Ninth Circuit Forced to Deliver Rare Second Amendment Win Against Hawaii’s ‘Vampire Rule’

The Ninth Circuit reinstated the injunction against Hawaii’s private-property “vampire rule” after the Supreme Court reversed the panel’s earlier decision. IMG Jim Grant

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued its ruling in Wolford v. Lopez on August 10, 2026, after the Supreme Court overturned its original decision, forcing the California-based court to deliver a rare Second Amendment victory.

The case challenged Hawaii’s 2023 Act 52, a sweeping post-Bruen statute that restricted the carry of firearms in numerous “sensitive places” and created a default ban on carrying firearms onto the private property of another person unless the owner, lessee, operator, or manager gives express authorization—verbal, written, or via clear signage. That private-property default rule is codified at Hawaii Revised Statutes § 134-9.5. Critics quickly labeled it the “vampire rule,” because it flipped the longstanding common-law presumption: instead of allowing licensed carriers to enter businesses open to the public unless prohibited, the law made every private commercial property off-limits unless the owner affirmatively invited armed citizens inside.

Gun Owners Challenged Hawaii’s Default Carry Ban

The Hawaii Firearms Coalition teamed up with local residents Jason and Alison Wolford and Atom Kasprzycki to sue the state. The plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of a regulation they viewed as unconstitutional, which they argued effectively nullified the right to bear arms for self-defense in everyday life. The U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii granted the injunction in part, blocking the private-property default rule as applied to property open to the public and certain other provisions.

On the first appeal, a Ninth Circuit panel in 2024 affirmed some parts of the injunction but reversed others. Most critically, the panel held that the plaintiffs had not shown a likelihood of success on the private-property default rule under § 134-9.5. That ruling left the “vampire rule” largely intact and drew sharp criticism from Second Amendment advocates who viewed the Ninth Circuit as consistently hostile to gun rights.

The plaintiffs filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court. The Court granted review limited to the private-property question, reversed the Ninth Circuit, and remanded the case (Wolford v. Lopez). In a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Samuel Alito, the Court held that Hawaii’s rule prohibiting licensed concealed-carry holders from carrying on private property open to the public without the owner’s express authorization violates the Second and Fourteenth Amendments. The majority emphasized that the restriction falls within the plain text of the Second Amendment and that Hawaii had failed to identify a relevant historical tradition supporting such a broad default ban. Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and Barrett joined a concurrence by Justice Barrett on part of the analysis. Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson dissented.

Ninth Circuit Reinstates the Injunction

The Supreme Court remanded the case to the Ninth Circuit with instructions to proceed consistent with its opinion. On remand, the same panel has now affirmed the district court’s injunction against HRS § 134-9.5—the private-property default rule—and portions of HRS § 134-9.1(a)(1) that prohibit carry in certain parking areas owned, leased, or used by the State or a county. Specifically, the injunction continues to block restrictions on parking areas shared with non-governmental entities, not reserved for government employees, or not exclusively serving a government building. The panel left its prior analysis of other sensitive-place restrictions largely undisturbed.

The decision marks a significant, if limited, Second Amendment win in a circuit long regarded as openly hostile to the right to keep and bear arms. Similar “default no-carry” laws in California, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland are now under heightened scrutiny. While the case remains at the preliminary-injunction stage and further litigation is expected, the Supreme Court’s clear rejection of Hawaii’s “vampire rule” has already reshaped the legal landscape for public carry nationwide.

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About John Crump

Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people from all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons, follow him on X at @right2bear, or at www.crumpy.com.

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Silencer Shop Puts ATF on Notice: No-Form-4 Suppressor Transfers Set for Midnight

Silencer Shop and Gun Owners of America notified DOJ and ATF of two planned suppressor transfers without Form 4s or NFA registration. IMG Tim Potter

Silencer Shop is preparing to do what the federal government has forbidden Americans from doing for more than 90 years: complete commercial suppressor transfers without ATF permission, Form 4s, or entry into the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.

In an August 12 letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche and ATF Director Robert Cekada, Gun Owners of America and Silencer Shop gave the government notice that two transfers are scheduled for midnight Central Time on August 13. One suppressor will go to Brandon Herrera, the Republican candidate for Texas’ 23rd Congressional District. The second will go to Texas state Rep. Wes Virdell.

The letter gives DOJ and ATF until 5 p.m. Eastern on August 12 to say whether they consider the transfers unlawful or intend to continue enforcing the enjoined National Firearms Act provisions.

If the government does not intervene, the parties say these will be the first lawful commercial suppressor transfers since June 26, 1934, completed without complying with the NFA’s registration and advance-approval scheme.

GOA and Silencer Shop put DOJ and ATF on notice:

At midnight tonight, Silencer Shop plans the first lawful commercial suppressor transfers since 1934 without Form 4s or NFA registration. https://t.co/N4ixx6Xme8

— AmmoLand News (@AmmoLand) August 12, 2026

No Form 4, No Registry, No ATF Permission

Silencer Shop is not proposing an off-the-books sale. The company says both transfers will comply with Texas law, the Gun Control Act, and the federal rules that still apply to ordinary firearm transactions. What it will not do is file an ATF Form 4, request advance permission, or register the suppressors under provisions that a federal judge has enjoined.

Both recipients are Texas residents legally eligible to possess firearms. Both are GOA members and will be Silencer Shop customers during the transactions. That makes them, as the letter puts it, covered “twice over” by the injunction.

As AmmoLand previously reported, U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix permanently barred ATF and DOJ from enforcing major NFA registration and approval provisions against the plaintiffs and, where applicable, their current and future members and customers.

The constitutional reasoning is straightforward. Congress enacted the NFA under its taxing power. Congress later reduced the making and transfer taxes on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and AOWs to zero. With no tax to collect, the registration machinery lost the constitutional power supporting it.

The federal government possesses only the powers delegated to it by the Constitution. Courts do not get to rescue a dead taxing-power justification by pretending Congress enacted the statute under some different power. Judge Hendrix accordingly rejected the government’s attempts to retrofit the scheme under the Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause.

The court did not reach the Second Amendment claim. Separately, however, the Fifth Circuit has already held that suppressors are protected “Arms” because they facilitate the use of firearms for lawful self-defense.

ATF Has a Choice to Make

The notice removes any claim of surprise. It identifies the seller, buyers, location, timing, and legal basis for the transactions. If ATF interferes, the plaintiffs will have a clean record to take back before Judge Hendrix. If the bureau stands down, Americans will see the practical result of the judgment: a covered customer can buy a suppressor through a licensed dealer without begging ATF for permission.

The move comes while DOJ remains under pressure over whether to appeal and 47 Republican lawmakers are urging the administration to apply the ruling nationwide.

This does not mean the entire NFA has vanished. The injunction protects the plaintiffs and covered members and customers; it is not universal relief. State suppressor bans, the Gun Control Act, and NFA provisions governing still-taxed machine guns and destructive devices remain in place.

