Editor’s Note:This article is an opinion column by Roger Katz. The views expressed are his alone and do not necessarily reflect those of AmmoLand News, its editors, or staff.
The Supreme Court’s upcoming review in Trump v. Barbara will put the constitutional fight over birthright citizenship squarely before the justices. iStock-2264399815
Trump has asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to prevail on the U.S. Supreme Court to correct the horrible injustice that the incorrigibly corrupt and deceitful Biden Administration has exacted on the American people. The case is Trump vs. Barbara. The Press has dubbed it “The Birthright Citizenship Case.”
The Supreme Court has granted review on December 5, 2025. Oral argument is scheduled for April 1. A decision is expected in early Summer.
The importance of this case to the future well-being of a Free Republic and to our Bill of Rights, especially the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, cannot be overstated.
Trump vs. Barbara brings to bear a matter that the Court has spent little time considering: What does it mean to be an American? That raises the issue of the nature of our National (American) Character, our Nation’s Ethos.
The American Ethos is bound inextricably to the concept of the need for a well-armed citizenry, an abhorrence of tyranny, justifiable suspicion of government usurpation of power, and the sovereignty of the American People (“The Common Man”) over government.
In the question presented for review in petitioner’s brief, the DOJ, on behalf of Trump, says:
“The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that those “born * * * in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” are U.S. citizens. . . . The Clause was adopted to confer citizenship on the newly freed slaves and their children, not on the children of aliens temporarily visiting the United States or of illegal aliens. On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order No. 14,160, Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship, which restores the original meaning of the Citizenship Clause and provides. . . that children of temporary visitors and illegal aliens are not U.S. citizens by birth.”
Working with Congressional Democrat Marxist-Socialists, Biden’s people opened the floodgates. Millions of unvetted aliens poured into our Country.
Not an insignificant number included pregnant women, set on giving birth to their offspring on American soil.
Based on past practice, they assume their children would automatically become citizens and that, once a child attained the age of 21, he could then sponsor his parents for a “green card.”
A longstanding but controversial shibboleth says the child is presumptively a U.S. citizen under an anachronistic and archaic monarchic doctrine called “Jus Soli” (Right of Soil) grounded on old English Common Law.
In 1898, the Supreme Court applied that English Common Law Canon to American Law in the case United States vs. Kim Wong Ark, but the decision wasn’t unanimous.
Chief Justice Fuller and Associate Justice Harlan wrote a comprehensive, vigorous dissent. Their legal and logical reasoning is insightful, and their intuitive understanding of what such a catastrophic decision would have on the well-being of the Nation in the decades to come, prescient.
Curiously, the British abolished citizenship via Jus Soli on January 1, 1983, adopting the sensible citizenship Jus Sanguinis (“Right of Blood”) standard that most nations follow today.
The legal and logical rationale for maintaining the feudal-era concept of allegiance to the King, predicated solely on birth within the Realm, is both wrong and wrong-headed.
Our Nation was never a monarchy and the Framers of our Constitution found the notion of fashioning a monarchic governmental structure for the new nation repugnant—especially after having thrown off the yoke of monarchic, despotic rule.
They crafted the nascent Nation as a “Free Constitutional Republic.”
The practical impact of credence to “Jus Soli” citizenship in our Republic is awful to contemplate; we Americans are witnessing the dire effects of its application today.
Unlike Feudal England, our Republic has no resemblance to a Monarchy.
Tens of millions of illegal aliens who have entered our Country have no knowledge of governmental frameworks. And they have no understanding, nor appreciation for our Constitution, our unalienable, eternal Rights and Liberties, our History, Heritage and Traditions, and our core beliefs.
Such pseudo-citizens dropped on our soil by illegal aliens and manipulated by scurrilous demagogues would vote people into office whose aim is to destroy our Nation from within.
To effectuate that aim, Democrats (Marxist-Socialists) and their symbiotic Fake-News Press constantly attack civilian citizen possession of firearms, well aware that without the armed citizenry, there is no tenable means to preserve the Security of a Free State.
Democrats are drawing our Country ever closer toward a tyranny and accomplishing that with the avid assistance of millions of unassimilable aliens and a significant number of home-bred American Marxist-Socialist cultists.
Outside threats to a Free Republic also abound.
CCP China is one of those dangerous threats that seek to exert control over our Nation. Mexico presents a similar problem for us.
Many Americans are blind to the myriad threats posed to our Nation or otherwise psychologically conditioned to see the annihilation of the Republic as a good thing, a worthy aim.
How important is the armed citizenry to a Free State? Just consider the plight of the Iranian people today.
The liberal media doesn’t posit why Iranians haven’t risen up against the savage, hateful Theocratic Islamic regime, given the massive, devastating airpower that the U.S. and Israel brought to bear against it.
The reason is plain but the Press suppresses it—having no wish to mention it: Iranians have no firearms.
The Theocratic Dictatorship doesn’t allow ordinary people to possess firearms, lest they depose the Tyrant.
Only an armed citizenry can effectively defeat a tyrannical regime. That is axiomatic.
Democrats hate our Country. They know an insurgency of tens of millions of aliens can be mobilized to achieve their endgame, one that armed Americans would never accept, nor tolerate, nor abide. Thus, Democrats dare not clearly enunciate their objectives:
The eradication of the Constitution, the rewriting of our history, the erasure of our heritage and core beliefs, the de facto elimination of the natural law right codified in the Second Amendment along with our other basic rights, and the dissolution of a Free Republic.
These aims are all part of the Democrat Marxist-Socialist agenda and legacy.
Those people and groups inside and outside Government that detest our Country look forward to a Court decision in their favor, one reaffirming, embellishing on, and making irrefutable an age-old, outmoded Supreme Court ruling grounded on an absurd thesis and illogical reasoning: Kim Wong Ark.
Such a decision would mark our slide toward oblivion. The die would be cast with the High Court’s own imprimatur as the Nation wends its way inexorably and inevitably toward tyranny. That would be both ironic and insufferable.
This is why a positive decision in Trump vs. Barbara is as vital to the Security of a Free State as would be a decision in a straightforward major Second Amendment case.
But Roberts shuns reviewing major cases with political implications for his legacy, despite claiming impartiality.
Recall, at Roberts’ urging the Court perfunctorily denied review of two significant Second Amendment cases in 2025.
The first is Antonyuk vs. James, involving the New York Government’s blatant, hostile, and contemptuous act of defiance toward the Court’s rulings and reasoning in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association vs. Bruen.
The second is Snope vs. Brown, coming out of Maryland, involving the State’s ban on civilian citizen possession of semiautomatic weapons—an act of subversion toward a finding in District of Columbia vs. Heller that weapons in common use plainly fall within the Second Amendment’s protection.
Why then did Chief Justice allow review of this Birthright Citizenship case given the decisive impact it would have on the Country, for good or ill?
Our guess is that, unlike the Second Amendment cases, Justice Roberts had to take up Trump vs. Barbara.
Political momentum existed for it, and most of the Justices likely wanted to hear it.
