California AB 2047 could require 3D printers sold in the state to inspect digital files and block print jobs involving firearms or machine-gun conversion devices. Credit: AI-generated editorial image created for AmmoLand News.
California has passed AB 2047, the California Firearm Printing Prevention Act, and the bill is now on Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk.
The measure, authored by Assembly Member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, would eventually require consumer 3D printers sold or transferred in the state to include “firearm blocking technology” intended to identify and stop print jobs for firearms and certain illegal parts, including machine-gun conversion devices. After weeks of amendments, the Legislature sent the enrolled bill to the governor in the closing hours of the 2026 session. Newsom has until the end of September to sign or veto it.
The version that reached his desk is far narrower than the bill that first cleared the Assembly in May. The Senate stripped several of the most aggressive enforcement tools after lawmakers and industry groups argued they were technologically infeasible or overbroad. Gone are the original criminal misdemeanor for disabling the software, the $25,000-per-violation civil penalties, the mandatory manufacturer self-attestation process, and a public roster of “compliant” models.
The final text keeps an exemption for printers used exclusively to make entertainment-industry props and lets the California Department of Justice create additional exceptions by regulation. It also shields people who share digital firearm files solely to test or develop blocking software.
What remains is a delayed, contingent mandate. Beginning no later than July 1, 2027, the DOJ must check quarterly whether ASTM International has published industry standards for firearm-blocking technology on 3D printers. If ASTM issues qualifying standards, the department then has 24 months to publish its own written guidance or regulations describing minimum performance requirements. One year after those state standards appear, it would become unlawful to sell, offer for sale, or transfer a 3D printer in California that lacks compliant blocking technology. If ASTM has not published standards by July 1, 2029, the department is relieved of further duties under the act, and the sales restriction may never take effect.
The bill does not operate in a vacuum. California already prohibits unlicensed people from using a 3D printer or CNC mill to manufacture a firearm under Penal Code § 29185. Separate statutes restrict machines whose “sole or primary function” is to make guns and create civil liability for distributing “digital firearm manufacturing code” to unlicensed persons. AB 1263 and related 2025–26 measures further expanded definitions of firearm manufacturing machines and accessories effective January 1, 2026. AB 2047 tries to move one step upstream by making the printer itself refuse certain files.
California is not the first state down this path. New York enacted a similar blocking-technology law earlier this year. Sacramento modeled AB 2047 on that approach, then made the California version more conditional after the Senate rewrite.
Critics say the concept still fails on both technology and law. 3D-printing companies, the ACLU of California, Hollywood prop shops, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and gun-rights groups argue that detection algorithms are easy to evade with slightly modified files, offline machines, older printers already in circulation, or out-of-state purchases. They also raise First Amendment concerns about treating design files as something the state can force hardware makers to censor, and they warn that unreliable software would burden schools, small businesses, and hobbyists. Several analyses noted that the Senate rewrite left the actual sales ban hanging on a private standards body that may never act.
Supporters, including Everytown for Gun Safety and the bill’s author, frame AB 2047 as a response to recovered 3D-printed guns and unfinished frames. They describe it as a way to cut off a pipeline for untraceable weapons before a file becomes a firearm.
Even if Newsom signs the bill, nothing changes at the store counter tomorrow. The mandate is years away, if it arrives at all. The practical fight now is whether ASTM writes a standard the state can adopt—and whether software that must inspect every print job can ever work well enough to survive both evasion and a courtroom.
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 Justice Department argues that restricting competing forced reset triggers through Rare Breed’s patent litigation would advance ATF’s interest in limiting FRT sales and distribution. This is an AI-generated illustration and does not depict an actual ATF investigation. AI-generated illustration created with OpenAI for AmmoLand News.
The Justice Department is again lending the federal government’s weight to Rare Breed Triggers’ private patent-enforcement campaign, and ATF is remarkably candid about what it hopes to accomplish.
DOJ filed a seven-page Statement of Interest on August 31 in In re: Rare Breed Triggers Patent Litigation, the consolidated litigation pending before Chief U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant III in the Eastern District of Texas.
“The government, through the ATF, has a strong interest in promoting the safe use of firearms by the public, and in this particular case, in discouraging unregulated manufacture of forced reset triggers that allegedly infringe Rare Breed’s patents,” the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives asserted in a Monday filing in United States District Court.
“The government submits this Statement of Interest to provide the Court with the ATF’s views on public interest considerations for the four-factor test for a preliminary injunction,” ATF declared. “For a preliminary injunction, the four-factor test requires a showing of (1) a likelihood of success on the merits; (2) a likelihood of irreparable harm (with no adequate remedy at law); (3) the balance of the hardships is in favor of the party seeking injunction; and (4) that an injunction is in the public interest.”
“This statement of interest is substantively parallel to a January 26, 2026 statement the government filed in ABC IP LLC and Rare Breed Triggers v. Timothy Hoffman et al.,” ATF explained, noting “the government is filing this statement of interest to ensure its interests are represented in the consolidated proceedings and for purposes of judicial economy.”
Second Amendment journalist John Crump reported on that intervention, noting the dispute is over allegations that the Hoffman “super safety” infringes on Rare Breed Trigger patents.
“What makes this case extraordinary is the federal government’s intervention. The ATF’s filing explicitly states that it has a ‘strong interest… in discouraging unregulated manufacture of forced reset triggers,’” Crump wrote. “It argues that enjoining Hoffman would advance public safety and support the agency’s broader efforts to limit the proliferation of FRTs. Remarkably, the government cites a May 2025 settlement agreement it reached with Rare Breed, after years of aggressive enforcement actions against the company, as justification for now backing Rare Breed’s private patent enforcement crusade.”