For now, the question is much narrower: Will ATF obey the court, or will it attempt to enforce provisions that Judge Hendrix has already declared beyond Congress’s constitutional authority?

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About Duncan Johnson:

Duncan Johnson is a lifelong firearms enthusiast and unwavering defender of the Second Amendment—where “shall not be infringed” means exactly what it says. A graduate of George Mason University, he enjoys competing in local USPSA and multi-gun competitions whenever he’s not covering the latest in gun rights and firearm policy. Duncan is a regular contributor to AmmoLand News and serves as part of the editorial team responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

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New Study Finds Oregon’s Measure 114 Led to a Surge in Gun Sales

The attempt to restrict gun sales in Oregon via Measure 114 appears to have sparked a massive buying frenzy, according to a new study. iStock-927277240

Who didn’t see this coming? A new study published in the Journal of Public Economics strongly suggests gun sales in Oregon following the narrow passage of Measure 114 in 2022—the extremely restrictive, and arguably unconstitutional, gun control ballot initiative, which is still before the Oregon state Supreme Court—skyrocketed 157 percent. It is definitely not what the anti-gunners behind the measure, which has been tied up in the courts for nearly four years, wanted to see.

Incredibly, researchers Katie Bollman, Benjamin Hansen, Edward Rubin, and Garrett Stanford acknowledge right up front in their introduction, “Measure 114’s proponents intended to reduce the number of firearms in Oregon, subsequently reducing firearm-related accidents and violence…” This was the driving force behind the permit-to-purchase part of the measure, but as the authors admit in their conclusion, “Our results document that Oregon’s gun-control public referendum, Measure 114, induced substantial increases in firearms background checks throughout the state. This effect was most pronounced between the election—when voters narrowly approved the measure—and the judicial stay that indefinitely paused the measure. During this period, we estimate Measure 114 induced 78,000 additional firearm-related background checks—sufficient for 1.9% of Oregon’s residents to have purchased a gun.”

The study was revealed in a report at Phys.org, from Oregon State University. Titled “Gun policy and the steel paradox,” the study notes, “Background checks, a proxy for demand, rose 13.9% in anticipation of the referendum and surged 157% immediately following the election. After judicial intervention halted the law’s enactment, demand returned (to) near pre-election levels.”

However, it seems the researchers can’t quite figure this out: “Temporal displacement/harvesting does not explain the demand spike: after eighteen months, we still observe a substantial cumulative increase of 63,000 excess firearm-related background checks. Administrative data reveal significant within-state heterogeneity.* This evidence underscores the paradoxical effect of gun-control policies, offering a cautionary lesson to policymakers.”

(*For those who speak normal English, here’s a definition of heterogeneity found online: “The quality or state of consisting of diverse, dissimilar, or non-uniform parts, elements, or people. It is the direct opposite of homogeneity, which describes things that are uniform, identical, or entirely alike.”)

Any Beaver State gun owner could have predicted the gun sales spike, and many of them did. Mention “gun control” anywhere and suddenly there is a rush to every gun shop and sporting goods store within driving distance.

The fact that Measure 114 has been gathering dust before the state high court suggests a couple of possibilities:

• The justices in Salem have determined Measure 114 violates the state constitution and they are reluctant to admit it, and/or
• The court has been stalling on a ruling allowing the Democrat-dominated legislature time to pass legislation designed to get around the constitutionality question.

As the Sportsmen’s Alliance put it earlier this year, “The primary vehicle for legislative action this session, HB 4145-B, has been sent to the Governor’s desk. While the version that passed was significantly stripped down from its original form, don’t let the lack of ‘teeth’ fool you. By passing this measure, the legislature has effectively kicked the can down the road by delaying the implementation of Ballot Measure 114 until January 1, 2028.”

The organization added, “The Sportsmen’s Alliance remains firmly opposed to this strategy of delay. ‘Kicking the can’ is not a victory for the Second Amendment; it is a stall tactic that ignores the fundamental flaws of a measure that remains unconstitutional.”

Virtually every gun rights organization in the country lined up to challenge Measure 114 in state or federal court. While the federal cases are stalled on appeal, it was the state-level lawsuit which initially led to a ruling by a circuit court judge in eastern Oregon that the measure was unconstitutional. The ruling was appealed and now the question is before the state Supreme Court.

The article at Phys.org quotes Katie Bollman, an Oregon State University economist, who observed, “It’s not particularly surprising that people go out and buy more guns when they have compelling reason to believe it’s going to become harder to do so in the future. But the magnitude of the increase is pretty remarkable, as is the underlying dynamic driving it.”

Perhaps not so remarkable; Oregonians living outside of Portland, Salem, Corvallis and Eugene—essentially the liberal Willamette Valley and the I-5 corridor—like guns, they want to own guns, and they strongly believe in the Second Amendment.

The end result is something of a bad dream for the public disarmament lobby. Instead of reducing the number of privately owned firearms, their initiative sparked a buying frenzy. That nobody on the political left imagined just how vigorously Oregonians would be buying guns with the passage of Measure 114 is, perhaps, a testament to their naiveté, the same lack of common sense which leads anti-gunners to believe the passage of “one more law” might earn compliance from criminals.

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About Dave Workman

Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.

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Gun Owner’s Highway Patrol Encounter Highlights Importance of Asserting Rights

“I recently won a 40k settlement against the Wyoming Highway Patrol after they violated my rights as not only a gun owner, but as an American citizen,” Eli Pagunsan of the “Eli Writes Stories” YouTube channel tells AmmoLand.

No stranger to harassment by law enforcement over exercising his right to keep and bear arms, Pagunsan was victimized by bullying Riverside County (CA) overreach when he was unjustly “red-flagged as a potential school shooter” as a high school freshman at age 14.  As “The Gun Writer” Lee Williams wrote in a 2021 Second Amendment Foundation Investigative Journalism Project report, detailing how he was unjustly reported and how police bullied their way into searching his home, while forced to attend an online alternative school to complete required coursework,  “Pagunsan was never charged with a single crime” but emerged from the ordeal with “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), severe depression, and general anxiety disorder.”

“He wants parents to know that if their child is ever confronted by officials as he was, they should not let police into their home,” Williams wrote. “’They will try to pressure you. They’ll tell you the search will be quick. It won’t take long. They’ll use every trick in the book,’ he said. ‘Get a lawyer immediately.’”

With that as background, police intimidation and an unsubstantiated overreaction when the Wyoming Highway Patrol interrogated and detained him after he refused to allow them to search his car.

“I got pulled over on an empty stretch of highway for speeding,” Pagunsan tells AmmoLand.  Trooper [Kyle] Hawn, the officer who pulled me over got the idea that I was a drug trafficker. I was disarmed and I was detained in the front seat of the car where Hawn called for backup, but not before interrogating me as being a potential drug trafficker.

