Anti-gun Group 97Percent is Back, Now Led by Anti-gun Ex-cop, iStock-945999932
It appears the anti-gun nonprofit 97Percent has returned, although there have been massive internal changes and it is much less now than it used to be.
97Percent’s one-time executive director, Elizabeth Troye—once a senior advisor to Vice President Mike Pence—has been scrubbed from the group’s website.
Carita’s takeover appears to be solely to increase support for his current work, which is holding classes on “red flag” laws, which he calls Extreme Risk Protection Orders, or ERPOs.
Carita, it should be pointed out, is a huge ERPO proponent, even though they are only law in 21 states.
Other than advocating for Carita’s classes and workshops, 97Percent’s website has, for now, remained mostly the same.
97Percent took its name from a long-debunked Quinnipiac poll that falsely claimed 97% of Americans supported mandatory background checks. The group calls the remaining 3-percent “loud voices who have crowded out conversation and prevented collaboration between gun owners and non-gun owners.”
97Percent has never addressed the problems associated with polling gun owners, including our unwillingness to tell strangers there are firearms in our homes—especially over the phone. Instead, the group claimed it focuses on policies that both gun owners and non-gun owners support. Both sides, the group says, share the common goal of keeping our communities safe.
But even despite its new executive director, research has shown that 97Percent is nothing more than a run-of-the-mill anti-gun organization, overseen by a board of hardcore anti-gun zealots.
Here are some of 97Percent’s activities:
97Percent has supported an “assault weapon” ban.
97Percent has supported a standard-capacity magazine ban.
97Percent has supported a bump-stock ban.
97Percent has supported expanded red-flag laws.
97Percent has supported permits to carry firearms.
97Percent has supported permits to purchase firearms.
97Percent has supported permits to possess firearms.
97Percent has supported the loss of Second Amendment rights upon conviction of a “violent misdemeanor.”
97Percent has supported mandatory storage laws, which would lead to mandatory home inspections by police.
97Percent has supported mandatory background checks, without acknowledging they would lead to mandatory firearm registration and the creation of a national gun registry.
97Percent claims the Second Amendment is “overprotected.”
97Percent claims “rapid fire guns” are not used for hunting or home defense but doesn’t define the term.
97Percent claims popular semi-automatic firearms are “weapons of war.”
97Percent claims constitutional carry results in increased homicide rates.
97Percent’s advisory board is stocked with radical anti-gun extremists, including a former president of the Brady campaign.
Carita in charge
According to his group’s website, Carita claims he has “six years of experience in Threat Response and Extreme Risk Protection Order Implementation, and 10 years in Criminal Investigations in his 20-year law enforcement career.”
“Christopher earned his Master of Public Health with a focus on violence prevention as a BAHI Fellow at Johns Hopkins University and currently advises at the National ERPO Center on implementation. He is also a DHS Master Trainer for Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management,” the website states.
During one of his training videos, Carita claimed his group has a “strong focus on bringing gun owners into policy discussions.”
However, Carita did not respond to phone calls, texts or emails sent via his website, so there’s at least one gun owner he doesn’t want to bring into any policy discussion. Also, his website’s “contact us” and “media inquiries” buttons have both been disconnected.
“Most gun owners agree ERPOs are good,” he said in the video. “An ERPO is a valuable tool—a court order that prevents someone from possessing or purchasing firearms.”
Most gun owners view them as just another way for the government to unconstitutionally seize their firearms. I don’t know one gun owner who actually believes “ERPOs are good.”
Carita addressed how ERPOs can change law enforcement’s longstanding traditional role.
“An ERPO is a shift for law enforcement, from pure enforcement to prevention,” he said in the video.
One Florida lawmaker recently proposed a bill that would repeal the Parkland-era red-flag laws throughout the state.
Carita has already written several anti-gun stories, which the traditional media has picked up. Just last year, he wrote how Florida’s open-carry ruling “put Florida law enforcement in a tough spot.”
He created a Florida Risk Protection Order working group on LinkedIn. Currently, it has nine members, including Carita.
Anti-gun board of directors
Anyone who believes 97Percent is not an anti-gun group need only look at their board of directors, which has not changed much.
Board member Richard Aborn served as president of the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence and as president of Handgun Control Inc., which became the Brady Campaign. According to Aborn’s bio, “He was a principal strategist behind the passing of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act as well as the Federal Assault Weapons Ban.”
Board members John Goodwin and Abra Belke were both federal lobbyists for the National Rifle Association, until they broke with the NRA. Goodwin has since become an anti-gun resource for the legacy media.
An official with the National Shooting Sports Foundation said board members Congressmen Steve Israel and Seth Moulton, “never stood to protect the Second Amendment rights. Just the opposite.”
“It’s time for country music makers to use their platforms to speak candidly to their conservative audiences,” Secor wrote. “Our outrage needs to move from the green room to center stage.”
Board member Michael Wear served in the White House during President Barack Obama’s first term and was in charge of religious outreach for Obama’s re-election campaign. He is extremely anti-gun.
In 2021, after the Texas House passed a constitutional carry bill, board member Mark McKinnon took to Twitter.
“It’s not The Onion. The Texas House of Representatives just passed a legislation that allows people to carry guns WITHOUT a permit/license. So, they think it should be easier to carry a gun and harder to vote,” McKinnon posted.
In 2022, McKinnon coauthored a guest column that was published by The Hill, which actually claimed gun owners want more gun control.