Len Savage, firearms designer, expert witness, and president of Historic Arms, LLC, has more basic concerns: Where does ATF presume it gets the authority from to limit proliferation? And he asked that question – and more – in a Tuesday email to the lawyer who filed the Statement of Interest, Walter Brown, Senior Litigation Counsel, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice.
“Section III of the statement does NOT state what law or regulation you are basing this interest on?” Savage asked. “You mention 18 U.S.C. § 922(o); see also 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b) but then acknowledge that Forced Reset Triggers are NOT machineguns? (Therefore, not regulated under either).”
“Your statement appears to admit YOU and DOJ are using Rare Breed as an ATF proxy to enforce something other than United States Code or the Code of Federal Regulations– Rate of fire,” Savage noted. “Please show me anywhere in the U.S.C. or C.F.R. that rate of fire is regulated in any way? Only method of fire is regulated. If it fires more than once per function of the trigger it’s highly regulated. If not, there is NO regulation.”
His concerns are legitimate, his points dead-on. Whether or not — and how — they are responded to will tell gun owners much.
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.
The Third Circuit ruled that machine guns are protected “Arms” but upheld the federal ban and NFA suppressor-registration requirements in United States v. Berger. iStock-474974084
The Third Circuit ruled that machine guns are protected “Arms,” then upheld the federal ban anyway. Its treatment of suppressor registration may be even more dangerous for gun owners.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit handed the federal government two victories Monday, upholding Joseph Paul Berger’s convictions for possessing machine guns and unregistered suppressors.
The machine gun ruling in United States v. Berger is bad enough. The court acknowledged that machine guns fall within the Second Amendment’s plain text, only to uphold the federal ban by declaring them unsuitable for lawful civilian use.
The court’s suppressor analysis could reach much further. A two-judge majority held that registration requirements judges consider “minimal” do not infringe the Second Amendment at all. Under that reasoning, the government can escape the historical test required by N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen merely by convincing a court that its registration scheme is not burdensome enough to count.
Federal Agents Found Machine Guns and Suppressors
Berger is a decorated Navy veteran living in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. According to the September 1 opinion, federal agents began investigating after intercepting a package containing three suppressors shipped from China to Berger’s home.
A subsequent search uncovered more than five dozen firearms, including 13 fully automatic firearms—mostly AK-pattern variants—and approximately 12 suppressors. Agents also found evidence that Berger and his father had purchased parts used to convert semiautomatic firearms into machine guns.
Berger pleaded guilty to possessing a machine gun under 18 U.S.C. § 922(o) and possessing an unregistered suppressor under the National Firearms Act. His plea agreement preserved his right to appeal the rejection of his Second Amendment challenge.
Writing for the court, Judge Stephanos Bibas opened with a remarkable endorsement of gun bans:
“Gun bans are strong medicine. But occasionally, they are just what the doctor ordered.”
That is not constitutional analysis. It is a federal judge announcing that some arms may be banned whenever the government considers them too dangerous for ordinary people to possess.
Third Circuit Admits Machine Guns Are “Arms”
The court first made an important concession: machine guns are unquestionably covered by the Second Amendment’s text.
“At step one, machine guns are firearms, so they are ‘Arms’ protected by the text of the Second Amendment.”
That should have placed the burden squarely on the government to prove that banning an entire category of bearable arms is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
Instead, the court leaned on Heller’s discussion of “dangerous and unusual weapons” and concluded that machine guns are not commonly used for lawful purposes. It described them as “indiscriminate weapons of war and crime, not self-defense ones” and asserted that their rate of fire makes them unsuitable for personal protection.
The opinion relies heavily on twentieth-century material, including congressional reports, testimony concerning criminal use of Thompson submachine guns, and laws enacted by at least 29 states between 1925 and 1934. The panel admitted that those statutes were not Founding-era analogues, using them instead to show a supposed “rapid consensus” that automatic weapons were dangerous.
The court never seriously confronts the government-created scarcity problem.
Congress closed the registry to newly manufactured civilian machine guns through the Hughes Amendment in 1986. The government now prohibits ordinary Americans from acquiring newly manufactured machine guns, restricts the available supply to grandfathered firearms, drives prices into the tens of thousands of dollars, and then points to the resulting lack of widespread ownership as proof that these arms are “unusual.”
As AmmoLand recently explained, the government should not be permitted to manufacture its own constitutional justification. If the government can suppress ownership long enough and then use that suppression to defeat the right, “common use” becomes a ratchet that works only against gun owners.
Court Calls the NFA a Shall-Issue System
The majority’s treatment of suppressors is potentially more consequential. The parties agreed that suppressors are “Arms,” but the majority declined to decide that question. Instead, Judges Bibas and Restrepo held that the NFA registration process did not infringe the Second Amendment because it imposed only an incidental burden.
At the time relevant to Berger’s prosecution, that process required applicants to provide personal information, fingerprints, a photograph, identifying information about the suppressor, local law-enforcement notification, registration and serialization. It also required payment of a $200 tax for each suppressor.
The court brushed that aside as an ordinary shall-issue licensing system.
“Because minimal, objective buying-and-selling regulations are not infringements, they are outside the scope of the Second Amendment.”
That is the most dangerous sentence in the opinion.
Bruen says that when the Second Amendment’s text covers a person’s conduct, the government must prove that its restriction is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition. The Third Circuit has now created a way around that command: call a registration system “minimal,” decide it does not amount to an infringement, and stop before forcing the government to produce any historical analogue.