Impetus for it also came from the President. And failure to grant review wouldn’t help the Court anyway, for the 128-year-old contentious Kim Wong Ark case would remain as presumptively legitimate in a Country now confronted with millions of unassimilable illegal aliens and their offspring.
The Court has the opportunity now to correct this travesty.
Individuals born of illegal aliens or temporary visitors to our Country are not citizens of the United States. Trump is spot-on, right.
The Supreme Court must strike down Kim Wong Ark and protect the present and future viability of a Free Republic and its mainstay—the citizen army.
But will it do so?
If a majority of the Justices, including Roberts, reaffirms the 1898 case holding, then they have effectively signed the Nation’s death warrant, paving the way for dissolution of a Free Republic, and eradication of the citizen army by bureaucratic and legal fiat.
This would mean some Justices utilized their tremendous Article III power not to protect the Constitution but to harm it irrevocably. If that occurs, Congress should immediately draw up papers of impeachment against those Justices who betrayed us.
Roger is an attorney licensed to practice law in Ohio and Arizona, and he is CEO of Arbalest Group, LLC.
He is a graduate from Cleveland State University, Cleveland Marshall College of Law, and was an Editor of Law Review, and he has earned a Master of Public Administration Degree from Cleveland State University. Roger also holds several degrees from The Ohio State University: a Master of Arts degree in Philosophy, a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, and a Bachelor of Science in Education degree in Secondary English Education.
Roger has worked as a high school English teacher and as a university administrative assistant. On earning a law degree he worked for several years as a Trademarks Examining Attorney with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in Washington D.C., and later worked as an attorney for a boutique intellectual property law firm in New York City.
Roger’s goal, working full-time on the Arbalest Quarrel website, involves preparing comprehensive and detailed analyses of case law pertaining to First and Second Amendment issues, and analyses of Federal and State laws and bills impacting the Bill of Rights, generally, and the Second Amendment, particularly.
Roger takes as axiomatic that, to maintain a free Constitutional Republic, our Bill of Rights must be preserved. If the latter falls, the former falls.
Zimmerman v. Bondi challenges federal rules that force law-abiding gun owners to disarm in certain facilities and restricted areas inside America’s national parks. IMG Jim Grant
A Texas gun owner, Firearms Policy Coalition, and the Second Amendment Foundation are taking aim at federal carry restrictions inside America’s national parks, arguing the government cannot keep expanding so-called “sensitive places” without any real historical basis. The new lawsuit challenges the ban on firearms in National Park Service-operated federal facilities and other restricted park areas as unconstitutional under Bruen.
The complaint, Zimmerman v. Bondi, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division, by Gary Zimmerman, Firearms Policy Coalition, and the Second Amendment Foundation against U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi in her official capacity. The plaintiffs are seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, not damages.
At the center of the complaint is 18 U.S.C. § 930(a), the federal law that bars the knowing possession of firearms in a “federal facility,” and 36 C.F.R. § 1.5, a regulation the complaint says is used by park officials to impose park-specific restrictions on where firearms may be carried within national parks. The suit challenges Section 930(a) as applied to National Park Service-operated federal facilities and challenges Section 1.5 to the extent it is used to further limit lawful carry inside national parks.
According to the complaint, Zimmerman is a Fort Worth, Texas resident, an NRA-certified firearms instructor, and a certified license-to-carry instructor for multiple states. The filing says he holds active handgun carry licenses in ten states and regularly carries a handgun for self-defense while traveling.
The lawsuit leans heavily on Zimmerman’s travel history to establish standing. It says he and his wife hold lifetime national park passes and frequently visit parks for recreation. The complaint states Zimmerman has visited Big Bend National Park almost annually over the last eight years and has visited Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park six times over the last decade. But because of the laws being challenged, he says he has repeatedly been forced to disarm when entering federal facilities inside parks or other areas where firearm carry has been prohibited.
The complaint gives a specific recent example from Mammoth Cave National Park. According to the filing, Zimmerman visited the park last August and had to disarm to enter federal facilities for permits and shopping, and again when touring the cave itself. The complaint says that while in those locations he was left unable to defend himself against an attack.
The complaint describes the challenged federal law in straightforward terms. Under 18 U.S.C. § 930(a), possessing a firearm in a federal facility is a crime. The filing notes that a “federal facility” means a building owned or leased by the federal government where federal employees are regularly present for official duties, and says that includes places inside national parks such as visitor centers, ranger stations, fee collection buildings, maintenance facilities, and government offices. A violation can be punished by a fine, imprisonment for less than a year, or both.
The complaint then points to 36 C.F.R. § 1.5, which allows park officials to impose closures and public-use restrictions. As one example, the lawsuit cites Mammoth Cave National Park’s superintendent’s compendium, which the complaint says bans the carriage of firearms on cave tours. Violating a closure imposed under that regulation can carry a fine, up to six months in prison, or both.
The legal theory is built squarely on the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. The complaint argues that Bruen already established that carrying firearms publicly for self-defense falls within the plain text of the Second Amendment, which means the burden shifts to the government to prove its restriction is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
From there, the plaintiffs take aim at the government’s likely “sensitive places” defense. The complaint points to Bruen’s warning that governments cannot simply label broad swaths of public space as sensitive places just because people gather there. It argues that if the government wants to ban firearms in a particular location, it must identify a well-established historical analogue.
The plaintiffs say that history is not on the government’s side here. The complaint notes that Bruen identified legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses as recognized founding-era sensitive places. It then argues those places shared a common feature: comprehensive government-provided security. According to the complaint, federal facilities located within national parks do not have that kind of security. Zimmerman specifically alleges that when he has entered these facilities in the past, they were not secured in a way that ensured no one brought a firearm inside.
That is the complaint’s core argument in plain English. The plaintiffs are saying the government cannot stretch the “sensitive places” idea to cover ordinary park buildings and other park-designated areas without proving there is a real historical tradition of doing so. And they say that history does not exist.
The complaint ultimately asks the court to declare 18 U.S.C. § 930(a) and firearms restrictions imposed under 36 C.F.R. § 1.5 unconstitutional to the extent they bar the possession and carrying of firearms within national parks, and to permanently enjoin their enforcement in that same scope. It also seeks costs and attorney’s fees.
For now, what matters is that this case tees up a direct post-Bruen challenge to one of the federal government’s most familiar carry restrictions. If the plaintiffs can convince the court that national park facilities are not historically grounded “sensitive places,” the case could become another important test of how far the government can go in carving out supposedly gun-free zones from the right to bear arms.
The Second Circuit’s oral argument in Calce v. City of New York showed exactly how hostile courts can keep anti-gun laws alive without ever honestly grappling with the Second Amendment.
At issue is New York City’s ban on civilian possession of stun guns and tasers—electronic arms commonly marketed as less-lethal self-defense tools. The plaintiffs, backed by the Second Amendment Foundation and Firearms Policy Coalition, say that should have been an easy case after the Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in Caetano v. Massachusetts, which made clear that stun guns are “arms” and cannot be excluded from Second Amendment protection simply because they are modern weapons. But during argument, the Second Circuit panel looked less interested in confronting Caetano head-on and more interested in whether it could dispose of the case on a technical evidentiary ground instead.