Takeaways
As we said in a previous story, 97Percent leadership will never have a conversation with gun owners they claim they want as long as the group advocates for “assault weapon” bans, magazine bans, bump-stock bans, expanded red-flag laws, mandatory permits to purchase, carry and possess firearms, mandatory storage laws or expanded background checks.
As a result, 97Percent remains nothing but a second-rate anti-gun group, regardless of who’s in charge.
Larry Keane is the senior vice president and general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the firearm industry’s trade association.
Said Keane: “This 97Percent group is nothing but a Trojan Horse pretending to be something other than what it is. It is a gun control group backed by gun control money, pretending to be something neutral, such as a gun owner group. But as we have pointed out in the past, they haven’t ever identified a single piece of gun-control legislation they feel should be appealed. They only want more gun control. This person is an ERPO champion, none of which have any due process. They are fooling nobody. It’s just an attempt to drive a wedge between gun owners and the NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation, who truly represent the interests of gun owners.”
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.
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.
Despite promises to the contrary, extra gun control legislation in Massachusetts didn’t lower crime at all. iStock-Denise Hasse1136158583
On January 28, 2025, Harmeet K. Dhillon filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the Trump administration, detailing why the Massachusetts handgun roster is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. Harmeet K. Dhillon is Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. The lawsuit timeline began almost 5 years ago.
In 2021, a number of Massachusetts residents and the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) filed suit against then AG Maura Healey in Massachusetts, contending the Massachusetts handgun roster violated the rights protected by the Second and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
On May 19, 2022, the District Court granted a motion to dismiss the case, claiming the handgun roster regulations were allowed as “safety requirements”. Plaintiffs appealed the ruling to the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. On April 7, 2023, the appeals court remanded the case back to the District Court, to be reconsidered under the Supreme Court Bruen Decision. On August 29, 2025, the District Court granted summary judgment to the Defendants (State of Massachusetts) for a second time. Plaintiffs appealed the ruling to the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for a second time on September 9, 2025. The lawsuit is now Granata v Campbell, as Andrea Joy Campbell is the current AG of Massachusetts.
The amicus brief filed by the Trump administration’s Civil Rights Division makes several important arguments in the case. In particular, the brief shows the following:
Supreme Court precedent: Arms that are in common use may not be banned.
Regulations on the sale of arms may not be used to effect a ban
Bans do not have to be complete to be unconstitutional
The American people decide what arms are in common use, not judges.
Some arms are clearly not in common use, such as ICBMs or nuclear weapons.
Some arms may be at the margins of common use, but handguns are not at the margins.
The right to keep and bear arms includes the ancillary right to acquire arms.
The United States has filed an amicus brief in Granata v. Campbell, a case challenging the Massachusetts handgun roster.
That roster is slightly less onerous than California’s version, which is being challenged in Renna v. Bonta and Boland v. Bonta (which are consolidated on… pic.twitter.com/9z53tQ20F3
The brief by the Civil Rights Division makes clear how courts are to determine whether a law infringes on the rights protected by the Second Amendment. The procedure is spelled out in the Bruen decision. From the brief:
Bruen makes clear that whether a law “infringes” the right to bear arms is a legal conclusion, based on text and history. See Bruen, 597 U.S. at 79 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (“The Court employs and elaborates on the text, history, and tradition test that Heller and McDonald require for evaluating whether a government regulation infringes on the Second Amendment.”).
The Supreme Court has repeatedly stated, all rights have limitations. The limitations of the rights protected by the Second Amendment are dependent on what the right to keep and bear arms meant at the time the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791. As examples, the right to keep and bear arms did not mean a person had the right steal a weapon because they did not possess one. It did not mean a person with a weapon had the right to use the weapon to murder another person without consequence.
The Civil Rights Division brief shows there were no bans on the purchase of weapons that were in common use at the time of the ratification of the Second Amendment. The Massachusetts handgun roster bans guns in common use from commercial sale in Massachusetts. From the brief:
It is thus undeniable that the weapons banned by the Massachusetts scheme are “widely legal and bought by many ordinary consumers” across the Nation. See Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, 605 U.S. 280, 297 (2025). For this reason alone, the decision should be overturned.
The arguments put forward by the Civil Rights Division do not show if a weapon is not in common use, it may be banned. They show that weapons in common use cannot be banned, even if a state government uses circuitous or indirect means to effectuate a partial and incomplete ban.
The submission of an amicus brief by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice shows the Trump administration is committed to aggressively preventing state governments from infringing on rights protected by the Second Amendment. No other federal administration has been willing to do so.
The earliest federal infringement on rights protected by the Second Amendment appears to be the ban on the mailing of handguns put into place in 1927. The Office of Legal Counsel in the Trump Department of Justice has issued an opinion that the ban on the mailing of handguns violates rights protected by the Second Amendment.
Restoring rights protected by the Second Amendment is a process that must be built in the law and the courts, bit by bit, because the infringements were put in place little by little, over time. Mark Smith, Constitutional Attorney, winner of two Gundie Awards for the Top Voices of the 2A, and AmmoLand contributor, explains the process in a video about the Civil Rights Division brief at his YouTube channel.
For the last hundred years, the federal government has been unwilling to enforce rights protected by the Second Amendment. The reasons are complicated and numerous. The people of the United States have been demanding the restoration of those rights, with momentum building since about 1968. The administration of President Trump is, in part, a political force put into place to effect the restoration of Second Amendment rights. The process is ongoing.
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.
The Filibuster, Senate Power, and the Second Amendment, iStock-2246891240
The United States Constitution did not create the filibuster. The practice exists entirely because of Senate rules and precedents developed over time.
