A proposed Supreme Court brief in Viramontes v. Cook County will argue that the AR-15’s militia utility strengthens its Second Amendment protection. IMG Jim Grant
“Former Virginia AG [and former Acting Deputy Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security] Ken Cuccinelli is drafting an amicus brief for a coalition of groups and key individuals in the Viramontes semi-automatic gun ban case that is coming in front of the United States Supreme Court,” Second Amendment advocate and NRA “reform director” Dennis Fusaro informed a close circle of fellow activists by email Saturday.
Fusaro, probably most known to AmmoLand readers through his involvement in attempting to persuade an unheeding Association to commit needed resources to a “get out the vote” effort in Virginia’s 2025 election, is soliciting funds to finance the legal work.
Cuccinelli’s novel approach was documented in his challenge to Virginia’s semi-auto/magazine ban asking for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief because the “ban provisions of the Act violate the militia clause of Article I, Section 13 of the Constitution of Virginia.” (While acknowledging that Plaintiffs will suffer “irreparable harm if the Ban becomes effective and is later determined to be unconstitutional,” Spotsylvania Circuit Court Judge William E. Glover subsequently allowed the ban to stand, citing “the potential of harm to the Commonwealth.”
“The Supreme Court’s decision to hear Viramontes v. Cook County, No. 25-238 (7th Circuit), consolidated with Grant v. Higgins (2nd Circuit), presents an opportunity to do more than win the immediate fight over AR-15-platform rifles,” Cuccinelli argues, recapping proposed language discussed in an Aug. 9 Zoom meeting. “The Court has never squarely explained how the Second Amendment’s Militia Clause informs the meaning of the operative right ‘to keep and bear Arms.’ United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), plainly connected the Amendment to the militia and to the constitutional importance of arms having a relationship to militia purposes.”
That’s a point some of us have been trying to urge the gun groups filing 2A cases to include.
“Ignoring Core Purpose Makes 2nd Amendment More Vulnerable to Infringements: The Militia Aspect,” Part 1 and Part 2, I wrote for Firearms News in 2020. Forgetting the fighting tyranny part serves no one’s interests but would-be tyrants.
“That is the focus I would bring to an amicus brief: establishing a constitutional principle that not only prevents ‘military’ characteristics from becoming a constitutional liability, but makes them an affirmative basis for protection,” Cuccinelli asserts. “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.”
Establishing this with SCOTUS “could therefore reach substantially further than the particular rifles before the Court,” he adds.
Fusaro is urging gun owners who realize the value of what this means to join and support this effort with contributions sent to RightsWatch.org. (Because the donations page does not earmark contributions, a follow-up email specifying it is for the Cuccinelli amicus brief should be sent to dnfguns@gmail.com.)
The brief is expected to be filed by Sept. 4 and will be presented in a follow-up report on AmmoLand.
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.
ATF confirmed a major cybersecurity incident after the Qilin ransomware operation claimed the agency as a victim. Officials say the affected system was isolated from eForms and other ATF networks. AI-generated image created for AmmoLand News
On Wednesday, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) became the latest federal agency targeted by a major ransomware operation. The Department of Justice confirmed the attack after AmmoLand News flagged a claim by the Russian-speaking ransomware syndicate Qilin. That confirmation immediately raised a question that matters to lawful gun owners: whether the agency’s vast collections of firearms records were among the files taken.
According to sources inside the ATF, the hackers obtained investigative tools and other operational files, and gun-owner information was not compromised. Those sources described most of the files as innocuous. That account, if it holds, would be significant. ATF has digitized hundreds of millions of dealer records, and Second Amendment groups have long argued that those archives function as a backdoor registry.
Until the bureau and the Justice Department (DOJ) release a fuller inventory of what left the network, the public has only competing claims: Qilin’s boast that it breached the agency, and internal assurances that the most sensitive civilian data stayed out of reach.
