This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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Virginia gun culture is in danger thanks to <a href="https://reason.com/2026/03/11/here-are-12-bills-democrats-just-passed-to-trample-gun-rights-in-virginia/">a wave of gun control legislation</a> just passed by the state legislature. Among other bills awaiting Governor Abigail Spanberger’s signature is a so-called <a href="https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/SB749">assault</a> <a href="https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB217">weapons</a> ban that, according to the <a href="https://www.nraila.org/articles/20260315/virginia-legislature-adjourns-from-2026-session-anti-gun-bills-on-governors-desk">National Rifle Association</a>, would “prohibit the future sale and transfer of virtually all modern firearms.”
While a provocative statement, it’s not incorrect. The crown jewel bill of Virginia Democrats’ crown jewel cause would ban the sale and importation of “assault firearms,” which is broadly defined as encompassing any centerfire rifle with a detachable magazine and one of several common features, such as a pistol grip, a collapsible stock, or a threaded barrel. Effectively, this covers all modern rifles chambered in something larger than 22LR, including commonly owned civilian rifles like the AR-15 and AK-47. It also bans the sale and importation of so-called high-capacity magazines — defined as having a capacity of over 15 rounds.
Other bills awaiting Spanberger’s assent include <a href="https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/SB115">restrictions on concealed carry permit reciprocity</a> with other states and legislation banning adults aged 18-21 from <a href="https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/SB643">possessing certain firearms</a>. Notably, there’s no grandfather clause, so any such young adults who legally purchased such firearms would become criminals overnight.
Collectively, these laws are “some of the nation’s most stringent restrictions on guns,” <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/mar/16/ten-gun-control-bills-waiting-virginia-gov-abigail-spanbergers/">as the Washington Times put it</a>, and are a massive change from Virginia’s status quo. It goes without saying that these laws are unlikely to be effective at addressing crime, namely because the vast majority of gun violence, <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/476409/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-weapon-types-used/?srsltid=AfmBOooQWQ_9IS1yoXa4ENpmtwkxXZ6BqcKM5kZKHpMMOrcyHgqqYrq1">including mass shootings</a>, is <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/05/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-us/">committed with handguns</a>.
While Spanberger has not commented on these bills specifically, she openly <a href="https://abigailspanberger.com/issue/keeping-virginias-communities-safe/">supported similar measures</a> during her campaign and is widely expected to sign them. Assuming she does, the new laws will take effect on July 1, 2026. Predictably, Virginians (including yours truly) <a href="https://wset.com/news/local/gun-stores-see-sales-surge-as-assault-weapons-ban-heads-to-governor-march-2026">have reacted</a> with <a href="https://www.wdbj7.com/2026/03/12/virginia-gun-shop-sees-sales-surge-ahead-possible-assault-firearms-sales-ban/">a spending spree</a>, since any firearms purchased before then will be “grandfathered” in, as the proposed legislation doesn’t ban possession. Absent a major surprise, in several months, Virginia’s gun laws will look much more like my home state of Connecticut than they will like the commonwealth I moved to several years ago.
There is speculation that the assault weapons ban in particular <a href="https://reason.com/2026/03/11/virginias-impending-assault-firearm-ban-is-logically-and-constitutionally-dubious/">may be legally suspect</a>; I’ll leave brighter minds than mine to consider that. I’m concerned with another question: Why are Democrats going through the trouble of doing this? After all, <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/gun-ownership-by-state">nearly 45% of Virginians</a> live in a household with a gun, slightly higher than the 42% of Americans overall <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/08/16/for-most-u-s-gun-owners-protection-is-the-main-reason-they-own-a-gun/">who do so</a> and much higher than in most of the 10 states that have already passed bans on so-called assault weapons. Polling among Virginians <a href="https://www.roanoke.edu/news/rc_poll_politics_february_2026">has found</a> that the new gun control laws <a href="https://bearingarms.com/camedwards/2026/02/26/virginia-poll-shows-widespread-disapproval-of-dems-gun-control-agenda-n1231708#google_vignette">are controversial</a>.
<a href="https://www.everytown.org/press/everytown-for-gun-safety-endorses-abigail-spanberger-former-moms-demand-action-volunteer-for-governor-of-virginia-announces-1-million-investment-in-virginia-governors-race/">Special interest groups</a> are a common answer, and not entirely the wrong one. But while the new laws might seem senseless, they do have a real purpose beyond making liberals feel better. Being a gun owner isn’t just about owning a gun: There is a distinctive set of norms and values that come along with it.
While it was <a href="http://www.americanheritage.com/content/america-gun-culture">first coined</a> in a pejorative way by the liberal historian Richard Hofstadter, this “gun culture” is very real. It <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-0520-6#">revolves around the reasons</a> people buy guns in the first place — be it target shooting, hunting, self-defense, or a belief in the necessity of an armed citizenry. Like with anything else, guns are often a vector for community <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-awkward-habit-that-pulled-me-out-of-the-loneliness-epidemic">in real life</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/us/gun-youtube-firearm-videos.html">online</a>.
While gun owners are not a political monolith, it’s easy to see why they’re disproportionately conservative. Gun ownership isn’t necessarily partisan, but it does necessarily invoke principles such as self-sufficiency and individualism that tend to point people in that direction.
That is what Virginia Democrats really have a problem with. Gun ownership carries along with it a set of norms and values that are, in their view, icky and low-class. It’s no wonder, then, that <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/08/16/for-most-u-s-gun-owners-protection-is-the-main-reason-they-own-a-gun/">Pew Research found</a> that 60% of Democrats who don’t currently own a gun could never see themselves having one; among Republicans, that figure was just 38%. And even among those who owned guns, Democrats consistently expressed more negative feelings about them than Republicans.
While the growth of Northern Virginia and the Richmond suburbs has given the state a blue tint, there are still a lot of conservatives and a lot of gun owners in Virginia. Slamming the door shut on potential future firearm enthusiasts minimizes the chance <a href="https://www.nssf.org/articles/since-2020-election-new-gun-owners-equal-population-of-florida/">too many more people</a> are introduced to and get passionate about their Second Amendment rights.
Democrats did back off on some of the more outlandish parts of the bill. Among other things, these included a <a href="https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB207">$500 tax on suppressors</a>, a <a href="https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB700">mandatory 5-day waiting period</a> after purchasing a firearm, <a href="https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB919">an 11% tax on ammo</a>, and a <a href="https://x.com/lyndseyfifield/status/2033611994222236061?s=46">widely publicized</a> provision that <a href="https://www.pilotonline.com/2026/03/17/virginia-general-assembly-sends-more-than-1200-bills-to-governor-heres-what-passed/">would have exempted themselves</a> from new <a href="https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB110">vehicle storage requirements</a>.
Still, absent a court ex machina, the Old Dominion is set to shift decisively to the blue state model of gun ownership. For those of us who have already gotten our guns, we’ll still have them. But for those Virginians who might wish to exercise their gun rights after July 1, well, too bad.
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Stephan Kapustka is a writer at the American Spectator. Follow him on X <a href="https://x.com/SteveKapustka">@SteveKapustka</a>.