From early in the Senate’s history, the ability of Senators to speak for unlimited amounts of time was used as a tool to slow down legislation, as a bargaining chip to gain concessions on bills, or to block bills altogether. This extended use of “debate” became known as a filibuster.
For decades, there was talk about changing the Senate rules to limit debate, but nothing was done until 1917. During the administration of President Woodrow Wilson, the Senate adopted Rule XXII, creating a process known as “cloture.” Under the original rule, debate could be cut off by a two-thirds supermajority of senators present and voting. The cloture vote was used only 5 times over the next 40 years.
In 1975, the Senate changed the rule from requiring a 2/3 supermajority of senators voting to end debate to a 3/5 supermajority of all senators correctly chosen and sworn in. A cloture vote to limit debate has come to require 60 votes.
The use of the filibuster, limited by a cloture vote, has become increasingly common over time. It has become the primary legislative tool for the party in the Senate minority to stop controversial bills.
The Senate rules can be changed with a simple majority vote. When the Democratic Party controlled the Senate in 2013, Majority Leader Harry Reid orchestrated a rule change to exempt votes of all nominees except for the Supreme Court from the 60-vote requirement for cloture. When the Republicans took control of the Senate, they expanded the exemption to include all nominees.
Currently, a vote to stop debate in the Senate requires 60 votes for legislation. An exemption exists for budget reconciliation, as required in the Budget Reconciliation Act of 1974. Limits on the time for debate are included in the act, which prevents a filibuster.
The filibuster has been used to stop and slow down gun control legislation and to stop and slow down legislation to restore Second Amendment rights. Notably, the filibuster does not appear to have been used in attempts to block the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968.
However, the Brady Act of 1993 was slowed by the use of the filibuster, but was not stopped. The Universal Background Check gun control bill promoted by President Barack Obama in 2013 failed to overcome a filibuster by Republicans. The vote was 54-46.
More recently, in 2025, the removal of short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, silencers, and Any Other Weapons (AOW) was stymied because of the inability of Second Amendment supporters to overcome a Democratic Party filibuster.
Internal Senate Debate Over the Filibuster
The filibuster is a powerful tool to slow legislation, facilitate compromise, and limit governmental action. Support for the filibuster by Senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia has been credited with preventing draconian measures proposed by far-left Democratic politicians in 2021. Both Sinema and Manchin were ousted from the Democratic Party, in part for their support of the filibuster.
President Trump has previously called for Republican Senators to eliminate the filibuster. His logic is clear: the next time Democratic politicians control the Senate, they will eliminate the filibuster. Republicans should pre-emptively do so in order to pass legislation to cement the Trumpian counter-revolution against radical leftism.
Last year, President Trump wanted to eliminate the filibuster to end the government shutdown. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin explains this. From newsmax.com:
“The Democrats purged the last two senators who held out and supported the filibuster,” he said. “We know they have no respect for it. So we need to strike first.”
Johnson said if Republicans move first, it should be “for the benefit of the American people.”
“When the Democrats eliminate the filibuster, it’ll all be about their maintenance of power,” he said.
“If we’re to do it, it will be to further secure our border, to secure our elections, and to pass good pieces of legislation,” Johnson added.
He also warned Democrats would “pack the Supreme Court” and push for statehood for Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico if they regain control of the Senate.
Senate Structure and Long-Term Considerations
The Senate has two senators for each state. For decades, far more Democratic Senators than seemed warranted came from what were expected to be “conservative” states such as Montana and North Dakota. In the last 20 years, states have tended to sort themselves out more consistently. This is likely because the left no longer has unquestioned dominance in the media. Conservative dominance in the Senate seems probable in the future.
The Republicans have both senators in the 25 states that voted for Donald Trump in all three of his presidential elections. This makes it very difficult for the Democratic Party to control Congress. The Senate was designed to protect small states from being made politically irrelevant by large-population states. Control of the Senate by the Democratic Party could potentially be diminished for at least a few years.
Legislation is important, but court decisions tend to be more durable. It is harder to overcome Supreme Court decisions than to pass legislation. The protection of the filibuster is less important if the Supreme Court has an originalist majority, such as currently exists.
Packing of the Supreme Court has been supported by the Democratic Party to overcome the originalist majority. To do this, they need control of Congress. They need to overcome a filibuster in the Senate. They can eliminate the filibuster anytime they have a majority in the Senate, so continuing the filibuster is not much of a protection against radical leftists. As Sinema and Manchin demonstrated, it has some value.
A Difficult Tradeoff
If the Senate Republicans eliminate the filibuster, they open the door to passing more of President Trump’s agenda. The potential for pro-Second Amendment legislation to pass increases somewhat.
Is that potential worth the loss of the protections of a filibuster?
This correspondent tends to approve of limitations on government power. Limitations that are only applied to Republicans are worse than no limitations. It is a close call. This correspondent would keep the filibuster in hopes the radical left Democratic party is rejected by voters, at least in the Senate.
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.
The Founders’ Experiment: Arms in America iStock-669217946
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution occupies a singular position in American constitutional law. Unlike most constitutional provisions, it regulates an object that is simultaneously a tool of private utility, an instrument of violence, and a symbol of liberty. This piece examines the Founders’ experiment with constitutionally protected arms as a problem of constitutional theory and legal history rather than contemporary policy advocacy. The central claim here is that the durability, instability, and controversy surrounding the Second Amendment are not accidental defects, but predictable consequences of a constitutional design forged at the intersection of republican theory, English legal tradition, and revolutionary experience.
