families.

The states cite a 2022 Washington Post-Ipsos survey in which 91% of responding AR-15 owners said protection of themselves, their families, or their property was a reason they owned the rifle. Sixty-five percent identified protection as a major reason.

English’s earlier National Firearms Survey similarly found that 61.9% of respondents who owned an AR-15 or comparable rifle cited home defense.

The brief connects that modern ownership to America’s longstanding tradition of keeping rifles for protection. Colonists carried rifles defensively. The rifle became the “companion of the pioneer.” Free-Soilers relied on rifles for protection during the violent struggle over slavery in Kansas, while armed Americans later used them when government refused to protect them during the Jim Crow era.

That history matters. The rifle did not suddenly become a defensive arm when Colt began selling semiautomatic AR-15s to civilians. Americans have kept rifles to defend their homes, families, communities, and liberty since before the Second Amendment was ratified.

Defensive Rifle Use Is Not Theoretical

The states provide several modern examples of people using rifles to defend themselves and others.

A pregnant Florida woman used her family’s AR-15 against an armed and masked home invader, protecting her husband and daughter. An Illinois gun owner used an AR-15 to interrupt an ongoing stabbing attack without firing. An Oklahoma homeowner used an AR-15 against three armed home invaders.

The brief also recounts how a Rochester student drove away armed intruders by displaying an unloaded AR-15.

“In many instances, simply brandishing the rifle is enough to scare away a home invader.”

That point is routinely lost in gun-control statistics. Defensive gun uses do not always end with shots fired, an attacker killed, or a police report categorizing the incident as a defensive shooting. Often, the presence of an armed citizen ends the threat.

Why Americans Choose Rifles for Defense

The states explain why Americans rationally select semiautomatic rifles for protection: mild recoil, accuracy, ergonomics, controllability, and effectiveness.

The filing cites a Justice Department report stating that 94.5% of local police departments authorized semiautomatic rifles for on-duty officers.

Officials with the Lawrence, Kansas, Police Department explained the reason:

“Patrol rifles are a necessity in today’s environment where disaster can be averted or minimized when quick action with the right equipment is taken.”

Those practical advantages do not disappear when the person holding the rifle is a homeowner rather than a police officer. A firearm that is accurate, controllable, and effective in the hands of government agents does not become constitutionally unworthy when selected by an ordinary American protecting his family.

FBI Data Undercut the Case for AR-15 Bans

The states also use FBI data to confront the claim that rifles are uniquely responsible for violent crime.

For the FBI’s one-year figures cited in the brief, rifles of every action type were identified in 378 homicides. By comparison, handguns were identified in 3,817 homicides, knives or cutting instruments in 1,229, and “personal weapons”—hands, fists, feet, or teeth—in 506.

The difference becomes even more pronounced across the cited 10-year figures:

• 3,809 homicides involved rifles.
• 43,342 involved handguns.
• 10,787 involved knives or cutting instruments.
• 5,439 involved personal weapons.

The same pattern appears in the states defending their bans. Over the cited 10-year period, the FBI recorded 4,440 Illinois murders involving handguns and 130 involving rifles. Connecticut recorded 178 handgun murders and six rifle murders.

The states acknowledge that the FBI separately reports crimes in which the firearm type is unidentified. They also do not claim that rifles are never criminally misused. Their point is that comparatively rare criminal misuse cannot justify banning firearms overwhelmingly possessed by peaceable Americans.

“The evidence of relatively limited criminal misuse of rifles of all kinds does, however, bolster the conclusion that AR-15 platform and similar rifles are in common use for overwhelmingly lawful purposes—and therefore cannot be banned outright.”

Heller rejected the argument that handgun violence permitted Washington, D.C., to ban handguns. The states argue that the same rule must apply with even greater force to rifles, which appear far less frequently in violent-crime data.

“If handguns are nevertheless protected from wholesale prohibition, so too are the most popular semiautomatic rifles in common use for lawful purposes.”

The Third Circuit Already Rejected an AR-15 Ban

The states repeatedly cite the en banc Third Circuit’s recent decision striking down New Jersey’s semiautomatic-rifle and magazine bans.

That court began with a proposition that should never have been controversial: Semiautomatic rifles are firearms, and firearms are “Arms” under the Second Amendment. The constitutional right therefore presumptively protects their possession, leaving the government with the burden of producing a valid historical justification for its ban.

The Third Circuit concluded that New Jersey failed.

Illinois and Connecticut want the Supreme Court to tolerate the opposite result, allowing their bans to stand despite the same constitutional text and the same absence of any historical tradition supporting a categorical prohibition on commonly owned rifles.

That disagreement among federal appellate courts is another reason the Supreme Court must settle the issue nationally.

Banning Today’s Rifle Is Like Banning the Musket in 1789

The coalition’s strongest originalist argument is also its simplest. There is no historical tradition of prohibiting an ordinary firearm widely possessed by Americans for lawful purposes.

“Respondents’ bans are the equivalent of banning the musket in 1789—the very firearm the American colonists in the colonial militias brought with them to battle during the American Revolutionary War.”