“He used getting my wallet and my permits from my car as a way of running my pistol as either stolen or used in a crime,” Paunsan elaborated. “I was let go after their dog went and found nothing and was released from my detention.”

“Later on, I’d agree to a 40k settlement of the case, but not before I went and showed it to James White of Southern Drawl Law who made … videos,” he concluded.

Those were “Wyoming Trooper SUED After Search Refusal & Unlawful Detention!” posted a year ago to chronicle Pagunsan’s ordeal and legal response, and more recently, “Wyoming AG Tried to Come After Me For Sharing Eli’s Story- IT DID NOT WORK!,” posted two weeks ago, in which Criminal defense attorney, former prosecutor, and former police officer James White announced:

“There’s a huge update. We have helped Eli secure a win in his lawsuit, but in the process, the state of Wyoming actually endeavored to try to depose me because I dared to report about the constitutional violations of their Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper…”

“Here’s the dash and bodycam footage,” Pagunsan disclosed to AmmoLand in a follow-up email.  “I’ll provide timestamps for when things happen. Both the bodycam and dashcam are synced, but the bodycam provides the best footage outside of the car, with the dashcam providing the best footage of myself speaking with him.”

1:12 is the initial contact where he approaches me.

At 2:54 I’m asked to step out of the vehicle and I’m disarmed. I comply with the demands of the officer, geet searched, and during this even tell him where my knife and flashlight are.

At 14:42, I’m given the ticket which should, legally, end the stop. I’m detained in the vehicle. Trooper Kyle Hawn asks if I’d consent to a search. I decline, and later on, this would be used against me to say that I’m acting suspicious.

At 28:52, under the guise of getting my wallet from my car to see my other permits, Trooper Hawn calls in my pistol to see if “It’s been used in any crimes or reported stolen(might be butchering that completely).”

I’m let go at the 1:11:29 mark, and at the 1:11:45 mark the gun grabbing officers have an exchange over me being a potential trafficker, and openly ask:

“He’s bipolar and carrying a pistol?”

That Trooper Hawn came off as friendly and understanding, but all the time was trying to entrap Pagunsan, who was being respectful and compliant with orders throughout, should be an object lesson and guide for all gun owner/law enforcement encounters. When they compel you to pull over, they are not doing it to be your understanding friends.

That Hawn made assumptions based on ignorance or prejudice is another. Pagunsan informed him the lithium he was prescribed accounted for his sweating (something easily verifiable with a simple Google search). As for his being “nervous,” the power imbalance and intimidation by multiple troopers against a lone, disarmed driver in the middle of nowhere, bringing several cars out and subjecting him to an extended grilling over an ostensible speeding ticket, and knowing whatever happened would be their word against his, would unnerve anyone.

It also points to an inexcusable lack of competence and training that an armed “Only One” does not understand that without adjudication resulting in a court-ordered stay in a mental health facility, or being ruled mentally incompetent, a citizen, particularly one who is responsibly following a documented medical regimen, is in full possession of his rights.

There’s another lesson here for gun owners that’s every bit as important as not consenting to having your car searched (don’t physically resist, just make it clear you don’t consent and fight it later with an attorney who can argue probable cause): Don’t talk to the police.

Not being a lawyer, I rely on those who are. If you haven’t watched Regent University Law Professor James Duane’s classic cautions to always exercise your Fifth Amendment rights when questioned by government officials, set aside the 46 minutes it takes to do so—and share it with your friends.

Likewise, bookmark The People’s Lawyer YouTube channel, where criminal defense attorney Jeff Hampton tells you exactly what to say when police ask you questions, how to decline to answer until you can consult your attorney, and ask if you are being detained or are free to go.

Pagunsan’s experience gives us plenty of reasons to see how standing up for our rights is good advice that we ignore at our peril.

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About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

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Congress Presses ATF to Broaden NFA Relief While DOJ Debates Appeal

Rep. Andrew Clyde and Sen. Steve Daines are leading 47 Republican lawmakers urging DOJ to apply Judge Hendrix’s NFA registration ruling nationwide. IMG Tim Potter Nomad L on a Noveske Ghetto Blaster

With the deadline looming for the United States Department of Justice to seek an extension of the stay in Silencer Shop Foundation v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Congress, lead by Representative Andrew Clyde (R-GA) and Senator Steve Daines (R-MO) has sent a letter to the ATF urging the agency to use its regulatory authority to expand the injunction against enforcement of key provisions of the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA). Such action would effectively create broader protection approaching a de facto nationwide injunction.

The letter reads: “The DOJ should apply the court’s constitutional holding as its nationwide operating position. The court held that the challenged NFA provisions — governing registration, application, and transfer of untaxed firearms — are unconstitutional because they no longer rest on any valid exercise of an enumerated power. That holding does not turn on any fact particular to the named plaintiffs; it applies with equal force to every person subject to these same regulations. Therefore, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) should be directed to apply this ruling as its governing position to all transfers and makings involving untaxed firearms, regardless of whether the applicant is a party to this litigation, again effective immediately.”

“The DOJ should initiate rulemaking to formally rescind or amend the challenged regulations as they apply to untaxed firearms. Rulemaking is necessary to make this outcome permanent. We urge you to begin that rulemaking process without delay, so that the immediate, nationwide application of the court’s ruling is followed as promptly as the APA allows by a durable regulatory fix that does not depend on the discretion of any particular administration.”

Congress Tells DOJ to Stop Defending the Zero-Tax Registry

Congress Removed the NFA’s Constitutional Foundation

This development follows an ongoing internal debate within the DOJ over whether to appeal a Texas federal district court’s ruling that the NFA, as applied to short-barreled rifles (SBRs), short-barreled shotguns (SBSs), suppressors, and any other weapons (AOWs), is unconstitutional.

On August 5, 2026, U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas (San Angelo Division) granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs in the consolidated cases of Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF and Jensen v. ATF. The court held that once Congress reduced the making and transfer taxes on these items to zero dollars under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (effective January 1, 2026), the registration, application, and related regulatory requirements lost their constitutional foundation under Congress’s taxing power. Neither the Commerce Clause nor the Necessary and Proper Clause could salvage them after the fact, the court concluded, because Congress had originally enacted the NFA exclusively as a tax measure.

If the ATF takes the stance the letter suggests, that could give clarity and safeguard the public. Right now, the injunction applies only to those named in the case, including businesses and organizational memberships. The judge did make it clear that it applies to all current and future members, but because of the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Casa, he could not issue a nationwide injunction.