My goal here is to write to complement existing doctrinal analyses of federal and state firearm regulations and post-Bruen litigation by supplying a deeper historical and theoretical foundation. Where much modern scholarship focuses on outcomes permissible regulations, prohibited laws, or empirical effects, this piece focuses on structure: why the Constitution treats arms differently, how that treatment evolved, and why modern adjudication struggles to reconcile eighteenth-century premises with twenty-first-century governance.
The Founders’ experiment was not merely the protection of weapons. It was the constitutionalization of distrust: distrust of standing armies, distrust of centralized authority, and distrust of monopolies on force. That experiment has survived industrialization, incorporation, and the rise of the administrative state, but only by constant reinterpretation. Understanding that process requires sustained attention to legal history.
ENGLISH ANTECEDENTS AND COLONIAL PRACTICE
American understandings of the right to arms did not emerge in a vacuum. English law long recognized a qualified right of Protestant subjects to possess arms, articulated most clearly in the English Bill of Rights of 1689. That provision was not a universal guarantee of self defense but a political settlement limiting the Crown’s power to disarm political opponents. Arms possession was regulated by class, religion, and perceived loyalty to the state.
Blackstone’s Commentaries (1765) framed the right to arms as auxiliary to the natural right of self preservation and resistance to oppression, but always within the bounds of law. This framing profoundly influenced colonial lawyers and later American jurists, who inherited both the right and its inherent limitations.
In colonial America, firearms were ubiquitous but not unregulated. Colonies mandated militia service, required firearm ownership for able bodied men, and imposed penalties for failing to maintain arms in working order. At the same time, colonies regulated storage, discharge within towns, and possession by disfavored groups, including enslaved persons and sometimes free Black residents.
The critical difference from England lay in scale and necessity. Frontier conditions and sparse state capacity meant that private arms were indispensable to survival and defense. The line between civilian and soldier was thin, reinforcing the idea that arms possession was both a civic duty and a personal right.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL FOUNDING
The Constitution’s original text reflects deep ambivalence about military power. Article I grants Congress authority over armies and militias, while reserving substantial control to the states. This bifurcation was not accidental. It reflected a deliberate effort to prevent consolidation of armed force under federal control.
The militia clauses presupposed an armed populace. A militia could not exist without privately held weapons. Thus, the Founders assumed arms possession as a background condition of republican government.
The Second Amendment was adopted not to create a new right, but to preserve an existing equilibrium. Its prefatory clause, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” signals a structural justification, while its operative clause protects “the right of the people.”
From a constitutional theory perspective, the Amendment is best understood as a hybrid: simultaneously individual and collective, private and public. Attempts to reduce it to one dimension distort its original function.
Ratification debates reveal that Anti-Federalists feared federal disarmament as a pathway to tyranny. Federalists responded that Congress lacked both incentive and capacity to disarm the people, but nonetheless accepted a constitutional guarantee to secure ratification. The resulting text reflects compromise rather than philosophical purity.
NINETEENTH CENTURY PRACTICE AND DOCTRINE
Early state constitutions frequently included arms provisions, often more explicit than the federal amendment. Courts interpreting these provisions routinely upheld regulations on concealed carry, public terror, and dangerous weapons. The prevailing understanding was that the right to arms coexisted with police power.
Cases such as Bliss v. Commonwealth (1822) upheld convictions for carrying concealed weapons despite a constitutional right to bear arms, emphasizing reasonable regulation rather than absolute immunity. Similarly, Aymette v. State (1840) interpreted the right in a manner consistent with regulation for public safety. And State v. Buzzard (1842) further reinforced that the right to bear arms was not unlimited and could be regulated in the interest of public order.
For much of the nineteenth century, the federal judiciary played almost no role in firearms regulation. In United States v. Cruikshank (1876), the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment restricted only federal action, not state or private conduct. This ruling affirmed the primacy of states in regulating firearms and reinforced federalism as a central feature of the American experiment.
The post Civil War period exposed the racial dimensions of arms regulation. Southern states enacted laws disarming freedmen while tolerating armed white militias. Congressional Republicans cited arms disarmament as evidence of civil rights violations, contributing to the Fourteenth Amendment’s adoption and the enactment of the Enforcement Acts. This history complicates claims that firearm regulation is either inherently oppressive or inherently neutral.
FEDERAL REGULATION AND MODERNITY
The advent of industrialization and the growth of national markets in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries fundamentally altered the regulatory landscape surrounding firearms. Firearms manufacturing transitioned from artisanal, localized production to mass production and interstate commerce.
Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause provided the constitutional basis for early federal firearms laws. The broad interpretation of interstate commerce authority allowed federal regulation of firearms as goods moving across state lines, integrating the national market with constitutional regulation.
The National Firearms Act (NFA) marked the first substantial federal intrusion into firearms ownership. Rather than banning weapons outright, the NFA employed taxation, registration, and licensing to regulate so-called dangerous weapons such as machine guns, short barreled rifles and shotguns, and silencers (a.k.a. suppressors). The law’s constitutionality was upheld in United States v. Miller (1939), which tethered Second Amendment protection to militia utility, holding that the regulated weapons had no reasonable relationship to militia service and thus could be regulated.
The Gun Control Act (GCA) responded to rising concerns about crime and violence, adopting a more consumer oriented regulatory regime. It introduced licensing requirements for firearms dealers, prohibited and banned certain categories of purchasers, and regulated and banned the importation of firearms. The GCA operated under the same Commerce Clause foundation as earlier statutes but extended federal oversight deeper into the firearms market.