This has become a popular post-Bruen tactic that anti-gun courts have used to push the burden on gun owners and never force the government to justify its ban with real historical analogues.
The Real Fight Was Over “Common Use” and Who Has to Prove It
At argument, plaintiffs’ counsel told the panel the district court got the threshold question wrong by treating electronic stun guns and electronic dart guns as outside the Second Amendment’s plain text unless the challengers first proved they were in “common use.” He argued that the textual question should be simple: if the item is a weapon, it is an “arm,” and only after that does the burden shift to the government under Bruen to justify a ban through historical tradition. But the panel immediately pushed back with Gomez.
One judge pointed counsel to the Second Circuit’s 2025 decision in United States v. Gomez, which treated “common use” as part of Bruen step one and suggested the plaintiff bears the burden of proving the weapon is commonly used for lawful self-defense. From there, the questioning focused on the record: What actual evidence did plaintiffs submit? How many stun guns are out there? How are they used? Is there admissible proof they are commonly possessed by ordinary civilians for lawful purposes?
That line of questioning is important because it shows where the panel may be headed. Instead of announcing that stun guns are not protected arms, the court may simply say the plaintiffs did not submit enough evidence to prove common use under Rule 56. Bloomberg Law described the hearing the same way, reporting that the judges signaled there was not enough evidence in the record to fully analyze whether New York City’s ban violates the Second Amendment.
That would be a narrow ruling on paper, but the practical effect would still be to keep the ban alive.
The City Tried to Recast the Case as Purely Procedural
The city’s lawyer leaned hard into that narrower approach. According to the argument, New York City did not tell the panel stun guns are categorically not “arms.” Instead, the city argued that the district court simply lacked enough evidence to decide the question in plaintiffs’ favor. The city’s position was that after Gomez, plaintiffs bear the burden at step one to show common use for lawful purposes, and that they failed to supply reliable record evidence on how many stun guns and tasers are in civilian hands, how they are typically used, and whether they are commonly possessed for self-defense.
The city even attacked the kinds of sources the challengers relied on—other court decisions, a Congressional Research Service source, a New York Post article, and Justice Alito’s concurrence in Caetano—as insufficient proof for summary judgment. During argument, the judges repeatedly returned to that point, asking whether newspaper articles and findings from other courts could really carry the plaintiffs’ burden in this record. The court also seemed ready to ignore the superior court’s, which in this case is the United States Supreme Court’s, opinion on this matter.
Why That “Narrow” Approach Is Still a Problem for Gun Owners
Gun owners should not be fooled by the “this is just Rule 56” framing. The district court already granted summary judgment to New York City in March 2025, holding that plaintiffs failed to establish that stun guns and tasers are presumptively protected arms because they did not show those arms were in common use. The opinion expressly treated common use as part of the threshold analysis rather than as part of the government’s historical burden.
That is exactly the sort of doctrinal sleight of hand that has become common after Bruen. If lower courts can move “common use” into the plain-text stage, then the citizen challenging the law carries the burden early, and the government may never have to prove that the ban matches the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. NRA-ILA’s amicus brief in the case made that point directly, arguing that the burden should not be on plaintiffs to prove stun guns are “common enough” before receiving constitutional protection, because bearable arms are presumptively covered and it is the government’s job to show otherwise.
So while the city framed its argument as procedural modesty, the effect is substantive. A court can keep an anti-gun law in place simply by saying the plaintiff did not bring enough evidence to pass a gatekeeping test the Supreme Court never clearly assigned to the plaintiff in the first place.
Caetano Is Still the Problem the Second Circuit Cannot Escape
That is why Caetano hangs over this case, no matter how carefully the Second Circuit tries to write around it.
In Caetano, the Supreme Court summarily reversed a Massachusetts decision that had upheld a stun gun ban. The Court rejected the idea that weapons are unprotected because they were not in common use at the Founding or because they are modern inventions. Justice Alito’s concurrence went further, pointing to evidence that hundreds of thousands of stun guns had been sold to private citizens and emphasizing that the Second Amendment does not protect only arms that existed in the 18th century.
The challengers in Calce leaned on that. At oral argument, their lawyer argued that the district court had become an outlier and noted that other courts, including the Illinois Supreme Court and federal courts in New York, had treated stun guns as protected arms or at least had not adopted the district court’s cramped approach.
That leaves the Second Circuit in an awkward spot. If it says too much, it risks inviting Supreme Court review. If it says too little, it still leaves in place a ban on a class of arms the Supreme Court has already ruled are protected.
The judges did not sound fully sold on the city’s theory that stun guns are outside the Second Amendment. At one point, a judge openly suggested having “a hard time” with the argument that stun guns or tasers are not within the meaning of protected arms, especially given that they are less lethal than handguns. But the panel also repeatedly pressed plaintiffs on the weakness of their evidentiary record and on why they had not submitted more concrete proof about civilian ownership and lawful use.
The case remains active in the Second Circuit under docket number 25-861, and no decision has been issued yet.
If the panel affirms on narrow grounds, New York City will still have won what matters most in the short term: the ban stays in place. But a decision like that would also sharpen the larger question for higher review—whether “common use” is really a Bruen step-one burden on the citizen, or whether lower courts are using that theory to keep dodging the Supreme Court’s command that the government must justify modern gun-control laws with actual history.
That is the real fight in Calce. The stun gun issue is important on its own. But the bigger issue is whether lower courts get to nullify Bruen by turning every arms-ban case into a battle over plaintiff-supplied statistics before the government ever has to prove its ban is constitutional.
As Mark Smith of the Four Boxes Diner put it, this should be a layup under Caetano, and if the Second Circuit still twists itself into a narrow ruling to protect New York City’s ban, it will just prove once again that some lower courts are still looking for ways to dodge the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment framework.
Ohio Senate Bill 392, the “Freedom to Carry Act,” would broaden Ohio’s concealed-carry framework beyond handguns and lower the licensing age threshold to 18. iStock-499330617
Ohio Senate Bill 392 (SB392) was introduced into the Ohio legislature on March 23, 2026. It is a long bill of 182 pages that reforms and rationalizes much of the Ohio code governing the possession and carry of weapons. Here is the summary as listed in Legiscan.
To amend sections 9.68, 109.69, 109.731, 311.41, 311.42, 311.43, 1547.69, 2921.13, 2923.11, 2923.111, 2923.12, 2923.121, 2923.122, 2923.123, 2923.124, 2923.125, 2923.126, 2923.127, 2923.128, 2923.129, 2923.1210, 2923.1211, 2923.1212, 2923.1213, 2923.16, 2923.17, 2953.35, 4511.19, and 4749.10 and to repeal section 1533.04 of the Revised Code to enact the Freedom to Carry Act to rename a concealed handgun license a concealed weapons license, to allow a concealed weapons licensee to carry a concealed deadly weapon other than an exclusive deadly weapon,
and to allow the possession or transportation of a loaded firearm while in a motor vehicle or vessel.