ATF is responding to a cybersecurity incident affecting a standalone system not connected to the ATF enterprise network, ATF eForms system, or any other ATF system. The system was quickly shut down when the breach was discovered. This is an ongoing investigation.
Qilin is not a new name in cybercrime. The group operates a ransomware-as-a-service platform.
Core operators build the malware, maintain leak sites and other infrastructure, and recruit affiliates. Those affiliates break into private companies and government systems, encrypt or steal data, and demand payment in cryptocurrency under threat of public release. Affiliates typically keep 80 to 85 percent of any ransom; the rest flows back to Qilin. The group is based in Russia.
Researchers do not treat it as a formal arm of the Russian state, but Moscow has long tolerated crews that hit geopolitical rivals rather than Russian targets.
The operation began in 2022 as Agenda ransomware. Trend Micro first flagged it that August after an attack on the company itself. A month later, the crew advertised the service on Russian-language forums under the Qilin name. What started as a mid-tier outfit grew into one of the world’s most active ransomware platforms after competitors such as RansomHub went dark and affiliates migrated to it. Trackers have logged thousands of claimed victims. Exact revenue is unknowable because many victims pay quietly, but even conservative estimates put proceeds in the millions of dollars.
Qilin’s affiliates use several paths onto a network. Spear phishing remains one of the most reliable: a tailored email tricks a specific employee into handing over credentials or opening a malicious file. Exposed remote services are another favorite, especially Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) left open to the internet. Affiliates also abuse remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools that IT departments install for legitimate administration. Once inside, the typical playbook is double extortion: steal data first, then encrypt systems and threaten to publish the haul if the ransom is not paid.
Federal agencies have been hit before. Hackers have targeted the U.S. Marshals Service, FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI. Wednesday’s incident shows the same pressure now bearing down on the ATF.
For gun owners, the immediate issue is not the brand name of the malware. It is whether an agency that already stores an enormous volume of firearms data can keep that information off the dark web, and whether officials will say so with more than anonymous reassurance.
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.
The Third Circuit ruled New Jersey’s bans on commonly owned semiautomatic rifles and magazines holding more than ten rounds unconstitutional, but a stay keeps the restrictions enforceable for now. iStock-2281848066
The en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit got one of the most important Second Amendment questions exactly right: New Jersey cannot ban commonly owned semiautomatic rifles and standard-capacity magazines merely because anti-gun politicians find them objectionable.
In a 10–5 decision issued July 17, the court held that New Jersey’s bans violate the Second Amendment. The majority recognized approximately 24 million AR-15s and similar rifles—and more than 100 million 30-round AR-15 magazines—as powerful evidence that these are ordinary arms possessed by ordinary Americans for lawful purposes.
Unfortunately, the victory has not yet restored anyone’s rights. On August 4, the Third Circuit stayed its mandate while New Jersey prepares a Supreme Court petition. The state’s unconstitutional restrictions, therefore, remain enforceable, and Garden State gun owners remain trapped under laws the full appellate court has already ruled unconstitutional.
The ruling matters nationally, but so does Judge Patty Shwartz’s dissent. Her argument demonstrates the legal sleight of hand anti-gun judges increasingly use to evade Heller and Bruen: declare America’s most popular rifle too military, too dangerous, or insufficiently connected to self-defense—and then pretend it is not an “Arm” at all.
Naturally, anti-rights extremists and their media allies are in a tizzy over the decision. But one of the most revealing aspects of the ruling is that several Democrat-appointed judges actually got it right.
The big surprise in the decision is the fact that several Democrat-appointed members of the court actually got it right. While the media and Democratic politicians incessantly accuse “conservative” jurists of being “activist” when they follow the law and provide rulings that conflict with the Democratic Party’s political agenda, the exact opposite is the reality. Like so much of what comes from Democrats and the media these days, their protestations are projection – accusing the other side of doing that which they themselves are clearly doing.