The states continue:

“It would be absurd to suggest that the First Congress and the States that ratified the Second Amendment thought that the fundamental right to keep and bear arms would permit the banning of common muskets. It didn’t—and it likewise does not permit the categorical prohibition of modern firearms in common use for lawful purposes.”

The Second Amendment does not protect only firearms technologically frozen in the 18th century. It protects the people’s right to keep and bear arms, including modern firearms commonly selected for lawful purposes.

Illinois and Connecticut do not get to transform America’s rifle into a prohibited weapon by attaching a politically manufactured label to it. Nor may courts decide that millions of Americans would be adequately protected with something else.

The outcome will reach far beyond those two jurisdictions. Virginia’s pending AR-15-ban lawsuits have already been paused while courts and litigants wait for the Supreme Court to decide Viramontes and Grant. Other state rifle bans will inevitably face the rule the justices announce.

The AR-15 is common. Its lawful purposes are undeniable. Its criminal misuse is comparatively rare. Under the Second Amendment’s text, American history, and the Supreme Court’s own precedents, that should end the inquiry.

The 27 states ask the Court to reverse. It should.

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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 and editor-in-chief for AmmoLand News and is responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

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Trump Pardons Patrick ‘Tate’ Adamiak, George Peterson After ATF Prosecutions

President Donald Trump granted former Navy sailor Patrick “Tate” Adamiak a full and unconditional pardon in United States v. Adamiak, ending the 20-year sentence imposed following his controversial ATF prosecution. Composite by AmmoLand News. Executive Grant of Clemency: public record. Patrick “Tate” Adamiak portrait: courtesy of Patrick Adamiak/the Adamiak family.

Patrick “Tate” Adamiak, George Peterson, and others are set to walk free after receiving a pardon from President Donald Trump, ending years of federal prosecution that 2A advocates have long described as regulatory overreach rather than ordinary crime-fighting.

Patrick “Tate” Adamiak is a former active-duty Navy E-6 (Petty Officer 1st Class, Master-at-Arms) who was accepted to BUD/S. In April 2022, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents raided his Virginia Beach home after a paid confidential informant facing his own felony charges told the ATF that Adamiak had an Mk-19 grenade launcher. That report produced a search warrant.

Agents found cut-up and demilled parts kits, including PPSh-41-style kits sold to the informant; inert and DEWAT RPG-7 launchers and M79/M203-related items; a Denix non-firing STEN replica; pre-ban open-bolt semi-auto MAC-style pistols and carbines; two IMI Uzi carbines with display barrels; and several unfinished MAC “flats,” which are sheet-metal pieces.

Adamiak was charged with five counts, including receiving or possessing an unregistered firearm and transferring a machine gun tied to the PPSh-41 parts, plus three counts of receiving or possessing unregistered destructive devices involving an M79, an M203, and two RPGs. The jury convicted him on all five.

Sentencing stacked 10 years consecutive on the two machine-gun counts and ran the destructive-device counts concurrently, producing 20 years plus three years of supervised release. Prosecutors originally sought enhancements that would have pushed the range toward 30 years or life by treating hundreds of MAC flats as machine guns. Former ATF official Daniel O’Kelly’s testimony helped block that extra decade.

Adamiak and his supporters argue he sold only non-FFL gun parts and collectibles, never a completed firearm, and that the ATF classified items as machine guns or destructive devices only after agents added barrels, bolts, or other parts and test-fired them. They note that many of the same items remain commercially available without paperwork. Adamiak has said he never sold anything that required an FFL.

BREAKING

Multiple sources confirm that President Trump has signed pardons for the following gun owners, convicted of unconstitutional “crimes” under the National Firearms Act:

– Patrick “Tate” Adamiak
– George Peterson
– Jeremy Kettler
– Shane Cox

Thank you Mr. President! https://t.co/Wo5kVcF3Ft

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) September 4, 2026

ATF Firearms Enforcement Officer Jeffrey Bodell’s trial testimony classifying the Denix STEN and other items has been a central point of attack.

Current ATF Director Robert Cekada has publicly called the 20-year sentence excessive, saying typical NFA possession cases without violence or organized crime land in the three-to-five-year range and that Adamiak treated the items as curios with no evidence of unlawful use.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit found double jeopardy on Counts 1 and 2 because the same PPSh-41 item was charged under both 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d) and 18 U.S.C. § 922(o). The court vacated Count 1 and remanded for resentencing. The remaining convictions were affirmed. The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari in May 2026. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen of the Eastern District of Virginia in Norfolk vacated Count 1 in December 2025 and set a resentencing date. She later canceled the June 25, 2026, hearing, ruled that prior objections could not be relitigated, and continued the matter. The government asked the court to reimpose a 20-year term. Several House members, including Jen Kiggans, Eli Crane, Eric Burlison, Paul Gosar, Rob Bresnahan, and Daniel Webster, wrote to the Justice Department and the pardon attorney urging consideration.

George Peterson was an FFL in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, who ran PDW Gun Solutions LLC out of his Waggaman home. He became a test case for whether the National Firearms Act’s suppressor registration and tax scheme survives Bruen. He lost at every level.

