When it comes to firearm-related litigation, Second Amendment supporters may temper their optimism with a dash of cynicism. This is understandable, but pro-gun advocacy in the courts has never been on firmer footing.
In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, which affirmed that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. This was followed in 2010 by the Court’s McDonald v. Chicago decision, which required state and local governments, like federal authorities, to abide by the Second Amendment.
Gun-rights supporters understood these rulings called into question the constitutionality of large swaths of gun control. Yet the cases were widely minimized by the same federal judiciary that had clung to the delusion the Second Amendment did not protect individual rights.
In the years that followed McDonald, lower courts generally upheld existing gun laws. Ignoring Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito’s reasoning and methodology, many courts adopted a two-step “interest-balancing” test that purported to weigh the government’s interest in a contested law against the burden it imposed on Second Amendment rights. The test invited judges to play public-policy advocate rather than to faithfully apply the U.S. Constitution.
Undeterred, NRA continued to litigate on behalf of gun owners and the Second Amendment, battling New York City and then New York State to the Supreme Court in 2020 and 2022. In the latter case, the NRA-backed New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Court struck down New York’s discretionary licensing scheme for firearm carry and made clear the right to “bear arms” applies outside the home.
Just as importantly, Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion revived Second Amendment jurisprudence by rejecting the faulty framework the lower courts had been using to justify unconstitutional gun-control measures. Referencing the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment precedents, Thomas explained:
“When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. The government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only then may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s ‘unqualified command.’”
This reset the table for gun-rights supporters to challenge infringements, including measures the lower courts had erroneously upheld. NRA has wasted no time doing so.
Critical to a meaningful right to keep and bear arms is access to guns suitable for self-defense. In Heller, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects arms “in common use” for “lawful purposes like self-defense.” Despite this, several jurisdictions ban commonly owned semi-automatic firearms, including America’s most popular rifle, the AR-15, and restrict the capacity of firearm magazines.
Last November, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois struck down the Prairie State’s ban on commonly owned semi-automatic firearms and standard-capacity magazines in the NRA-supported case, Barnett v. Raoul. The decision has been stayed pending the ongoing appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. In an encouraging development, the U.S. Department of Justice in June filed a brief in support of NRA’s position, asking the appeals court to affirm the district court’s ruling.
Heller declared that the Second Amendment was not extinct. But it has taken years of dedicated advocacy to breathe life back into the individual right to keep and bear arms.
On August 15, attorneys in the NRA-backed suit Duncan v. Bonta filed a petition for certiorari asking the Supreme Court to hear the case. This litigation challenges California’s 2016 ban on the possession of standard-capacity firearm magazines. The petition is the most recent development in almost a decade of litigation with California that has included two adverse en banc decisions at the notorious U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Back east, NRA is supporting the case Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs v. Attorney Gen. New Jersey. The litigation challenges the Garden State’s ban on so-called “assault firearms” and standard-capacity magazines. The case was before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, but in late August was taken up for a hearing before the full circuit scheduled for October.
Further, on August 21, NRA and NRA Massachusetts state affiliate, Gun Owners’ Action League, filed a suit, titled Hanlon v. Campbell, challenging the Bay State’s expansive ban on so-called “assault-style” firearms.
Another vital Second Amendment issue is correctly affirming who constitutes “the people” whose right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
In 2018, Florida lawmakers hastily enacted legislation prohibiting those aged 18 to 20 years from purchasing firearms. Understanding that these young adults—who can vote, serve on juries and join the armed forces—are an integral part of our national community and thus afforded constitutional rights applicable to “the people,” NRA filed suit challenging the age prohibition.
In the case, now titled NRA v. Glass, the age restriction was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in March. On May 15, NRA filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to hear the case. Underscoring the soundness of NRA’s claim, the state of Florida responded to NRA’s petition on August 20 by by encouraging the Court to take the case and to invalidate the law.
As important as the Bruen ruling has been, the last few “may-issue” permitting holdouts prior to that decision have vigorously resisted compliance. States including California, Maryland, New Jersey and New York have enacted Bruen-defiance legislation seeking to frustrate the right to carry. NRA has responded with Bruen-enforcement litigation.
New York enacted the misnamed “Concealed Carry Improvement Act,” which imposed onerous restrictions on the issuance of carry licenses and created a wide array of locations where license holders are prohibited from carrying. The law even included a “good moral character” requirement in a thinly veiled attempt to reenact the type of discretionary licensing the Supreme Court rejected. The NRA-supported case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. James takes aim at New York’s new restrictions and is currently before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York.
NRA is supporting similar challenges to Bruen-defiance legislation in New Jersey and Maryland. In the Maryland case, Kipke v. Moore, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland found that several of the state’s permit-holder location restrictions violated the Second Amendment. At present, the case is on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, where the plaintiffs are seeking to invalidate further aspects of Maryland’s prohibitive carry scheme.
None of the aforementioned gun-control measures should survive a forthright application of Bruen’s historical framework. Other anti-gun policies are just as transparently unconstitutional.
On August 25, NRA filed the suit Dunn v. Glass in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida challenging the state’s three-day handgun waiting period. As the complaint pointed out, “there is no historical tradition of firearms being regulated in this manner.”
This followed an NRA suit, titled Ortega v. Grisham, challenging New Mexico’s seven-day firearm waiting period, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico on May 15, 2024. On August 19, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled the measure unconstitutional, stating that such policies “do not fit into any historically grounded exceptions to the right to keep and bear arms.”
In California, three-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic trap and skeet shooter Kim Rhode, NRA and the California Rifle & Pistol Association teamed up in Rhode v. Bonta to free Golden Staters from the state’s ammunition background-check regime. On July 24, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit struck down the scheme. As of press time, the California Attorney General has petitioned the Ninth Circuit for an en banc review; the unconstitutional law remains in effect pending the court’s decision.
On July 4, President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law. The legislation eliminated the National Firearms Act (NFA) excise tax on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns and NFA-defined “any other weapons.” Congress enacted the NFA using its enumerated power to tax. As part of the NFA scheme, Congress also instituted a registration requirement on the impacted items, to ensure payment of the tax.
On August 1, NRA and other leading gun-rights groups filed Brown v. ATF in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri challenging the NFA registration scheme as it pertains to the items that are no longer taxed. The case makes clear that NFA-covered firearms are protected by the Second Amendment and therefore should not be subject to the NFA’s onerous requirements, but it’s not necessary for the court to resolve this question to issue a favorable decision. The NFA was an exercise of Congress’ taxing power. No tax to collect, no NFA. Simple. (For further background on this litigation, see my column in the October issue.)
These are only some highlights of how NRA is fighting to protect gun owners and the Second Amendment in the courts. For a more comprehensive picture of NRA’s litigation efforts, visit nraila.org/litigation and make sure to sign up for NRA-ILA’s Grassroots Alert emails.
Heller declared that the Second Amendment was not extinct. But it has taken years of dedicated advocacy to breathe life back into the individual right to keep and bear arms. Now is the time for optimism and to partner with your NRA as we press the fight for our rights in the courts.