The twentieth century saw increasing federal involvement in firearms regulation, embedded within the broader administrative state. These regulations included the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994. These developments raise constitutional questions about the scope of Congress’s commerce power and the legitimacy of delegated regulatory authority. Federal firearms regulation exemplifies tensions between constitutional text, historical tradition, and contemporary governance needs.
The late twentieth century witnessed a scholarly reexamination of the Second Amendment that challenged the dominant collective right interpretation prevalent in judicial decisions and legal scholarship. This reassessment relied heavily on historical sources drafting debates, ratification era commentary, and early case law to argue that the Amendment’s language and public meaning supported an individual right to keep and bear arms.
Key works emphasized that the phrase “the right of the people” consistently referred elsewhere in the Constitution to individual rights (e.g., First and Fourth Amendments). Scholars argued that the prefatory militia clause articulated the purpose for the right but did not limit its scope solely to militia service. Instead, the right was understood as personal but conditioned by the collective need for a militia.
This academic discourse provided a foundation for litigation challenging longstanding regulatory frameworks. It reframed the Amendment not as a collective guarantee to militias, but as a fundamental personal liberty connected to self defense and other lawful uses.
The Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) marked a watershed moment. For the first time, the Court held explicitly that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess firearms unconnected to militia service, principally for lawful self defense within the home.
Heller rejected the collective right model and clarified that the right is not unlimited, recognizing longstanding prohibitions on felons, the mentally ill, and certain sensitive places. The Court’s historical analysis was extensive but acknowledged gaps and ambiguities in the tradition.
From a constitutional theory perspective, Heller represents a transformation of the Amendment’s role: from a structural constraint on federal power protecting militia equilibrium, to a personal constitutional right with defined limits and subject to judicial enforcement. This shift raised complex questions about how to reconcile the Amendment with traditional regulatory authority.
Following Heller, the issue of whether the Second Amendment applies to the states was resolved in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010). The Court held that the right is incorporated against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
This incorporation expanded constitutional scrutiny over state and local firearm regulations, fundamentally altering the federal state balance in firearms regulation. The decision acknowledged the historical importance of arms rights for self defense and linked this to broader civil rights struggles.
However, McDonald left open many questions about the scope of permissible regulation and the appropriate standard of review. The decision underscored the complexity of incorporating a historically contested right within the framework of modern constitutional rights protection.
BRUEN AND HISTORICAL TRADITION
The Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022) signaled a decisive shift in Second Amendment jurisprudence. Rejecting the means-end scrutiny, often termed interest balancing, the Court held that constitutional rights should not be subjected to a balancing test that weighs governmental interests against individual liberties. Instead, it emphasized a historical analytical approach grounded in the text and original public meaning of the Amendment. (NOTE: This historical approach is consistent with how the Supreme Court describes interpretation of other Bill of Rights guarantees, but operationally more stringent.)
This shift aligns with a broader originalist methodology that prioritizes historical understanding over pragmatic or policy-driven judgments. The Court’s framework requires that laws regulating firearms be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of arms regulation as understood at the time of the Amendment’s ratification and early years of incorporation.
Despite its clarity in rejecting interest balancing, Bruen exposes the inherent difficulties of historical analysis. The historical record regarding arms regulation is both fragmentary and contested, spanning centuries, varied jurisdictions, and evolving social conditions.
Applying eighteenth and-nineteenth century analogues to modern regulatory schemes demands judicial interpretation, inevitably involving normative judgments about which historical precedents are sufficiently analogous. This interpretive discretion raises questions about the objectivity and predictability of the historical tradition test.
Moreover, the traditional frameworks used in earlier jurisprudence, such as deference to legislative judgments on public safety, have been displaced by this more rigid standard. Courts must now engage in detailed historical inquiry, a task for which the record is often incomplete or ambiguous.
Bruen’s approach reallocates considerable power to the judiciary as the arbiter of constitutional history. This development invites reflection on institutional competence and democratic legitimacy.
Judges, who may lack specialized historical expertise, must evaluate complex evidence and make determinations with significant social and political consequences. The heightened role of courts risks judicial overreach, particularly given the contentious and evolving nature of firearms regulation.
Simultaneously, the decision constrains legislatures, limiting their ability to adapt arms regulation to contemporary circumstances absent clear historical analogues. This tension underscores the broader constitutional challenge of reconciling fidelity to original meaning with the demands of twenty first century governance.
COMPARATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT
The American constitutional approach to arms is distinctive among liberal democracies. Most other nations do not constitutionally enshrine an individual right to bear arms. Instead, they rely on legislative supremacy and administrative regulation to govern firearms, reflecting different historical experiences and political philosophies.
For example, countries such as Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom maintain comprehensive statutory frameworks that tightly control firearms ownership, with no constitutional protection akin to the Second Amendment. Courts in these systems defer substantially to legislative judgments regarding public safety and firearms policy.
This divergence reflects foundational choices about how to balance individual liberty, public order, and state authority. The United States constitutionalizes distrust of centralized force and affirms a structural commitment to distributed arms ownership, while others prioritize collective security through legislative control.
Understanding this comparative landscape highlights that America’s firearm rights are neither inevitable nor universally embraced, but rather the product of specific historical, cultural, and constitutional developments.
SYNTHESIS: THE FOUNDERS EXPERIMENT
The Founders’ experiment with constitutionalized arms rights rests on three interrelated premises. First, that liberty requires a diffusion of force among the people to check tyranny. Second, that citizens can be entrusted with arms responsibly, as a form of political participation and self defense. And lastly, that law can regulate but not eliminate the presence of violence in society, channeling it in ways consistent with republican government.