GettyImages-1331155684

How New Gun Laws Could Shut The Door On Future Gun Owners

Guns

Second Amendment

Upstream

A convicted ISIS terrorist walked into a gun-free school zone and murdered a United States Army officer. This was a targeted attack on an educator of our future military service members. But Soros-backed Commonwealth&#8217;s Attorney Ramin Fatehi just stood at a microphone and blamed lawmakers for gun violence.
Now, I sit on the Virginia House of Delegates Criminal Subcommittee of the Courts of Justice Committee. I have watched Fatehi advocate year after year for soft-on-crime policies that lead to tragedies just like this.
The real question is why was Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a felon convicted of supporting ISIS, in possession of a firearm, especially in a gun free school zone? And why was Jalloh released 3 years early on an 11-year prison stint? These are the failures of soft-on-crime politicians more interested in policing federal ICE agents that protect their own citizens.
<div id="attachment_1058949" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1058949" class="size-large wp-image-1058949" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-12-at-3.57.15-PM-1024x447.png" alt="" width="1024" height="447" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-12-at-3.57.15-PM-1024x447.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-12-at-3.57.15-PM-300x131.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-12-at-3.57.15-PM-768x335.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-12-at-3.57.15-PM-1536x671.png 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-12-at-3.57.15-PM.png 1576w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Screenshot: LiveNOW from FOX on YouTube</div>
That failure raises a larger question about what Virginia’s lawmakers are doing right now in Richmond.
<h3>Strangling The Second Amendment</h3>
The 2026 Virginia General Assembly session ends this week. When the gavel falls, Governor Abigail Spanberger will have on her desk a stack of gun bills unlike anything this Commonwealth has ever produced — not a single sweeping law, but a coordinated layering of restrictions designed to strangle the Second Amendment from every direction at once. Which gun you can buy. Where you can carry it. Whether the industry that makes it can survive being sued into submission. How you pass it on when you&#8217;re gone.
No single bill tells the whole story. The story is the stack — and what that stack adds up to is the systematic dismantling of our Second Amendment rights in Virginia.
<div id="attachment_548003" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-548003" class="size-large wp-image-548003" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/GettyImages-1347535587-864x576.jpg" alt="Semi-automatic pistols for sale on display at a gun shop." width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/GettyImages-1347535587-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/GettyImages-1347535587-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/GettyImages-1347535587-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/GettyImages-1347535587-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/GettyImages-1347535587-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/GettyImages-1347535587-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/GettyImages-1347535587-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Zocha_K. Getty Images.</div>
<h3>What They Banned</h3>
Start with SB 749, the centerpiece. 
It criminalizes the import, sale, manufacture, purchase, and transfer of so-called &#8220;assault firearms&#8221; — semi-automatic centerfire rifles, pistols, and shotguns identified not by how they function, but by how they look. A folding stock. A pistol grip. A threaded barrel. Cosmetic features that have no bearing on rate of fire. The identical firearm with a wooden stock is legal. The one with a synthetic pistol grip is contraband after July 1. Firearms you already own before that date are grandfathered for possession — but you cannot sell them to another Virginian. You can sell to a dealer or transfer them out of state (but that’s a federal Class 5 Felony). And how does a family who wishes to move to Virginia with their firearms – are they not “importing” assault firearms? You can pass them by inheritance to family. Beyond that, your grandfathered rifle is a dead-end asset.
The magazine provision is worse.
SB 749 also bans the import, sale, transfer, or purchase of any magazine capable of holding more than 15 rounds. Possession of magazines you already own is not criminalized — but you cannot sell them or transfer them to any other Virginian under any circumstances. The only lawful exits for a grandfathered magazine are surrender to a federally licensed dealer or transfer out of state. Notably, while the bill creates an explicit inheritance exception for grandfathered firearms, it creates no parallel exception for grandfathered magazines. A son can inherit his father&#8217;s rifle under this bill. The 15+ round magazines that feed it are a different matter — there is no provision in the final enrolled text that permits passing them to an heir within Virginia. What you own today is frozen in place, and the law has made no arrangement for what happens to it when you are gone.
Background check data tells you what Virginians think about this: adjusted NICS checks in February 2026 jumped 55 percent over February 2025 as gun owners raced to the counters before the deadline.
<div id="attachment_65181" style="width: 973px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-65181" class="size-full wp-image-65181" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/11/Remington.jpg" alt="STOKESDALE, NC - MARCH 26: A Remington 700 hunting rifle, a Remington 1100 shotgun and a Remington R1 Enhanced model 1911 pistol are seen for sale at Atlantic Outdoors gun shop on March 26, 2018 in Stokesdale, North Carolina. Founded in 1816, Remington is one of America's oldest gun and ammunition manufacturers which now has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection partially due to an estimated $950 million in debt." width="963" height="645" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/11/Remington.jpg 963w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/11/Remington-300x201.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/11/Remington-768x514.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 963px) 100vw, 963px" />Photo by Brian Blanco/Getty Images</div>
<h3>What They Banned You From Carrying</h3>
The ban on future purchases was not enough. SB 727 — passed both chambers and headed to the Governor — prohibits carrying these same broadly defined &#8220;assault firearms&#8221; on any public street, road, alley, sidewalk, right-of-way, or park. The bill strips concealed handgun permit holders of any exemption, even though those permit holders have carried legally for years without incident.
The practical effect in much of Virginia — in the rural Southwest, in the Shenandoah Valley, in communities where the nearest deputy might be thirty minutes away — is that the firearm most commonly chosen for home and property defense can no longer lawfully accompany you beyond your front door.
<h3>What They Did to the Industry</h3>
SB 27 and HB 21 gut the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act at the state level. They create a Virginia cause of action against firearms manufacturers, distributors, and retailers based on a vague &#8220;responsible conduct&#8221; standard. There is no clear definition of what responsible conduct requires — which is the point. Ambiguity is the weapon. The goal is not to compensate real victims. It is to make the cost of doing business in Virginia high enough that manufacturers and dealers either comply with whatever standard the next attorney general invents or exit the market entirely. You cannot exercise a right the industry has been sued out of existence.
<h3>What They Did to Home Gunsmiths</h3>
HB 40 makes building, importing, selling, transferring, or possessing an unserialized firearm, including pieces of an unassembled build, a Class 5 felony — punishable by up to ten years in prison. The bill reaches unfinished frames and receivers. Home gunsmithing has a tradition in this country as old as the Republic itself. Under HB 40, it would now be a felony in Virginia.
<h3>The Layer They Almost Added</h3>
Several additional bills survived crossover before stalling or being amended in the final days. A permit-to-purchase scheme would have required Virginians to obtain a government-issued license from the State Police before buying a handgun. Who knows what kind of barriers they could create in the name of “safety.” A vehicle storage bill would have criminalized a firearm left in a car under vague standards. A public carry ban on the House side mirrored SB 727 with even broader definitions. An age prohibition would have barred adults under 21 from purchasing handguns or assault firearms entirely.
Some of these did not survive in their original form. Others will return. The direction of travel is not ambiguous. I’ve been here long enough to see them again and again from the relentless Left.
<div id="attachment_372227" style="width: 1000px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-372227" class="size-large wp-image-372227" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/04/Gun-Shop-990x576.jpg" alt="WASHINGTON, USA - MARCH 17: Weapons on display at a gun shop in Washington, DC, United States as gun and ammunition sales in the U.S. have skyrocketed as the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic spread across the country." width="990" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/04/Gun-Shop-990x576.jpg 990w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/04/Gun-Shop-300x175.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/04/Gun-Shop-768x447.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/04/Gun-Shop.jpg 1012w" sizes=" (max-width: 990px) 100vw, 990px" />Yasin Ozturk / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</div>
<h3>What This Actually Is</h3>
Consider the cumulative picture. You cannot purchase the most popular class of semi-automatic firearms in America after July 1. Magazines over 15 rounds are contraband — you can keep what you have, but can barely use what is now monetarily valueless. You cannot carry these firearms publicly even with a concealed handgun permit. The dealer who sells them faces open-ended civil liability under a standard no one can define. The manufacturer who builds them faces the same. Home building is a felony. It is a complete dismantling of the firearms industry. Death by a thousand tiny, deceitful infringements on our constitutional rights.
At what point does regulation become intentionally burdensome to the detriment of an industry the controlling party despises? Take fossil fuels, for example. How many green energy policies can you put on a coal-fired power generation plant before it’s no longer economically feasible to continue operation? At what point does the layering of burden after burden, and infringement after infringement, become a weaponized strategy rather than a policy choice?
House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore warned on the floor that banning firearms in common use among millions of law-abiding Americans invites a constitutional reckoning. He is right. Gun rights organizations have already promised litigation the moment Spanberger signs the bill into law.
In the meantime, Virginians who did nothing wrong — they bought their rifles legally, they hold concealed handgun permits, they have never committed a crime in their lives — are watching their God-given constitutional rights be stripped away layer by layer by a majority that answers to Northern Virginia.
That is the arithmetic of 2025&#8217;s election results. Governor Spanberger is expected to sign. When she does, every Virginian in every competitive district — every community that believed a Democratic majority in the House, Senate, and the Governor’s Mansion would exercise any restraint — should ask a simple question: Is this what you voted for?
Sure, Democrats aren’t “coming for your guns.”
They’re just making sure they are rendered completely useless under the law.
* * *
Del. Wren Williams represents Virginia&#8217;s 47th House District (Patrick County and surrounding area). He is an attorney and a member of the House Republican Caucus.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Abigail Spanberger Sworn In As Virginia Governor