The ATF spent months investigating Peterson’s storefront sales, including unreported multiple-handgun sales and at least one undercover buy in which a confidential informant handed money to an agent in front of him for pistols. A magistrate issued a warrant in June 2022. Agents, described by Peterson as a large tactical team with rifles pointed at him and his children, then ages 12, 16, and 18, searched the home and business.

In a bedroom closet safe, they found a homemade, unserialized suppressor, often described as a milled solvent-trap kit, that had been fired. It was not in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record. That item, not the sales-reporting issues in the warrant affidavit, became the sole charge.

A grand jury in the Eastern District of Louisiana indicted him under 26 U.S.C. §§ 5841, 5861(d), and 5871 for possessing an unregistered silencer.

District Judge Jay C. Zainey denied his motion to dismiss, which raised a Second Amendment challenge to the NFA scheme, and his motion to suppress, which raised a Fourth Amendment challenge to the warrant. Peterson entered a conditional guilty plea, reserving the right to appeal those two rulings. On January 9, 2024, he was sentenced to 24 months in prison plus three years of supervised release. The guideline range was 18 to 24 months.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit first affirmed the conviction on February 6, 2025. It later withdrew that opinion and issued a substituted opinion dated August 27, 2025, and again on December 9, 2025, after en banc review was denied. The court held that suppressors are firearm accessories, not “Arms” protected by the Second Amendment. Therefore, the NFA’s registration and tax regime does not implicate the right to keep and bear arms. The court also applied the good-faith exception and refused to suppress the suppressor. En banc rehearing was denied December 9, 2025.

That “accessories are not arms” line is what made the case nationally significant. Second Amendment groups including Firearms Policy Coalition, Gun Owners of America, the Second Amendment Foundation, the American Suppressor Association, the NRA, and others argued the panel sidestepped Heller and Bruen and treated millions of commonly owned suppressors as outside the Amendment. At times the government framed the NFA as a shall-issue licensing regime.

Peterson petitioned for certiorari, with Cooper & Kirk and David Thompson as counsel of record and amicus support from GOA, SAF, and others. The United States waived a response. The Court denied certiorari on April 20, 2026. That ended the direct appeal.

Taken together, the two cases illustrate how NFA classifications, informant-driven warrants, and stacked sentencing can convert parts, replicas, and an unregistered homemade suppressor into multi-year federal prison terms even when no violence, trafficking ring, or completed commercial machine-gun sale is alleged. Adamiak’s file turned on whether demilled kits and inert launchers became regulated weapons after government testing. Peterson’s file turned on whether a solvent-trap conversion found in a closet safe justified two years behind bars after a raid aimed at paperwork violations. In both matters, appellate courts left the convictions standing while leaving the policy fight to Congress, the ATF, and the pardon power.

The pardons show the Trump administration’s willingness to push back against legal abuses by the former Biden Department of Justice and to treat these prosecutions as sentences that outran the conduct. For Adamiak, clemency ends a 20-year term that even the current ATF director called excessive. For Peterson, it ends a two-year sentence that 2A groups used to argue suppressors belong inside, not outside, the Second Amendment.

The grants will not rewrite the Fourth or Fifth Circuit opinions, but they restore liberty in two of the most closely watched NFA cases of the last decade and signal that regulatory possession cases without violence will no longer be treated as equivalent to terrorism or organized crime.

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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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Supreme Court Brief Makes the Case Against Banning Militia Arms

A new Supreme Court brief argues that AR-15s and other commonly owned militia-suitable arms lie at the core of the Second Amendment’s protection. IMG Jim Grant

Illinois’ and Connecticut’s so-called “assault weapons” bans are contradicted by history and law, an amicus brief filed in the Supreme Court Friday by Attorneys Kenneth T. Cuccinelli and Earl N. “Trey” Mayfield argued. The combined cases addressed in the brief are Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, both challenges to bans on AR-15 and similar semiautomatic rifles.

Filed on behalf of “eleven nonprofit organizations and seven individuals,” the brief addresses “whether the rifles and magazines most suitable for militia service — and therefore… most clearly protected by the Second Amendment — may be banned on precisely that account.”

“The Second Amendment’s militia clause marks the core of the right — arms suitable for the common defense, kept by ordinary citizens in ordinary civilian life,” the brief declares. “The decisions below each offend that guarantee, though by different routes.

“The Seventh Circuit held the AR-15 too much like a military rifle to be an ‘Arm’ within the Amendment’s protection at all — treating suitability for militia service itself as a ground for prohibition,” the brief explains. “The Second Circuit reached the same result by recasting the historical ‘dangerous and unusual’ exception as a license to ban arms whose military-derived features it deems ‘unusually dangerous,’ notwithstanding their common use.”

“Nor may ‘unusual’ be manufactured as a consequence of governmental prohibition,” the brief elaborates, addressing a concern that “legality” could be solely determined by commercial popularity. “Were it otherwise, government could ban an arm into unusualness and then cite the unusualness it created as the justification…”

“Arms that bear a reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia…  lie at the core of the Second Amendment’s protection, and a State may not prohibit them,” the brief concludes. “A prohibition imposed because those arms are useful for the common defense is contrary to the Second Amendment’s text, purpose, and history.”