Much of the bill replaces references to “handgun” with broader “deadly weapon” language, suggesting lawmakers are trying to expand or clarify Ohio’s carry framework beyond handguns. The bill appears aimed at resolving whether licensed or otherwise lawful carry extends to other deadly weapons under Ohio law.
The bill continues to prohibit some weapons which may fall under the category of “dangerous and unusual” as used in Second Amendment jurisprudence following the Heller, MacDonald, Caetano, and Bruen decisions. For example, it appears destructive devices are still banned from carry if they are not owned in accordance with National Firearms Act provisions.
Here is the definition of “exclusive deadly weapon” in the bill. Underlined words are new words. Strike-through words are words to be removed. The weapons meeting the definition are a very short list:
(2) “Exclusive deadly weapon” means a deadly weapon that is an exclusive firearm or that is a deadly weapon that any law of this state or the United States prohibits the subject person from acquiring, possessing, having, or carrying.
(3) “Exclusive firearm” means a firearm that is dangerous ordnance or that is a firearm that any law of this state or the United States prohibits the subject person from acquiring, possessing, having, or carrying.
The bill would narrow the category of weapons excluded from the broader carry framework by defining “exclusive” weapons as dangerous ordnance or weapons otherwise prohibited by state or federal law.
In addition, SB 392 would lower the age threshold in Ohio’s concealed carry licensing framework from 21 to 18.
(2) “Qualifying adult” means a person who is all of the following:
(a) Twenty-oneEighteen years of age or older;
The bill changes the definition of prohibited weapons from a very specific reference to the National Firearms Act (NFA) provisions to a general provision. This is likely put in place so that if the courts strike down the parts of the NFA, the Ohio legislature will not be required to revise Ohio laws again. From the bill:
(b) Not legally prohibited from acquiring, possessing, or receiving a firearmdeadly weapon under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1) to (9) or under section 2923.13 of the Revised Code or any other Revised Code provisionthe law of this state or the United States;
There are changes that remove some of the restrictions on the carry of weapons in vehicles and vessels.
SB392 is one of the longest state bills this reporter has encountered in decades. It has a significant chance of being amended if it is passed. The provisions appear to be clear rationalizations and clarifications in light of Supreme Court decisions involving the Second Amendment.
The Ohio Legislature has a supermajority of Republicans in the Senate, 24 of 33. The Ohio House of Representatives has a supermajority of Republicans in the House, 65 of 99. The Ohio Governor is Mike DeWine, a Republican.
SB392 has a good chance of passage. Its provisions are reasonable and likely to resonate with Ohio conservatives. This could boost Republicans’ electoral prospects in Ohio in the 2026 elections. This correspondent is not a lawyer. This article is not legal advice.
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 Ninth Circuit’s en banc hearing in Yukutake v. Lopez made one thing clear: several judges are deeply uneasy with Hawaii’s attempt to defend burdensome gun-purchase rules as mere “administrative details.”
At issue are two parts of Hawaii’s firearm acquisition system. One is the state’s permit validity period for handgun purchases. The other is a post-purchase inspection requirement for certain firearms not obtained through Hawaii-licensed dealers. Hawaii told the court these are minor, objective conditions tied to a “shall-issue” regime and therefore presumptively constitutional under Bruen and Heller.
But throughout the hearing, multiple judges questioned whether the state’s theory is a backdoor way of reviving interest balancing under a new label.
Arguing for the state, Joanne Sager said the challenged laws are only “two administrative details” of Hawaii’s licensing system: the handgun permit validity period and the inspection requirement for guns not purchased from licensed dealers. She insisted those rules do not meaningfully burden the right to keep and bear arms and said the plaintiffs had not shown they were actually prevented from acquiring firearms.
That framing did not go unchallenged.
Several judges repeatedly zeroed in on the Ninth Circuit’s recent “meaningful constraint” test from B&L Productions, asking where exactly that standard comes from and how it fits with Bruen’s text-and-history framework. One judge openly questioned whether “meaningful constraint” is doing any real legal work at all, suggesting the term has become fuzzy and unmoored from the Supreme Court’s command that courts focus on plain text first and historical tradition second.
That skepticism tracked closely with SAF’s live coverage of the argument. In the thread, SAF noted that judges were pressing Hawaii to explain what “meaningful constraint” even means and whether the state’s view boils down to saying the Second Amendment is only violated when the government “effectively denies” the right altogether.
Judge Nelson and VanDyke are asking the state about what “meaningful constraint” means.
State admits they see the standard is “Effectively denies” the 2A right.
VanDyke says that’s clearly more than “meaningful constraint”
That was one of the most important themes of the hearing. Hawaii’s lawyer repeatedly argued that acquisition is only an “ancillary” right and that not every regulation touching firearm acquisition implicates the Second Amendment in a way that requires historical justification. But some judges appeared unconvinced that acquisition can be treated as second-class constitutional conduct when buying a gun is often necessary to keep and bear one in the first place.
Bruen Footnote 9 Loomed Over the Entire Hearing
A major fault line in the case is how courts should understand Footnote 9 in N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen. That footnote suggested that shall-issue licensing systems with narrow, objective, and definite standards are generally permissible, while also warning that lengthy wait times or exorbitant fees could still be unconstitutional.
Hawaii leaned heavily on that footnote. The state argued that its laws are part of a larger shall-issue regime and should be treated as presumptively lawful at the first step of the Bruen analysis. It also argued that plaintiffs challenging such laws must show the rules have been put to “abusive ends” or function as a real-world barrier to arms ownership.
That theory ran into serious trouble with members of the en banc court.
Judges repeatedly asked how Footnote 9 can be squared with Bruen’s broader rule that once conduct is covered by the plain text of the Second Amendment, the burden shifts to the government to prove a historical analogue. Several judges questioned whether the ‘meaningful constraint’ approach risks smuggling tiers of scrutiny back into Second Amendment analysis, even though Bruen rejected means-end balancing.
That line also matched SAF’s thread, which repeatedly argued Hawaii was trying to use “meaningful constraint” to sidestep historical analysis altogether. SAF’s live commentary emphasized that several judges seemed troubled by the idea that a state can impose restrictions on acquisition without ever producing a historical tradition to support them.
The inspection requirement, which Hawaii defended as part of its registration system, drew especially sharp scrutiny.
Under Hawaii’s scheme, certain firearms not purchased through licensed in-state dealers, including 3D-printed firearms, must be brought in for inspection after acquisition. Hawaii defended that as part of firearm registration, saying the inspection simply ensures a serial number is present and matches the paperwork.
But judges were not uniformly buying the idea that forcing a citizen to present already-acquired personal property to the government is just some incidental administrative burden.
One judge pointed out that in many other legal contexts, government inspection requirements can implicate Fourth Amendment concerns. Another asked why requiring someone to physically bring a firearm to the state’s chosen location and within the state’s chosen time frame should be considered “incidental” at all.