A federal registry connecting particular firearms to particular owners is not the same thing as confirming that a buyer is not legally prohibited from possessing a firearm. Registration is designed to identify and track the gun itself. It also carries felony consequences for anyone who possesses an unregistered item.
The Second Amendment does not contain an exception for infringements that federal judges consider convenient, objective or sufficiently inexpensive.
Judge Chung Refuses to Join the Majority’s Reasoning
Although Judge Cindy Chung joined the judgment affirming Berger’s conviction, she expressly refused to join the majority’s suppressor-registration analysis.
Chung noted that the government had not argued that registration failed to “infringe” the Second Amendment. The government instead defended the law under Bruen’s history-and-tradition inquiry.
She also warned that the majority’s new test may conflict with Supreme Court precedent:
“Judge Chung would consider the parties’ and amici’s views, as she perceives some tension between this approach and the Supreme Court’s rejection of means-end scrutiny and interest balancing.”
Chung reached the same result through a different path, concluding that a suppressor is an accessory unnecessary for a firearm to function as intended and therefore falls outside the Second Amendment’s protection.
That accessory theory is also deeply flawed. Suppressors reduce muzzle blast and protect shooters’ hearing. Dismissing a functional part of a firearm as an unprotected “accessory” gives courts another way to strip constitutional protection from magazines, triggers, sights and other components necessary to use arms effectively.
The NFA Fight Is Far From Over
The ruling does not erase the recent victory in Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF. That case invalidated major NFA registration and approval provisions on Congress’s enumerated-powers authority after the applicable taxes were reduced to zero. The district court did not decide the Second Amendment claims, and its injunction protects specified plaintiffs, members and customers.
Berger’s prosecution involved the earlier $200 tax, and his challenge was decided as applied to his circumstances. The Third Circuit specifically noted that Berger presented no evidence of excessive waiting periods and did not argue that the tax was exorbitant.
Still, the Justice Department will undoubtedly use Berger to defend the registry in future Second Amendment litigation. That makes this more than another machine gun case.
The Third Circuit admitted that machine guns are “Arms,” allowed the government to benefit from the scarcity its own ban created, and declared that some federal gun registration does not even implicate the Second Amendment.
Gun owners should pay attention. The most damaging part of this opinion is not limited to automatic weapons or suppressors. It is a judicially invented loophole around Bruen—one that future courts could use to excuse firearm registration whenever they decide the burden is small enough.
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.
Qilin published approximately 6.3GB of files it claims were stolen from ATF’s legacy CALEA investigative system. ATF says eForms and its other operational systems were not affected. AI-generated image created for AmmoLand News
For a brief period on Monday, the Russian-linked ransomware group Qilin posted over 6GB of files it claimed were stolen from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The dump followed last week’s public listing of the ATF on Qilin’s leak site, first reported by AmmoLand News. Although the files have not been officially authenticated by the bureau, AmmoLand News sources inside the ATF have said the material is genuine.
Qilin is a Russia-based cybercrime syndicate that sells ransomware-as-a-service. Affiliates use its tools to break into target networks, steal data, and then post a countdown on Qilin’s dark-web blog. If the ransom is not paid by the deadline, the group publishes the stolen files. The ATF timer hit zero on Monday. Qilin then released more than six gigabytes of data for a short window before taking the files down. When Qilin pulls a dump, it often means a ransom was paid. There is no public evidence that the ATF paid.
Even after the files disappeared, enough of the package was recovered to identify the compromised environment. The breached system was the ATF’s Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) system.
CALEA, enacted in 1994, requires telephone companies and other covered communications providers to design their networks so law enforcement can carry out court-authorized wiretaps and electronic surveillance. The FCC later applied the statute to facilities-based broadband providers and interconnected VoIP services. Carriers typically meet the technical standard with industry specifications such as J-STD-025 and must file System Security and Integrity plans with the FCC. Turning an intercept on is supposed to require a court order or other lawful authorization, plus a carrier employee who actually activates it.
The ATF’s CALEA system is not the phone companies’ networks. It is the bureau’s own internal system for handling material from federally authorized intercepts—wiretaps, communications monitoring, and related investigative records. Officials describe it as a legacy standalone system, isolated from the rest of the ATF network.
Other data holdings, including out-of-business records, were not accessed. The entire CALEA environment was not emptied.
The ATF says it detected the attack in progress and shut the system down before the attackers could take everything. Certain field offices appear in the leaked set.
“The standalone system was not connected to any other ATF systems, including any case management systems, laboratory systems, or eForms systems, and it was quickly shut down when the breach was discovered,” an ATF spokesperson said. “This is an ongoing investigation, and no further details can be shared at this time.”
In a Monday update, the bureau acknowledged claims that material from the CALEA system had been published, said it could not yet confirm the authenticity, nature, or scope of that material, and repeated that other operational systems were not affected and that the mission continues. Senior Justice Department officials had already labeled the event a “major incident,” a designation that triggers congressional notification.
BREAKING
After a 72 hour countdown expired, Russian ransomware gang Qilin briefly published 6.3GB of data it hacked from ATF.
What circulated during the brief leak window concerned targets of ATF investigations. The subjects were under scrutiny for firearms trafficking, arson, explosives, organized crime, and the illicit trade in tobacco and alcohol. The records included phone data and IP addresses. The material appears to span roughly 10 to 15 years. Several listed investigations have no readily available public case file. AmmoLand News is reviewing those entries.