Virginia’s Gun Crackdown Ignores The Real Failure: Releasing An ISIS-Linked Felon

abigail spanberger

Democrats

Gun Laws

Gun Rights

Shooting

Virginia

On Tuesday, there was a hearing at the Supreme Court regarding a law in Hawaii that bans guns from being carried into supermarkets, gas stations, and other public locations without the property owner’s permission.
Instead of property owners issuing a statement saying, “You can&#8217;t come in here with a gun,” the idea would be that you wouldn&#8217;t be able to walk in with a gun unless the shop owner gives you explicit permission.  
This is the opposite of how the Second Amendment is supposed to work. It is quite possible under the Second Amendment for people to say, “You can&#8217;t come into my establishment carrying a gun,” but this argument would reverse that presumption.
Justice Samuel Alito said the state was relegating the Second Amendment to second-class status.
The Supreme Court ruled that people have a constitutional right to carry outside the home for self-defense in 2022, but now lawmakers are attempting some sort of back door to prevent people from doing that. The law is similar to restrictions that already exist in California, Maryland, New York, and New Jersey as well.  
A truly bizarre moment in the hearing came when Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — who&#8217;s become infamous for making dumb comments in the middle of oral arguments — decided that she was going to talk about the “Black Codes.” The codes were legitimately created by racists in order to prevent black people from owning guns. She was talking about them as precedent.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></div>
SCOTUSBlog <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/01/court-to-hear-oral-argument-on-law-banning-guns-on-private-property/">noted</a> the argument against the law made by its opponents:
<blockquote>In upholding Hawaii’s ban, they say, the court of appeals relied on two laws, neither of which is analogous. The first was a 1771 New Jersey law that barred poaching on lands that were closed to the public. But that law, the challengers wrote, “simply codified the American rule that hunters could hunt on unimproved lands not their own, while improved lands remained off limits. That is a trespass law,” they concluded, rather than a law that – like Hawaii’s – generally prohibits “carrying firearms on any and all private property without advance express consent.” 
And the second, the challengers continue, was an 1865 Louisiana law, enacted as part of that state’s Black Codes to restrict the rights of formerly enslaved people, that barred the carrying of guns on “premises or plantations” – that is, private property – without the owner’s consent.</blockquote>
Jackson said, “The fact that the Black Codes were, at some later point, determined, themselves, to be unconstitutional, doesn&#8217;t seem to me to be relevant to the assessment that Bruen is asking us to make. So, can you say more about that?”
Sarah Harris, the U.S. Principal Deputy Solicitor General, responded, “Absolutely. Black Codes were unconstitutional from the moment of their inception, because they are pretextual laws that are designed to ensure that newly-freed slaves are returned to a condition of sharecropping.”
Jackson: “Okay, let me stop you there. They were not deemed unconstitutional at the time that they were enacted. They were part of the history and tradition of the country. And when we have a test now that&#8217;s asking us to look at what people were doing back then, I don&#8217;t understand why they should be excluded.”
Harris: “Because they are outliers. They are, by definition, unconstitutional.”
Jackson: “Afterwards, not at the time. And if the test says what is happening at the time tells us what’s constitutional for this purpose, why aren’t they in?”
Harris: “Respectfully, a law is always unconstitutional from its inception.”
Jackson: “So the history doesn&#8217;t matter. We shouldn’t care about the history, then.”
Jackson seems to be making the argument that when Dred Scott was ruled unconstitutional, the reversal of the decision doesn’t mean that Dred Scott was ever wrong.
This is a truly bizarre agreement she’s making.
She’s implying that Plessy v. Ferguson, which said that segregation under the Equal Protection laws was fully legal, was good constitutional law, and only later was reversed. That means that if there was a subtextual or secondary part of that law, we should look to it as good law even though the Supreme Court’s ruling was a bad decision.
This is absolutely incoherent and nonsensical.

The U.S. Supreme Court Poses For Official Group Photo

Justice Jackson Defends Racist Black Codes As Constitutional History

Ben Shapiro

Blacks

Hawaii

Ketanji Brown Jackson

Leftists

Opinion

Supreme Court

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that a California ban on openly carrying firearms violates the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, giving gun owners a major win in the deep blue state.
In a 2-1 <a href="https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2026/01/02/24-565.pdf">ruling</a>, the appeals court partially sided with a California gun owner Mark Baird, who sued over California&#8217;s ban on openly carrying a firearm in counties with more than 200,000 residents. The law, which went into effect as an &#8220;urban open-carry ban,&#8221; effectively prohibited around 95% of California&#8217;s population from carrying a gun in public.
U.S. Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, said in the ruling that &#8220;historical record makes unmistakably plain that open carry is part of this Nation’s history and tradition.&#8221;
&#8220;It was clearly protected at the time of the Founding and at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. There is no record of any law restricting open carry at the Founding, let alone a distinctly similar historical regulation,&#8221; the judge stated. &#8220;California’s failure to satisfy its burden to present evidence of a relevant historical tradition of firearm regulation is dispositive with respect to California’s urban open-carry ban.&#8221;
The open-carry ban was <a href="https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-defends-commonsense-gun-law-prevents-illegal-gun">defended</a> by California Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta, who has pushed for gun control at the state and federal levels.
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In the ruling, VanDyke also said that California&#8217;s open-carry ban could not stand under the Supreme Court&#8217;s landmark decision in 2022 in New York State Rifle &amp; Pistol Association v Bruen, which found that Americans have the right to carry firearms in public. The judge also noted how most U.S. states generally allow for open carry, a list that included California until the state enacted its urban open carry ban in 2012.
&#8220;In doing so, California joined a tiny minority of states to have adopted such severe restrictions on open carry. In fact, California is the only state in the Ninth Circuit that has entirely banned open carry for the overwhelming majority of its citizens,&#8221; VanDyke wrote.
VanDyke was joined by Kenneth Lee, another Trump-appointed judge, in ruling against the California law. The three-judge panel ruled against Baird&#8217;s challenge of licensing requirements in counties with fewer than 200,000 residents.
Friday&#8217;s ruling comes after a 2023 decision from a district court judge who rejected a legal challenge to California&#8217;s open carry ban. Senior U.S. Circuit Judge N. Randy Smith, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, dissented in part, arguing that the appeals court &#8220;should have affirmed the district court.&#8221;

Shooting club

SECOND AMENDMENT WINS: Appeals Court Shoots Down ‘Unconstitutional’ California Open-Carry Ban

2nd Amendment

9th Circuit

California

Courts

U.S.

