Trumped

• Robert Leider, a Scalia Law professor & Second Amendment legal expert, has officially replaced Pamela Hicks as ATF’s new Chief Counsel and is listed as Assistant Director. This looks outstanding.

• The Trump administration removed a ludicrous Biden-era surgeon general’s advisory on the alleged public health effects of “gun violence” and a similar webpage from the Department of Health and Human Services website. Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a public health advisory on “firearm violence,” declaring it to be a “public health crisis” (as if guns are a disease) in 2024, though a link to the report was recently removed from the HHS site.
• The US Department of Justice has issued an Interim Final Rule removing the Attorney General’s delegation of authority to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to process applications for relief from federal firearms disabilities under 18 U.S.C. 925(c). Since 1992, Congressional funding prohibitions have kept ATF from processing individual applications. Upon the interim final rule’s expected publication today, the DOJ will immediately (or eventually, depending on which report you believe) begin allowing individuals who are not “dangerous to public safety” to use the statute and petition to have their gun rights restored through the DOJ. Upon publication of the interim rule, the DOJ will also accept public comments on the rule before issuing a final version.

Litigation

• On Friday, a full panel of the US Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in a bizarre decision upheld 8-4 Florida’s ban on those under 21 buying guns, saying the law does not violate the Second and Fourteenth Amendments because it is consistent with the Bruen “historical tradition” standard. Nope.
• A three-judge panel of the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court decision that vacated two provisions of Hawaii’s firearms laws. The first provision the plaintiffs challenged was a narrow time window (10-30 days) a gun buyer had after receiving a permit to acquire a firearm to actually purchase that gun. The original statute gave a gun buyer ten days to obtain their firearm. The court ruled that the short time period the State gave violated the plaintiff’s Second Amendment rights. The second provision overruled is the requirement for a gun buyer to bring their newly purchased firearms to the police station for an in-person inspection, which is only available at certain times. The panel ruled that this requirement is overly burdensome for gun owners and that the real point of the provision is to burden (infringe) the gun owner. The case is currently known as Yukutake v. Lopez.
• US v. Peterson. Silencers.
• Man awarded $10,001 after NYPD denied his gun permit.
• The US Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals (Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming) in Denver ruled this week that corner-crossing property, or accessing public land at a common corner with private land, is legal and protected by federal law. One would think that the principle would also apply to similarly situated private land corners where the folks crossing have legal access to the parcels they’re on.
• Grassroots judicial report. LOTS of cases.

Fake statistics

• An Interesting, Fact-Based Perspective on ‘Gun Deaths’ We Almost Never See

NRA

• If you are a voting member of the NRA and you have not voted yet in the Board election, DO IT NOW. Deadline is April 6.
• More membership sales and updates on the association.

Enemies

• Corrupt judiciary. The tree of liberty and all that…
• Related: About those no-knock warrants and raids. Suggestion: You only get a no-knock warrant with removal of qualified immunity for the judge and officers involved.
• Is “Training Requirement” an Infringement, Impairment or Just a Costly Scam? Yes. Poll taxes and literacy tests, anyone?
• AI. (here and here)

The Only Ones

• Lt. Timothy John Morris, 56, the rangemaster in charge of the New Jersey state Department of Corrections’ gun ranges has been arrested and accused of stealing and selling millions of rounds of state-owned ammunition worth almost a half-million dollars.
• Police marksmanship.
• Study: Armed citizens stop more active shooters than police and do so with fewer mistakes.

DGUs

• Shooting at nonthreatening fleeing criminals. Don’t.
• The Armed Citizen:
  • America’s 1st Freedom – March 14, 2025
  • American Rifleman – March 14, 2025
  • American Rifleman – March 17, 2025

Tactics & Stuff

• “Handguns are truly at their best when they are used to fight your way to a rifle. A rifle you should not have put down in the first place. Play with handguns – fight with rifles. Period.” – Clint Smith
• It’s NOT your trigger control.
• Combat shotgun loads.
• Illustrated: The ballistics of contact gunshot wounds.
• The IQ of a crowd can be ascertained by taking the lowest IQ of any single person in the crowd, and dividing that by the number of people in the crowd.
• Death of the 10 gauge. If anyone needs some 3.5″ 12 gauge lead turkey loads, I can fix you up in central MS.
• Reconsidering powering down. Ayoob. Does anyone else regularly use sub-gauge shotguns? The only thing I use 12 gauge for anymore is varmint control and defense, and that’s mostly because it’s so much more practical to use mounted accessories and big-shot-size ammo with 12 gauge guns.
• A Scouting story. Just because.

Industry News

• More on the Sig P320.
• Meanwhile, the US District Court for Puerto Rico has dismissed Berrios v. Sig Sauer, in which police officer Elvis Ramon Green Berrios claimed his P320 service weapon discharged without the trigger being pulled. Mr. Berrios voluntarily withdrew his suit after admitting in court that his P320 pistol has no defects and does not discharge without a trigger pull.
• US Army Issues Intent to Sole Source Procurement of M4/M4A1 Carbines from Colt.
• Henry Repeating Arms is moving all of its remaining operations from New Jersey to Wisconsin, where it has already moved its headquarters and some manufacturing.

Products

• According to PEW Science, the CAT SR (Short Round) Titanium is the quietest .22 LR suppressor they’ve tested.
• Forerunner 3D Printing legally serialized polymer 3D printed receivers.
• Armscor 1911s.
• The Holster Hospital. Not a bad idea.
• Mauser’s new Model 25 is a straight-pull bolt action rifle.
• Smith & Wesson’s FPC, the funky side-folding pistol caliber carbine, is now available in 10mm. It utilizes a blowback design and is equipped with three 15-round double-stack M&P M2.0 pistol magazines. It is 30⅜ inches long, and can fold to a compact length of 16⅜ inches with optics in place. $700.
• Bear Creek Arsenal has a 4.5-inch barreled 7.62×39 AR upper for a pistol or SBR lower. We don’t know why.
• Victory Archery has a new arrow called the Bamboo Trad, which is made out of… carbon fiber. Go figure.

What I’m Reading