Alan Beck, arguing for the plaintiffs, hammered that point. Beck said Hawaii’s inspection regime is unlike the shall-issue examples discussed in Bruen and stressed that no other state imposes this type of five-day post-purchase inspection requirement. He also told the court that the only similar law he was aware of had existed in the District of Columbia and was struck down in Heller III.
SAF’s live thread highlighted that exchange too, noting that judges asked what other state has such a post-purchase inspection law and that Beck answered: none.
Hawaii’s Moving Goalposts Became a Major Issue
Another important part of the argument involved Hawaii’s repeated amendments to its firearm laws while the case was being litigated.
The judges clearly noticed the pattern.
At several points, members of the court questioned how plaintiffs are supposed to bring an effective as-applied challenge when Hawaii keeps changing the rules after litigation begins. One judge suggested Hawaii appears to be “jerking around” its citizens by enacting restrictive laws, loosening them when challenged, and then trying to use those revisions to avoid a definitive ruling.
That concern came through strongly in SAF’s live commentary as well. The SAF thread described the judges as frustrated by Hawaii’s habit of changing its laws mid-litigation and then claiming the challenge has become harder to maintain because the current version is supposedly less burdensome.
Hawaii responded that the attorney general does not control the legislature and that the amendments should be seen as proof the state is making its laws less restrictive, not more abusive. But some judges seemed to view the state’s pattern as evidence that Hawaii keeps trying to find the outer edge of how much delay and hassle it can impose on gun owners before a court steps in.
That is not a small issue. In Second Amendment cases, states increasingly try to avoid losing broad precedent by constantly revising the challenged law before final judgment. A court that is serious about stopping that tactic will have to decide whether the government gets to keep moving the goalposts every time a plaintiff gets close to scoring.
Plaintiffs Urged the Court to Reject B&L’s “Meaningful Constraint” Test
Beck’s core argument was straightforward: if a law regulates conduct protected by the Second Amendment, courts should stop inventing extra threshold screens and simply do what Bruen said to do.
That means asking whether the conduct falls within the plain text of the Amendment and, if it does, requiring the government to justify the law through historical tradition.
Beck argued the Ninth Circuit’s “meaningful constraint” approach from B&L Productions has no basis in the Supreme Court’s cases and conflicts with Bruen and Rahimi. He told the court that acquisition necessarily implicates the right to keep and bear arms because possession is meaningless if law-abiding citizens cannot acquire firearms in the first place.
Some judges pressed him on the practical consequences of that argument, asking whether even tiny fees or minimal administrative rules would have to go through the full Bruen history test. Beck said yes. If the regulation touches protected conduct, then the government must justify it.
That is a cleaner rule than the one Hawaii offered, even if some judges appeared reluctant to embrace it in full.
The Real Fight Is Bigger Than Hawaii
This case is not just about one permit deadline or one inspection rule in one anti-gun state. It is about whether lower courts will follow Bruen as written or continue creating escape hatches for gun-control laws they do not want to strike down.
If the Ninth Circuit says Hawaii can impose delays, repeat permitting requirements, registration-related inspections, and other burdens on firearm acquisition without first producing a real historical analogue, then the right to keep and bear arms becomes subject to the same kind of balancing test Bruen supposedly killed off.
That is why SAF’s live thread kept coming back to one central point: Hawaii was arguing that these restrictions are acceptable because they are not a “major burden.” That is exactly the type of judicial weighing Bruen rejected.
The judges’ questioning suggests at least some members of the en banc court understand that danger. They repeatedly pressed Hawaii on whether its theory turns “meaningful constraint” into a watered-down form of scrutiny, one that lets courts uphold laws based on how burdensome they feel rather than whether they are rooted in this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
No decision was issued from the bench, and the case is now submitted.
Based on the hearing alone, Hawaii faced serious skepticism from multiple judges, especially on the source and meaning of the Ninth Circuit’s “meaningful constraint” doctrine, on the burden imposed by post-purchase inspections, and on the state’s repeated changes to the law during litigation.
At the same time, Footnote 9 remains a real complication for the challengers. Several judges clearly see it as an obstacle, and Hawaii relied on it heavily as cover for its broader argument that objective acquisition rules are presumptively lawful.
Still, if the Ninth Circuit is serious about applying Bruen honestly, the state should not be able to dodge history by relabeling gun-control burdens as mere paperwork.
For law-abiding gun owners in Hawaii, this case is about more than one permit window or one inspection appointment. It is about whether the government can treat the exercise of a constitutional right like a bureaucratic privilege that expires on the state’s timetable.
Editor’s Note:The following article contains the opinion and analysis of David Codrea. It is published as commentary and does not necessarily reflect the official views of AmmoLand News.
Immigration policy should defend the rights of American citizens. iStock-2186263668
“But you didn’t rebut me. You ignored or glossed over the points I made and focused on your own that avoid them,” I replied to Singh. “This has everything you need to truly rebut me — if you can,” I added, including a screenshot of my challenge, that has gone unanswered by those who disagree with my argument, since I first posted it almost nine years ago:
Audit all credible polls against real world experience in places like California and then produce credible data – not opinion, not anecdotes, not isolated examples, but something that can be independently validated – demonstrating that “amnesty” and a “pathway to citizenship” for MILLIONS of foreign nationals in this country illegally (and legally, with CURRENT culturally suicidal policies) WILL NOT overwhelmingly favor Democrats and anti-gunners.
Show your sources and methodologies for determining this WILL NOT result in supermajorities in state and federal legislatures that will then be able to pass all kinds of anti-gun edicts. Show how this WILL NOT result in nominations and confirmations of judges to the Supreme and federal courts who will uphold those edicts and reverse gains made to date.
My contention is that the issue presents a significant threat to government recognition of the right to keep and bear arms and that gun rights groups leading the fight to protect, restore, and advance that right are failing their members by ignoring it. And my recommendation from the March 10 article is to ask those groups:
“What are you going to do to counter the existential threat both legal and illegal immigration pose to the Second Amendment, and what reforms will you expect politicians you support to champion?”
If my contentions were untrue, rebutting them would be easy. Let’s stay focused and try.
In a 2017 article, I cited reports from 2013-2015 showing demographic changes shifting the electorate to the left and cited seven leading polls showing overwhelming numbers of immigrants “think controlling gun ownership is more important than protecting gun ownership rights.” And a subsequent Pew Research Center survey (2022) shows the numbers not improving (“More than seven-in-ten Latinos (73%) say it is more important to control gun ownership than to protect the right of Americans to own guns, greater than the 52% of U.S. adults overall who say the same”).
All the critics need to do to prove this wrong is to come up with numbers that credibly refute those given. They can’t because there are none. And they may not believe this, but I wish they could.
