Tag: gun control

California Democrat Pushes Bill to Redefine BB Guns as Dangerous Firearms

Kevin Mullin, a House Democrat from California, is now pushing a bill that would redefine BB guns as dangerous firearms.

This is just further proof that Democrats will never, ever stop pushing various forms of gun control. Many Americans become familiar with guns in their youth by owning a BB gun. If you restrict these types of guns, fewer Americans will have that type of experience.

Is that the end goal here?

Breitbart News reports:

U.S. Rep. Kevin Mullin introduced legislation Friday to close what he calls “a dangerous gap” by redefining BB and pellet guns as firearms.

If the redefinition were adopted it would require BB and pellet gun buyers to undergo the same background checks that prospective buyers of AR-15s, 9mm pistols, and other firearms are subject to now.

Daisy BB Guns used an X post to comment on the proposed legislation, writing, “[This bill] would include guns like the Daisy 880. Their goal is to eventually include all airguns. If passed it will treat airguns producing ‘high velocity’ as firearms. [The bill] was introduced… to the House of Representatives… it would add all airguns that produce 800 or more feet per second velocities in .177 caliber, and all pellets over .25 caliber.”

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Appeals Court Upholds Hawaii’s Rules For Gun Buyers

Hawaii’s rules for gun buyers were upheld by a federal appeals court Tuesday in a ruling that reversed a lower court’s injunction.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii by a vote of 6 to 5.

In Todd Yukutake and David Kikukawa v. Anne Lopez and the City and County of Honolulu, the court found that the law imposing a list of rules on gun buyers is constitutional under the June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Writing for the majority of the Ninth Circuit’s en banc panel, Judge John B. Owens stated that a footnote in the Bruen decision holds that objective, “shall-issue” licensing standards comply with the Second Amendment.

A “shall-issue” standard means the state must grant a permit to a qualified applicant.

The dissenting judges say this is a misapplication of the Bruen standard.

The law in question requires a state-issued license to purchase a handgun. The licensing process requires applicants to submit fingerprints, a mental health check and their Social Security number. It also sets a 30-day limit for purchasing the gun once the license is issued. If the licensee fails to meet that deadline, the process must be restarted.

Once the firearm purchase is complete, the new gun owner is required to provide information about the gun to the police department. Under some circumstances the gun must be inspected by the police.

Under Bruen, a gun law is constitutional if it fits the plain text of the Second Amendment and has a historical analogue from the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification.

The majority wrote that footnote nine of the Bruen decision allows requiring a license to carry a handgun in public for protection as long as the licensing requirements are based on objective standards.

Owens wrote that the plaintiffs failed to show that the law effectively denied them their Second Amendment rights or impeded their ability to acquire firearms. He stated that, according to footnote nine, “non-abusive, shall-issue laws comport with the Second Amendment.”

Joining Owens in reversing the injunction were Chief Judge Mary H. Murguia and judges Kim McLane Wardlaw, Jacqueline H. Nguyen, Gabriel P. Sanchez, and Holly A. Thomas.

Judge Ryan Nelson joined Judges Daniel Bress, Lawrence VanDyke, Bridget Bade, and Danielle J. Forrest in dissenting in part.

The dissenters wrote that footnote nine does not apply since it covers the carrying of a firearm and not the acquisition of one. They also noted that the state did not identify a historical analog for the licensing requirement.

The lawsuit was filed on Oct. 21, 2021, by the Honolulu County residents. The pair said the licensing process was an unconstitutional infringement on their Second Amendment rights. In August 2021 the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii found in their favor.

Gun rights activists say this is not the end of the case. Brandon Combs, president of the Firearms Policy Council, called the decision a “roadmap for abusing gun owners.”

Alan Gottlieb, executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, vowed to continue the legal fight.

“This case will be headed to the Supreme Court and I believe that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will be overturned,” Gottlieb stated in an email to The Epoch Times.

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Second Shot At The Second Amendment: Could Heller Be Undone By An Errant Qualifier?

Many of us are gearing up with columns previewing the Court’s October term and have highlighted the upcoming arguments over bans on AR-15s and semiautomatic weapons in out of the Seventh Circuit in Chicago (Viramontes v. Cook County) and the Second Circuit in New York (Grant v. Higgins).