The Department of Justice is suing Washington, D.C.’s police department over the city’s firearms laws, saying they incriminate legal gun owners.
The lawsuit argues that it goes against the Second Amendment for the capital city to ban AR-15 rifles and other types of firearms, according to a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-district-columbia-unconstitutional-ban-semi-automatic-firearms">press release</a>. Specifically, the DOJ alleges that the local police department “routinely arrest[s] law-abiding citizens for possessing firearms that are protected under the Second Amendment but not registerable in D.C.”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement that the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/media/1421731/dl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lawsuit</a> is part of the DOJ’s new Second Amendment Section, saying it “underscores our ironclad commitment to protecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans.”
“Washington, DC’s ban on some of America’s most popular firearms is an unconstitutional infringement on the Second Amendment — living in our nation’s capital should not preclude law-abiding citizens from exercising their fundamental constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”
Gun owners in the district are required to register their firearms through the Metropolitan Police Department, and the lawsuit points out that people cannot register “semi-automatic rifles,” which the DOJ argues incriminates people who “possess these firearms in the home for lawful purposes.”
“If a law-abiding citizen possesses a Second Amendment-protected firearm that is not registerable in D.C. in the home for the lawful purpose of self-defense, that individual faces anything from an administrative fine to a criminal misdemeanor conviction punishable by up to one year in jail and a $2,500 fine,” the lawsuit reads.
Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division, Harmeet K. Dhillon, said in a statement that “The newly established Second Amendment Section filed this lawsuit to ensure that the very rights D.C. resident Mr. Heller secured 17 years ago are enforced today — and that all law-abiding citizens seeking to own protected firearms for lawful purposes may do so.”
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The lawsuit comes as federal agents and the National Guard continue to patrol the streets of D.C., following President Donald Trump’s August order to crack down on crime. MPD Chief Pamela Smith resigned from her position amid accusations from the Republican-led House Oversight Committee that she “deliberately manipulated crime data.”
“Let’s be really clear about one thing: Never would I, never will I ever compromise my integrity for a few crime numbers,” Smith said last week, according to <a href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/dc-police-chief-forgives-haters-fiery-farewell-speech/4032025/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NBC 4 Washington</a>. Interim Police Chief Jeffrey Carroll now leads the department.
The Metropolitan Police Department told The Daily Wire it “does not comment on pending litigation.” The mayor’s office and the city attorney’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Pamela Smith

Justice Department Sues D.C. Over ‘Unconstitutional’ Gun Laws

firearms

justice department

Washington DC

Depending on the outcome of New Jersey’s gubernatorial race on Tuesday, gun owners in the state can prepare to breathe easier or bunker down for another four years of hostility. 
The race pits Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who has promised to defend the Second Amendment, against Mikie Sherrill, who is backed by a plethora of anti-gun groups. The winner will appoint New Jersey’s next attorney general, who has a considerable role in enforcing the state’s gun laws and defending the Second Amendment. 
Matthew Platkin, New Jersey’s current attorney general, has consistently pushed for gun control after his appointment four years ago by outgoing Democratic Governor Phil Murphy. In New Jersey, the attorney general is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate. 
During his time as attorney general, Platkin has sued numerous gun manufacturers, supported a wide-ranging ban on carrying guns in public places, and defended the state’s strict gun laws. 
Platkin has defended the state’s ban on AR-15s and ammunition magazines that carry more than ten rounds. The case is <a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69068398/association-of-new-jersey-rifle-and-pistol-clubs-i-v-attonrey-general-new/">currently</a> before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Trump administration has filed a brief in support of the Second Amendment groups that challenged the law. 
“Although such rifles and magazines are subject to reasonable regulations that are consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation, the complete bans at issue here are unconstitutional,” the Justice Department argued in a recent brief. 
Platkin has also supported bans on so-called “assault weapons” in other jurisdictions, and he co-led a brief in September <a href="https://www.mass.gov/news/ag-campbell-co-leads-coalition-to-support-assault-weapons-ban-in-cook-county-illinois">defending</a> the ban in Cook County, Illinois, on AR-15s. In May 2024, he took action to <a href="https://www.njoag.gov/ag-platkin-leads-states-in-defending-massachusetts-gun-laws/">defend</a> similar gun control laws in Massachusetts. 
The New Jersey Democrat also went on the offensive, accusing gun manufacturer Glock of making a semi-automatic pistol that can be illegally modified into being fully automatic. 
“For decades, Glock has knowingly sold weapons that anyone with a screwdriver and a YouTube video can convert into a military-grade machine gun within a matter of minutes,” Platkin <a href="https://www.nj.com/essex/2024/12/nj-sues-to-stop-sale-of-glock-handguns.html">said</a> in December 2024.
Platkin has also <a href="https://www.nj.com/news/2023/01/nj-wanted-to-be-able-to-sue-gunmakers-but-a-federal-judge-says-law-may-be-unconstitutional.html">supported</a> the suing of gun manufacturers under “public nuisance&#8221; law and laws <a href="https://x.com/NewJerseyOAG/status/1829670601574822394">banning</a> those under the age of 21 from owning guns. Additionally, he was “thrilled” after the courts <a href="https://newjerseymonitor.com/2025/09/10/federal-judges-uphold-new-jersey-law-restricting-guns-in-sensitive-places/">upheld</a> a law that banned carrying guns in almost every public place. 
Ciattarelli has <a href="https://www.jack4nj.com/issues">promised</a> to replace Platkin on his first day as governor with an attorney general “who respects all constitutional rights, including Second Amendment rights, and will review all legislation and policies for constitutional flaws to remedy or repeal them, and reevaluate the state’s position in pending lawsuits by citizens challenging state laws as unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.”
Additionally, he said he will veto any legislation that infringes on the Second Amendment. 
On the other hand, Sherrill, who has been <a href="https://www.everytown.org/press/everytown-for-gun-safety-action-fund-endorses-mikie-sherrill-for-new-jersey-governor/">endorsed</a> by the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety, has <a href="https://sherrill.house.gov/media/press-releases/statement-by-rep-mikie-sherrill-on-ar-15-ruling">promised</a> to fight “until we fully ban assault weapons” and “require universal background checks for gun purchases.”
While New Jersey is seen as a solid blue state, recent polls have shown the gap between Ciattarelli and Sherrill tightening.