The leak’s operational risk is obvious even if the enterprise network stayed clean. Investigative target lists, intercept-related phone records, and IP data can reveal who the bureau was watching, how it was watching them, and which field offices were involved. That information can compromise sources, alert subjects, and complicate open cases. Segmentation limited the blast radius. It did not make the stolen contents harmless.
The episode also raises harder questions about how the ATF’s network is actually run. Most Qilin attacks start with social engineering, especially spear phishing. A spear-phishing message is aimed at a specific user—the weakest point on most networks. The email tries to trick that person into handing over privileged credentials or opening a file that installs a remote-access trojan. The malware then “calls home” and gives the attacker a foothold. Patches close software holes. They do not close human ones. Training and procedure reduce the odds. They never drive them to zero.
Best practice is to shrink the number of people who can reach sensitive systems and to treat legacy intercept platforms as high-value targets, not leftovers.
AmmoLand News has found that the ATF maintains an unusually large number of administrators relative to other agencies. More administrators means a wider attack surface and more accounts worth stealing. That finding, and related questions about access control on isolated systems that still hold years of investigative data, will be examined in later reporting.
For now the official picture is incomplete by design. The ATF will not attribute the intrusion to Qilin in public, will not describe the initial access path, and will not say whether data left the building before the system was pulled offline. Qilin, for its part, treated the ATF listing like any other double-extortion job: name the victim, run the clock, publish, then yank the files. The brief Monday dump is what the public got. Sources familiar with the bureau’s systems say it was enough to confirm that the CALEA store—not eForms, not case management, not the labs—was the one that broke.
That distinction matters for gun owners watching eForms and for investigators who rely on intercept records. It does not answer how a standalone system holding a decade-plus of target and communications data was reached in the first place, or why so many people inside the agency still have the keys. Those are the questions the next stories will have to press.
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.
An armed customer shot a knife-wielding bank robbery suspect in Cedar Hill, Texas. Police have not disclosed what firearm or ammunition the customer used. Illustrative image. iStock / Pratchaya_Lee.
A robbery suspect reportedly walked into a Texas bank armed with a knife Monday morning and demanded money from employees. He also found an armed customer willing to intervene.
According to the Cedar Hill Police Department, officers were called to a robbery in progress at a Chase Bank in the 200 block of North Highway 67 Service Road at approximately 9:04 a.m. on August 31.
Police said the suspect entered the bank carrying a knife and demanded money from employees. During the robbery, an armed customer fired, striking the suspect.
The wounded suspect ran from the bank but did not get far. Officers found the suspect nearby and immediately began lifesaving measures. Cedar Hill medics transported the suspect to a local hospital, where the suspect later died.
The customer who fired remained at the scene and is cooperating with investigators. No bank employees, customers, witnesses, or police officers suffered significant injuries. Cedar Hill police also made clear that no officers fired their weapons.
Police responded to the crime, but an armed citizen was already there when the threat appeared.
Nothing will ever have a faster response time than an armed citizen willing to defend themself and others. Violent criminals are not deterred by bank security or law enforcement, which are still a phone call or an alarm system away when the danger is there. Criminals do not stop, read, and obey gun-free zone signs.
Gun-control advocates routinely argue that ordinary citizens carrying firearms in public create danger and confusion. What happened in Cedar Hill presents a different picture: an armed suspect entered a business, reportedly threatened employees with a knife, and encountered a customer capable of responding before police could arrive.
Texas law recognizes the use of deadly force under certain circumstances to prevent an imminent aggravated robbery. It also recognizes the defense of another person. Those provisions can be found in Sections 9.32 and 9.33 of the Texas Penal Code.
Detectives are still interviewing witnesses and reviewing surveillance video, while the FBI’s Dallas office has joined the investigation because the incident involved a bank robbery. Police have not identified the suspect or customer, disclosed how many shots were fired, or announced whether the customer will face charges.
AmmoLand has repeatedly documented cases in which armed citizens stopped robberies before police could reach the scene. Cedar Hill appears to be another reminder that violent criminals choose the time and place of their attacks. The Second Amendment gives ordinary Americans the means to ensure those criminals do not have the final say.
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.
Chicago is imposing additional procurement scrutiny on lawful firearm vendors while the city’s violent-crime problems remain unresolved. AI-assisted original illustration for AmmoLand News.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson inherited the Windy City’s ongoing Schützenfest three years ago. It’s traditional for Chicago mayors to bemoan the city’s bloodshed and then take some measure that does nothing to ameliorate or even address it.
In keeping with this time-honored practice, Mayor Johnson signed an executive order tightening procurement standards for the city’s purchases of firearms, ammunition, and associated products.
“Chicago’s commitment to community safety is reflected in the standards we set for how taxpayer dollars are spent,” Johnson said in a press release.
“This executive order builds on that commitment by strengthening our procurement standards to ensure the City’s purchasing power advances responsible business practices and community safety. Every family deserves to feel safe in their neighborhood, and through this commitment to the families who have lost loved ones to gun violence, we are encouraging greater accountability across the firearms industry while supporting vendors that share our commitment to preventing illegal gun trafficking and protecting Chicagoans.”
I would have expected a bit more: Mayor Johnson and his family live in Austin, one of the city’s highest casualty count neighborhoods.
Johnson was inspired by the Brady Bunch’s Gun Store Transparency Project, an unusually lame attempt to discredit federally licensed dealers by playing fast and loose with definitions, implying trivial paperwork errors are the same as funneling guns to drug cartels or knowingly selling guns to straw purchasers.