A recent column from Professor Rory Little suggests that these cases will strike at what he considers a glaring flaw in the Heller decision that recognized the individual right under the Second Amendment. Professor Little repeats a common claim about Heller that some of us have challenged. I wanted to briefly address that controversy again. The column appeared in Scotusblog, a respected site that offers tracking and commentary on pending Supreme Court cases. Here is the portion that I wanted to address:

The 2008 Heller decision, which changed precedent to find a Second Amendment right to own handguns for self-defense, was decided 5-4. To me (and others) it is clear that Justice Antonin Scalia had to include various qualifiers in his opinion, or he would have lost one or two of his five votes and Heller would have come out differently. Part III of the opinion was clearly added to capture, or keep, the narrow but earth-shattering majority, and ought to be viewed as the binding judgement of the court. Specifically, in addition to listing various “longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms” left undisturbed, part III said “we also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. … the sorts of weapons protected were those ‘in common use at the time’” (quoting United States v.Miller, a 1939 precedent upholding bans on machine guns). I add emphasis on “at the time,” because the Viramontes briefing all but ignores what the court said was this “important limitation.”

As the solicitor general’s brief notes, “the AR-15 rifle was developed in 1956,” and the first semiautomatic rifle of any kind was sold in 1903. Thus, while they may be the “most commonly owned rifle[] in America” today (albeit by less than 10% of all Americans), semi-automatic rifles were undisputedly not in common use “at the time” the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791. Indeed, as the SG’s brief also explains, it is the modern technological developments in the AR-15 that makes it popular today. (This is also why they are commonly used in mass-shootings.) Rather, the solicitor general’s Viramontes brief subtly changes the language, saying (on page 21) that the proper Second Amendment test is whether AR-15s “are in common use” today (again, my emphasis). This radically departs from the doctrinal limits that were essential to cementing the Heller result. In his 2025 dissent from denial of certiorari, Kavanaugh (joined by Justice Samuel Alito) adopted this same semantic transfiguration of Heller (changing “were” to “are”) – an error (or strategy) presaged in Kavanaugh’s 2011 Circuit judge dissent when Heller was remanded in 2011. Many folks will be listening on Dec. 2 to see whether a majority of justices will agree that Heller did not actually mean what it appeared to say.

As others have noted, this is an old saw repeated by many critics of Heller.

Justice Scalia anticipated this argument in the actual Heller decision. He wrote:

“Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment. We do not interpret constitutional rights that way…Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.”

As I recently discussed in a column, this issue came up nine years ago when Massachusetts attempted to ban stun guns. The Court issued a per curiam opinion in Caetano v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts that sent back a case to the First Circuit and rejected the logic that they were not in common use at the time of the Second Amendment’s enactment. The Court pointed out that in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 582 (2008), it expressly rejected that argument and held that the Second Amendment “extends . . . to . . . arms . . . that were not in existence at the time of the founding.” It also rejected two other rationales. (Notably, the Court is considering another stun gun case in Calce v. New York after the Second Circuit failed to heed the warning of the Court).

Notably, a new challenge has been filed in Connecticut over a ban of convertible handguns. It is likely to raise many of these same issues. The Firearm Industry Trade Association filed a lawsuit this week that will be before the district court as the Supreme Court hears arguments on the two pending cases.

I obviously disagree with Professor Little and other experts who raise this claim. There are, of course, good-faith arguments against the Heller decision. Some like Professor Little view that decision as “earth-shattering.” I do not.

I still believe the Court was correct in viewing this as an individual right. However, I do not believe that this claim of a glaring and hypocritical contradiction between Heller and later cases is fair or supported. There was no sleight of hand in “changing ‘were’ to ‘are.'”

This really does not come down to a change in verbs. While many hope that packing the Supreme Court will result in an immediate reversal of Heller, it is unlikely to turn on the word “were.”

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5th Circuit: Federal Ban on Interstate Handgun Sales Violates 2A

On Friday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the federal ban on interstate handgun sales violates the Second Amendment.

CQ Almanac noted that the ban on interstate handgun sales was put in place via the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. The ban was then fleshed out and expanded in the Gun Control Act of 1968 which was signed into law by Democrat President Lyndon Johnson.

The Fifth Circuit surmised: “The government’s theory of the Ban’s historical justification centers on its contention that ‘when it enacted the Omnibus Crime Control Act and the Gun Control Act of 1968 [which contains all of the provisions comprising the Ban], Congress sought to address concerns about public safety and that individuals deemed dangerous might evade state laws designed to ensure only law-abiding citizens could acquire firearms by purchasing them outside the jurisdiction.’”