MixCollage-04-Nov-2025-12-52-PM-2816

The Second Amendment Hangs In The Balance In The New Jersey Governor’s Race

The Second Amendment Is On The Ballot In The New Jersey Governor’s Race

Elections

Jack Ciattarelli

mikie sherrill

New Jersey

In every country where firearms have been banned, there&#8217;s been an &#8220;inciting incident&#8221; that&#8217;s been used to justify the crackdown. And very often, this &#8220;inciting incident&#8221; is either overblown, manufactured, or misconstrued in some way. In Canada back in 2022, for example, Justin Trudeau used a mass shooting in the United States — specifically, the shooting at the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas — to justify a national ban on handgun sales in Canada.
Yes, he used a shooting in a foreign country, which was committed with a rifle, to justify a ban on handguns in Canada. And of course, Canadians went along with it. They didn&#8217;t even complain because, after all, they&#8217;d been conditioned, over many years, to accept an increasing number of restrictions on their right to own firearms. Bit by bit, they allowed the government to whittle away their rights. So eventually, when it came time for Justin Trudeau to suspend handgun sales entirely, based on a pretext that was obviously ridiculous, everyone just kind of rolled over. We&#8217;ve seen similar stories all over the world, in places like Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and so on.
Every conservative — everyone who wants the United States to continue to exist as a functional country, where all of these other nations have failed — has to be mindful of similar efforts to undermine our Second Amendment rights here at home. We have to pay attention when government officials attempt to use some kind of fake &#8220;inciting incident&#8221; to suspend our right to possess firearms. And we certainly have to pay attention when these efforts gain traction — when they appear to be working.
That&#8217;s the case right now. Lawsuits and political pressure by various states — particularly California — have successfully intimidated the weapons manufacturer Glock into dismantling virtually its entire product line. One of the most popular handgun manufacturers in the world, with probably the most recognizable brand, has been beaten into submission.
This is a story that hasn&#8217;t received anywhere near the attention it should be receiving. It&#8217;s obviously the first domino among many. If Glock doesn&#8217;t reverse this decision — if Democrats win this fight — then many, many more dominoes will fall in short order. Just like we saw in Canada, once you give these people any ground whatsoever, they will walk all over you.
So let&#8217;s begin with the &#8220;inciting incident&#8221; of this particular power grab. It was the worst mass shooting in the history of Sacramento, according to the local media, and it took place in April 2022. Several shooters were involved, as part of some kind of gang warfare. Six people were fatally wounded. Twelve others were injured.
One of the men who was apprehended was named Smiley Martin (the brother of Dandrae Martin, another suspect in the case). Smiley Martin was found in possession of a Glock 19 handgun with a &#8220;switch&#8221; attached to it, which is a device that enables it to fire rapidly, like a machine gun. Switches are illegal, but they can be obtained very easily or created with a 3D printer.
And it was determined that Smiley was one of the main shooters in this particular incident. Watch: 
<iframe loading="lazy" title="001 Downtown Sacramento" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4FhuYdV4phc?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
You heard in that report that Smiley Martin had a very long criminal record prior to this shooting. But they don&#8217;t explain why he was allowed out of prison, if that&#8217;s the case. Nor do they provide more detail on what exactly Smiley Martin did when he committed his other crimes. 
But that&#8217;s a pretty big part of the story. So here&#8217;s <a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-health-shootings-prisons-arrests-f713eff2a31b66e5740eb96f60392baa">The Associated Press</a>, with some more background.
<blockquote>A suspect arrested in connection with last weekend’s mass shooting outside bars in Sacramento served less than half his 10-year sentence because of voter-approved changes to state law that lessened the punishment for his felony convictions and provided a chance for earlier release. Smiley Allen Martin was freed in February after serving time for punching a girlfriend, dragging her from her home by her hair and whipping her with a belt, according to court and prison records. Those count as nonviolent offenses under California law, which considers only about two dozen crimes to be violent felonies — such as murder, rape, arson and kidnapping. &#8230; Proposition 57 credits include good behavior while behind bars, though corrections officials declined to release Martin’s disciplinary report.</blockquote>
If you follow my show or read my articles, you know this is all sounding very familiar. It&#8217;s similar to what happened in Kentucky, with the child killer Ronald Exantus. As we discussed, Exantus brutally murdered a young boy and assaulted his father (and the boy&#8217;s sister). But his crimes were deemed &#8220;nonviolent&#8221; under Kentucky law, so he was let out of prison after serving just a few years. Even though the parole board didn&#8217;t want to release Smiley Martin, they had no choice under the law — just like they had to release Ronald Exantus.
In this case, just like Ronald Exantus, Smiley Martin obviously committed violent offenses. He punched a woman and whipped her with a belt. But because these offenses are somehow considered &#8220;nonviolent&#8221; in California, under the law that was passed in 2016, Smiley Martin was allowed out of prison after serving a fraction of his sentence. And he then used that opportunity to commit a mass shooting.
So how has the government of California responded to this development? Have they suggested that maybe they should amend the law so that the word &#8220;nonviolent&#8221; doesn&#8217;t refer to crimes that are obviously violent? Have they suggested any changes whatsoever that would prevent violent felons from getting out of prison after serving less than half of their sentences?
You probably know the answer to that question. Democrats in California reacted to this mass shooting by pushing yet another law — one that will effectively ban all Glock handguns in the state. For many years, Glocks have had special restrictions in places like Canada and California. And now the government, in the wake of this mass shooting, has decided to go for a total ban. 
This is from a video posted by &#8220;<a href="https://x.com/fixingcali/status/1968266193808277561">Vince for California</a>,&#8221; the only account I&#8217;ve seen on X that has pieced all this together. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="002 CA Glocks" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uf-r0btKIq4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Yes, you heard that correctly. Government officials in California cited the mass shooting in Sacramento as proof that we need a new law banning Glocks. That&#8217;s not because there&#8217;s anything wrong with Glocks, by themselves. It&#8217;s because career criminals — overwhelmingly young black men who pose with their illegally modified Glocks on TikTok all the time, and who constantly commit violent felonies and then get out of jail in five seconds — might modify the Glock to make it more dangerous. Because this relatively small demographic is breaking the law, therefore the most popular handgun in the world should be outlawed in California. (Technically, you can keep your current Glock, but you can&#8217;t buy a new one.)
That&#8217;s what they&#8217;re saying. That&#8217;s their plan. And it&#8217;s working. It&#8217;s almost as if the entire reason they let these violent thugs out of prison is so that they can commit more crimes, which Democrats will then, in turn, use to justify more crackdowns on our civil liberties. This is from a local news station in California.
<blockquote>Glock handguns, among the most popular pistols on the market, will no longer be available for purchase in California starting July 1, 2026. Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed into law AB 1127, which prohibits the sale of Glocks because a small part can be modified or replaced to convert the gun into an automatic weapon. Although illegal, this modification is becoming increasingly popular among lawbreakers. Tyler Thompson, a Glock dealer at Redding Guns, said the impending ban has left him with only one Glock in stock.</blockquote>
Along with this law (which was subsidized by Soros and Mark Zuckerberg), there have been various lawsuits filed against Glock by Democrats — including cities like Seattle and Chicago, and states like Minnesota and New Jersey — which essentially blame the manufacturer for illegal modifications that people make to their firearms. It&#8217;s like when Democrats blamed Toyota for supposedly making their cars too easy to steal.
For about a million reasons, conservatives should fight these laws (and these lawsuits) with everything they have. The NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation are doing their part, and filing lawsuits, but there needs to be a much bigger effort. For one thing, <a href="https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB1127/id/3209201">here&#8217;s the law</a> that California just passed.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-990593 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Legislative-Counsel-824x576.jpg" alt="" width="824" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Legislative-Counsel-824x576.jpg 824w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Legislative-Counsel-300x210.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Legislative-Counsel-768x537.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Legislative-Counsel.jpg 987w" sizes=" (max-width: 824px) 100vw, 824px" /></div>
Credit: LegiScan/California Assembly Bill 1127
The bill reads:
<blockquote>This bill would prohibit a licensed firearms dealer to sell, offer for sale, exchange, give, transfer, or deliver any semiautomatic machinegun-convertible pistol, except as specified. For these purposes, the bill would define “machinegun-convertible pistol” as any semiautomatic pistol with a cruciform trigger bar that can be readily converted by hand or with common household tools into a machine gun by the installation or attachment of a pistol converter, meaning any device or instrument that, when installed in or attached to the rear of the slide of a semiautomatic pistol, replaces the backplate and interferes with the trigger mechanism and thereby enables the pistol to shoot automatically more than one shot by a single function of the trigger.</blockquote>
Among other problems, this law is obviously unconstitutional. 
To be clear, it doesn&#8217;t apply only to Glocks, but also to any handgun with a &#8220;cruciform trigger bar.&#8221; 
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-990597 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Trigger-Bar-1024x428.webp" alt="" width="1024" height="428" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Trigger-Bar-1024x428.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Trigger-Bar-300x125.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Trigger-Bar-768x321.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Trigger-Bar.webp 1280w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></div>
Credit: us.Glock.com
Here&#8217;s what that looks like. Some Smith &amp; Wesson firearms, along with some firearms from Shadow Systems and FMK Firearms, also have &#8220;cruciform trigger bars.&#8221; And yes, it&#8217;s true that, if they revamp their entire product lineup, Glock can get rid of these.
But Glock shouldn&#8217;t have to do that. Nor should any of these other companies. The Supreme Court has already held — correctly — that under our Constitution, Americans can own handguns that aren&#8217;t unreasonably dangerous. And there&#8217;s nothing unreasonably dangerous about a Glock. It&#8217;s about as vanilla as handguns get. If a handgun suddenly becomes &#8220;unreasonably dangerous&#8221; because someone makes an illegal modification to it, then every handgun will instantly become &#8220;unreasonably dangerous.&#8221;
And of course, that&#8217;s what California has in mind. We all know that, no matter what changes Glock decides to make to its handguns, in order to comply with this law, it will never be enough. It&#8217;s possible to modify any handgun (or rifle) to shoot &#8220;full auto&#8221;, within the meaning of this law. Probably ten days after Glock changes its handguns to comply with this law, someone will come up with a switch for the new model. It&#8217;s not going to be difficult. Many firearms experts have already made that point.
This is clearly, unambiguously, the first major step in a larger effort by Democrats to ban handguns. The only appropriate response is to fight it, right now. There is no limiting principle here. It&#8217;s like saying it should be illegal to own a car, because car bombs exist. The fact that someone can come in after the fact and make a product more dangerous by committing a felony does not mean that we should ban the product.
But Glock isn&#8217;t fighting back on principle. They&#8217;re not running ads in California, pointing out that Gavin Newsom let this mass shooter out of jail early, or that California already outlaws switches, or that the mass shooter was a felon who shouldn&#8217;t have been allowed to possess a firearm in the first place, or that he had a high-capacity magazine that&#8217;s also illegal in California. Glock isn&#8217;t running 24/7 ads, which makes the extremely obvious point that California could solve its gun problem overnight by actually enforcing its existing laws and by punishing violent criminals.
Instead, Glock is caving. They&#8217;re punishing every law-abiding gun owner in the country. They just announced that they&#8217;re ditching Gen 5 and starting to make a whole new &#8220;V series&#8221; of handguns that are supposedly compliant with this new law. They just sent this marketing material around.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-990599 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/G3z3WslXMAAcQMi-460x576.jpeg" alt="" width="460" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/G3z3WslXMAAcQMi-460x576.jpeg 460w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/G3z3WslXMAAcQMi-240x300.jpeg 240w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/G3z3WslXMAAcQMi-768x961.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/G3z3WslXMAAcQMi.jpeg 1029w" sizes=" (max-width: 460px) 100vw, 460px" /></div>
Credit: us.Glock.com
It reads: &#8220;As part of GLOCK&#8217;s commitment to future innovations, we are making necessary updates to our product lines to align with upcoming offerings.&#8221;
So they don&#8217;t even mention why they&#8217;re doing this. They don&#8217;t demonstrate a shred of interest in defending Americans&#8217; Second Amendment rights or contesting this flagrant overreach by Democrats in California, New Jersey, Minnesota, and so on. They don&#8217;t even provide any indication as to whether this new &#8220;V series&#8221; will be compatible with Gen 5 parts, including performance triggers and so on. Nor do they explain how they can possibly make a handgun that&#8217;s impossible to turn into a machine gun, under the law passed in California. They&#8217;re just hoping for the best, I guess.
And meanwhile, where is the Republican Party on this? Has a single prominent Republican made an issue out of the fact that Democrats just strong-armed Glock into dismantling its entire product line? If so, I&#8217;m not aware of it.
This is a total capitulation. There&#8217;s no other way to understand what&#8217;s happening here. It&#8217;s capitulation on Glock&#8217;s part. And it&#8217;s capitulation on the part of our elected representatives.
That would be unforgivable in normal times. It&#8217;s especially egregious now, after we&#8217;ve seen — again and again, in country after country — where total capitulation leads. Glock&#8217;s decision is going to embolden Democrats to do exactly what Leftists have done in Canada, Australia, and so on. They didn&#8217;t release Smiley Martin from prison, or fund these massive new changes to the law, so that Glock would release slightly-altered versions of its existing handguns. They released Smiley Martin from prison, and they passed this law, so that no one can buy a handgun ever again. They want to disarm the entire country. That is their ultimate objective.
That&#8217;s always been their objective. And with this decision by Glock, without much fanfare, they&#8217;re one very important step closer to achieving it.