These premises have been tested and reinterpreted repeatedly across American history through industrialization, racial conflict, urbanization, and modernization without being abandoned. Instead, the constitutional right to bear arms has proven resilient through adaptation and contestation.
Legal history demonstrates that the Amendment’s meaning is neither fixed nor simplistic but is shaped by ongoing negotiation between historical tradition and change. This dynamic quality explains the persistent controversy surrounding firearms regulation in America.
EPILOGUE
The constitutional right to keep and bear arms is neither an anachronism nor a simple guarantee. It is a structural commitment deeply embedded in the American constitutional order and American history, reflecting a unique experiment in balancing liberty, security, and governance.
Its endurance through nearly two and a half centuries attests to the resilience of constitutional design amid social, technological, and political transformation. The Second Amendment continues to shape American law and identity, challenging courts, legislatures, and citizens to navigate the complex interplay of history, rights, and regulation.
Understanding this experiment requires moving beyond polarized debate toward nuanced engagement with constitutional theory, legal history, and institutional practice. Only then can the American experiment with firearms and liberty be fully appreciated in its constitutional dimension.
CASE REFERENCES
Aymette v. State, (1840)
Bliss v. Commonwealth, 12 Ky. (2 Litt.) 90 (1822)
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008)
McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010)
New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. ___ (2022)
Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997)
State v. Buzzard, 4 Ark. 18 (1842)
United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876)
United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 558 (1995)
United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939)
United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000)
Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942)
ARTICLES / BOOKS/ LAWS / ETC. REFERENCES
Adam Winkler, Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America (2011)
Akhil Reed Amar, The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction (1998)
Assault Weapons Ban of 1994
David B. Kopel, The Second Amendment in Law and History, 35 Law & Hist. Rev. 197 (2017)
David P. Currie, The Constitution in the Supreme Court: The First Hundred Years, 1789-1888 (1985)
Enforcement Acts, 42 U.S.C. (1870-1871)
English Bill of Rights (1689)
Gun Control Act of 1968
Herbert Storing, Complete Anti Federalist (1981)
Joyce Lee Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo American Right (1994)
Michael C. Dorf, The Limits of Federal Gun Regulation, 98 Yale L.J. 195 (1988)
National Firearms Act (1934)
Richard H. Fallon Jr., Federalism and Gun Control, 119 Harv. L. Rev. 285 (2005)
Robert C. Post, Constitutional Domains, 117 Harv. L. Rev. 4 (2003)
Robert C. Williams, Firearms and Federal Regulation, 55 Am. Hist. Rev. 110 (2018)
Robert J. Cottrol, Gun Control and the Constitution (2000)
Robert J. Cottrol & Raymond T. Diamond, The Second Amendment: Toward an Afro Americanist Reconsideration, 80 Geo. L.J. 309 (1991)
Robert J. Spitzer, The Politics of Gun Control (2015)
Saul Cornell, A Well Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America (2006)
Saul Cornell & Nathan DeDino, Originalism and the Right to Bear Arms, 82 Fordham L. Rev. 57 (2013)
Saul Cornell & Nathan DeDino, The Second Amendment as a Living Right, 2007 Wis. L. Rev. 677
Stephen P. Halbrook, That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right (1984)
The Federalist No. 29 (Hamilton 1788)
William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765)
William J. Novak, The People‘s Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth-century America (1996)
Alan J. Chwick, A.S., B.S., FL/NY/SC Paralegal is known for his involvement in legal articles usually related to firearm regulations and for his contributions to discussions on firearms rights. Retired Managing Coach of the Freeport NY Junior Marksmanship Club (FreeportJuniorClub.org). Escaped New York State to South Carolina and is an SC FFL & Gunsmith (Everything22andMore.com).
An evening double murder in Washington, D.C. provided a lesson the media and anti-gunners refuse to recognize. iStock-2151232372
In a heated national conversation over gun rights and public safety, Jeanine Ferris Pirro, the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, ignited controversy with remarks suggesting anyone who brings a firearm into the nation’s capital “can count on going to jail” — license or no license. That statement, repeated on social media and cable news, struck many gun owners as a stark departure from long-standing Republican and conservative support for the Second Amendment and raised serious questions about federal enforcement priorities and constitutional rights in America’s most politically charged jurisdiction.
Pirro’s comments — now circulating widely in posts like the X thread from GunOwners — are part of a broader debate over the handling of the Alex Pretti shooting, DC’s strict local gun laws, and how the Department of Justice will balance crime control with constitutional rights. Here’s what you need to know.
BREAKING⁰⁰@USAttyPirro on @FoxNews:⁰⁰“[If] you bring a gun into the District, you mark my words, you’re going to jail. I don’t care if you have a license in another district and I don’t care if you’re a law abiding law owner somewhere else. You bring a gun into this… pic.twitter.com/tHEBru3EKA
On February 2, 2026, Jeanine Pirro told reporters and broadcasters that anyone who brings a gun into Washington, D.C., faces potential prosecution under local and federal law.
“You bring a gun into the District, you mark my words, you’re going to jail. I don’t care if you have a license in another district and I don’t care if you’re a law abiding gun owner somewhere else. You bring a gun into this District, count on going to jail, and hope you get the gun back!”
This is exactly the sort of statement you would expect the Attorneys General of an anti-gun administration to say. Yet, here again, is another member of the Trump administration spewing unconstitutional rhetoric that should infuriate gun owners — especially those who regularly travel through the district with valid carry permits from other states — because D.C.’s gun laws are among the strictest in the country and significantly conflict with typical state carry rights.