The arguments presented confirm that ignoring the core militia purpose, something many briefs have either passed over or not fully explored, makes the Second Amendment vulnerable to infringements.

There’s an added potential Cuccinelli articulated when he announced this brief was in development:

“The more effective an arm is for the purposes for which a militia would require arms, the harder it should be to argue that its effectiveness somehow removes it from constitutional protection,” he noted. Establishing this with SCOTUS “could therefore reach substantially further than the particular rifles before the Court.”

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*   Concurrent with this, the National Association for Gun Rights has announced, “We just filed @gunrights’ Viramontes amicus brief, authored by @KenCuccinelli  & joined by @TXGunRights. Our goal: Put the strongest case possible to SCOTUS to position us for a long-term win, not just short-term success on the question asked.”

We just filed @gunrights‘ Viramontes amicus brief, authored by @KenCuccinelli & joined by @TXGunRights.

Our goal: Put the strongest case possible to SCOTUS to position us for a long-term win, not just short-term success on the question asked.

Link: https://t.co/qwvhnMHiMh pic.twitter.com/UtqKPIyzqF

— Hannah Hill (@hannahhill_sc) September 3, 2026

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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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Massachusetts Fails to Kill Lawsuit Over Nonresident Carry Permit Delays

A federal judge allowed key claims challenging Massachusetts’ recurring nonresident carry-license delays to move forward. iStock-655078450

Massachusetts cannot make a Second Amendment lawsuit disappear simply by issuing carry permits after it has already kept lawful citizens disarmed for months.

That is the central takeaway from a federal judge’s refusal to dismiss the core claims in Lawson v. Campbell, a lawsuit brought by the Second Amendment Foundation, Gun Owners Action League, and three nonresident gun owners challenging Massachusetts’ burdensome License to Carry process.

Chief U.S. District Judge Denise Casper allowed the plaintiffs’ as-applied Second Amendment claim and their Fourteenth Amendment equal-protection claim to proceed. The decision is not a final ruling that Massachusetts violated the Constitution, but it is a significant procedural victory that moves the case toward discovery—and forces the Commonwealth to defend how its licensing system actually operates.

Massachusetts may call its system “shall issue.” According to the lawsuit, however, the state’s one-year nonresident licenses, recurring delays, and refusal to provide a renewal grace period leave lawful gun owners unable to carry for extended periods year after year.

That is not a minor administrative inconvenience. It is government-imposed disarmament.

One-Year Permits and Months of Waiting

Massachusetts treats nonresident gun owners far more harshly than its own residents.

A resident License to Carry can remain valid for six years. A nonresident generally receives a temporary license lasting only one year. Both are charged a $100 application or renewal fee, meaning a nonresident may pay the same amount every year that a resident pays once every six years.

New nonresident applicants must also appear in person at the Firearms Records Bureau in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Applicants face background checks, fingerprinting, training requirements, and other bureaucratic demands before receiving government permission to exercise a right protected by the Constitution.

Massachusetts law generally requires a licensing authority to approve or deny an application within 40 days. The state’s own website reportedly warns nonresidents that processing may take as long as 90 days. The plaintiffs allege even longer delays.

Brian Burns, a Florida resident who maintains a home in Massachusetts, has held at least four nonresident licenses. According to the complaint, one timely renewal was delayed so badly that his new license was not issued until nearly six months after the previous license expired.

Christopher Penta, a New Hampshire resident who frequently travels into Massachusetts for work and family visits, has maintained a nonresident license since 2018. He alleges that one renewal was issued almost two months after his existing license expired.

Russell Lawson Jr., a New York resident who owns a Massachusetts hunting cabin, applied for his first nonresident license in January 2025. His earliest interview was scheduled for June. Lawson missed that appointment because of an unexpected work obligation, and the state rescheduled him for October. Officials subsequently requested information concerning an undisclosed out-of-state charge. He eventually received his license in March 2026.

Although Lawson’s individual application involved additional complications, the court found that the plaintiffs collectively alleged a recurring licensing problem sufficient to keep the lawsuit alive.

Late Approval Does Not Erase the Injury

Massachusetts argued that the case was moot because the individual plaintiffs eventually received their licenses. Judge Casper rejected that position.

The court recognized that sufficiently long licensing delays can themselves constitute constitutional injuries. A citizen who cannot legally carry a firearm for self-defense while Massachusetts sits on his application has lost the exercise of that right during the delay. A permit issued months later cannot restore the days when he was forced to travel disarmed.

The judge also found that the delays could qualify as “capable of repetition, yet evading review.” Nonresident licenses must be renewed annually, the individual plaintiffs intend to continue traveling to Massachusetts, and Burns and Penta allege that they have already experienced recurring renewal delays.

Massachusetts cannot run out the clock, issue the permit after a lawsuit begins, and then claim there is nothing left for a federal court to review.

That point reaches beyond this case. AmmoLand recently covered similar permit-delay litigation involving the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Anti-gun jurisdictions lost their ability to demand a special need for self-defense after New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Bureaucratic delay cannot become the replacement for the discretionary carry bans that Bruen struck down.