California Gov. Newsom Discusses State’s Economic Advancement And Growth

The Brazen Attack On Your Second Amendment Rights You Probably Haven’t Heard About

Gavin Newsom

Matt Walsh

Sacramento

The National Rifle Association (NRA) filed a lawsuit against California over a “first-of-its-kind” law that effectively bans one of the most popular handguns in America.
On Friday, Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law a new bill that bans the sale and transfer of Glock and Glock-style handguns in the state beginning January 1. In a suit filed on Monday, the NRA argues that the law blatantly violates the Second Amendment rights of Californians.
“Our message to Governor Newsom is simple: we will see you in court,” NRA Institute for Legislative Action Executive Director John Commerford said. “Gavin Newsom and his gang of progressive politicians in California are continuing their crusade against constitutional rights.”
“Once again, they are attempting to violate landmark Supreme Court decisions and disarm law-abiding citizens by banning some of the most commonly owned handguns in America. This flagrant violation of rights cannot, and will not, go unchecked,” he added.
California’s <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1127&amp;showamends=false">law</a> says that gun sellers “shall not sell, offer for sale, exchange, give, transfer, or deliver any semiautomatic machinegun-convertible pistol.” That kind of pistol is defined as “any semiautomatic pistol with a cruciform trigger bar that can be readily converted by hand or with common household tools,” which applies to Glock and Glock-style pistols.
Democrats say the law is intended to crack down on the conversion of Glock-style handguns for use as a machine gun. That action is already illegal under federal law and carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
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The suit, against California Attorney General Rob Bonta, was joined by two members of the NRA, the Firearms Policy Coalition, and the Second Amendment Foundation. It noted that Glocks were among the “most popular firearms in the nation.”
Commerford told The Daily Wire that the lawsuit shows that the NRA “will not stand by while a rabid anti-gun governor dictates from their office how individuals can exercise their Second Amendment rights. The Supreme Court has opined that you cannot wholesale ban handguns, and that&#8217;s exactly what Governor Gavin Newsom just did.”
The Supreme Court ruling referred to by Commerford is the District of Columbia v. Heller case, where the court ruled that the right to own a handgun for self-defense was protected.