Americans expect jurists to be neutral, unbiased, and blind to everything except the letter of the law – with some room for empathy and factoring in extenuating circumstances at the trial level. The legal focus is supposed to be especially true at the appellate level though, where judges are legally required to focus exclusively on the law and conduct of the courts, not the particulars of the underlying case. If the law says that evidence illegally obtained is inadmissible, but the trial court allowed it to be admitted, the appellate court must follow the law and order the evidence to be thrown out in a new trial, even if that decision almost guarantees that a heinous criminal will go free.
That’s what “the rule of law” is all about. One clear set of standards that must be upheld, regardless of other presumptions or the identity of the accused, and regardless of whether the judges like it or not.
Something else that’s important to understand about the judiciary, and particularly federal circuit courts of appeal, is that they are bound by Supreme Court precedent. If the Supreme Court rules that a law must be interpreted or evaluated in a particular way, it is incumbent upon the lower courts, and particularly upon the appellate courts, to adhere to the Supreme Court’s guidance, regardless of other considerations or personal opinions.
If a SCOTUS ruling is ambiguous or leaves room for interpretation, the appellate courts are able to use some discretion. But when the Supreme Court’s ruling is clear, the appellate courts have a duty to follow it to the letter.
In the New Jersey case, Judge Arianna Freeman, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote the majority opinion declaring the state’s ban on so-called “assault weapons” and “high-capacity” magazines to be unconstitutional under the clear SCOTUS decision in NYSRPA v. Bruen (a case funded and supported by the NRA, by the way). In that decision, the Supreme Court ruled that in cases falling under the Second Amendment, it is up to the state to prove that the law in question is clearly rooted in the historical tradition of the country at the time that the Constitution and Bill of Rights were ratified.
If, for instance, the state could show that in or around 1791, Congress had passed laws regulating the private ownership of cannons, as Joe Biden often suggested was the case, or military rifles capable of accepting a bayonet, then that law could be used as evidence to show that regulating similar or comparable arms today could be justified.
Unfortunately for the gun control zealots, and happily for the American people, Congress never passed – or even contemplated – such laws, and the few laws passed by the states that come anywhere close to such restrictions were almost universally based more on race, ethnicity, or class, or were some sort of fire code, not about the weapons themselves.
As a result, activist, anti-gun judges have engaged in some of the most disingenuous legal contortions imaginable in their efforts to sidestep and skirt around both the clear meaning and intent of the Second Amendment, and the clear and unambiguous instructions of the Supreme Court.
Judge Shwartz Turns “Common Use” Upside Down
In her contortionist dissent, Judge Patty Shwartz – a Barack Obama appointee – declared that the appellate court could ignore the instructions of SCOTUS in Bruen because the Second Amendment does not apply to arms like the AR-15 and other semi-automatic rifles. Her rationale for that outrageous conclusion is based on her claim that these arms’ “disproportionate criminal use, military history, and combat-oriented features” make such weapons “an unusually dangerous tool used by the military and not an arm in common use by civilians for self-defense.”
Disproportionate criminal use? Judge Shwartz assumes facts that are not in evidence.
There are estimated to be over 32 million AR, AK, and other military-pattern rifles in civilian hands in the United States today, not counting the additional millions of similar firearms that are technically considered to be pistols, but fall under politicians’ broad “assault weapon” label, and which would bring the total to something more like 40 million total. Since there are estimated to be approximately 500 million civilian-owned firearms in the US today, that means that these 40 million guns represent approximately 8% of all US civilian arms, yet they are used in something less than 3% of murders. That’s about par with “unarmed” murders, where only hands, feet, and other body parts were used to kill someone.