Judge Hendrix permanently enjoined the ATF and DOJ from enforcing the challenged provisions—primarily 26 U.S.C. §§ 5812, 5822, 5841, and 5861, along with corresponding regulations—against the plaintiffs. The injunction covers the named parties, their agencies and political subdivisions, organizational members (current and future), and customers of the commercial plaintiffs. The judge made clear that the relief extends to all current and future members of the plaintiff organizations. However, citing the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. CASA, which curtails universal injunctions, he declined to issue a true nationwide order. As a result, the practical reach depends heavily on membership in groups such as Gun Owners of America (GOA) or purchases from covered dealers.

The seven-day stay entered with the final judgment is set to expire on or about August 12, 2026, unless the government obtains further relief from the Fifth Circuit. If the stay lapses without extension, the ATF will face pressure to issue guidance to federal firearms licensees on how to process transfers and manufacturing of the affected items for covered parties. Enforcement against those parties would become effectively impossible in many circumstances.

Gun-Rights Groups Split Over the Best Strategy

Gun rights organizations hold differing views on the optimal path forward. Gun Owners of America, a lead plaintiff in the case, prefers that the Justice Department abandon the fight and decline to appeal. GOA views the district court victory as the first major step toward dismantling the NFA’s registration scheme. If the ATF follows the recommendation in the congressional letter and expands protection through regulation, broader coverage would follow without the risks of further litigation.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has emphasized the need for greater clarity from the ATF on precisely who falls within the injunction’s scope. While the NRA supports clearer implementation, it does not regard a DOJ appeal as the preferred course.

The National Assocation for Gun Rights (NAGR) is also asking for the DOJ not to appeal the decision. They said they have been working behind the scenes to prevent an appeal of the decision.

“We believe the Department of Justice shouldn’t appeal this decision,” said NAGR Executive Director Taylor Rhodes. “We’ve used our considerable influence within the administration to communicate that message directly to officials in both the White House and the Department of Justice. The administration should let this important constitutional ruling stand rather than dragging the American people through more unnecessary litigation.”

Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) takes a more aggressive posture. FPC CEO Brandon Combs stated: “Our intention and strategic objective is to end the NFA, full stop. This recent decision is an important and necessary first step in the process, but it’s only the first step. We are going to aggressively litigate these matters to their full and final conclusions. It would be legally and culturally beneficial for the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve these issues on their constitutional merits and agree that the NFA is unconstitutional.” FPC argues that an appeal culminating at the Supreme Court would ultimately provide gun owners the strongest and most durable protection.

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) adopts a measured middle ground. SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut indicated a preference for an appellate decision from the Fifth Circuit if the stay is not expanded.

“If my options are between appealed with a stay and appealed without a stay, yes,” Kraut said. “But I’d prefer an appellate decision.”

An Appeal Could Strengthen or Jeopardize the Victory

Which strategy proves correct depends largely on risk tolerance. Multiple attorneys consulted by AmmoLand News estimate roughly a 60 percent chance that the Fifth Circuit would affirm Judge Hendrix’s ruling, leaving a 40 percent chance of reversal. That assessment is complicated by recent Fifth Circuit precedent. In United States v. Peterson, the court upheld George Peterson’s conviction for possessing an unregistered suppressor in violation of the NFA. Peterson remains incarcerated. Although the factual and legal postures differ—the tax was still in effect at the time of Peterson’s offense, and the case centered on Second Amendment rather than enumerated-powers claims—the decision has raised caution among some Second Amendment advocates about how the Fifth Circuit might approach NFA challenges even under changed statutory conditions.

The coming days will determine whether the government seeks to freeze the injunction pending appeal, whether the ATF acts on congressional guidance to broaden relief, or whether the stay simply expires and the district court’s order begins to take practical effect for covered parties. Whatever the immediate outcome, the ruling marks the most significant judicial blow to the National Firearms Act’s registration regime since its enactment in 1934.

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About John Crump

Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people from all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons, follow him on X at @right2bear, or at www.crumpy.com.

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Thailand Tightens Gun Laws Again After Teen Uses Grandfather’s Registered Handgun

hailand’s licensing, registration, and firearm restrictions failed to stop a murderer from taking a legally owned handgun. iStock-RGBAlpha 504903970

On August 7, 2026, a 14-year-old Thai student murdered his grandparents, took his grandfather’s legally registered handgun, and carried it to Debsirin Nonthaburi School outside Bangkok. He killed six people at the school and wounded 23 before shooting himself. Eight victims were killed in all. The Thai government has now suspended firearm-purchase permits, ordered a review of existing licenses, and called for harsher restrictions.

In July of 2025, a mass murderer killed five people and then committed suicide at a Bangkok market.

Thailand had imposed even more restrictions on its already restrictive gun control measures in 2023. In 2023, a 14-year-old killed two and wounded five in a shopping center in Bangkok. In 2022, a former police officer killed 36 people, including his wife, his son, and 22 children. The former police officer used a gun and a knife. In 2020, a soldier killed 29 people in a mass murder with a gun in Nakhon Ratchasima.

Thailand has very strict gun control laws.

It was not always so. In 1947, mandatory registration, licensing, and permits for civilian ownership were instituted. Licensing for self-defense is relatively common in rural areas.

Firearms in Thai Museum. Public domain.

Self-defense is considered a legitimate reason to apply for a firearm permit. Carry permits for public areas are difficult to obtain. The Small Arms Survey estimated that Thai civilians possessed 10.34 million firearms in 2017, about 15.1 firearms per 100 residents. Ammunition ownership is tightly regulated. Reloading ammunition is banned. Resistance to the strict laws is common. Approximately 6.22 million were registered, and 4.12 million were estimated to be unregistered. Thailand has an estimated total firearms-related death rate of about 4 per 100K population.  The homicide rate with firearms is about 1 per 100K and the total homicide rate is lower than the USA, about 2-2.4 per 100K. In the USA the total homicide rate dropped below 4.0 in 2025.

Total firearm ownership rates have little or no correlation to homicide rates.

Mass murders committed with firearms occur in countries with strict firearms controls. Some of those countries experience mass murder rates with firearms greater than the USA, when the numbers are corrected for population. Mass murder can be accomplished with many different methods. Vehicle-based attacks have become more common.

An important way to prevent public mass murders is to not legitimize mass murder through the mass media. This is difficult, but it can be done without censorship. There was considerable success when media companies cooperated to not publicize the suicides of celebrities. The total death toll from mass public murders is low, but the media attention is high.

Mass murder with firearms is promulgated as a phenomenon of media contagion. When people who commit mass murder are made into antiheroes. People with mental problems and suicide ideation see mass murder as a way to achieve fame and media immortality.

Thailand has much stricter gun control than exists in the United States.

Gun control does not stop mass murder, with or without firearms. People with guns can stop mass public murder, which was recently demonstrated in the attempted mass murder in Twin Falls, Idaho. An armed citizen engaged the mass murderer, as did an off duty state trooper. A former police officer engaged the killer, but was shot before he drew his handgun. These heroic individuals helped to lower the death toll.

In the Twin Falls incident, a bystander picked up a handgun the killer had abandoned. It was jammed, and she was unable to make it functional, so she abandoned it as well.