US-POLITICS-HEALTH-CHILDREN-NEWSOM

California Challenged Over Ban On One Of The Most Popular Guns In America

National Rifle Association (NRA)

Social Issues

Pro-gun organizations are suing the federal government to challenge regulations on silencers and short-barreled firearms in an attempt to parlay a legal change in the Big Beautiful Bill into a complete overhaul of longstanding restrictions on guns.
Dubbed the “Big Beautiful Lawsuit,” the suit from the <a href="https://ssf.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Silencer Shop Foundation</a>, Gun Owners of America, Palmetto State Armory, and other pro-gun organizations argues that the regulation of the items by the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) is unconstitutional in the wake of a legislative change.
The lawsuit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms comes in the wake of the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, which will eliminate the $200 tax on silencers, short-barreled rifles, and other firearms regulated through the National Firearms Act beginning in 2026.
The suit contends that the elimination of the tax on silencers, short barreled rifles and shotguns, and a third category referred to as “any other weapon,” removes the Constitutional justification for their inclusion in the act.
The NFA has allowed the federal government to maintain a registry of those purchasing items covered by the 1934 law for the purposes of ensuring tax compliance, but now with the tax set to be sunsetted, the justification for the federal list becomes increasingly legally flimsy.
“This lawsuit isn’t about picking a fight — it’s about ending one that started in 1934. For nearly a century, Americans have been told they need to beg for permission to protect their own hearing,&#8221; asserts Dave Matheny, the CEO and founder of Silencer Shop. “That’s not safety. That’s government inertia. We’re fighting to restore the kind of common sense our grandparents took for granted — where you could enjoy your rights without a calendar and a checkbook standing in the way.”
The <a href="https://ssf.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Silencer Shop Foundation</a>, the legal advocacy arm of the Silencer Shop, says that a win against the ATF would not only remove a deterrent that Americans face when they attempt to exercise their rights, but that would also guard against politicians attempting to impose even greater costs on suppressor purchases.
Senior Vice President of Gun Owners of America Erich Pratt highlighted the monumental opportunity presented by the elimination of the tax.
“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to dismantle one of the most abusive federal gun control laws on the books. With the tax struck down by Congress, the rest of the NFA is standing on air,” Pratt <a href="https://www.gunowners.org/goa-to-file-one-big-beautiful-lawsuit-against-nfa-registry-as-one-big-beautiful-bill-heads-to-presidents-desk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">contends</a>. “We’re ready to take this fight to the courts and finally end the federal registry once and for all.”

SSF-Legal-Photos-5-a

Gun Rights Advocates Launch ‘Big Beautiful Lawsuit’ To Gut National Firearms Act

Congress

Donald Trump

Amazon Prime Video is backtracking after fan outrage erupted over its decision to digitally erase guns from James Bond promotional artwork — a move critics mocked as absurd.
The images in question featured actors who played the Bond character, including Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig. But rather than holding guns in the images, all of them stand awkwardly and empty-handed. 
The company’s revised artwork now features images from the movies themselves, though none of the promotional images show 007 with a weapon.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
They photoshopped all the guns out of the James Bond movie thumbnails.
Just in case you still had hope for Amazon being in charge of the franchise. <a href="https://t.co/eeosPEPFnJ">pic.twitter.com/eeosPEPFnJ</a>
— John A. Douglas (@J0hnADouglas) <a href="https://twitter.com/J0hnADouglas/status/1974160271448174917?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 3, 2025</a></blockquote>
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In posters from Connery’s “Dr. No” and Brosnan’s “Goldeneye,” the guns were edited out of the original images and replaced with nothing. In Moore’s “A View To A Kill” and Craig’s “Spectre,” the images were altered and cropped to remove the weapons.
The backlash on social media began on October 5, James Bond Day, when UK-based fans noticed the blatant photo manipulations.
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“They photoshopped all the guns out of the James Bond movie thumbnails. Just in case you still had hope for Amazon being in charge of the franchise,” one person <a href="https://x.com/J0hnADouglas/status/1974160271448174917">noted</a>.
“Amazon have removed the guns from their Bond posters, giving the tantalising impression that Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan think you’re a wanker,” British actor Rufus Jones <a href="https://x.com/rufusjones1/status/1974072843546804499">wrote</a>, echoing what many others were saying. 
“Gaaagh! I feel my testosterone levels dropping just looking at these,” a third fan <a href="https://x.com/NoahRayWrites/status/1974182585602617498">said</a>.
“When are they giving the characters on the posters purple hair and a mask?” another commenter <a href="https://x.com/PaulSkytrace/status/1974504185216610445">joked</a>.
Amazon acquired the rights to the Bond franchise in 2022. Reps for Amazon MGM said at the time of the acquisition that they were “committed to honoring the legacy” of James Bond, a fictional British Secret Service agent created by Ian Fleming in 1953. His popular books were later adapted into films, which became one of the highest-grossing movie franchises of all time, earning more than $7 billion at the box office since Sean Connery first took on the role of “Dr. No” in 1962.
The last film in the franchise, starring Daniel Craig as 007, “No Time to Die,” premiered in 2021 following a COVID delay. 
There are no known Bond movies in the works.