That Democrats, the party that puts its citizen disarmament agenda right in its platform (Chapter 5), favor a “pathway to citizenship” for illegal aliens is self-evident and longstanding. In 2014, Jeh Johnson, Barack Obama’s Homeland Security, told the United States Conference of Mayors that “the approximately 11 million people who are in the country illegally have ‘earned the right to be citizens.’” In 2018, Hillary Clinton proclaimed, “I have always been and remain a staunch advocate of comprehensive immigration reform that’s true to our values and treats every person with dignity, provides a pathway to full and equal citizenship.” And in 2022, Sen. Chuck Schumer declared, “The only way we’re going to have a great future in America is if we … get a path to citizenship for all 11 million, or however many undocumented, there are here.” (“However many” makes it more like anywhere from 22 to 30 million, a number that would absolutely change the balance of elections to favor wealth redistributionist Democrats.)
Then there’s legal immigration, which under current law encourages chain migration, “birthright citizenship,” and welfare benefits (“Nearly half of households headed by immigrants, those legally and illegally living in the United States, are on one or more forms of welfare, a Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) analysis of Census Bureau data reveals”), and further, no assured way to comprehensively vet refugees and Third World immigrants coming from countries where records are unreliable or nonexistent. The government (with its prime directives articulated in the preamble to the Constitution concluding with “to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”) makes laws that admit foreign nationals who do not support those objectives, and that is incompatible with the text, history, and tradition of Founding principles.
There’s an important criterion in my challenge, and that is that any meaningful refutation must provide credible data – not opinion, not anecdotes, not isolated examples. That’s because, and as I made clear in the piece that’s prompted pushback not just from Singh, but from others I’ll address later in this response, there are undeniably some great new Americans with a hard-won understanding of freedom that puts No Kings rally agitators and Moms Demand Action harridans to shame.
An activist who got me started in NRA activism in Los Angeles is an African-born Italian. A frequent contributor to The War on Guns is of Indian heritage. A Cuban refugee/immigrant is a mentor whose important research I rely on and whose writings I regularly publicize. And I publicly mourned the untimely death of another Cuban colleague and filmmaker whose life’s work exposed the evils of communism.
Remember: What I’ve been calling for are meaningful reforms that, to paraphrase Democrat President (and originalist Second Amendment supporter!) John F. Kennedy, ask what admitted foreign nationals can do for our country, not what it can do to enrich them and benefit pathway to citizenship Democrats and cheap labor Republicans who abet them.
Singh’s Non-Responsive Rebuttal Ignores My Challenge
He can’t say he didn’t know, because I sent it to him before he wrote his piece, with the question, “ How about you take the challenge first? It provides every opportunity to debunk my claims without changing the subject.” After all, he can’t refute my contentions unless he first addresses and then deconstructs them to show how they are wrong.
So, let’s see what he did address.
“Ideas and attitudes aren’t tied to genetics, and culture is a moving target,” Singh begins, making his points while ignoring mine. “Assimilation is a process that takes a generation or two at the most, as seen by previous waves of immigration to the United States.”
That refutes nothing I said. But it does refute the data cited above, that shows even after decades, sentiment still remains strongly anti-gun in landslide proportions. Besides, the midterms are coming up, and after that the next presidential election that will determine the composition of the Supreme Court with an ability to overturn Heller, McDonald, and Bruen, and uphold all those infringements coming out of Democrat strongholds with a vengeance.
Simply put, we don’t have “a generation or two.” Not if we want to resolve things peaceably.
“Secondly, culture can change without immigration,” Singh asserts, citing Vermont. Of course, it can, and nowhere have I ever said differently. My argument is that adding a foreign population of 70% anti-gun new voters on top of that will seal the deal.
“Gun control’s history debunks the ‘immigration threat’ to the Second Amendment,” Singh continues. “The worst gun control that we suffer to this day was passed by an overwhelmingly white, native-born electorate with immigrants having little say in it. Even within a person’s lifetime, political ideas, attitudes, and voting preferences change.”
Offering opinions and anecdotes without actual data to back them up, purposefully ignores my challenge and does nothing to refute my documented observations.
As one of the (few) responsive comments on X observed, “The question is not whether immigrants are the only or the most typical cause of gun control, but whether they do generally further it. Just because a population is a minority doesn’t mean that it can’t have large political impact if sufficiently motivated and united (e.g. gay marriage). No data is presented to support the proposition that immigrants’ views on gun control actually can/do change.”
Singh further ignores my challenge comparing declining birthrates (significantly not defining those terms and not looking at numbers) between “progressives” and “conservatives” in the “developed world,” and that’s a manipulated qualification the gun-grabbers use, concluding “the act of having kids makes people conservative.” Without further detailed elaboration, the charts he presents are meaningless.
“Conservative,” of course, is a relative term based on culture and time. A “conservative” in 1776 would have been a Tory. A conservative foreign national will embrace the cultural values they bring with them and teach those to their children. Segregating themselves into communities like Dearborn, or Minneapolis, or East Los Angeles is hardly conducive to the type of “conservatism” Singh makes witty repartees about, or if it does, he needs to show some numbers.
What he also ignores are studies showing that in spite of overall declines, “The relatively high fertility of immigrant women means that they continue to account for a disproportionate share of U.S. births. While 14% of the U.S. population in 2017 was foreign born, 23% of all births were to immigrant women.” Then factor in, “Nearly half of households headed by immigrants, those legally and illegally living in the United States, are on one or more forms of welfare, a Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) analysis of Census Bureau data reveals.”
That means a vote for Democrats is a vote for self-interest. And yes, of course, plenty of native-born citizens are being subsidized, no argument. But adding in millions more only makes things worse, especially once they get the vote. Change my mind.
“Knowledge changes minds,” Singh asserts. “I co-authored a book titled, ‘Each One, Teach One: Preserving and protecting the Second Amendment in the 21st century and beyond,’ talking about just this, about how if everyone introduces a non-gun owner to guns, the gun control debate would be won overnight.”
Many of us have written about taking new people to the range, for years, and yes, it can be fun and rewarding. It’s also expensive and time consuming, and we’ve got tens of millions of pathway to citizenship immigrants to get through, and tens of millions more Democrats, many of whom are hostile and view MAGA voters as fascists, racists and worse. How much money and effort is going to be needed, who is going to organize it, how do you motivate gun owners who can’t even be troubled to show up at a political event, kick in a buck, share a link, or God forbid, vote, and where can you show doing this has even made a dent in percentages? I see the book’s been out for 10 years now and have a question: How many election cycles ‘til we start seeing benefits, and what are things going to look like by then? And you still haven’t addressed any of my points.
Interestingly, Singh’s co-author is Greg Camp, a self-described “Liberal, progressive” who, also without addressing my challenge calls “our current war on illegal immigration … misguided policy,” says stuff on X like “You Nazis spent decades whining about federalism, only to throw it out once you got a crazy enough Führer in office” and “I don’t want Republicans in the White House.”
“Antagonism changes minds too, in a bad way,” Singh then asserts. “Elections are won by coalition-building around policy, not identity… [A]dopting the failed ideas of the Woke Left in fear of the Woke Left getting into power will be a self-fulfilling prophecy that puts the Woke Left right back into power.”