Second Amendment Claim Moves Forward

The court dismissed the plaintiffs’ facial challenge to the Massachusetts licensing system. A facial challenge requires showing that the law is unconstitutional in every application, and Judge Casper concluded that the plaintiffs had not cleared that demanding hurdle.

The as-applied challenge is another matter. The judge found that the plaintiffs plausibly alleged delays extending well beyond Massachusetts’ 40-day statutory period. When those delays are combined with one-year licenses and no grace period, the system can deprive nonresidents of their right to carry.

The court declined to establish a bright-line rule defining exactly when a licensing delay becomes unconstitutional. It did, however, reject Massachusetts’ argument that only delays lasting 18 months or several years can implicate the Second Amendment.

Most importantly under Bruen, Massachusetts did not identify a historical tradition supporting the alleged delays. The as-applied Second Amendment claim therefore survived the motion to dismiss.

Nonresidents Face Arrest While Residents Receive Protection

The plaintiffs’ equal-protection claim also survived. Massachusetts residents receive a grace period when they submit timely renewal applications. Nonresidents do not. When a temporary nonresident license expires, its holder can be forced to choose between entering Massachusetts disarmed or carrying under threat of arrest and prosecution.

The court found that this alleged distinction could penalize the constitutional right to interstate travel. Because the plaintiffs plausibly alleged an underlying Second Amendment injury, Judge Casper considered the application of strict scrutiny rather than automatically accepting any justification Massachusetts could invent.

The Commonwealth identified its general interest in public safety and verifying applicants’ eligibility. It did not explain why denying nonresidents a grace period—or subjecting them to delays beyond the statutory deadline—was narrowly tailored to serve that interest.

The judge consequently refused to dismiss the equal-protection claim.

Rights Do Not Stop at State Lines

The Second Amendment Foundation correctly described the ruling as a major procedural advance.

“Massachusetts begrudgingly makes carry permits available for out-of-state residents,” SAF Senior Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack said, while making the annual process unconstitutionally burdensome.

SAF founder Alan Gottlieb put the larger principle more plainly: “The Constitution doesn’t know state lines, and neither do our rights.”

AmmoLand has previously warned that forcing Americans to obtain separate government permission from every hostile jurisdiction they might visit turns interstate travel into a legal minefield. Massachusetts’ treatment of nonresidents has already produced extensive litigation, including the cases discussed in our earlier coverage of the Commonwealth’s cross-border carry restrictions and its supposedly reformed nonresident licensing system.

The court also dismissed the plaintiffs’ claim under the Article IV Privileges and Immunities Clause. That loss and the dismissal of the facial Second Amendment claim should not be ignored. But neither changes the importance of what survived.

A permit does not create the right to bear arms. The right existed before Massachusetts imposed its application, fee, fingerprinting, interview, and annual renewal requirements.

When the government prevents a qualified citizen from carrying for months, the constitutional injury occurs during every day of forced disarmament. Massachusetts will now have to defend that conduct instead of burying the case under a stack of late-issued permits.

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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 and editor-in-chief for AmmoLand News and is responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

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Supreme Court Considers Concealed Carry Reciprocity Fight

The Johnson v. Jacobson petition asks the Supreme Court whether Minnesota can refuse to recognize Jeffrey Johnson’s valid Florida and Georgia carry licenses. Composite image by AmmoLand News using an original AI-generated illustration and the public court filing in Johnson v. Jacobson.

A long-haul truck driver is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether Minnesota can shut off his right to bear arms the moment his rig crosses the state line—even though he holds valid carry permits from two other states.

The case, Johnson v. Jacobson, Supreme Court No. 26-255, goes directly at the nationwide patchwork of carry-permit reciprocity laws that forces armed citizens to navigate changing rules, buy multiple permits, or surrender access to a defensive handgun while traveling.

Jeffrey M. Johnson Sr. filed his petition for a writ of certiorari on August 24, 2026, asking the justices to review an Eighth Circuit decision upholding Minnesota’s selective recognition of out-of-state carry permits.

The case presents a simple constitutional question with enormous consequences: Does the right to bear arms belong to the American citizen, or does it exist only within the borders of whichever state issued his permit?

Two Permits, but Minnesota Demands Another

Johnson is a Georgia resident who drives commercially throughout the country. He holds valid firearm licenses from Georgia and Florida and regularly carries a handgun because of the dangers long-haul truckers can face while transporting cargo and living out of their rigs.

According to the petition, Johnson makes several trips to or through Minnesota each year. His routes change constantly, and he may not know that his next load will take him into Minnesota until he completes the previous delivery.

Minnesota does not recognize his Georgia or Florida permits.

Unless Johnson obtains a separate Minnesota permit, state law requires him to unload his handgun and secure it in a closed container when he enters Minnesota. A defensive firearm locked away and unloaded is hardly ready when a criminal decides to attack.

Johnson is not prohibited from possessing firearms. The petition describes him as an undisputed law-abiding citizen with no history of violent behavior and no disqualification that would prevent him from receiving a Minnesota permit. Minnesota still requires him to submit to another licensing process.