But the government’s theory did not survive the Bruen (2022) test.

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DOJ: Federal Ban On Sale Of Handguns To 18-Year-Olds Is Unconstitutional

Eighteen-year-olds “may vote, serve on juries, be drafted, and face adult criminal penalties,” and now they can purchase handguns and handgun ammunition from a licensed firearm dealer without the dealer being prosecuted by the DOJ if they are otherwise eligible, Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser announced in a statement Friday.

The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel found the federal prohibition on licensed dealers selling handguns and handgun ammunition to 18-20-year-olds is inconsistent with the Second Amendment and therefore cannot be criminally enforced by the Justice Department.

Since 1968 federal law has prohibited licensed dealers from selling handguns or handgun ammunition to individuals under the age of 21, thanks to the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. At the time Congress said access to handguns was correlated to violent crime. The rule was again upheld in 2012 by the 5th Circuit.

In Reese v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, adult individuals under age 21 sued over this very rule. The 5th Circuit ultimately ruled that there is no historic tradition that could justify banning the sale of handguns and handgun ammunition to 18-20-year-olds, as required by the new Bruen test established by the Supreme Court. Notably, however, the 5th Circuit’s decision only covered a handful of states that fell within the 5th Circuit’s purview.

But now the DOJ will no longer prosecute licensed dealers in any state for selling a handgun to an 18-year-old who is otherwise qualified to purchase.

To be clear, the statute is still on the books, and Congress did not repeal it. But the DOJ says it will not seek criminal penalties against dealers who sell to law-abiding 18-20-year-olds.

“The Constitution protects the people’s right to keep and bear arms. The Department of Justice may not constitutionally seek to impose criminal penalties on dealers who sell handguns to law-abiding adults who, in nearly every other relevant respect, are members of the political community,” Gaiser said in a statement.

The DOJ said it “found no Founding era history or tradition of precluding legal adults from purchasing firearms to protect public safety. To the contrary, at the Founding, militia statutes overwhelmingly required service beginning at 18 and required enrollees to furnish their own arms.”

The opinion does not affect the enforcement of state laws that prohibit the sale of handguns to adults under 21.

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DOJ Sues San Jose, Alleging $1,600 Firearm Fee Is Unconstitutional

The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the City of San Jose, California, alleging that its nearly $1,600 firearm licensing fee infringes the Second Amendment right to carry firearms for self-defense. The fee has risen by about $300 over three fiscal years to $1,591.

“San Jose is a national outlier when it comes to burdening the exercise of fundamental rights. Its fees are abusive and violate the Second Amendment,” the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in the Sept. 16 lawsuit.

The DOJ asked the court to issue permanent injunctive relief that would prevent defendants from imposing any “abusive licensing fees.” The San Jose Police Department is also a defendant in the case.

“The City’s law enforcement officers are charged with enforcing its abusive licensing scheme and are doing so. Such law enforcement misconduct is unlawful,” the DOJ added.

In Washington, the nation’s capital, a concealed carry license costs $75, while in New York, a handgun license costs $340. In Boston, the nonrenewable processing fee for a license to carry is $100. And in Philadelphia, a new license to carry firearms costs only $20.

Compared with other California locations, such as San Francisco, Berkeley, Santa Clara, and Alameda County, San Jose’s fees are still high, the DOJ said in the complaint.

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Lock And [Re-]Loaded: Third Circuit Greenlights Major Challenge To New Jersey Gun Liability Law

Some of us have been closely following challenges to A1765, New Jersey’s gun industry liability law. In my view, the law is facially invalid and preempted under federal law, and we may now find out after the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit greenlit a challenge from the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) yesterday. The court found that the NSSF has standing to bring the lawsuit, which could reach the United States Supreme Court.

In 2022, New Jersey enacted A1765 to expose “gun industry members” – gun sellers, manufacturers, distributors, importers, and marketers – to lawsuits as a “public nuisance.” This is a common effort among blue states to circumvent Second Amendment cases that reinforce the right to bear arms.

These laws are designed to achieve indirectly what the Court denied directly to the states: to effectively suppress the availability of guns. Indeed, the law effectively requires manufacturers to self-regulate after the state was prevented from direct regulations, mandating that these companies “shall establish, implement, and enforce reasonable controls regarding its manufacture, sale, distribution, importing, and marketing of gun-related products.” Id. § 2C:58-35(a)(2).