Beyond Judge Shwartz’s confusion about what constitutes “disproportionate,” her job is applying the law, and that means applying Supreme Court precedents. Not just recent cases like Bruen, McDonald, and Heller, but previous cases as well, including Miller. While Miller has been abused and misinterpreted by the courts for almost 100 years, the opinion states that the reason Mr. Miller’s conviction for transporting an unregistered short-barreled shotgun across state lines was allowed to stand, was because the Court had no evidence of a military purpose for a short-barreled shotgun. No one showed up to argue Miller’s side of the case, and the government wasn’t about to inform the Court that a variety of short, shotgun-type weapons, from blunderbusses used by the Continental Navy and Cavalry troops in the Revolutionary War, to the “Trench Brooms” of the First World War, have always been common arms of the military and militias.
The Miller Court concluded that usefulness to the military and the common defense should be a prime consideration in determining whether an arm deserved recognition under the Second Amendment. Their opinion was that Miller’s sawed-off shotgun wasn’t military enough, not that it was too military.
Almost seventy years later, in District of Columbia v. Heller the Court concluded that the right to have a functioning pistol in the home for personal defense was protected under the Second Amendment, and that classes of firearms “in common use” could not be banned. In the subsequent McDonald case, the Court concluded that the right to arms for self defense is a fundamental right that must be recognized by the states. Just a few years later, in Bruen, the Court ruled that any law impacting Second Amendment rights had to be shown to be in line with the history and tradition of the United States at the time the Bill of Rights was ratified.
Judge Shwartz and her activist ilk don’t have a legal leg to stand on. Their only arguments are that these guns look scary and could be misused, as could a hammer, baseball bat, or SUV. As liberal legal scholar Professor Sanford Levinson explained in a 1992 Yale Law Review article, “The Embarrassing Second Amendment,” the amendment means just what it says, and the only way gun control advocates can get around it is by amending the Constitution to repeal the Second Amendment.
Since they know that’s not possible, they instead rely on activist judges and pray for a slim majority in the US Senate so they can kill the filibuster, make Puerto Rico and DC states, and stack the Supreme Court with more of their activist judges like Judge Shwartz (that’s not a paranoid conspiracy theory, it’s the stated plan put forth by many Democratic leaders). Not a very democratic approach for a party that calls itself Democratic.
New Jersey’s Gun Bans Remain Enforceable
On August 4, the Third Circuit granted New Jersey’s request to stay its mandate while the state prepares a petition for Supreme Court review. The mandate is the order that would put the ruling into effect. Until the stay is lifted, New Jersey’s rifle and magazine bans remain enforceable. The Court has already agreed to hear similar cases from Illinois and Connecticut next year, and it’s likely they might fold this case into that hearing. That would be good news for gun owners nationwide, as the Illinois and Connecticut cases only address so-called “assault weapons,” while the New Jersey case also includes the question of placing arbitrary limits on magazine capacity.
These cases highlight the importance of voting for pro-rights majorities. If the Republicans lose their majority in the Senate this November, not only does that guarantee pro-rights bills like National Reciprocity will be dead on arrival, but if one of the conservative Justices on the Court were to retire or die, the Democratic Senate majority would almost certainly reject any Trump replacement. If Democrats win back the White House in two years, and hold a Senate majority, expect the filibuster to be eliminated, Puerto Rico to be made a state (giving Democrats 2 additional Senate seats), and additional seats on the Supreme Court to be created. That’s what they’ve promised their supporters, and we should believe them when they tell us what they’re going to do.
For now, pray for the continued good health of Justice Thomas and the other “conservatives” on the Court, and get personally involved in the upcoming elections. It really does matter.
About Jeff Knox:
Jeff Knox is a dedicated political activist and the director of The Firearms Coalition, following in the footsteps of his father, Neal Knox. In 2024, Jeff was elected to the NRA Board of Directors, underscoring his lifelong commitment to protecting the Second Amendment. The Knox family has played a pivotal role in the ongoing struggle for gun rights, a legacy documented in the book Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War, authored by Jeff’s brother, Chris Knox.
Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, The Firearms Coalition is a network of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs, and civil rights organizations. The Coalition supports grassroots efforts by providing education, analysis of current issues, and a historical perspective on the gun rights movement. For more information, visit www.FirearmsCoalition.org.