“The gun industry has a responsibility to keep Americans safe from gun violence. Yet there is no transparency into which gun stores are violating our public safety laws and whether law enforcement is doing anything about it.
“That’s why Brady, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, is exposing never-before-released records that identify gun stores cited for breaking the law.
“Now, with the award-winning Gun Store Transparency Project, the American public will no longer be kept in the dark about businesses that contribute to gun violence in their communities — and whether federal authorities are failing to hold them accountable.”
Brady has accumulated thousands of ATF inspection reports and uploaded scans of them. Fair warning: They quickly become boring. Whole lot of clerical errors; a bit light on the gun trafficking.
It should be noted that there are no FFLs operating inside Chicago’s city limits. As Lori Lightfoot, Johnson’s more-than-slightly-deranged predecessor, said, all the guns come from outside the city.
Chicago’s violence has become legendary. Famed for the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre that was directly connected to the National Firearms Act of 1934; lampooned in Jim Croce’s 1973 hit “Bad, Bad, LeRoy Brown;” and saddled with the nickname “Chi-raq,” the city has become a joke.
The Council on Criminal Justice compiles monthly homicide data on 36 cities ranging in size from Rochester, New York to New York City. For the first six months of 2026, 29 cities had reported data for all six months. I added Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city, to make an even 30 cities. Houston’s numbers were sourced from the Houston Police Department’s offense report for the first six months of 2026.
Chicago had more homicides (210) than New York City (107) and Los Angeles (95) combined.
The 30 cities reported a total of 1,325 homicides. Chicago accounted for nearly 16% of them.
Illinois has required a Firearm Owners Identification Card to possess a handgun since 1968. From 1982 to 2010, Chicago had a handgun ban. In McDonald v. City of Chicago, The Supreme Court ruled the Second Amendment had become incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment and was binding on the states. The city’s ban was unconstitutional.
For decades, Chicago and Illinois politicians have tried to use politically expedient gun control laws to stem the bleeding in Chicago’s streets. Obviously, it hasn’t worked.
Cook County’s revolving-door justice system has been largely useless. Police, prosecutors, and courts have a circular firing squad, devoted to passing the blame.
In February 2018, Chicago Police Commander Paul Bauer was killed by a four-time felon who had been paroled from prison one more time.
Chicago’s core problem is in 15 of the city’s 77 neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are clumped together in the west side and the south side: [Based on the number of homicides and injuries, The South Side of Chicago is still the baddest part of town.]
So far in 2016, these neighborhoods have accounted for 64% of all the homicides and 48% of the injuries in the entire city.
Then there are the victim demographics. 85% of homicide victims are male. 70% are Black; 24% are Hispanic. 63% are between the ages of 13 to 35. All the markings of gangs, which are well-established in the Windy City.
This level of violence isn’t new. In 1974, when the city’s population was 17% larger than it is today, Chicago had 974 homicides and a homicide rate of 30.23 per 100,000 residents.
That’s 51 years ago and just six years after Illinois began requiring permits to possess a handgun. During that time, the number of Chicago killings soared 51%, from 645 in 1968 to 974 in 1974. Good job!
Speaking in a 2021 interview on WBBM radio, Bill Cameron, a retired broadcast reporter who was covering City Hall for WMAQ-AM in 1974, said:
“It is the one huge problem in all my years at City Hall that they’ve never been able to solve. They keep trying, with new bureaucracies and more people on the street doing social work and putting more resources into the high-crime areas,” he said. “It’s a complex problem that takes a generation, if not generations, to solve.”
Chicago doesn’t have a gun problem. Chicago has a deeply-seated culture problem it continues to deny.
The city isn’t alone; every city has its “baddest part of town.” Other, smaller cities like Baltimore, St. Louis, and New Orleans have substantially higher murder rates. But when it comes to body counts, Chi-raq lives up to its name.
Unfortunately, the impact of Chicago’s violence doesn’t end at the city limits or even at the Cook County line.
Kamela Harris carried Illinois in the 2024 General Election but she won in just 14 of the state’s 102 counties. The rest of the counties were solid red.
Chicago and Cook County are the 800-pound gorillas in the Illinois General Assembly. 41% of the state’s population lives in Cook County alone; they rule the roost.
It’s a classic example of the tyranny of the majority James Madison wrote about in Federalist #51:
“It is of great importance in a republic, not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers; but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.”
Essentially, Chicago has used its legislative clout to impose its failed gun control measures on the entire state.
A number of those red counties have an agenda: Make Chicago a separate state. Based on 2025 data from the Illinois State Police and Chicago Police Department, Illinois could see its state homicide rate drop about 69% by kicking Chicago out, a process that’s constitutionally possible, but is anything but easy.
Chicago is the poster child for the failures of gun control. It should also be a clarion call for all who treasure their liberty to get out the vote. It’s a lot easier to prevent another Chicago than it is to fix one.
This article used statistics and other data from the Brady Bunch, Chicago Police Department, Council on Criminal Justice, FBI, Houston Police Department, Illinois State Police, U.S. Census Bureau, and “Hey Jackass” a website that reports on Chicago violence.
About Bill Cawthon
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.
SilencerCo has released guidance for qualifying customers purchasing suppressors through Form 4473 rather than the traditional Form 4 process. IMG Jim Grant
SilencerCo is telling qualifying customers in 27 states that they may now purchase a new SilencerCo suppressor using a Form 4473 instead of waiting for ATF approval of a Form 4. However, the manufacturer is also warning buyers to keep those suppressors in the state where they were purchased until unresolved questions about interstate transportation are answered.