Thailand’s tragedy exposes the practical limits of gun control’s promise. The handgun was registered. The owner had a license. Public carry was heavily restricted. None of that stopped a murderer willing to kill the lawful owner and steal his firearm.

No law can promise that evil will disappear. The relevant question is whether peaceful citizens will be left helpless when it arrives.

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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.

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The Hughes Amendment Explained: How a 1986 Voice Vote Banned New Machine Guns for Americans

On the morning of April 10, 1986, the U.S. House of Representatives chamber buzzed with exhaustion and political scheming. Lawmakers had been debating the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act (FOPA), a bill long championed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) as a corrective to decades of alleged Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) overreach. The legislation promised to ease interstate gun sales, protect travelers carrying guns across state lines, narrow the definition of who needed a dealer’s license, and raise the bar for prosecuting technical violations from “knowing” to “willful.” It was set to pass overwhelmingly.

Then New Jersey Democrat Rep. William J. Hughes rose. As chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Hughes offered a last-minute amendment. It would make it unlawful for any private citizen to “transfer or possess a machinegun” manufactured after the bill’s effective date. Only those already legally registered under the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) would be grandfathered. The amendment, numbered H.Amdt.777, was brief and sweeping: it added subsection (o) to 18 U.S.C. § 922.

Presiding over the Committee of the Whole was New York Democrat Rep. Charles Rangel. He called for a voice vote. “All in favor say ‘aye,’” Rangel intoned. Ayes echoed. “All opposed, ‘no.’” The nays shouted louder according to multiple eyewitness accounts and later video analysis circulating in gun rights circles. Yet Rangel declared, “The ayes have it.” Republicans immediately demanded a recorded vote. Rangel pressed forward. The amendment was recorded as having passed by voice vote. Minutes later, the full FOPA package passed the House by a vote of 292-130. On May 19, President Ronald Reagan signed Public Law 99-308 into effect.

Thus, the Hughes Amendment was born, the single most reviled provision in modern firearms law among Second Amendment advocates. Forty years later, in 2026, it remains the iron curtain separating civilians from newly manufactured machine guns.

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The civilian registry of transferable pre-1986 machine guns is frozen at roughly 240,000–250,000 units (exact figures fluctuate slightly with ATF reports and include samples held by manufacturers). Prices have exploded: a transferable MAC-10 that sold for $350 in the early 1980s now commands $15,000–$25,000. A select-fire M16 that once traded for under $2,000 routinely exceeds $30,000. Drop-in auto sears, once cheap conversion parts, have hit $28,000 or more. Legal ownership requires ATF Form 4 approval, fingerprints, photos, a $200 tax stamp, and often months of waiting, assuming your state even permits it.

The controversy is not simply economic. Gun rights organizations such as Gun Owners of America (GOA) and the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) call the amendment’s passage procedurally illegitimate, a “midnight special” rammed through when many pro-gun members had left the floor believing the bill was safely pro-Second Amendment. C-SPAN footage on that day, widely analyzed on sites like YouTube, shows Rangel gaveling through demands for a roll-call vote. Critics insist the “nays” clearly carried the voice tally. Official congressional records list only “passed by voice vote.” No recorded tally of individual lawmakers exists for the amendment itself, a fact that fuels accusations of parliamentary sleight of hand.

Hughes himself never hid his intent. A moderate Democrat with a record of supporting some gun control measures while backing environmental causes, he argued the amendment would prevent the proliferation of fully automatic weapons in civilian hands. Machine guns, he and his supporters contended, were weapons of war, not sporting arms. With Democrats holding the House majority and enough votes present that evening, the amendment sailed through without a recorded division that might have exposed the margin or forced absent members to take a stand.

The irony stood thick. FOPA itself was the product of years of NRA lobbying to undo what many viewed as the worst excesses of the 1968 Gun Control Act. That earlier law, passed in the emotional consequences of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, imposed dealer licensing, record-keeping, and interstate sale restrictions that critics said ensnared law-abiding collectors and hobbyists. ATF enforcement tactics, warrantless inspections, seizures without due process, and felony prosecutions for paperwork errors became legendary horror stories in gun magazines of the era. Senate passage of FOPA (S. 49) had been lopsided: 79-15 on July 9, 1985. In the House, Rep. Harold Volkmer (D-MO) used a rare successful discharge petition to force floor debate, substituting a strong pro-gun version for the Judiciary Committee’s watered-down bill.

Hughes had already tried multiple amendments that day, some tightening dealer definitions, others limiting interstate transport, most of which failed on recorded votes. The machine-gun ban was the one that stuck. NRA leadership, desperate to salvage the wider reforms after a seven-year legislative slog, chose not to wage an all-out floor fight. Former NRA lobbyist Richard Feldman later described a dinner conversation with then-rising star Wayne LaPierre: the decision was made to swallow the amendment to secure the rest of the bill. “He said, ‘I want to do it. I think we have to do it,’” Feldman recalled in a 2013 NPR interview. Years later, some NRA insiders regretted the choice, saying it haunted the organization as grassroots members viewed it as a betrayal.

President Reagan, a popular Republican president who once carried a .44 Magnum as governor of California, signed the bill without public comment on the Hughes provision. The law took effect immediately on May 19, 1986. The civilian supply of new machine guns slammed shut.

The economic consequences were foreseeable yet staggering. Supply fixed; demand unchanged. Collectors and investors bid up the finite pool of pre-ban transferable machine guns. What had been a niche market for devotees and Class III dealers became a high-stakes investment arena. Today, owning a transferable M249 SAW or a registered MP5 costs more than a new luxury car. Destroyed or worn-out guns permanently shrink the registry. Post-1986 “dealer samples” exist only for law enforcement and military, and even those are tightly controlled.

Anti-gun advocates hail the amendment as a quiet success. Gun violence researcher Robert Spitzer of SUNY Cortland told NPR in 2013 that the 1986 freeze was “a fairly small step” on top of the already burdensome 1934 NFA, which required $200 tax stamps (thousands in today’s dollars), fingerprints, and registration. He argued machine guns had never been common in civilian hands; the ban simply prevented any resurgence. Crime statistics back the rarity argument: ATF data and independent analyses show legally registered machine guns have been used in extraordinarily few violent crimes, and some studies cite near-zero incidents involving pre-1986 registered firearms by lawful owners. The weapons’ primary documented misuse has been by criminals converting illegal semi-automatics or using smuggled military surplus.

Second Amendment purists reject the safety rationale. They point out that the Founding-era militia concept explicitly included the use of military arms. The Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller decision described machine guns as “dangerous and unusual” in dicta, but the post-2022 Bruen ruling, which demands historical analogues for gun regulations, has opened new legal paths.