Pirro, feeling the pressure from her comments, attempted to clarify her statements made on Fox with a post on X. According to Pirro, what she meant to say was that the DOJ was only focused on those who are unlawfully carrying a gun.
Let me be clear: I am a proud supporter of the Second Amendment.
Washington, D.C. law requires handguns be licensed in the District with the Metropolitan Police Department to be carried into our community.
We are focused on individuals who are unlawfully carrying guns and…
However, the damage has largely been done, adding to a series of statements and actions by this administration and the DOJ that show a lack of authenticity in their often boisterous defense of the Second Amendment. While some might excuse her actions as a DOJ attorney upholding the laws they have to work with, gun owners and constitutionalists will take issue with the underlying sentiment of both Pirro’s comments.
The Pretti Incident: Fueling the Fire
The context for Pirro’s comments includes the controversial death of Alex Pretti, a licensed gun owner shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis during an immigration enforcement operation. Pretti’s death sparked national outrage among gun rights advocates and deep divisions within the GOP. Even former President Trump and members of his administration have publicly disagreed with the characterization of Pretti’s actions, with prominent gun rights organizations like the NRA rebuking Trump’s comment that “he shouldn’t have been carrying a gun.”
Pirro’s remarks about prosecuting gun owners came in the aftermath of this incident, at a time when the Department of Justice is under pressure from multiple directions — both to enforce laws aggressively and to respect constitutional gun rights.
Most Pro-2A DOJ Ever?
It’s worth noting that the Trump administration’s approach to gun rights has become uneven. On the one hand, Pirro announced months ago that she had instructed federal prosecutors not to seek felony charges for residents legally carrying registered shotguns or rifles. On the other hand, senior officials, including Pirro and even Trump himself in some contexts, have suggested restrictions or expressed skepticism about carrying firearms in specific circumstances.
This contrast shows a broader tension in Republican leadership: balancing public safety narratives with constitutional rights.
For gun owners, that ambiguity presents a real issue — particularly when enforcement discretion at the federal level can vary dramatically between districts and U.S. Attorneys.
The Battle Over Gun Rights Isn’t Settling Down
Jeanine Pirro’s rhetoric has ignited a flashpoint in the ongoing national conversation about gun rights and law enforcement. It illustrates that our rights are not safe even under an otherwise pro-Second Amendment administration such as Trump’s. Republicans are no more constitutionalist than Democrats are, and will sell our rights out from under us if we are not vigilant.
For law-abiding gun owners, the lesson is clear: stay informed, the fight for our rights is far from over.
After Mooting Cases By Allowing the Open Carrying of Non-Firearms, Hawaii Introduces Bill To Reinstate Ban. iStock-1631745520
Hawaii has long maintained some of the strictest firearm regulations in the United States, reflecting its “aloha spirit.” Before 2022, the state’s licensing regime for carrying firearms in public was highly restrictive. Under Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) § 134-9, permits to openly or concealed carry were issued only in “exceptional cases” where applicants demonstrated a special need, such as fear of injury. County police chiefs exercised broad discretion, resulting in extremely few permits granted, sometimes none for years in certain counties. This system effectively functioned as a near-total ban on public carry for ordinary citizens.
This approach faced significant legal challenges, particularly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. In Bruen, the Court struck down New York’s “proper cause” requirement for concealed carry permits, ruling that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to carry handguns publicly for self-defense. The majority opinion, authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, rejected subjective “special need” standards and established a new test: modern gun laws must be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The ruling explicitly criticized discretionary regimes like Hawaii’s (and a few others) as unconstitutional for ordinary law-abiding citizens.
In direct response to Bruen, Hawaii’s legislature promptly revised its laws. In 2022-2023, the state passed legislation (notably Act 52 in 2023) that overhauled the carry permit system. It shifted from a “may-issue” discretionary model to a more objective “shall-issue” process for concealed-carry permits, allowing qualified applicants to obtain licenses without demonstrating a special need. This change permitted licensed individuals to carry concealed firearms in public, a significant expansion from the prior de facto prohibition.
However, the reforms were not solely about liberalization. Hawaii paired the expansion with new restrictions, including bans on “sensitive places” (e.g., parks, beaches, bars serving alcohol) and a default rule governing private property open to the public.
Under the new framework, licensed carriers generally could not bring firearms onto private property (e.g., stores, restaurants, or gas stations) without the owner’s express authorization, whether verbal, written, or via conspicuous signage. This change inverted the common “permission presumed unless prohibited” default in many states, making Hawaii’s approach, in practice, more restrictive for everyday activities.
A separate but related area involved non-firearm weapons, such as knives, bows, and spears, often classified under Hawaii’s “deadly or dangerous weapons” statutes. Historically, Hawaii restricted the concealed carry of such items but allowed open carry in many contexts, particularly for practical uses such as hunting, fishing, or work. Hawaii’s hunting culture relies on bladed tools for field dressing game and on traditional implements such as bows for subsistence or sport.
To address potential federal lawsuits invoking Bruen’s historical tradition test, Hawaii made targeted changes around 2022-2024. Lawsuits had challenged restrictions on open carry of knives and similar weapons as infringing on Second Amendment protections (since Bruen extended to arms “in common use” for lawful purposes, potentially including knives). In response, the state repealed or adjusted prohibitions on open carry of certain non-firearm deadly weapons. This move effectively mooted several pending federal cases by removing the challenged restrictions, avoiding adverse rulings that could have broader implications for the state’s regulatory scheme. By legalizing or clarifying open carry for these items, Hawaii neutralized claims that its laws lacked historical analogues or unduly burdened self-defense rights.