Kind of like calling Republicans “Nazis?” Besides, what reasonable person could possibly be antagonized from being presented with truthful observations that rely on statistics and real world observations, presented with no other value judgments on personal worth? And how telling is it that while Singh won’t address any of my contentions, he’s happy to mischaracterize them.
“Second Amendment groups are doing the right thing by focusing on a single issue,” Singh then claims. “That’s good. Scope creep is bad for nonprofits, especially those built around a single-issue focus and powered by voluntary donations (including from immigrants).”
Got numbers on that last claim, and how they compare with the damage done by “naturalized” citizens”? As long as Singh is free to resort to opinions and anecdotes, I’m going to do the same, albeit with one that’s better documented than anything I’ve seen him present so far.
“Unlike three decades ago, the residents are often from other places, like India and Korea. And when they vote, it is often for Democrats,” The New York Times reported back in 2019 (“How Voters Turned Virginia From Deep Red to Solid Blue”):
“Guns, that is the most pressing issue for me,” said Vijay Katkuri, 38, a software engineer from southern India, explaining why he voted for a Democratic challenger in Tuesday’s elections. He was shopping for chicken at the Indian Spice Food Market. “There are lots of other issues, but you can only fix them if you are alive.”
Did I mention that per a 2023 India Currents report, “83% Of Indian Americans Say We Need Stricter Gun Laws”? Who wants to wait another generation to see how many are now with us? How’s that for “single issue”?
Besides, that’s not all NRA needs to concern itself with – that is if it’s to follow its own Bylaws.
“To protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, especially with reference to the inalienable right of the individual American citizen guaranteed by such Constitution to acquire, possess, collect, exhibit, transport, carry, transfer ownership of, and enjoy the right to use arms… [and] To promote public safety, law and order, and the national defense…”
The mandate is to protect and defend the whole Constitution. As for that “single issue,” it says “especially,” not “exclusively.” And public safety, law and order, and national defense are all threatened by deliberate and continuous flouting of immigration laws by foreign nationals, as has been proven ad nauseam, legislative and judicial recognition of the right to keep and bear arms. Tying NRA’s hands and saying it can’t involve itself on issues that impact the Second Amendment means that, to be logically consistent, the Association should have never involved itself in its McCain – Feingold “campaign finance reform” opposition, where it specifically told members the legislation was “a direct killing attack on every individual American’s First Amendment right to use political speech to protect the entire Bill of Rights.”
“Second Amendment groups aren’t doing enough to woo immigrants and new Americans,” Singh then argues. “There was zero outreach from any of them at any point before, during, or after my immigration and naturalization process.”
Did he just back-handedly admit he realizes there’s a threat to not doing so? He must have, “With the immigrant population at an estimated 16%.”
Sure, as I’ve said before to another critic who demanded more evidence without offering any of his own. “Go for a foreign language outreach program if you like. Good idea.” Let us know when that happens, but by the time you get it off the ground, assuming you ever do, there will be millions more new ‘citizens.’ Plus, you’ve given absolutely no estimates on how many ‘converts’ that will bring in, and if it will be more than a few drops against an overwhelmingly anti-gun tidal wave.
What medium will you use to get the message out, and how will it compare in influence with existing anti-gun television networks and newspapers, including foreign language ones that are main sources, like Univision, where the prevalent opinion being spread is “Progress on immigration requires progress on guns”? What kind of organization is needed to reach outside of the limited “pro-gun” echo chamber we’re arguing in, how many personnel will that require, and where’s the money coming from to fund it to where its competitive with globale media conglomerates, especially with the untold millions on that “pathway to citizenship”?
Oh, but you “have contempt for illegal immigration,” Mr. Singh? It doesn’t matter what you want. It’s what Chuck Schumer and the Democrats want and they’re open about it, and I see no meaningful effort on the part of the “pro-gun community” to even acknowledge it’s an issue, let alone come up with an organized, coordinated, and realistic plan to counter that. As long as prominent influencers like you put down attempts to get gun owners discussing it, the gun groups will have all the cover they need to continue their deliberate indifference. Heck, more threats even = more donations. And how does your co-author feel about your contempt—has he publicly condemned you as a fascist yet, and if not, why not?
“Gun rights advocates should be rallying around firearms education and evangelism, not fanning the flames of a new panic,” you conclude. “I’m not serving you platitudes; I practice what I preach. Last year, I taught 33 students how to shoot.”
First, it’s not a “new panic.” Some of us have been thoughtfully raising this flag for years, it’s just the big dogs bark louder. And yes, all you’ve served throughout have been platitudes, otherwise you would not have ducked my challenge. And just because someone has a gun doesn’t mean they won’t continue to undermine the right by voting for Democrats. Diversity is no guarantee, and it’s not out of line to ask how your 33 students voted, because if having a gun was all it took, we’d have no better pals than Fudds for Biden and Redneck Revolt.
You do have a point though. Ignorance through avoidance, deliberate indifference, and outright hostility by “gun rights leaders” is a major threat that makes the gun prohibitionists very happy.
Another country heard from
Singh wasn’t the only “gun rights influencer” put off by my piece. Stephen Gutowski of The Reload was positively, self-righteously, sanctimoniously incensed to the point of coming unglued.
“This is an article that outright claims immigrants are inherently bad, which is both bigoted and wildly unpopular. Some real loser sh__. Following its advice would be morally wrong and politically disastrous for gun groups,” he angrily accused, naturally not focusing on a word I’d said, or coming up with one bit of evidence to actually refute its validity.
“David, your position is based on nothing but bigotry,” Gutowski charged. “Your argument, which you provide no actual evidence for, is that all immigrants think the same (wrong) way and are unpersuadable. Do you or do you not think immigrants are inferior to you because of this?”
He also accuses me of repeating the Great Replacement Theory from the Charlston “Unite the Right Rally,” which I never did and again shows he’s not responding to what I said but what he says I said. My only rejoinder is don’t tell me, tell The Guardian, a leaning left paper from the UK running headlines in 2000 declaring “The last days of a white world,” and “Non-whites will be the majority in US and Europe by 2050.”
Then refute The Red-Green Axis and it’s expose on what well-funded NGOs are doing to reshape the culture away from the Founders’ Republic. I’ve read it. Have you, Mr. Gutowski?
“You clearly believe the anti-gun position is not just wrong but also immoral,” Gutowski added. Finally, he got something right! Damn straight it is.
The contortions people twist themselves into to indulge their confirmation biases… he’s not using my words, he’s using his inferences to conclude things about cold facts that I never claimed and channeling his inner Antifa telling me to prove to his satisfaction that I’m not a supremacist.
I’m not going to dignify “gotcha” insults with “some of my best friends are”-type protests, especially for someone who fights like a leftist. My online record goes back over 30 years, when a website I co-founded posted the first 2A Inclusion Statement that I’m aware of (although looking back today I’d strike “political party”). But I will go this far: I am an ideologist and a culturist. I believe the Bill of Rights culture, derived from Western culture, is superior at advancing freedom, knowledge, technology, prosperity, and human happiness than any other developed on the planet to date. Care to take that on, Mr. G?