Buried in the Aug. 24 on-air interview with Fox News’ Jesse Watters which quickly turned into a fiery debate and seems to be getting much more attention over his remarks about taxes, ICE and comparing circumcision to child sex changes, Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed dodged a question about his call three years ago to replace the Second Amendment with a right to health care.
Asked by Watters about his desire to replace the right to keep and bear arms, El-Sayed parried:
“Well, look man, I think more people are more worried about whether they can see a doctor than whether or not they can have a gun. I’m just going to put that out there.”
The confrontation between Watters and El-Sayed comes at 15½ minutes into the 25-minute interview. It lasts about 30-45 seconds, but it was enough to show El-Sayed is uncomfortable about being put on the spot over an issue, and a personal statement, which could bring Michigan gun owners and hunters out of the shadows and into the voting booth in November.
The video snip was posted on Facebook by the National Association for Gun Rights. As the camera focuses on El-Sayed, he hesitated for a second, apparently trying to formulate his glib reaction to Watters’ query, “You don’t want to replace the Second Amendment, do you?”
When he wouldn’t give a direct answer, Watters observed, “I think you dodged the question, and that’s a pretty big one in Michigan.”
El-Sayed comes back to assert:
“I’m perfectly okay with people having their hunting rifles. It’s an important pastime. I’ve got family that goes hunting every single year.”
It was the kind of remark gun owners have gotten used to from Democrats who have stated they “support the Second Amendment,” and then turned around to vote for every restriction that came along. Now they have a candidate in Michigan who is willing to dismiss the amendment, and now that he’s running for office, El-Sayed is reluctant to come right out and admit it.
This exchange could ultimately define where the entire Democratic Party agenda has moved.
Faced with an upcoming Supreme Court review of bans on so-called “assault weapons” in Cook County, Illinois and the state of Connecticut in a pair of cases known as Viramontes v. Cook County (IL) and Grant v. Higgins (CT)—both brought by the Second Amendment Foundation—anti-gun Democrats and the gun prohibition lobby are nervous, because they think what’s coming sometime next year is a smackdown of a cornerstone issue: whether modern semiautomatic rifles and pistols are protected by the Second Amendment. Outright bans in about a dozen states could be nullified, and their hysteria-laden diatribes about “weapons of war” would be up against a Supreme Court ruling they will not be able to pretend doesn’t exist.
The Watters question came several days after it was reported by CNN that El-Sayed—in a report blocked by a paywall—that the progressive Democrat had, back in April 2023, made the suggestion in a now-hidden YouTube video. The story was covered by Fox News and the Washington Times.
Earlier this month, El-Sayed won the Michigan primary against moderate Democrat Rep. Haley Stevens by a single percentage point. He will now face former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers in the Nov. 3 general election. That race was recently described as a “toss up” by the Cook Political Report.
Another credible news agency, The Hill, had also reported on the “re-surfaced” videos, explaining that the YouTube podcast in question showed El-Sayed “suggesting that lawmakers replace the Second Amendment with a constitutional right to healthcare and encouraging the public to rethink the way it celebrates Independence Day in clips that are now deleted.”
As reported by TheGunMag.com, “In the video, according to the various news reports, El-Sayed asks, “What if we tweaked the Constitution, amended the amendment, and instead of the right to bear arms, we change it to the right to have health care?” Apparently now El-Sayed thinks if he dances around that suggestion, people may forget about it.
While the Second Amendment question may not seem as important as tax schemes, ICE deportations of illegal aliens and child sex changes in the proverbial “broad scheme” of things, it will be very important to gun owners in Michigan, and everywhere else, if Democrats re-take the U.S. Senate with El-Sayed as a member of the Democrat caucus.
Recent court rulings in the Ninth and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals, one rejecting a lawsuit seeking to force the ATF to toughen its regulations on so-called “ghost guns” and the other declaring New Mexico’s 7-day waiting period unconstitutional, are adding to anti-gunners’ consternation. They are witnessing the crumbling of their gun prohibition crusade.