In August 2024, U.S. District Judge John W. Broomes in Kansas dismissed charges against a man possessing unregistered machine guns, holding that the Hughes Amendment and broader NFA restrictions fail Bruen’s text-history-tradition test. The case is under appeal, but it represents the first significant federal crack. Other challenges percolate in conservative circuits. Gun rights groups argue the amendment lacks any founding-era parallel for banning an entire class of arms.

Repeal efforts have repeatedly failed. Bills introduced by Reps. Steve Stockman, Virgil Goode, and others died in committee. The NRA, once accused of softness on the issue, now routinely includes repeal language in its legislative scorecards. Groups like Gun Owners of America push harder, drafting model state legislation exploiting the amendment’s narrow exemption for transfers “to or by” a state. In the 2025–2026 legislative session, West Virginia and Kentucky lawmakers introduced bills creating state agencies to manufacture or transfer post-1986 machine guns to citizens, testing the federal loophole. None have yet succeeded, but the creativity underscores frustration.

The individual stories are poignant. Veterans who carried M16s in Vietnam could once buy civilian equivalents affordably. Today’s young enthusiasts face a de facto ban. Manufacturers stopped producing civilian-legal full-auto firearms decades ago. Innovation in the machine-gun space shifted entirely to military and law enforcement contracts. Collectors speak wistfully of the pre-1986 era, when a Class III dealer could order a new UZI or MAC-10 and have it delivered after paperwork was completed.

Politically, the Hughes Amendment crystallized the modern gun control divide. On one side, it is a sensible regulation of weapons of mass destruction. To the other, it is the clearest example of Congress using procedural trickery to erode constitutional rights. The absence of a recorded vote denies posterity any accountability no list of who voted to freeze the registry exists. Critics note that many pro-gun Democrats and Republicans had already left the floor after earlier votes, assuming victory on the core FOPA reforms.

In the decades since, the amendment has withstood constitutional challenges under pre-Bruen standards. Lower courts uniformly upheld it, citing Heller’s dicta and the government’s interest in preventing automatic-fire proliferation. But Bruen changed the analytical system. Scholars and litigators now argue that 18th- and 19th-century laws never banned an entire category of bearable arms outright. The NFA’s original 1934 tax-and-register scheme was upheld as a revenue measure, not a ban. The 1986 addition crossed into prohibition.

As of today, the registry remains closed. No new civilian machine guns roll off assembly lines. Prices continue their inexorable climb. A cottage industry of brokers, Class III dealers, and trust attorneys thrives on transfers. Meanwhile, illegal machine guns converted AR-15s with auto-sears or “Glock switches” appear in some urban crime scenes, but those are unrelated to the legal pre-1986 pool.

Rep. Hughes died in 2019 at age 87, his obituary noting environmental achievements and a long congressional career. The amendment bearing his name continues to serve as a symbol. Gun rights activists mark May 19 annually as a day of mourning. Repeal petitions circulate on the White House website. Conservative lawmakers introduce symbolic bills every Congress.

The deeper controversy transcends procedure. It touches the fundamental question of what arms the Second Amendment protects. If machine guns, the very arms carried by the militia in the founding era’s understanding, can be banned for civilians via a voice vote with no recorded dissenters, what precedent does that set for semi-automatic rifles, handguns, or any modern firearm? Supporters counter that public safety and the rarity of machine-gun crime justify the line drawn in 1986.

Forty years on, the Hughes Amendment remains one of the most consequential and contested pieces of firearms legislation in U.S. history. It changed a once-accessible class of firearms into multimillion-dollar collectibles. It exposed the weakness of legislative procedure when passions run high. And it continues fueling the national debate over the right to keep and bear arms in its most literal, military form.

Whether future courts or Congress will reopen the registry remains uncertain. But one thing is clear: the voice vote heard around the gun world in April 1986 still echoes loudly today.

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About John Crump

Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people from all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons, follow him on X at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.

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Nearly 1 in 3 Voters Say They Carry a Concealed Handgun, Survey Finds

A July 2026 CPRC survey found that 30.9% of general-election voters carry a concealed handgun all, most, some, or rarely. IMG Duncan Johnson

Research done at the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) and published in July of 2026 shows the percentage and number of people carrying concealed handguns continues to increase.

A survey of 1000 people conducted by McLaughlin  & Associates on July 22, 2026 shows significant increases in the carrying of concealed handguns. In the last 19 months, from December of 2024 to July of 2026, the percentage of likely voters who carried all or most of the time increased from 13% to 15.7%, an increase of 2.7% of the sample. Those who carry sometimes/rarely increased from 11% to 15.2% or 4.2% of the sample.

The total who carry increased from 24% in 2024 to 30.9% in 2026, or 6.6% of the sample.

Similarly, the total of those who say they never carry dropped from 73% to 66.6%, a 6.4% drop. Those who claim they “don’t know” if they carry increased from 2% to 2.5%. The sample is of likely voters in general elections.  Such a sample may or may not be indicative of the habits of non-voters.

20.1% of the respondents stated they possessed a concealed handgun permit. This is slightly lower than previous findings. The slightly lower number may be related to the increasing number of Constitutional Carry states, now at 29, where no permit is needed to carry a holstered handgun, openly or concealed, in most public spaces. 68.9% of the people who carry most or all of the time are located in Constitutional Carry states. The 29 Constitutional Carry states contain 47% of the population of the United States. The 29 Constitutional Carry states account for 68.8% of the land area of the United States of America. About 2/3 of the people who carry all or most of the time in Constitutional Carry states have a concealed carry permit. About half of the people who carry some of the time in Constitutional Carry states have a concealed carry permit.

People aged 18-40 carry at higher rates than people aged 41 and up. In ethnic groups, Hispanics carry at slightly higher rates than Blacks, Asians carry at the lowest levels, and White people and Other are in between.  Republicans carry at higher rates than Democratic or Independent voters do. When ranked by ideology, very liberal voters carry at the highest rates, with 30.8% carrying all the time, vs 21.6% of very conservative voters carrying all the time.

According to CPRC research, economic status shows the strongest correlation with carrying concealed handguns.

Those who identified themselves as wealthy showed a percentage who carried all or most of the time at 62.9%. Those who considered themselves upper middle class and who carried all or most of the time were 28%. Those who considered themselves middle middle class showed 15.7% carrying all the time, lower middle class showed on 9% carrying all the time and only 7% of self identified poor people carried all the time. 4.1% of the sample considered themselves to be wealthy, and 15.5% of the sample considered themselves to be poor. 80.4% considered themselves to be in the middle class.

From the self-identified sample, it appears the average income of those who considered themselves to be wealthy was over $175K per year per household.

These surveys commissioned by the Crime Prevention Research Center offer fascinating insight into the makeup of people who routinely go armed in the United States. The numbers and percentages keep increasing. While not all people who go armed support the Second Amendment, going armed increases the odds of valuing the Second Amendment.