James Bond

Amazon Prime Dragged For Scrubbing Guns From ‘James Bond’ Artwork

Amazon Prime Dragged For Editing Guns Out Of 'James Bond' Artwork

Amazon Prime

Entertainment

World

The fallout continues over ABC’s indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel&#8217;s late-night show after his comments on Charlie Kirk, an exclusive Daily Wire investigation dives into the Socialist Rifle Association, and ICE ignites a fresh surge in deportations.
It’s Friday, September 19, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day.
Morning Wire is available on video! You can watch today’s episode here:
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">ABC-Ya: Network Benches Kimmel Over Kirk Remarks</h2>
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Topline: ABC has suspended Jimmy Kimmel&#8217;s late-night show “indefinitely” for his remarks about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
The outrage: The Kimmel comments that really sparked outrage came on Monday night, five days after Kirk’s killing.
Despite reports that the suspected shooter held left-wing political views, Kimmel <a href="https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1968476012871925903">said</a> this: “Hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
Utah Republican Governor Spencer Cox and the FBI have described the accused shooter as “deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology.” The suspect had described Charlie Kirk’s conservative views as “full of hate,” and he was in a romantic relationship with his male trans-identifying roommate.
Yet on Tuesday night, even after the backlash, Kimmel <a href="https://youtu.be/aHT7ICvMtlA">doubled down</a>: “Meanwhile, many in MAGA land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk …”
TL;DR: Kimmel made false statements that he certainly should have known were false in the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s death.
What ABC saw: The network acted after some heavy pressure from the major broadcasting companies that air Kimmel’s show on ABC affiliates. On Wednesday, Nexstar Media Group, which carries Kimmel on 23 ABC stations, announced it would pull episodes starting Wednesday.
Sinclair Broadcast Group, another major affiliate operator, demanded an apology to the Kirk family and a donation to Turning Point USA before it would put Kimmel back on the air. On Friday night, its ABC stations, along with those of Nexstar, will be airing a memorial for Kirk instead of Kimmel.
Behind the scenes, ABC reportedly tried to get that apology from Kimmel. But he refused, feeling he had nothing to apologize for. He also allegedly planned to take even further aim at Donald Trump supporters during his monologue on Wednesday night.
View from the FCC: As this played out, FCC Chair Brendan Carr pointed out that broadcast networks are different from print media or cable in that they require licenses from the federal government to operate. Knowingly making false, defamatory statements violates the FCC’s rules.
But that said, there is no evidence that Carr or the FCC has taken any formal action against ABC. And that’s a contrast with the Biden administration, which took formal action against conservative media.
<h2 style="text-align: center;">A Socialist Gun Club?</h2>
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Topline: The Department of Justice under the Biden administration focused heavily on what it called right-wing “domestic terrorism,” and now President Trump is signaling it will focus on radical left-wing movements, such as &#8220;ANTIFA,&#8221; which Trump said he is designating a &#8220;major terrorist organization.&#8221;
Introducing the SRA: The Socialist Rifle Association was founded in 2019 and by the following year, counted 10,000 “comrades.”
It operates through state-based chapters across the country, and says it educates and trains leftists on the use of firearms to protect against “fascists.”
The group was founded by two transgender men, one of whom goes by “she/it.” According to an internal survey, one-third of members identify as anarchists, one-third as Marxist-Leninists, and one-third as LGBTQ. 
It issues membership cards featuring Karl Marx’s face. But perhaps more than anything, it’s wrapped up with transgender politics. Four of its 13 national leaders go by “they” pronouns. 
Links to political violence: A Daily Wire review of federal court records found that membership in the Socialist Rifle Association is a common link in four high-profile incidents of political violence.
A couple of months ago, nearly a dozen people, many of them who identify as transgender, were charged with committing an armed assault on an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas. Benjamin Hanil Song, who was charged with shooting a police officer in the neck in that incident, was allegedly a Socialist Rifle Association member.
Two separate incidents of firebombing Tesla dealerships, one the day of President Trump’s inauguration, were committed by Socialist Rifle Association members, according to prosecutors.
Link to Kirk slaying?: The Socialist Rifle Association told The Daily Wire that Kirk’s suspected assassin is not a member. But it declined to say whether his boyfriend, Lance Twiggs, was, citing confidentiality. The group has a chapter in Utah, where the suspect is from.
Follow the money: It’s structured as a nonprofit incorporated in Kansas, but its federal tax-exempt status was revoked after it failed to file paperwork with the IRS for years. It’s still been operating, so that’s one avenue that perhaps the federal government will look at.
<h2 style="text-align: center;">The New Deporter-In-Chief</h2>
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Topline: According to a new report by The Daily Wire, the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign is surging – with nearly 400,000 illegal immigrants already removed from the country.
The Trump administration has set a lofty goal of one million deportations per year, a target that has never been achieved before. The pace stands at 389,000 illegal immigrants deported so far under this administration. While that&#8217;s not close to one million, it’s a huge advance compared to previous administrations. It even exceeds the record of former President Barack Obama, who was described as the “deporter-in-chief.” It also exceeds President Biden&#8217;s final year in office. 
The Trump administration has hired 10,000 new immigration agents to expedite the process. However, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons recently told The Daily Wire that efforts to encourage self-deportations will undoubtedly reach the goal of one million deportees. The administration has already seen, according to DHS, two million of those.

MRN 9.19.25 Thumbnail V1

Morning Brief: Kimmel Suspended, A Socialist Gun Club & Deportations Surge

Morning Brief: Kimmel Suspended, A Socialist Gun Club, And Deportations Surge

Charlie Kirk

Chicago

Department of Homeland Security

Deportations

Jimmy Kimmel

Media

Morning Wire

Politics

Socialism

Plenty of ink has been spilled on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the sweeping piece of budget reconciliation legislation that cuts taxes, creates “Trump accounts” for newborns, and grants an unprecedented new surge of funding in support of mass deportation and border security efforts.
But one of the law&#8217;s biggest impacts may be its unfurling of a longstanding gun law that firearms enthusiasts and Second Amendment advocates have long had in their sights.
The government has imposed a tax on suppressors, tools that are used to dampen the sound of a gunshot, ever<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-republican-budget-proposal-has-removal-gun-silencer-tax-its-sights-2025-05-14/"> since</a> 1934, when the National Firearms Act was passed. Thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill, that tax will be dropped in January, and its elimination could tee up massive victories for Second Amendment supporters.
The Daily Wire team had the chance to learn from firearms experts and gun rights advocates during a day at the range, firing both suppressed and unsuppressed AR-15s. Their utility became clear as the day went on, and as thousands of rounds were fired.
“Millions of Americans use them to protect their hearing,” Knox Williams, Executive Director of the <a href="https://americansuppressorassociation.com/">American Suppressor Association</a>, said of suppressors. “Gunshots are loud to the point that when you don’t have hearing protection, any exposure to an unsuppressed gunshot can and will lead to permanent and irreversible hearing damage … if you lose it, there is no coming back.”
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Suppressors, often referred to colloquially as silencers, work in the same way as a muffler on a car — with a tube that traps, cools, and dissipates the hot gas that comes out of a barrel after a round is fired. In fact, the suppressor and the muffler were developed by the same American inventor in the early 1900s. Both inventions prevent the rapid contact of the hot gas with the cooler surrounding atmosphere, which is one of the main causes of the noise that is generated when a gun is fired.
Suppressors reduce the noise of a gunshot by anywhere from 20 to 35 decibels, making their effect roughly equivalent to earplugs and earmuffs in their ability to protect one’s hearing.
Americans’ impression of suppressors comes primarily from James Bond films and video games, where the devices are used to sneakily assassinate a target in a crowded setting, allowing the shooter to escape undetected.
The reality, as was apparent after a day at the range, is that even a suppressed firearm is still loud enough to cause hearing damage if used without hearing protection, and far too noisy to allow one to pull off a Bond-style operation, especially when used indoors. Instead, a silencer is a valuable tool to protect your hearing, and it works best when used in conjunction with earplugs or earmuffs.
The removal of the tax on suppressors, Williams says, is a victory that could build momentum in the service of a broader goal.
“The primary thing that we want is to remove these things from the National Firearms Act entirely. In the House version of the Big Beautiful Bill, that actually passed. It was full removal of suppressors from the National Firearms Act, which meant no tax and no registration requirement,” the American Suppressor Association Executive Director explained.
That version of the bill did not pass in the Senate, but the removal of the tax is an initial victory for Second Amendment advocates, and one that could beget bigger wins.
Williams explained that the tax wasn’t just an added financial burden to those looking to buy suppressors, but also created a registry of Americans who paid the tax, in effect resulting in a federal registry of Americans owning suppressors.
The removal of the tax, Williams says, has “set us up for being able to challenge the constitutionality of these items in the National Firearms Act in court.”
A new lawsuit from the American Suppressor Association, the National Rifle Association, and other pro-Second Amendment organizations aims to do just that. The suit contends that the registry is no longer Constitutional, given that the tax that justified its existence is being eliminated.
“The National Firearms Act has been a weight around the neck of law-abiding gun owners for nearly a century,” Williams charged. “Our lawsuit challenges the NFA as an unconstitutional registry of now untaxed firearms. Common sense and the law are on our side, and we look forward to fighting on behalf of all Americans in Federal Court.”

Suppressed AR-15

The Big Beautiful Bill Quietly Shot Down One Of America’s Dumbest Gun Laws

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