Now, with their fast-talking, evasive Michigan candidate for the U.S Senate not-so-artfully dodging a question about his feelings toward the Second Amendment, they may be facing a campaign issue they don’t want between now and November.
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
South Africa is presiding over the Arms Trade Treaty conference after firearms diverted from police custody were linked to more than 1,000 murders. AmmoLand News editorial illustration made with AI assistance.
South Africa is presiding over an international arms-control conference this week, and the timing could not better expose the failure of its restrictive gun control regime.
The National Association for Gun Rights sent its president, Dudley Brown, to represent the organization at the Twelfth Conference of States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty, which is meeting in Geneva from August 24–28, 2026. NAGR confronted the delegates with a fact they would rather ignore: South Africa is leading a conference supposedly devoted to stopping illicit arms diversion after firearms controlled by South African police were diverted to criminal gangs and linked to more than 1,000 murders.
“Some would say South Africa is a product of this agenda,” Brown told the conference, connecting the country’s restrictive firearms regime to the international gun control movement represented in the room.
33 people are shot dead in South Africa every day. This week, the UN handed that country the gavel at its Arms Trade Treaty conference.
South Africa passed some of the strictest gun laws on earth. Citizens surrendered their guns under threat of prison. Then police tasked with… pic.twitter.com/Kvr7rdEW12
South Africa enacted its Firearms Control Act in 2000, imposing licensing, competency, registration, storage, and renewal requirements on peaceful citizens. Those who failed to satisfy the state faced confiscation and criminal prosecution.
The gun control lobby demanded that citizens trust the government with their safety and their firearms. The government proved it deserved neither.
Between 2007 and 2015, former police officers diverted roughly 2,000 guns awaiting destruction from police stores. The firearms were removed from government records and supplied to gangs on the Cape Flats.
A published criminology study reported that investigators linked 888 of those firearms to 1,066 murders between 2010 and 2016. A later class-action lawsuit against the South African Police Service alleges that the guns killed more than 1,000 people, including at least 67 children, and injured thousands more.
These were not lawful gun owners running wild. These were firearms placed under state control and entrusted to officials who claimed they would destroy them. Corrupt police instead helped arm the killers.
As Brown wrote in his post on X, “The state took their guns and armed their killers.”
That one sentence demolishes the entire gun control sales pitch.
The Arms Trade Treaty Is Still a Gun Control Threat
The treaty’s defenders insist that the ATT concerns international transfers of conventional weapons rather than American domestic gun ownership. Gun owners should not be fooled by the description. The treaty covers small arms, its advocates openly demand “universalization,” and the international disarmament lobby has never concealed its hostility toward privately owned firearms.
The Second Amendment recognizes and protects a preexisting individual right that government has no lawful authority to infringe. No treaty, foreign diplomat, international NGO, or collection of unelected bureaucrats can amend “shall not be infringed.”
Nor is armed self-defense merely an American privilege. Free people possess the natural right to defend themselves against criminals, invaders, and tyrants. A government monopoly on arms does not create safety. It creates helpless subjects while leaving criminals, corrupt officials, and the state itself armed.
South Africa is not an example the conference should follow. It is an indictment of the entire gun control philosophy. The government restricted peaceful citizens, took possession of firearms marked for destruction, and then failed to stop its own officials from funneling those weapons to murderers.
The answer is not more government power, more registries, more confiscation, or more international supervision. The answer is an armed citizenry that does not surrender its rights or its means of self-defense.
NAGR carried that message into the gun grabbers’ own conference. Every American gun owner should be prepared to carry it here at home. Our rights are not negotiable, and the United Nations can keep its hands off our guns.
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.