The company published the new guidance following the injunction in Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF. As AmmoLand previously reported, U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix ruled that the challenged National Firearms Act registration and approval requirements exceeded Congress’s enumerated powers after Congress reduced the applicable making and transfer taxes to zero.
The injunction took effect August 13 after the federal government allowed a seven-day stay to expire without obtaining additional relief.
Buying a Suppressor on Form 4473
According to SilencerCo’s recent press release, customers making qualifying purchases can visit a participating SilencerCo dealer, select a new suppressor, complete Form 4473, undergo the applicable background check, and take possession after receiving authorization to proceed.
That means no Form 4, fingerprints, passport photograph, CLEO notification, or ATF approval wait. A NICS delay remains possible, just as it does with an ordinary firearm purchase.
The process is currently available for qualifying SilencerCo purchases in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
State law still applies, and dealers are not required to participate. SilencerCo acknowledges that some retailers are waiting while the legal and compliance questions are sorted out.
The uncertainty confronting gun owners and dealers is largely the government’s own creation. ATF and DOJ have yet to publish formal guidance explaining precisely how they will implement the court’s order, which transactions qualify, how dealers should document Form 4473-only transfers, or how remaining federal and state laws apply to unregistered suppressors.
ATF Director Robert Cekada said the agency will not take enforcement action against protected parties inconsistent with the ruling and is working on guidance, arguing that “getting it RIGHT matters more than getting it out fast.” Getting it right certainly matters, but gun owners should not be forced to interpret federal felony statutes while ATF takes its time. A post on X promising answers later is no substitute for written instructions that dealers and customers can rely upon today.
UPDATE>Jensen v. ATF
FACTS> CLICKBAIT.
There’s a lot of misinformation circulating about the recent NDTX ruling in Jensen v. ATF; including a headline claiming, “ATF is Furious and We Are Planning Brutal Revenge on Gun Owners.”
SilencerCo’s most important warning concerns 26 U.S.C. § 5861(j), an NFA provision addressing the interstate transportation, delivery, or receipt of firearms that have not been registered as required.
The company says it does not yet know whether or how that provision applies to suppressors lawfully transferred without NFA registration under the injunction. Until that question is resolved, SilencerCo “strongly encourages” Form 4473 customers to keep their suppressors in the state of purchase.
That is not the same as saying interstate travel has been definitively prohibited. It means this limited injunction did not answer every question created by stripping away the NFA’s registration and advance-approval requirements.
The uncertainty is also changing SilencerCo’s warranty procedure. The company says it will continue honoring its lifetime warranty, but returning an unregistered suppressor across state lines for service may require a different process.
Form 4 Remains an Option
Buyers can still use the traditional Form 4 process, which retains the fingerprints, photographs, CLEO notification, paperwork, background check, and ATF approval wait. The tax is now $0.
SilencerCo recommends considering that route for customers who regularly hunt, compete, or travel outside their state, want to use a trust, or prefer an established registration process while the injunction remains limited and subject to further litigation.
The court did not abolish the NFA or issue a universal injunction. The relief protects the plaintiffs and, where applicable, their current and future members and customers. It also did not decide the case under the Second Amendment.
None of that changes the larger constitutional reality. Suppressors are bearable arms, and forcing Americans to obtain federal permission before taking possession was always an infringement. The Form 4473 process proves that the fingerprints, photographs, registration, and advance approval were bureaucratic obstacles—not necessities.
SilencerCo stated its ultimate objective plainly: “We want to see the NFA taken out behind the barn.”
This injunction is a historic breach in the NFA, but the fight ends only when every peaceable American receives the same protection.
NFA reform Downstream Flow Chart – SilencerCo
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.
A federal judge ruled for two gun owners challenging New Mexico’s seven-day firearm waiting period, although the injunction does not yet protect other buyers. iStock-1326757133
New Mexico’s seven-day gun-purchase waiting period has lost on the merits in federal court, but the state may continue enforcing the unconstitutional delay against nearly every gun buyer because the injunction protects only the two people who brought the lawsuit.
On August 27, U.S. District Judge James O. Browning granted summary judgment to Samuel Ortega and Rebecca Scott in Ortega v. Lujan Grisham. Browning denied competing summary-judgment motions filed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Attorney General Raúl Torrez.
The ruling is a clear Second Amendment victory. It is not, however, a statewide injunction.
Browning’s order immediately prohibits the governor, attorney general, state employees, law-enforcement officers and anyone acting with them from enforcing New Mexico’s Waiting Period Act against Ortega and Scott. It does not extend that protection to other New Mexico residents.
The state’s seven-day waiting period therefore remains in effect for ordinary gun buyers unless they fall under one of the law’s exemptions.
Judge Says He Still Believes the Gun Law Is Constitutional
Browning originally refused to block the waiting period, reasoning that the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to “keep and bear Arms” did not necessarily protect the right to acquire them.
“One cannot keep or bear arms if one cannot acquire them. That is an infringement, even if it is not a direct prohibition or ban,” the appellate court explained.
That should have been obvious. A government cannot respect the right to keep arms while claiming unlimited authority to prevent citizens from obtaining them. The right to acquire a firearm is not some optional privilege disconnected from the Second Amendment. It is a necessary part of exercising the right.
The Tenth Circuit also found that firearm waiting periods are neither longstanding nor widespread and do not fit within America’s historical tradition of firearms regulation. New Mexico failed to produce a Founding-era tradition of forcing peaceable citizens to wait days after buying a firearm and passing a background check.
Browning made clear that the result was not his preferred outcome.