When a person goes about armed, it changes their mental set. They become more independent and aware. They are more likely to view those who seek to disarm them with suspicion.

The wealthy in society tend to be those who set trends. The large percentage of wealthy who carry all the time suggest the percentage of people who carry will continue to increase.

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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.

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DOJ Divided Over Appealing Court Ruling That Guts Key NFA Provisions

The Department of Justice is weighing whether to appeal a federal ruling blocking enforcement of key NFA provisions against covered plaintiffs, members, and customers. IMG Tim Potter

With the time for the government to ask for a stay to be extended in Silencer Shop Foundation v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) rapidly running out, a significant internal debate is unfolding inside the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) over whether to appeal a ruling that knocked down key provisions of the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA).

Last week, a Texas federal district court judge struck down NFA regulations covering short-barreled rifles (SBRs), short-barreled shotguns (SBSs), suppressors, and any other weapons (AOWs). The court reached this conclusion after Congress lowered the long-standing $200 tax stamp fee to $0. Because the NFA has long been justified as a tax statute, a characterization repeatedly affirmed by the United States Supreme Court, and because a tax must serve a genuine revenue-generating purpose, the court held that the challenged regulations lost their constitutional foundation once the fee was eliminated.

Without a valid tax, the registration, approval, and transfer requirements that have defined the NFA for nearly a century could no longer stand.

The court issued a permanent injunction against the regulations, effectively gutting large portions of the NFA as applied to the covered items. To give the federal government an opportunity to seek emergency relief, the judge stayed the injunction for seven days and indicated openness to a longer stay pending appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. That seven-day window expires on August 12.

Many observers expected the DOJ to move quickly for an extended stay. It has not. AmmoLand News reached out to sources inside the department to understand the delay and the internal discussions taking place.

According to those sources—individuals with intimate knowledge of the proceedings whose accounts have been independently corroborated by others—two distinct camps have formed within the DOJ.

The first group consists largely of career employees. They maintain that the Department’s institutional duty is to defend federal statutes against legal challenge. In their view, the proper response to an adverse district court ruling is to appeal and to seek a stay so that the law remains in effect while higher courts review the decision. This faction wants the government to fight the case to the end.

The second group takes a different position. These officials argue that the DOJ has no obligation to defend a law once it has been found unconstitutional on solid legal grounds. They contend that continuing to litigate in defense of provisions that no longer generate revenue and that rest on a now-invalid tax theory would be both unnecessary and contrary to the Department’s higher duty to the Constitution. If the decision were theirs alone, they would decline to appeal.

While United States Attorney General Todd Blanche would normally be expected to make the final call on whether to seek a stay and pursue an appeal, sources indicate the matter has drawn direct attention from the White House. That involvement does not automatically mean the White House will dictate the outcome, but it does signal that this is not a routine litigation decision. The DOJ typically operates with considerable independence from White House input on the day-to-day handling of cases. The fact that the White House is closely monitoring the internal debate underscores the political and legal sensitivity of the issue.

AmmoLand News also contacted sources familiar with White House discussions. Those sources confirmed that the administration is watching the DOJ deliberations carefully. They described intense pressure from gun rights organizations and the broader gun-owning public urging the White House to block any request for an extended stay or an appeal.

Many in the firearms community see the district court’s ruling as a rare and significant opportunity to roll back long-standing NFA restrictions without waiting for further legislative action.

If the stay is not extended, the ATF will be forced to issue guidance to federal firearms licensees (FFLs) on how to handle transfers and manufacturing of the newly unrestricted items. Although the permanent injunction formally applies only to the named plaintiffs and to current and future members of the plaintiff organizations, enforcement of the challenged NFA provisions is expected to become practically impossible. The government does not have access to the membership rolls of those organizations, making it difficult to determine who is covered by the injunction and who is not. In practice, that uncertainty is likely to produce a de facto nationwide effect even if the formal geographic or party scope of the order remains limited.

The broader implications are substantial. For decades, the NFA’s tax-and-registration regime has imposed significant barriers on the ownership and transfer of suppressors, short-barreled firearms, and AOWs. The combination of a successful legal challenge grounded in the tax nature of the statute and a congressional decision to zero out the stamp fee has created an opening that gun owners have sought for generations. Whether that opening remains open now depends on the DOJ’s next move.

Thanks to the lawsuits, gun owners stand closer than they have in living memory to dismantling major portions of the NFA. The remaining question is whether the Department of Justice will continue to defend the law in the courts or whether it will accept the district court’s judgment and allow those rights to return to the people.

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About John Crump

Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people from all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons, follow him on X at @right2bear, or at www.crumpy.com.

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Incomplete Garland Tommy Gun FOIA Response Leaves Basic Questions Unanswered

Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray presents outgoing Attorney General Merrick Garland with a “Tommy Gun” during Garland’s January 2025 farewell ceremony. FBI records show it was a replica costing $268.16 with shipping. iStock-1617047969

“The FBI has completed its review of records subject to the Freedom of Information/Privacy Acts (FOIPA) that are responsive to your request,” a July 31 letter to attorney Stephen Stemnboulieh from Christina Driver, Acting Section Chief of the FBI’s  Record/Information Dissemination Section on the subject of “Christopher Wray’s Gift to Attorney General Garland” begins. “21 pages were reviewed and 21 pages are being released.”

It’s a response to a request submitted in January 2025 by Stamboulieh on my behalf in an attempt to learn more about a “Tommy Gun” presented by then FBI Director Christopher Wray to outgoing Attorney General Merrick Garland, a gift that seemed more than a bit hypocritical to gun owners.

The first question some had: Is it real?

“Went over the video.  Took a screen shot of the ‘Tommy gun’,” firearms designed and president of Historic Arms, LLC, Len Savage replied to my inquiry. “Note the red muzzle indicating a replica… Could just be a red plug on real gun, but I doubt it. Most resin and metal replicas all come with this plugged muzzle.

My FOIA request asked for:

1. All records regarding procurement of the “tommy gun,” including all transfer documentation and costs, or, if applicable, purchase records, including compliance with bidding requirements, and showing who authorized and paid for the purchase, and the total amount paid;
2. All records establishing compliance with Justice Management Division’s Departmental Ethics Office’s “Gifts and Entertainment” policy;
3. All records pertaining to that specific “tommy gun”;
4. Records regarding Attorney General Garland’s last date of employment; and
5. If applicable, records of compliance with all regulations for transferring functional, deactivated or replica machineguns, including communications with and approvals by the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department.

What was returned a year-and-a-half later was a lot of boilerplate about rules, exemptions, how to file disputes, and mostly irrelevant ceremony agenda, schedule, and speaker information, interspersed with some responsive procurement documentation. It showed the “Tommy Gun” was, in fact, a replica that came with a stand, and a total cost with shipping of $268.16, from Replica Weaponry. The order confirmation has an interesting footnote that relates directly to a point raised in the 2025 AmmoLand article:

NOTE: Replica and Blank Firing Guns may be restricted in some states and municipalities. ORDERS CONTAINING RESTRICTED ITEMS WILL NOT SHIP.