A nonresident may apply for a Minnesota permit, but the application must be submitted in person to a county sheriff. The fee can reach $100, and the sheriff generally has up to 30 days to issue or deny the permit. The permit is then sent to the applicant’s home address.

That is not a minor inconvenience for a long-haul driver who spends much of his life on the road. More importantly, constitutional rights are not supposed to depend on how many fees a citizen has paid or how many plastic permission cards he can fit in his wallet.

Eighth Circuit Calls Reciprocity a “Convenience”

Johnson originally challenged Minnesota’s law in federal district court. The district judge agreed that his proposed conduct, carrying a handgun publicly for self-defense, fell within the plain text of the Second Amendment.

The court nevertheless upheld Minnesota’s law at the second stage of the Bruen analysis, accepting historical surety laws as a sufficient analogue for the state’s licensing and reciprocity system. The Eighth Circuit affirmed in May, but it took a different route.

The appeals court held that Minnesota’s reciprocity statute, considered separately from the state’s general permit requirement, does not regulate conduct protected by the Second Amendment. In the panel’s view, the reciprocity statute merely exempts some visitors from obtaining Minnesota permits.

Because Johnson had conceded for purposes of the case that Minnesota’s shall-issue permitting system is constitutional, the court concluded that Minnesota could require every nonresident to obtain a Minnesota permit. Recognizing another state’s permit was merely a “convenience” based on interstate comity.

The court even compared firearm permits to professional licenses, observing that states generally do not have to recognize professional credentials issued elsewhere. That comparison misses the target completely.

Working in a state-regulated profession is not an enumerated constitutional right. Carrying a firearm for self-defense is. The Second Amendment does not say the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed unless a citizen crosses into a state that dislikes the standards used by his home state.

A Right Cannot Become an Exemption

The petition argues that Minnesota’s reciprocity statute does affect protected conduct because it independently determines whether Johnson may carry his handgun.

Before entering Minnesota, Johnson can carry. After crossing the border, he must unload and secure the handgun. When he leaves Minnesota, he can resume carrying it.

Calling reciprocity an exemption does not change what the law does to the person standing on the receiving end of it.

The Eighth Circuit’s reasoning allows a state to define the constitutional right out of the case. First, the state prohibits public carry without its permission. Then it calls recognition of another state’s permit a discretionary benefit. Finally, it argues that withholding that benefit does not burden the right because the traveler can always apply, pay, wait, and obtain another permit.

Under that logic, states could turn the Second Amendment into what the petition calls a “state-line lottery.”

The petition relies heavily on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Wolford v. Lopez, which declared that the Second Amendment has the “same meaning in all parts” of the country. AmmoLand has previously examined how Wolford may support national carry reciprocity and why states cannot use administrative workarounds to reduce carry rights to government permission.

Johnson is asking the Court to apply that national constitutional standard to the moment an armed citizen crosses a state boundary.

Minnesota’s Surety-Law Argument Falls Apart

The petition also challenges the district court’s reliance on historical surety laws.

Those laws did not presume that every traveler was dangerous. They generally required an accusation that a particular person posed a threat, a hearing before a judicial officer, and a finding of cause before requiring that individual to post a bond. Even then, the person was not necessarily prohibited from carrying.

Minnesota’s law works in the opposite direction. It strips ready access to a firearm from an entire class of licensed, law-abiding travelers without any accusation, hearing, or individualized finding of dangerousness.

Johnson has already passed the requirements imposed by Georgia and Florida. Minnesota is not responding to anything he has done. It is rejecting the permits he holds because state officials do not consider the issuing states’ licensing laws sufficiently “similar” to Minnesota’s standards.

That is the government presuming danger from paperwork, not from the citizen’s conduct.

A Narrow Case With Nationwide Consequences

This petition does not ask the Supreme Court to establish nationwide constitutional carry or abolish state permit requirements. Johnson conceded Minnesota’s shall-issue system during the litigation and instead argues that a state operating a permit system must recognize valid licenses issued by every other state.

However, this case shows exactly why Congress should pass national Constitutional Carry. Gun owners should not have to wait years for the courts to dismantle the state-by-state permit trap one lawsuit at a time. Passing legislation before the midterm elections would protect lawful travelers now and give voters a clear record of which candidates will defend the Second Amendment when it counts.

Second Amendment absolutists should be clear: The right to bear arms should not require any government license. The constitutional command is “shall not be infringed,” not “shall issue after payment, training, paperwork, and approval.”

Still, Johnson v. Jacobson gives the Court a clean opportunity to stop states from forcing lawful travelers to assemble a collection of carry permits to exercise one constitutional right.

Minnesota may prefer its own licensing rules, but constitutional rights are not local favors handed out by state officials. A law-abiding American does not lose the First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, or right to due process when crossing from one state into another. The Second Amendment deserves no less.

The Supreme Court has not agreed to hear the case. The justices must first decide whether to grant the petition. But the question is now squarely before them: Can a state make a citizen’s right to armed self-defense disappear at the border simply because his permit came from somewhere else?