Gutowski wasn’t the last. Kostas Moros, Director of Legal Research and Education at the Second Amendment Foundation, weighed in, again never addressing any of the points I’d made, and ignoring the qualifier about anecdotes not counting by letting his followers know “My parents are Greek immigrants… Yet it took one generation for their kid to be a 2A attorney.”
As we’ve seen, the same doesn’t hold true for other groups, and if we have to wait a generation, what will the government and the laws look like? Note I’m not asking for opinion. Come up with numbers to substantiate that in a generation we’ll all be eatin’ that rainbow stew, because like the UFO poster says, I want to believe.
As for his assertion that “according to a Harvard study, 46% of self-identified Latinos voted for Trump in 2024,” a link would be helpful, 54% against is still a landslide, there’s some problematic trending going on, and “Between 1980 and 2025 the foreign-born population nearly doubled from 15.1% to 28.2%. (It was 9% in 1970). 52% of the population of CA are immigrants or their children. Americans are a minority in California.”
And my position is not defeatism, Mr. Moros. I offer a plan that requires leadership that you refuse to provide (see my questions for the gun groups). Defeatism is doing nothing and tearing doable actions down to everyone within your sphere of influence while offering nothing more than anecdotes and platitudes.
Finally, in terms of RKBA luminaries coming out against my thesis is Hannah Hill of NFGR, who touts her immigrant ancestors from assimilable Western cultures (who presumably arrived before the big handouts were an attractant), and never once gives any indication that she has even looked at my claims, as opposed to just riffing off what Moros has asserted. That’s disappointing, because I expected more of a hard line and open mind from what was once a maverick group that has had its share of putdowns from the bigger gun groups when it rocked the boat. It is curious, though, how that last link is now only reachable through the Internet Archive.
I’d be remiss not to include some of the comments left by followers influenced by the naysayers, again, not a one of them addressing my points but going wholly from posts criticizing me:
“F___ mission creep… Holy s___ shut the f___ up. These issues are completely seperate… If any gun groups I donate to gives a cent towards immigration policy I’ll never give them my money again. That’s not what I donate to them for and that’s not what I want the money used for… If this is true, why wouldn’t you try reaching out to these groups to inform them of the benefits of their new citizenship and help them adopt our way of life as pertains to firearms? Why don’t we greet these people and tell them about their rights?… ridiculous statist garbage. the pro-2A position is free guns handed out to illegal migrants as they hop the fence… This has nothing to do with guns. Shut up and stay in your lane… F___. Off… No they aren’t, shut up.”
In the wake of such reasoned discourse, I’m ending this on the same note I began my first article with, sharing an immigration warning by Constitutional attorney Mark W. Smith of Four Boxes Diner, this time with a quote from his Monday video “Dystopian Virginia Gun Control Backfires Massively!” (begin @7:40):
[W]e really need, for a whole bunch of reasons … to continue to push that most important issue, which is the most important issue when it comes to our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, and that is the immigration issue, kicking out the people [who] shouldn’t be here, kicking out the people that may be illegally voting, kicking out the people that have no interest in the right to keep and bear arms.
I’ve had my say. I invite any person I’ve named who feels they’ve been treated unfairly to leave a comment below, or better yet, write your own rebuttal. Comment posters, you’re of course free to tell me I’m full of it, but if you do, we’ll see if you’re intellectually honest enough to address what I claim in my challenge and show with superior data, not opinion, where I’m wrong. You’ll be able to tell which ones didn’t read this through if their objections have already been covered.
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.
Teaching Our Children Well: Bringing Gun Safety Training to K-12 Public Schools, iStock-1851057320
Dean Weingarten reported the Arizona Legislature is trying, once again, to make gun safety education mandatory in K-12 public schools. We should all wish them well. Republicans have a one-seat majority in the Arizona Senate and a six-seat margin in the House. However, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, is just as cuckoo for gun control as Michelle Lujan Grisham, her counterpart in New Mexico.
This is a shame: Ignorance is dominating public policy again.
Only three states, Tennessee, Utah, and Arkansas, currently require age-appropriate gun safety education. Tennessee was the first to take the plunge: Governor Bill Lee signed House Bill 2882 on April 23, 2024. On March 4 of last year, Arkansas House Bill 1117 became Act 229 when it was signed by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Later that same month, Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed House Bill 104, completing the triad.
Kids in every state deserve the same benefits. At the very least, all the constitutional carry states should have similar requirements.
Of course, getting anything involving guns into public school curricula is going to be a challenge. The NEA will go ballistic: Every Chad and Karen at Hoplophobe High School will be grabbing pitchforks and torches to rail against what they consider the apocalypse.
These are the same folks who think disciplining a child for turning a Pop-Tart into a pretend gun is appropriate. Another example of zero tolerance being a fancy term for zero brains.
According to the CDC, there were 70 unintentional, firearm-related deaths among children ages newborn to ten in 2024. Sixty-one of those were children five years of age and younger. This doesn’t include non-fatal injuries, estimated to be two to four times the number of deaths. It also excludes violence-related deaths resulting from homicide, assault, or self-harm.
Those numbers tend to disappear when compared to the nearly 43 million youngsters in the 1-10 cohort. Nonetheless, the gun-grabbers think they’re sufficient to demand gun storage laws. Since education beats legislation, the numbers also justify the training programs.
One of the best things about the new training requirements is the requirement for neutrality. No GOA, no NRA, but also no Everytown, Giffords, or Brady.
The bill provides some specifics covering the new requirements:
“Beginning with the 2025-2026 school year, this bill requires each LEA (Local Education Agency) and public charter school to annually provide students with age-appropriate and grade-appropriate instruction on firearm safety. The instruction must begin with the earliest appropriate grade, as determined by the departments above, and must continue in each subsequent grade through grade 12. The instruction required must do the following:
(1) Teach students safe storage of firearms, school safety relating to firearms, how to avoid injury if the student finds a firearm, to never touch a found firearm, and to immediately notify an adult of the location of a found firearm;
(2) Be viewpoint neutral on political topics, such as gun rights, gun violence, and the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution; and
(3) Not include the use or presence of live ammunition, live fire, or live firearms.
HB2882, now Public Chapter Number 800, prohibits the approval of any curriculum, program of instruction, or any instructional materials that have brands or identifiable organizational connections.
It is difficult to imagine three states better-suited to be in the vanguard of firearm safety education in K-12 public schools. All three are permitless carry states; all three have minimally intrusive gun laws; all three have positive attitudes toward citizens’ rights and lawful gun ownership.
Arkansas, Tennessee, and Utah bear close watching. They are the laboratory when it comes to gun safety instruction. Other states can use their experience to create their own programs, and we should all be leaning on our elected state legislators and officials to expand this effort to as many states as possible.
Bill Cawthon first became a gun owner 55 years ago. He has been an active advocate for Americans’ civil liberties for more than a decade. He is the information director for the Second Amendment Society of Texas.