“Although the Court continues to believe the Waiting Period Act is constitutional, the Court is bound by the Tenth Circuit’s decision and the law of the case,” he wrote.
That admission is revealing. Even after the Tenth Circuit explained why New Mexico’s law conflicts with the Second Amendment, Browning remains committed to his original position. Fortunately, a district judge cannot disregard controlling appellate precedent merely because he prefers the government’s argument.
New Mexico Punishes Buyers Who Already Passed Background Checks
Gov. Lujan Grisham signed the Waiting Period Act in March 2024. It generally requires seven calendar days to pass before a firearm may be transferred to its purchaser. The delay applies even when the buyer immediately passes the National Instant Criminal Background Check System check.
The law contains exemptions for certain federal firearms licensees, New Mexico concealed-handgun licensees, law-enforcement transactions and transfers between immediate family members. Everyone else is presumed too dangerous to take possession of a purchased firearm until the state’s arbitrary clock runs out.
Both the seller and buyer can be criminally charged for an early transfer, and each firearm transferred constitutes a separate offense.
Waiting periods can also leave someone facing an immediate threat unable to acquire a firearm for self-defense. A restraining order cannot stop a violent stalker. A firearm can. New Mexico’s law offers no emergency exception for an ordinary citizen who has been threatened and needs the means to defend herself now.
Constitutional rights do not begin when government officials decide that a citizen has waited long enough.
A Victory Limited to Two Gun Owners
The narrow scope of Browning’s order produces an indefensible result. The court has entered judgment for Ortega and Scott on their Second Amendment claim, yet New Mexico can continue imposing the same unconstitutional delay on their neighbors.
The New Mexico Department of Public Safety currently advises that the waiting period remains enforceable against all other firearm purchasers. Browning ordered state officials to notify the Department of Public Safety of the decision by September 10. The department must then post the notice and a copy of the order on its website. The court will also enter a separate final judgment.
The state could appeal, although it would return to the same Tenth Circuit whose controlling decision forced Browning to rule for the plaintiffs.
Supreme Court Fight Over Gun Waiting Periods Is Growing
The timing makes Ortega nationally important. On August 25, gun owners and firearm dealers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Beckwith v. Frey, a challenge to Maine’s 72-hour waiting period. The First Circuit held that buying or acquiring a firearm falls outside the Second Amendment’s plain text.
As AmmoLand previously reported, that decision directly conflicts with Ortega. The First Circuit says the government may regulate acquisition as something that happens before a person “keeps” or “bears” a firearm. The Tenth Circuit correctly recognizes that preventing acquisition necessarily infringes the right to keep and bear arms.
Colorado’s three-day waiting period is also being challenged in federal court. Because Colorado sits within the Tenth Circuit, Ortega is binding authority there. Florida officials, meanwhile, have agreed in an NRA-backed lawsuit that Florida’s three-day waiting period violates the Second Amendment.
The circuit split is now unmistakable, and the Supreme Court has been handed an opportunity to settle the question.
There should be nothing controversial about the answer. The Second Amendment protects the right to acquire arms because no one can keep and bear a firearm that the government refuses to let him obtain. There were no general firearm waiting periods at the Founding, and politicians cannot manufacture historical tradition two centuries after the Bill of Rights was ratified.
New Mexico lost that argument on the merits. The remaining injustice is that the state continues imposing its unconstitutional waiting period on everyone except the two citizens who forced it into court.
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.
A new Supreme Court amicus brief defends AR-15s as constitutionally protected militia arms but treats automatic firearms as outside the Second Amendment. IMG Jim Grant
A new Supreme Court brief makes one of the strongest originalist arguments for protecting the AR-15: Its value as a militia arm is precisely why it falls within the Second Amendment. Unfortunately, the brief then undercuts its own argument by treating machine guns as constitutionally disposable.
Attorney G. Antaeus B. Edelsohn submitted the 48-page amicus briefon August 27 in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, the consolidated cases in which the Supreme Court will decide whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect AR-15-platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.
The brief correctly attacks the central deception behind Cook County and Connecticut’s defense of their bans. Those governments argue that AR-15s are not protected “arms” because they are supposedly more useful for offensive combat than personal self-defense.
Edelsohn responds that the governments have the Second Amendment backward. Its prefatory clause expressly identifies a well-regulated militia as necessary to the security of a free state. An arm does not lose protection because it is useful for militia service. That usefulness is an affirmative reason for protecting it.
That is the right argument. It also leads somewhere the brief appears unwilling to go.
The Machine-Gun Concession Undercuts the Militia Argument
After explaining why United States v. Miller protects arms with a reasonable relationship to militia efficiency, the brief declares that the “general consensus” is that automatic weapons are not protected. It then argues that semiautomatic rifles fall within the Second Amendment because they fire one round per trigger pull and are therefore legally and mechanically distinguishable from machine guns.
That may be a convenient litigation strategy, but it is not a faithful application of the constitutional principle Edelsohn has just defended.
The Second Amendment protects “arms.” Its plain text contains no semiautomatic-only limitation, no cyclic-rate test, and no exception for a bearable arm because politicians consider it too effective. If militia suitability strengthens constitutional protection, then a rifle does not suddenly fall outside the right when its selector moves from semiautomatic to automatic fire.
Miller did not ask whether a firearm was particularly comforting to legislators. It asked whether the arm had a reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia, was part of ordinary military equipment, or could contribute to the common defense. Congress’s own Constitution Annotated discussion of Miller recognizes that militia relationship as the center of the decision.
Machine guns plainly satisfy that test.