Quoting International Military Antiques, my 2025 article noted:

New made replica guns cannot be shipped to WASHINGTON DC, MA, CT, WI, NYC, (in NY, CA & KS must be used for Theatrical Purposes Only) these locations either restrict or prohibit commerce in imitation firearms that are replicas of modern firearms. We can only ship modern replica firearms to these jurisdictions under certain circumstances.

May we assume those circumstances to get the replica to DOJ HQ include “Only Ones” exemptions? The FOIA response doesn’t say.

“With stonewalling and refusals being a hallmark of the last administration, it will be interesting to see what the FBI/DOJ position will be under a Pam Bondi/Kash Patel administration,” I noted at the time Stamboulieh filed the request. “The more things change, the more they stay the same” comes to mind.

With Stamboulieh leaving private practice to work for DOJ, there’s just not enough further information to be gained to make it  worth it to me to arrange for another attorney to pursue this matter any further. In the grand scheme of things, there are more important battles to fight. It is, however, a pretty good indicator that no matter who is running things, the bureaucratic prerogative will always be to protect the institution.

The FOIA response is embedded below.

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About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

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LA Sheriff Settles Carry Rights Lawsuit After Years of Permit Delays

A gun-rights coalition has reached a settlement resolving the remaining claims against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department over its concealed carry permitting system. iStock-2196791813

The Second Amendment Foundation and its partners have reached a settlement resolving the remaining claims against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in a major lawsuit challenging California’s obstruction of the right to bear arms.

The agreement in California Rifle & Pistol Association v. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department follows LASD’s representation that it is now processing concealed carry weapon applications within the 120-day period required under California law.

The settlement is not yet final. It remains subject to approval by the Los Angeles County Claims Board, according to the Second Amendment Foundation.

“This settlement marks meaningful progress, but our work to secure full recognition of the right to carry—including true interstate reciprocity—continues,” SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut said.

The separate lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice against LASD over its carry-permit delays is not resolved by this settlement and remains pending.

A Settlement Built on Real Concessions

SAF, the California Rifle and Pistol Association, Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners Foundation, Gun Owners of California, and several individual plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in December 2023.

The case challenged a collection of barriers California officials erected around the exercise of a fundamental constitutional right. Those included LASD’s extreme processing delays, California’s refusal to provide most nonresidents with a way to obtain a carry permit, high licensing costs, psychological examinations, and other subjective requirements.

The settlement resolves the remaining claims against LASD after the department represented that it had brought its processing times into compliance with the state’s 120-day deadline. That is a major change from the delays that helped trigger the litigation.

When the plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction, some applicants had been waiting approximately 18 months for LASD to act. The federal court concluded that such delays went too far and granted relief to two individual plaintiffs.

The court also ordered California to allow qualified nonresidents who belonged to the plaintiff organizations to apply for California carry permits. California lawmakers later enacted AB 1078, creating a broader nonresident licensing process and largely codifying that part of the court’s injunction.

The case therefore ends with more than a negotiated dismissal. It produced changes that directly affect Californians and visitors seeking to lawfully carry a firearm for self-defense.

The Right Does Not Belong to the Bureaucracy

California officials have spent years treating the Second Amendment as though it were a privilege they may ration through delays, costs, and paperwork.

The Second Amendment protects the right of “the people” to keep and bear arms. It contains no California-residency exception and no bureaucratic-convenience exception. It does not permit a sheriff to suspend the right for a year or longer because the department is understaffed or has failed to build a functional application system.

A permit does not create the right. The right existed before the application was submitted, before the sheriff reviewed it, and before California wrote its licensing statutes.

Hostile jurisdictions learned an obvious lesson after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Once officials could no longer demand that applicants prove some special “good cause” to carry a handgun, they looked for other ways to slow the process.

A licensing system may say “shall issue” on paper while operating as “shall wait” in practice.

Years-long delays accomplish much the same thing as an outright denial. Citizens who need to defend themselves today receive no protection from a permit that might arrive two years from now.

The Supreme Court anticipated that problem in Bruen, warning that supposedly objective licensing systems could still face constitutional challenges when lengthy processing times or exorbitant fees prevent ordinary citizens from exercising the right to public carry.

That warning was not an invitation for California officials to test exactly how long they could make people wait.

More Than One Lawsuit Pressured LASD

The settlement also comes amid federal scrutiny of LASD’s carry-licensing operation.

The Justice Department sued the department in September 2025, accusing it of using administrative delay to deny citizens their Second Amendment rights. According to the federal complaint, LASD received 3,982 new carry applications between January 2024 and March 2025 but issued only two permits from that group during the period examined.

Applicants allegedly waited an average of 281 days merely for LASD to begin processing their applications. Some reportedly waited as long as 1,030 days—nearly three years.

LASD attributed its backlog to staffing shortages and its transition from a paper-based process to an online system. Those explanations may describe how the failure occurred, but they do not excuse it. The government cannot avoid its constitutional obligations by pointing to problems of its own making.

The DOJ case remains active despite SAF’s settlement, leaving additional pressure on the department to maintain its claimed compliance.

Progress, Not Full Reciprocity

The settlement should not be mistaken for California recognizing carry permits issued by other states.

Nonresidents now have a path to apply for a California permit, but they must still submit to California’s licensing process. That is a meaningful improvement over excluding nonresidents altogether, but it falls short of true interstate reciprocity.

Likewise, forcing LASD to act within 120 days is better than allowing applications to collect dust for 18 months or three years. Four months, however, should not be treated as the constitutional gold standard for exercising an enumerated right.

This settlement is nevertheless a significant conclusion to a lawsuit that forced one of the country’s most anti-gun jurisdictions to change its conduct. LASD says it is finally processing applications within the law. California now allows qualified nonresidents to apply. Other statutory barriers were changed while the case was pending.

Those results were not offered voluntarily. Gun owners had to sue for them.

SAF and its partners say they will continue monitoring the situation to ensure LASD does not return to its old practices. That vigilance is necessary because California’s respect for the Second Amendment has too often lasted only as long as an injunction, settlement, or federal lawsuit remained hanging over the state.

The Constitution says the right to keep and bear arms “shall not be infringed.” After years of delay and litigation, Los Angeles County is finally being made to act like those words mean something.

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About Duncan Johnson:

Duncan Johnson is a lifelong firearms enthusiast and unwavering defender of the Second Amendment—where “shall not be infringed” means exactly what it says. A graduate of George Mason University, he enjoys competing in local USPSA and multi-gun competitions whenever he’s not covering the latest in gun rights and firearm policy. Duncan is a regular contributor to AmmoLand News and serves as part of the editorial team responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.

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