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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 and editor-in-chief for AmmoLand News and is responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

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Maryland Carry Case Asks Supreme Court to Finish What Wolford Started

The Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Novotny v. Moore, a challenge to Maryland’s sweeping restrictions on where licensed citizens may carry firearms. IMG Duncan Johnson

The fight in Novotny v. Moore has moved to the next stage. Now the Supreme Court must decide whether Maryland’s sprawling “sensitive places” scheme deserves review, or whether the Fourth Circuit should be ordered to take another look after Wolford v. Lopez.

Attorneys for Maryland carry-permit holders and the Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, Maryland Shall Issue, and Maryland State Rifle & Pistol Association filed their reply brief on September 2. The Supreme Court simultaneously distributed the petition for its September 28 conference, completing the scheduled briefing in Supreme Court No. 25-1324.

That September gathering is commonly called the “long conference” because it is the justices’ first conference after the summer recess. The Court will work through a substantial backlog of petitions accumulated over the summer, with Novotny now among them.

The Court could grant review, deny the petition, relist it for another conference, or grant, vacate and remand the Fourth Circuit’s decision for reconsideration under Wolford. No outcome is guaranteed, but the challengers have given the justices a direct question: Did Wolford protect the right to carry during an ordinary day, or may Maryland still criminalize carry across entire categories of ordinary public life?

Wolford Changed the Fight

When AmmoLand covered the original Novotny petition in May, the Supreme Court had not yet decided Wolford. That changed on June 25.

In Wolford v. Lopez, the Supreme Court struck down Hawaii’s default prohibition on licensed carry inside private businesses open to the public. The Court held that Hawaii had “hobbled” the right to carry arms for self-defense while Americans go about their daily lives.

Maryland insists Wolford does not threaten its remaining location bans. According to the state, its restrictions take a “targeted approach” and would not interfere with the hypothetical “ordinary day” the Supreme Court examined in Wolford. The reply brief tears into that claim.

Maryland prohibits carry on mass transit, in many healthcare facilities, throughout enormous state parks and forests, at amusement venues, and anywhere licensed to sell alcohol for on-site consumption—including restaurants. Those are not obscure locations encountered only on unusual occasions. They are places Marylanders routinely visit.

The challengers call the result a “death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach” to the right to bear arms.

That is the new issue now confronting the Supreme Court. Hawaii tried to wipe out lawful carry across private businesses with one sweeping default rule. Maryland divided its restrictions into separate statutory categories. The drafting method differs, but the constitutional injury remains: peaceable citizens are stripped of the means of self-defense as they move through everyday life.

Maryland Defends an Arbitrary Mess

Maryland argues that Supreme Court review would be premature because lower courts supposedly agree on the principles governing sensitive places. It wants the justices to permit more “percolation” among the circuit courts.

The reply brief points out the obvious problem: More time will not repair a test that is producing incoherent and openly arbitrary results.

The Fourth Circuit upheld Maryland’s restrictions using an assortment of theories. It relied on government ownership to support the transit ban, private railroad rules from the 19th century as additional transit analogues, later urban-park regulations to uphold bans in wilderness areas, and broad concepts involving crowds, social gatherings, education, science and vulnerable populations.

Those categories can be manipulated to cover nearly anywhere.

A restaurant becomes sensitive because it serves alcohol. A museum becomes sensitive because it is educational. A hospital becomes sensitive because vulnerable people are present. A stadium becomes sensitive because it draws a crowd. A state forest becomes sensitive because someone might use it for recreation.

That is not a principled boundary. It is a list of excuses for extinguishing the right to bear arms wherever anti-gun judges consider firearms “ill-advised.”

The Ninth Circuit acknowledged the same problem in its earlier Wolford decision when it admitted that its list of approved and rejected sensitive places could “appear arbitrary.” Maryland now tries to pass that incoherence off as fidelity to the Supreme Court’s historical test.

The petitioners respond that constitutional analysis should be disciplined, reasoned and understandable. A court should not reach results it cannot explain in ordinary terms and then blame Bruen for the confusion.

Maryland’s Historical Case Falls Apart

The reply also dismantles the historical restrictions Maryland uses to defend its bans. Maryland begins with the medieval Statute of Northampton, but Bruen already explained that the statute targeted carrying arms in a manner that terrorized the public. It did not impose a blanket prohibition on peaceable carry for self-defense.

From there, Maryland jumps to an 1817 New Orleans ballroom ordinance and a small collection of later state, territorial and municipal restrictions. Several were adopted after the Civil War. Others came from territories with tiny populations or individual municipalities. Four of the state restrictions cited by Maryland were enacted by former slave states during or immediately after Reconstruction.

That scattered record does not establish a widespread American tradition dating to the adoption of the Second Amendment.

Maryland also cites post-Civil War court decisions that do not carry the weight the state assigns them. One relied on a cramped militia-only understanding of protected arms that Bruen later identified as an outlier. Another preserved a law by construing it as a restriction on concealed carry rather than a complete carry ban. A third involved carrying a firearm into a courthouse, not a ban throughout unsecured public locations.

Maryland is trying to turn historical fragments into a government power the Founding generation never recognized.

Disarmament Without Protection

The petitioners argue that Founding-era restrictions at courthouses, legislative assemblies and polling places shared an important characteristic: The government secured those locations.