The problem is the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (“PLCAA”) which was passed to “prohibit causes of action against manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and importers of firearms or ammunition products, and their trade associations, for the harm solely caused by the criminal or unlawful misuse of firearm products or ammunition products by others when the product functioned as designed and intended.” 15 U.S.C. § 7901(b)(1).

PLCAA does have exceptions, including negligence per se. Id. § 7903(5)(A)(ii). The predicate exception requires proof that the manufacturer or seller “knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing of the product,” and that “the violation was a proximate cause of the harm for which relief is sought.” Id. § 7903(5)(A)(iii).

However, in Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, 605 U.S. 280, 299 (2025), the Supreme Court stressed that this exception applies only to those cases where the “plaintiff makes a plausible allegation that a gun manufacturer participated in a firearms violation as in something that it wished to bring about and sought to make succeed.” Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, 605 U.S. 280, 299 (2025) (citation modified).

In the case, the Government of Mexico sued seven American gun manufacturers, alleging that the companies aided and abetted unlawful gun sales that routed firearms to Mexican drug cartels under the predicate exception. It argued that the companies failed to exercise “reasonable care” to prevent trafficking of their guns into Mexico, and so are responsible for the harms arising there from the weapons’ misuse as “willful accessories.” As some of us predicted, it failed spectacularly in a unanimous decision.

Nuisance is not negligence per se, and gun control advocates have tried to use product liability and nuisance laws to curtail gun sales for years as an alternative to legislative gun bans, which would be struck down. (There are a couple of gun ban cases going before the Court this term).

As previously discussed, public nuisance was originally addressed in England by criminal laws against such offenses as obstructing “the King’s highways.” It evolved into a common-law tort to address a broader range of “interests of the community at large – interests that were recognized as rights of the general public entitled to protection,” in the words of the American Law Institute’s Second Restatement of Torts (1965-79).

Those cases collapsed, and rightly so. In Chicago v. Beretta U.S.A. (2004), the Illinois Supreme Court rejected the claim while acknowledging that “the tragic personal consequences of gun violence are inestimable.” The court found no interference with a legal public right. It held that such theories “would permit nuisance liability to be imposed on an endless list of manufacturers, distributors, and retailers of manufactured products.” The opioid claims are similar. Neither product was defective; both worked – all too well in some cases. The claims were based on third parties’ illegal or harmful use.

The same result appeared in nuisance claims involving lead paint. In State v. Lead Industries Association (2008), the Rhode Island Supreme Court rejected an effort to use nuisance as a substitute for product liability. The court recognized the huge toll from the product while insisting that if it is defective, that should be addressed by product liability: “Our hearts go out to those children whose lives forever have been changed by the poisonous presence of lead. But, however grave the problem of lead poisoning is in Rhode Island, public nuisance law simply does not provide a remedy for this harm.”

Consideration of the merits of the challenge in this case, however, was stymied by that state challenging standing. First filed in February 2025, the lawsuit was dismissed because it was filed before the law was enforced against any industry member companies. The state, under New Jersey’s then-AG Matthew Platkin, sued several industry members, including GLOCK, Inc. NSSF promptly moved to reopen its lawsuit against New Jersey’s gun control law.

The Third Circuit held, “NSSF’s members’ intended actions are arguably precluded by A1765 and affected with constitutional interests. NSSF argues A1765 enforcement actions against its members for otherwise lawful commerce would be an attempt to ‘hold [its members] liable for the acts of third parties who use their legal products to commit heinous crimes.'”

Unless the standing decision is reversed, New Jersey will now face review (and a possible reckoning) over its latest effort to use civil liability as an alternative avenue for gun control.

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Former DOJ Official Ed Martin Launches Gun Rights Group

Former U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin is launching a new gun rights group aimed at restoring firearm access to Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes, an initiative that seeks to boost conservative turnout in this fall’s midterm elections.

Martin, who left the Justice Department last week, said the group, Firearm Rights for Americans, was an idea encouraged by President Donald Trump during their final Oval Office meeting.

Trump told Martin he wanted to make sure his administration received “credit” for expanding gun access, Martin added.

“When you turn out Second Amendment voters, they vote right,” Martin said, referring to the Republican Party. “You gotta go sell that message.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Martin said the group planned to produce and distribute written and video testimonials from individuals seeking to regain gun ownership.

The strategy aims to mobilize single-issue Second Amendment voters in competitive congressional swing districts who may feel the administration has not acted quickly enough on gun rights.