The current SB 433 (introduced in the 2026 legislative session) represents a potential reversal in this non-firearm domain. The bill prohibits any person from openly carrying a “deadly or dangerous weapon,” explicitly including bladed weapons in that category. It establishes an affirmative defense for lawful self-defense or transport, but would criminalize open carry as a misdemeanor in many scenarios.
Critics, including hunting advocates and gun rights groups, argue it threatens traditional tools and knives for dispatching game, bows, and spears, turning routine hunting or work activities into offenses. The bill has drawn opposition for potentially conflicting with post-Bruen Second Amendment principles, as open carry of common arms (including knives) may now enjoy constitutional protection if historically unregulated in that manner.
This proposed change highlights ongoing tensions within Hawaii’s firearms policy. Post-Bruen, the state expanded concealed-carry of firearms to comply with federal rulings but imposed measures to limit its practical scope. Earlier adjustments, such as allowing the open carry of non-firearm weapons, served as a strategic response to moot lawsuits and preserved broader restrictions. SB 433, if enacted, could reimpose bans that were lifted precisely to avoid constitutional challenges, potentially inviting new litigation.
As cases like Wolford v. Lopez (challenging Hawaii’s private property default rule) reach the Supreme Court, Hawaii’s laws remain under scrutiny, with SB 433 adding another layer to this complex landscape.
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.
Major 2A Win: Fifth Circuit Strikes Down Lifetime Gun Ban for Non-Violent Felon
A unanimous decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit just delivered one of the most important Second Amendment wins in years—and it did so quietly, methodically, and on solid constitutional ground.
In United States v. Charles Hembree, the Fifth Circuit ruled 3–0 that the federal government cannot permanently disarm a person based solely on a single, non-violent drug possession conviction. Applying the Supreme Court’s modern Second Amendment framework, the court held that enforcing the federal “felon-in-possession” statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), against Hembree violated the Constitution.
For gun owners, this ruling matters far beyond one defendant in Mississippi.
United States v. Hembree
Charles Hembree had one felony on his record—a 2018 Mississippi conviction for possession of methamphetamine. Hembree was not accused of trafficking drugs, committing violence, or using a firearm in connection with the offense. Years later, federal prosecutors charged him under § 922(g)(1) after he possessed a firearm, arguing that any felony conviction automatically justifies a lifetime gun ban.
A federal district court agreed. The Fifth Circuit did not.
On appeal, a three-judge panel vacated Hembree’s conviction, holding that the statute was unconstitutional as applied to him. The court concluded that permanently disarming someone for a single, non-violent possession offense has no grounding in the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
That historical grounding is not optional. It is now the law.
Bruen Means the Government Bears the Burden
The Fifth Circuit’s analysis flows directly from New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which fundamentally reshaped Second Amendment jurisprudence.
Under Bruen, courts must ask two questions:
Does the conduct at issue—here, possessing a firearm—fall within the plain text of the Second Amendment?
If so, can the government prove that its restriction is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation?
Possessing a firearm plainly falls within the Second Amendment’s text. That shifted the burden squarely onto the federal government.
The Fifth Circuit found no historical analogue that supports permanently stripping someone of the right to keep and bear arms based solely on non-violent drug possession. In fact, the court noted that drug possession itself was largely unregulated at the Founding, and modern narcotics laws are a twentieth-century invention.
Possession Is Not Trafficking—and the Court Said So
One of the most significant parts of the ruling is the court’s clear distinction between drug possession and drug trafficking.
The government argued that drug users “enable” trafficking and should therefore be treated like traffickers. The Fifth Circuit rejected that theory as unsupported by history or logic. Trafficking, by its nature, often involves violence or the threat of violence. Simple possession does not.
This approach aligns with how the Supreme Court is likely to think about these cases. Violent felonies—murder, rape, armed robbery—are a different category. Non-violent conduct should not be treated the same.
A Growing Circuit Split the Supreme Court Can’t Ignore
The Hembree decision deepens an existing split among federal courts.
Some circuits still hold that any felony conviction justifies a lifetime gun ban. Others require individualized dangerousness determinations. The Fifth Circuit goes further, tying the analysis to the elements of the actual offense and historical tradition.
That makes the Fifth Circuit the most consistent defender of the Second Amendment in the federal judiciary today.
Eventually, the Supreme Court of the United States will have to resolve this split. When it does, Hembree would appear to be one of the cleanest, best-reasoned examples of how Bruen is supposed to work. However, gun rights advocates, such as Mark Smith of the Four Boxes Diner, believe taking cases such as Hembree before the Supreme Court would be a mistake at this time.
According to Smith, his advice to pro-2A DOJ prosecutors would be not to appeal the Fifth Circuit’s decision. There is a strategic lesson here: bad cases make bad law.Using bad defendants to set national precedent is risky—like Rahimi and Hemani—especially when the Supreme Court is both pro-Second Amendment and deeply skeptical of criminal conduct.
Pushing cases like Hembree to the high court could easily result in a narrower, less favorable rule for gun owners nationwide.
What will Hembree Mean for Gun Owners?
The Fifth Circuit’s unanimous ruling in United States v. Charles Hembree is a win for gun owners, but how far that win will go is unknown. The fear is that the Supreme Court has ruled against violent drug users’ gun rights. Cases like this create the opportunity for bad case law to override the gains the Second Amendment has made in recent years.
Whether the DOJ seeks an appeal in this case to the Supreme Court could set up the next big Second Amendment case the court hears.
BREAKING