The Rough Riders Prove the Point
The most damaging evidence against the brief’s compromise appears in the brief itself.
While describing America’s reliance on armed volunteers, Edelsohn recounts that Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders took two Colt-Browning Model 1895 machine guns to Cuba. The guns were privately supplied to the volunteer regiment, with future Sergeant William Tiffany among the men associated with acquiring and operating them.
These were not government-issued rifles handed to members of a modern standing army. They were privately obtained automatic arms brought into volunteer military service. Roosevelt referred to the “Colt automatic guns” in his own account, and the weapons became famous as the Rough Riders’ “potato diggers.”
That is nearly a perfect historical example of the Second Amendment’s militia purpose in practice: Citizens organized for the common defense and supplied militarily useful arms outside the regular Army’s standard issue system.
It makes no originalist sense to cite that history in defense of militia-capable rifles, then insist that the constitutional protection ends immediately before reaching the automatic arms those volunteers actually carried.
Heller’s Machine-Gun Dicta Is Not the Second Amendment
The obstacle is language in District of Columbia v. Heller suggesting that “M-16 rifles and the like” may be banned. Edelsohn leans on that passage, understandably recognizing how lower courts have used it.
But Heller was a challenge to Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban—not a challenge to the National Firearms Act or the federal machine-gun restrictions. The Court did not receive a developed record on civilian machine-gun ownership or decide the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 922(o). The M-16 sentence was dicta, not the holding of the case. The actual holding struck down a categorical ban on a class of bearable arms.
AmmoLand has warned about this exact fault line before. In examining whether the Supreme Court’s “common use” test is truly originalist, I described the semiautomatic-versus-machine-gun distinction as a powerful and strategically conservative way to defeat AR-15 bans without forcing the Court to revisit Heller’s M-16 language. But a strategy can be effective in one case and still surrender the larger constitutional principle.
As AmmoLand reported in United States v. Bridges, the Sixth Circuit acknowledged that machine guns are bearable “arms” covered by the Second Amendment’s plain text, then upheld the ban by declaring them dangerous and unusual. Once courts accept the government’s semiautomatic-versus-automatic boundary, they can acknowledge that machine guns are arms and still deny citizens any meaningful protection.
Why the Compromise May Appeal to the Justices
The machine-gun concession is probably not accidental. It gives the Supreme Court a narrow path to strike down AR-15 bans without deciding anything about the National Firearms Act or the Hughes Amendment.
That path could matter to justices who are skeptical of broad Second Amendment rulings or especially unwilling to disturb federal machine-gun restrictions. The Court’s three liberal justices—Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—may still be unlikely votes against an AR-15 ban, but the brief offers them a limiting principle: Protect semiautomatic rifles in common use while leaving machine guns untouched.
The more important audience may be Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Kavanaugh has already supplied almost the exact framework the brief invites the Court to adopt. As a D.C. Circuit judge, he concluded that Washington’s semiautomatic-rifle ban violated Heller while also stating that machine guns had traditionally been banned and could continue to be banned. In his 2025 statement in Snope v. Brown, Kavanaugh emphasized that Americans possess tens of millions of AR-15s and predicted the Court would address the issue soon.
For a justice occupying that position, Edelsohn’s brief is attractive. It says the Court can protect the AR-15 as a common semiautomatic militia rifle while assuring the country that the decision will not reopen the machine-gun registry. Roberts joined the Heller opinion containing the M-16 language, while Barrett has shown in firearms cases that she will scrutinize statutory text without necessarily embracing every broader constitutional claim. A tightly confined ruling may be easier for those justices to join than one questioning the entire federal machine-gun regime.
There is, however, a serious cost to this strategy.
A Supreme Court majority could take the brief’s compromise and convert Heller’s machine-gun dicta into a much firmer constitutional boundary. Gun owners might win protection for AR-15s while receiving a new precedent declaring automatic fire categorically outside the Second Amendment. That would make future challenges to the Hughes Amendment considerably harder.
Nor can the government manufacture its own “unusualness.” The Hughes Amendment generally bars civilian possession of machine guns made after May 19, 1986, while grandfathering previously registered arms under specified conditions. Federal law therefore froze the civilian supply nearly four decades ago.
The government should not be allowed to prohibit new production, make lawful examples artificially scarce and expensive, and then point to that government-created scarcity as proof that the arms are “unusual.” AmmoLand’s history of the Hughes Amendment details how a disputed 1986 voice vote froze the transferable supply and transformed once-affordable automatic arms into five-figure collectibles. Congress manufactured the rarity that courts now invoke to sustain the prohibition.
Allowing that circular argument would give Congress a roadmap for destroying any enumerated right: suppress its exercise long enough and then cite the suppression as constitutional justification.
Protect the Principle, Not Just One Rifle
Edelsohn deserves credit for rejecting the gun-control claim that the AR-15 is too military to be protected. His discussion of the Militia Acts, civilian marksmanship programs, private arms and America’s volunteer tradition gives the Supreme Court ample reason to reject Cook County and Connecticut’s bans.
But gun owners should not have to surrender one protected class of bearable arms to save another. The Constitution does not say the people may keep only those firearms anti-gun judges consider sufficiently weak, sporting or politically acceptable.
The Supreme Court should hold that AR-15s are protected militia arms. It should not get there by repeating the same ahistorical compromise that allowed the federal government to price, register, and eventually close the civilian market for newly manufactured machine guns.
The Second Amendment protects militia arms—not merely the subset of militia arms the government has not yet succeeded in banning.
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.
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.
BREAKING