NIST found significant disagreement in the existing research over whether firearm microstamping can reliably produce repeatable and legible identifying marks. iStock-2180828170
For nearly two decades, gun-control politicians have promoted firearm “microstamping” as if it were a proven crime-solving tool. Gun owners and manufacturers have pointed out the obvious problems: firing pins wear, fouling obscures microscopic markings, parts are easily replaced, and anyone can pick up another shooter’s brass. Now, a federal technical review has refused to validate the politicians’ sales pitch.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency within the Department of Commerce, reviewed the available research at the request of House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Brian Babin, R-Texas. Its response, reported by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, found that the existing studies do not establish that microstamping consistently produces repeatable and legible identifying marks.
“There is significant disagreement regarding the viability of this technology,” NIST stated.
That is a considerably different conclusion from what gun-control politicians in California and New Jersey have been telling the public.
What Microstamping Is Supposed to Do
Microstamping generally involves laser-engraving an identifying code onto a pistol’s firing pin. When the pistol is fired, the firing pin is supposed to imprint that code onto the primer of the spent cartridge case.
In theory, investigators could recover the casing and use the code to identify the firearm connected to it. That is the sales pitch. But as always, the real world is far less cooperative.
NIST noted that firearm design, ammunition type, primer coatings, residue, firing-pin movement, wear, repeated firing, and maintenance can all affect whether the microscopic code is transferred clearly enough to be read. Rimfire ammunition presents another problem because it does not use a centerfire primer.
The agency also found that the available studies are too limited to demonstrate viability across the broad range of firearms and ammunition found in actual use. There have not been adequate large-scale, independent blind studies establishing that the technology will work reliably outside a controlled demonstration.
NIST did not conduct its own laboratory testing and does not currently maintain a microstamping research program. That limitation should be reported clearly. This was a review of existing research, not a new federal experiment.
Even with that caveat, NIST could not confirm the claims being used to justify state mandates.
The agency also acknowledged the problem every gun owner immediately sees: A criminal can replace the firing pin, damage the engraved surface, or swap parts. NIST reported that no realistic mechanical solution currently exists to prevent those modifications.
Of course, the criminal who steals a gun, files off a serial number, or carries it into a robbery is unlikely to worry about violating another law prohibiting alteration of a microstamp.
California Is Moving Toward a 2028 Mandate
The federal findings are an important development as California is preparing another microstamping requirement under Senate Bill 452.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office declared the technology viable in July 2025. The state must next determine whether qualifying components are commercially available at reasonable prices or whether microstamping-enabled pistols are readily available for purchase.
If California makes that additional finding, licensed dealers could be prohibited beginning January 1, 2028, from transferring newly manufactured or delivered semiautomatic pistols that have not been certified as microstamping-enabled.
AmmoLand has covered California’s use of microstamping requirements to keep modern pistols off its handgun roster. After the state activated its earlier mandate in 2013, ordinary Californians were largely restricted to older handgun designs because manufacturers could not add new semiautomatic pistol models without complying with an impractical requirement.
That was never a technological accident. An impossible product mandate functions as a ban without lawmakers having to admit that they passed one.
New Jersey has followed the same playbook. In 2024, Attorney General Matthew Platkin declared microstamping viable and began implementing a law intended to create a roster of approved pistols. As AmmoLand reported at the time, the state had not identified a commercially available pistol that gun dealers could actually stock.
Gun Owners Pay for Political Theater
Microstamping does not stop a violent criminal from obtaining, stealing, or firing a gun. It does not prevent someone from replacing a firing pin. It cannot establish who fired a recovered firearm, and it creates the possibility that brass collected from a public range could be planted at a crime scene.
What it can do is increase manufacturing costs, shrink the number of handguns available to lawful buyers, create new databases, and give anti-gun officials another excuse to ban ordinary firearms.
The Second Amendment does not allow government to condition the purchase of a common handgun on compliance with speculative technology. The burden remains on the government to justify its restrictions—not on gun owners to redesign firearms around a political fantasy.