Maryland disputes that historical principle and complains that a security-based standard would be difficult to administer. But Maryland offers no better limiting principle. Its approach allows the government to disarm citizens without screening entrants, securing the premises or assuming responsibility for anyone’s safety.

Maryland gets the prohibition. The permit holder gets the risk.

The reply makes clear that the Supreme Court does not have to adopt government-provided security as the exclusive test to rule for the challengers. Under Bruen, Maryland bears the burden of establishing a valid historical tradition supporting its laws. Attacking the challengers’ proposed principle does not relieve the state of that burden.

If Maryland cannot produce representative historical analogues, its bans must fall.

What Happens Next?

The Supreme Court docket lists Novotny for the September 28 conference. The first public indication of the Court’s action will likely come through a subsequent orders list, although the petition could be relisted without explanation.

Most of the challenged Maryland restrictions remain enforceable. However, the Fourth Circuit stayed its mandate while the Supreme Court petition is pending. Because the district court had permanently enjoined the prohibitions at public demonstrations and locations serving alcohol, those two restrictions appear to remain blocked during the stay.

The Fourth Circuit’s injunction against Maryland’s private-property default rule also remains in place. That issue was effectively resolved by Wolford and is not the dispute the petitioners are now asking the Supreme Court to hear.

The remaining question is larger: Can Maryland accomplish through a stack of location bans what Hawaii could not accomplish with a single private-property rule?

Wolford established that the Second Amendment protects more than possession of a carry permit. It protects carrying a firearm for self-defense while going about ordinary life. The Supreme Court should take Novotny and finish enforcing that command.

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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 and editor-in-chief for AmmoLand News and is responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

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California Passes Conditional Ban on 3D Printers Without Firearm-Blocking Software

California AB 2047 could require 3D printers sold in the state to inspect digital files and block print jobs involving firearms or machine-gun conversion devices. Credit: AI-generated editorial image created for AmmoLand News.

California has passed AB 2047, the California Firearm Printing Prevention Act, and the bill is now on Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk.

The measure, authored by Assembly Member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, would eventually require consumer 3D printers sold or transferred in the state to include “firearm blocking technology” intended to identify and stop print jobs for firearms and certain illegal parts, including machine-gun conversion devices. After weeks of amendments, the Legislature sent the enrolled bill to the governor in the closing hours of the 2026 session. Newsom has until the end of September to sign or veto it.

The version that reached his desk is far narrower than the bill that first cleared the Assembly in May. The Senate stripped several of the most aggressive enforcement tools after lawmakers and industry groups argued they were technologically infeasible or overbroad. Gone are the original criminal misdemeanor for disabling the software, the $25,000-per-violation civil penalties, the mandatory manufacturer self-attestation process, and a public roster of “compliant” models.

The final text keeps an exemption for printers used exclusively to make entertainment-industry props and lets the California Department of Justice create additional exceptions by regulation. It also shields people who share digital firearm files solely to test or develop blocking software.

What remains is a delayed, contingent mandate. Beginning no later than July 1, 2027, the DOJ must check quarterly whether ASTM International has published industry standards for firearm-blocking technology on 3D printers. If ASTM issues qualifying standards, the department then has 24 months to publish its own written guidance or regulations describing minimum performance requirements. One year after those state standards appear, it would become unlawful to sell, offer for sale, or transfer a 3D printer in California that lacks compliant blocking technology. If ASTM has not published standards by July 1, 2029, the department is relieved of further duties under the act, and the sales restriction may never take effect.

The bill does not operate in a vacuum. California already prohibits unlicensed people from using a 3D printer or CNC mill to manufacture a firearm under Penal Code § 29185. Separate statutes restrict machines whose “sole or primary function” is to make guns and create civil liability for distributing “digital firearm manufacturing code” to unlicensed persons. AB 1263 and related 2025–26 measures further expanded definitions of firearm manufacturing machines and accessories effective January 1, 2026. AB 2047 tries to move one step upstream by making the printer itself refuse certain files.

California is not the first state down this path. New York enacted a similar blocking-technology law earlier this year. Sacramento modeled AB 2047 on that approach, then made the California version more conditional after the Senate rewrite.

Critics say the concept still fails on both technology and law. 3D-printing companies, the ACLU of California, Hollywood prop shops, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and gun-rights groups argue that detection algorithms are easy to evade with slightly modified files, offline machines, older printers already in circulation, or out-of-state purchases. They also raise First Amendment concerns about treating design files as something the state can force hardware makers to censor, and they warn that unreliable software would burden schools, small businesses, and hobbyists. Several analyses noted that the Senate rewrite left the actual sales ban hanging on a private standards body that may never act.

Supporters, including Everytown for Gun Safety and the bill’s author, frame AB 2047 as a response to recovered 3D-printed guns and unfinished frames. They describe it as a way to cut off a pipeline for untraceable weapons before a file becomes a firearm.

Even if Newsom signs the bill, nothing changes at the store counter tomorrow. The mandate is years away, if it arrives at all. The practical fight now is whether ASTM writes a standard the state can adopt—and whether software that must inspect every print job can ever work well enough to survive both evasion and a courtroom.

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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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