You can see the resistance is shaping up around “sensitive places” doctrine and “good moral character.” I remember seeing a comment from Prof. Adam Winkler post-Bruen: SCOTUS: Only gun regs from 1700s & 1800s are constitutional. Also SCOTUS: shall-issue permitting, which didn’t exist prior to 20th C, is constitutional. ? — Adam Winkler (@adamwinkler) June 23, 2022 He’s generally on the other side of this issue, but fair criticism! I don’t think licensing can be permitted if the intention is to provide real limitations on government, and I don’t think it fits within the framework outline ..read more

This doesn’t portend a return to blogging. Social media and Google have killed blogging as a thing, so I’m not inclined to return to the same level of activity I once had. But I wanted to note Bruen because it’s probably the most important thing to happen to gun rights since McDonald dropped 12 years ago. You can read the ruling here. At this point I have done only a quick skim, but my impression is that it is about as good a ruling as we could have hoped for. Is it ironclad? No. No ruling would be. My impression is that Kavanaugh and Roberts are the weaker of the Bruen majority, but they stil ..read more

For the past week since the deal was announced, gun owners have been wondering “What do we get out of this? How is it a compromise if all we’re doing is ceding ground.” After reading the proposed language, I’m surprised by how much of this looks to me like it’s aimed at Mexican drug cartels. So what you have here is a bunch of Republicans who are probably retiring or will soon announce they are retiring, who love themselves some “law and order,” who are using Uvaldi as an excuse to get a wish list to target the cartels. There’s also a few cases where they are requiring action from states, whic ..read more

Not too long after Sebastian started blogging, the gun club he had just joined had a member call for a vote to change the bylaws to end the 100% NRA membership requirement that had been in place since the place was founded in 1958. Word got down to Fairfax and they were worried only if the member had unexpected success because it was dues for hundreds of members annually and about 1,000 or so votes in key districts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. That vote happened, and it turns out that NRA had nothing to really worry about because it went down in terrible defeat. The NRA membership mandate w ..read more

NRA created a new policy this weekend that no member is allowed to take photos in their membership meetings. No selfies that tell friends and family, “I’m actively part of a gun rights organization!” No opportunity to share that they are part of the 5 million some number strong for the Second Amendment. No grassroots-led effort to say, “this is us, this wonderfully diverse crowd with people age 1 to 101.” No photo reports from the membership about great awards such as oldest and youngest life members in attendance. All ended in favor of becoming a secret society where active participation and ..read more

We’ve reached a record low in NRA member participation since I started keeping stats from one of the early NRA meetings I attended back in 2006. There haven’t been this few voters since 2011, even though they reportedly sent a record high number of ballots in 2021. It would seem that people are checking out and tuning out of NRA as a group worth participating in, even if they technically pay the dues. Why pay the dues if they are checked out of the group? Probably for most of the reason I know most members locally – some gun ranges mandate membership. Or people just think it’s something they s ..read more

This post is pure speculation without any special insight or feedback from sources. Take what you want from it, but I have a few opinions and thoughts on possible reasons given that there was no mandate to cancel like there was last year. I’d love to turn comments on for this post to allow for discussion, but I think readers know why we can’t have nice things anymore thanks to trolling. Was it for the money? The Reload continues to fall back on the fact that the full convention is NRA’s largest single fundraiser in pretty much every post Stephen has written about the topic. As Jim Shepherd not ..read more

While I was driving, word came out that the NRA Annual Meeting & Exhibits are fully cancelled. It probably saves them embarrassment since I just found in my files I forgot I had from earlier in the year a better showing of just how many exhibitors attendees would typically expect were refusing to attend. Interestingly, you would only know this if you’re part of the online gun community because NRA’s Annual Meeting website hasn’t been flipped over to announce the news yet. I’m going to take a guess that they did some calculations that made them realize they’ll lose more money having the eve ..read more

The surge in COVID cases and concerns on getting sick while traveling are causing exhibitors to pull out. The Daily Beast reported earlier that several big industry names were already planning to skip the NRA Annual Meeting, despite NRA still advertising at the time that they would be present. I mentioned to several folks at the time that if report was accurate (which I had some information that indicated it likely was to at least some degree – I didn’t have company names), that would equal .9 acres of suddenly empty spaces in the exhibit hall based on the map NRA was promoting. Since The Dail ..read more

I had to submit a new request for NRA bylaws because I realized two major issues: I can’t figure out exactly who will be on the board (assuming write-in candidates don’t win) after this election. So I went to check my copy of the bylaws of the NRA. In checking the bylaws, I realized that the Board can unilaterally change how certain board members are elected and appointed without any notice to the membership. What? That seems…problematic given the history that’s been well on display in their current legal fiascos. I’ll be honest, I don’t realize how I never noticed it. Though, unless you’re ..read more