NIST’s review does not repeal California or New Jersey law, and it is not a court ruling. But it does strip away part of the claim that microstamping is settled science. Lawmakers considering these mandates now have a federal technical assessment warning that the technology remains disputed, inadequately tested, and easily defeated. Gun owners have been saying that for years.
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.
The CDC has restored estimates indicating that Americans use firearms defensively between 60,000 and 2.5 million times annually. AmmoLand News image created with AI assistance.
Under the Biden administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quietly removed data about the defensive use of firearms from its website. Those statistics are now being restored.
Various studies show that guns are used in self-defense between 60,000 and 2.5 million times each year. Even the low end of that range dwarfs the number of guns used in murders each year (approximately 15,000) and approaches or exceeds the total number of gun deaths per year (around 44,000, according to the Pew Research Center, a figure that includes suicides). The wide range of estimates comes from different methodologies and data sources. The lower figures often draw on the National Crime Victimization Survey, while the higher end primarily stems from surveys conducted by criminologist Gary Kleck in the early 1990s. A 2013 National Academies of Sciences report commissioned by the CDC itself referenced this range of 60,000 to 2.5 million defensive gun uses annually.
Gun-Control Advocates Wanted the Number Gone
In 2022, under pressure from anti-gun groups including, the Gun Violence Archive, Newtown Action Alliance, and GVPedia, in a private meeting, the CDC scrubbed its website of this defensive gun use information. A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request later revealed that the removal was purely political. According to emails obtained by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and others, these groups argued the estimates had created a roadblock to enacting further restrictions on the Second Amendment.
“[T]hat 2.5 million number needs to be killed, buried, dug up, killed again and buried again,” Mark Bryant, executive director of the Gun Violence Archive, wrote to the CDC in one of the emails. “It is highly misleading, is used out of context, and I honestly believe it has zero value — even as an outlier point in honest DGU discussions.”
According to the emails reported by The Reload, Bryant and his allies focused their objections on the high-end estimate, claiming it was repeatedly “debunked” without giving evidence and was being used as a “blunt instrument” against gun control legislation. They contended that as long as the figure remained associated with the CDC, it hindered policy efforts.
Former Associate Director for Policy, Partnerships, and Strategic Communication at the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention Beth Reimels was open to modifying the data to satisfy the Gun Violence Archive’s request. Neither she nor anyone else at the CDC appears to have reached out to researchers who conducted studies that support higher estimates of defensive gun use for balance.
“We are planning to update the fact sheet in early 2022 after the release of some new data,” Reimels wrote in a subsequent email to Bryant. “We will also make some edits to the content we discussed that I think will address the concerns you and other partners have raised.”
The agency ultimately removed the specific numerical range and the link to its own review of the research. Officials later claimed the wide variability made the numbers confusing or potentially outdated, yet the change followed months of one-sided lobbying rather than any new comprehensive study. Critics noted that the CDC did not consult defenders of the data or announce the edit transparently at the time. The result was a public-facing presentation of firearm statistics that emphasized harms while omitting substantial evidence of benefits.
Restoring the Complete Picture
This episode illustrated how the presentation of institutional data can be shaped by advocacy rather than by pure science. Defensive gun use data matters because it provides context for the broader debate over firearms policy. When only criminal misuse and suicide statistics are highlighted, the full picture of civilian firearm ownership, including its role in deterring or stopping crime, is obscured.
Law-abiding citizens who use guns to protect themselves, their families, or others rarely make headlines in the same way mass shootings do, yet the cumulative numbers are significant by any measure within the documented range.
Now, under the direction of President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the CDC is returning the statistics to its firearm injury and death page. The restored language again notes that estimates of defensive gun use vary by study design and cites the range of 60,000 to 2.5 million each year, referencing the National Academies report.
This change marks a welcome pivot after years in which the CDC appeared responsive primarily to gun control advocates. Restoring the data does not settle every methodological dispute, but it returns publicly funded information to a more complete and balanced presentation.
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.