He hopes the effort could help Republicans preserve their House majority this year and build momentum toward the 2028 presidential election.

In August, Attorney General Todd Blanche and Martin announced the finalizing of a federal regulation allowing individuals disqualified from gun ownership to petition for the restoration of their rights.

The collaboration between the two senior officials followed more than 30 other proposed rule changes to ease gun access, many backed by gun rights groups.

Through Firearm Rights for Americans, Martin said he hopes to ensure potential applicants and Second Amendment supporters know about the change, and as a result sway disaffected voters to go to the polls.

The group will also produce guides for eligible individuals to navigate state and federal regulations.

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Third Circuit Allows Lawsuit Against NJ’s Gun Industry Liability Law to Continue

On Tuesday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s (NSSF) lawsuit against New Jersey’s gun industry liability law can continue.

The law is A1765, which NSSF contends is in violation of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (2005).

The lawsuit, NSSF v. Platkin, was initially filed in February 2025 but dismissed on the grounds that NSSF lacked standing because the lawsuit was filed prematurely – filed before the law was enforced against any industry member companies. However, after the dismissal, New Jersey’s then-AG Matthew Platkin brought lawsuits against a number of industry members, including GLOCK, Inc.

NSSF noted that Platkin “[alleged that Glock] is responsible for the criminal misuse of firearms when criminals modify and alter well-designed and lawfully-sold GLOCK pistols by illegally obtaining, possessing and installing a ‘switch’ into the handgun.” NSSF responded by filing a motion to reopen their lawsuit against the New Jersey gun control.

New Jersey contended that NSSF still lacks the standing necessary to bring the lawsuit, but the Third Circuit noted, “NSSF’s members’ intended actions are arguably precluded by A1765 and affected with constitutional interests. NSSF argues A1765 enforcement actions against its members for otherwise lawful commerce would be an attempt to ‘hold [its members] liable for the acts of third parties who use their legal products to commit heinous crimes.’”

The Third Circuit ruled to grant NSSF’s motion, allowing the lawsuit to move forward.

NSSF general counsel Lawrence Keane observed, “The challenge to this law has been tortured and the previous frustrations to demonstrate that this state law attempts to circumvent federal law can now move forward. We are confident that New Jersey’s naked attempt to undermine the will of Congress and bankrupt firearm manufacturers and sellers through frivolous lawsuits will not stand legal review.”

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Federal Government Backs Supreme Court Challenge To AR-15 Bans

The federal government is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to side with gun owners challenging state and local bans on AR-15-style rifles.

In a brief filed Friday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the justices to overturn rulings from the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second and Seventh Circuits, which upheld AR-15 bans in Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois, respectively.

“The AR-15 rifle is unquestionably in common use among law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” the federal government argued.

The cases, Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, have been consolidated for Supreme Court review.

Connecticut has prohibited what it deemed “assault weapons” since 1993. It significantly expanded the ban after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, describing AR-15-style rifles as particularly dangerous and preferred by mass shooters.

Cook County, which covers the city of Chicago, adopted its current firearm ordinance in 2006, prohibiting the possession, sale, and transfer of a list of semiautomatic weapons.

The ‘Common Use’ Debate

At the center of the dispute is whether AR-15-style rifles qualify as weapons “in common use” for lawful purposes and therefore fall under Second Amendment protection.

The idea dates back to the Supreme Court’s 1939 decision upholding a federal ban on short-barreled shotguns because those weapons were not “in common use.”

The Court relied on the same concept in 2008 to invalidate a ban on handguns in the nation’s capital, affirming that they are “the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home.”

Most recently, the Court referred to the common-use test in 2022 when it struck down a New York law requiring people to show a special need before receiving a license to carry a handgun in public.

Connecticut argues that AR-15-style rifles do not meet the Supreme Court’s legal standard.

“Americans do not commonly own assault weapons for self-defense,” state lawyers argued in an earlier Supreme Court filing, adding that the weapons are “neither used nor useful for that purpose.”

The gun owners challenging the bans, however, argue that AR-15s easily pass the common-use test.

“If the most popular rifle in the country is not in common use,” the challengers said in their petition, “it is hard to see what that phrase could possibly mean.”

The Justice Department is siding with challengers in the debate.

“Today, AR-15s are lawful at the federal level and in 40 States, with law-abiding citizens using them for lawful purposes such as self-defense, target shooting, and hunting,” the government said.

“Legislatures may not ban arms in common use among law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.”

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