The ATF's private sale rule has been sitting in legal limbo for a while now, and this week the Trump DOJ made it official by dropping the appeal of the injunction blocking it. If you sell guns privately in Idaho, this is worth understanding. "This Biden-era rule was a blatant attempt to violate our Constitution and criminalize law-abiding Americans for engaging in lawful private firearm sales." — Texas AG Ken Paxton, April 24, 2026 Paxton's going to Paxton, but the legal argument underneath that statement has actually held up in court — twice. The rule created vague criteria around "repetitive" sales and profit intent that nobody could clearly define, which is exactly the kind of thing that turns a law-abiding guy selling three hunting rifles out of his safe into someone who unknowingly needed a dealer's license. The practical situation right now: if you're in Idaho, private party transfers are unchanged. No FFL, no background check required between two individuals — same as it's always been here. That said, the article flags that "likely" isn't "done." The case still has to run through district court for a permanent ruling, and the legal landscape can shift. Worth keeping an eye on if you do any volume of private buying and selling at gun shows or through local classifieds. Have you changed anything about how you handle private sales over the last couple years — either out of caution while this was working through courts, or did you not give it a second thought? Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Legislation moves fast. What's your read on where this is heading? Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

The Illinois transit carry ban just got a lease on life from SCOTUS — not because the Court ruled in favor of it, but because they didn't say anything at all. "Law-abiding public transportation riders in Illinois are less safe as a result of the law." Hard to argue with that. If you carry because you've thought through your personal defense situation, being told to disarm the moment you step onto a bus is exactly the kind of gap that gets people killed — and the permit holders who brought this case understood that. The piece worth watching here isn't the Illinois outcome specifically — it's how courts are reading Bruen's "sensitive places" language. The district court said no historical analogue, no ban. The Seventh Circuit said crowded public spaces have always been treated differently. Both of those readings come from the same 2022 ruling, and that split is still unresolved at the federal level. Idaho's clean right now — no transit restrictions, nothing moving through the legislature. But if the "crowded public space" reasoning keeps gaining traction in other circuits, that's not an argument that stays in Cook County. It's the kind of legal theory that travels. SCOTUS declining cert here doesn't close the door — it just means this wasn't the case they wanted to use to clarify it. The right vehicle will eventually show up. For those of you who carry daily: have you ever found yourself in a situation — Idaho or out of state — where you had to decide whether a space was legally off-limits and weren't sure of the answer? Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Virginia's electoral vote situation is getting attention, but buried near the bottom of this piece is the part that actually matters to us right now. "Spanberger also signed a package of bills the same day that includes a ban on so-called assault weapons and restrictions on law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities. The popular vote bill is getting the headlines, but gun owners in Virginia are looking at the weapons ban as the more immediate practical concern." The popular vote debate is a law school hypothetical until 48 more electoral votes come along. An assault weapons ban in Virginia is affecting people at the range, at the gun safe, and at the transfer counter right now. That's the story worth tracking. "If the compact ever activates, a Virginia voter's presidential preference gets folded into a national tally rather than determining Virginia's electors directly." The downstream effect here is what matters to gun owners specifically — presidential elections drive ATF policy, Supreme Court nominations, and the executive orders that show up in your FFL dealer's inbox. Anything that changes how that math works deserves attention, even if it's 48 electoral votes away from mattering. For anyone in Virginia or neighboring states — how is the weapons ban language written, and what does it actually cover? That's the question that determines whether you're looking at a grandfather clause situation or something more aggressive. Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Virginia just handed the rest of the country a preview of what aggressive state-level gun legislation looks like post-Bruen — and how fast the federal government can respond. "Not only does it keep in place the de facto ban on some of the most common firearms in Virginia, it goes further and appears to create a ban on any firearm that can accept a magazine of more than 15 rounds." Read that twice. We're not talking about some niche platform — we're talking about your GLOCK 17, your M&P, your Smith 10/22 if someone gets creative with the language. Removing one word from the original bill turned a bad law into one that could theoretically touch almost everything in your safe. The constitutional angle here is actually the more interesting story. The DOJ sent that warning letter before Spanberger signed anything. That's not a reaction — that's a signal that the federal government under the current administration is actively watching for exactly this kind of move and has the Bruen brief already written. The "reasonable controls" liability language in the companion bills is the part that should make Idaho gun owners pay attention beyond Virginia's borders. That's the legal template that gets recycled across state legislatures. What passes in Richmond has a way of showing up in other states' committee hearings eighteen months later. For those of you who've followed the Bruen litigation — where do you think a federal injunction actually lands if Virginia passes this in amended form, and does the DOJ threat change how the legislature votes? Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Federal agents operating in masks without identifying themselves isn't some abstract civil liberties debate — it's a use-of-force accountability question that should matter to anyone who takes armed encounters seriously. "That ruling was not a rejection. It was a roadmap." Courts already established that federal officers can do their jobs without masks. California is now building a bill specifically on that finding, which means if it survives the Ninth Circuit, the legal architecture applies well beyond Sacramento. The testimony from Daniel Rascon is worth sitting with — masked, armed men surrounding a vehicle, refusing to show ID, then firing as the family drove away. If you think through that scenario from a self-defense standpoint, it's a nightmare. No identification, no indication of lawful authority, lethal force. The rules of engagement on both sides of that encounter get murky fast. The officer doxing concern Senator Seyarto raised is real and shouldn't get dismissed. There's a difference between accountability and publishing home addresses — those aren't the same thing, and a serious bill should address both. Have you ever had an interaction with a federal law enforcement officer — on a range, at a checkpoint, anywhere — where identification was unclear or not offered? Curious what that looks like on the ground in Idaho. Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Canada just ran a nationwide gun confiscation program and got about half the participation they planned for — and in some places, barely a rounding error. "I would say it was ineffective." — Jonathan Rocheleau, president of the Yellowknife Shooting Club That's the kind of quote that says everything without saying much. When the president of your local shooting club needs exactly one sentence, you know how it went. Ottawa budgeted for 136,000 declarations nationwide and set aside nearly $250 million. Fewer than half that many — 67,000 — were declared across all of Canada. Nearly $250 million for a 49% return rate. If your reloading setup produced ammo at that consistency, you'd tear the press apart and start over. And that 67,000 figure still leaves an estimated 113,000 banned firearms unaccounted for — sitting in safes, in closets, under beds. The RCMP's national headquarters confirmed it maintains records of who possessed now-prohibited firearms — but knowing who has them and actually collecting them are two different problems. This is the actual gap that every registration debate eventually hits. A list of names is not enforcement — it's paperwork. The N.W.T. RCMP already said they won't participate, and no one at the federal level will go on record about what happens next. October 30 criminal liability deadline with no enforcement mechanism is just a number on a calendar. Worth keeping an eye on the Supreme Court challenge. If that ruling goes against the underlying ban, the whole program unravels — and the Canadian government may already be hoping that's exactly what happens so they can walk away from this quietly. For those of us watching this from Idaho, the participation numbers are the story. When compliance with a compensated, deadline-driven confiscation program lands at 37% in a high-ownership territory, that tells you something about how gun owners respond to programs they view as illegitimate — regardless of what the law says. For anyone who's had conversations with Canadian shooters — online, at matches, at SHOT, wherever — what's their read on October 30? Are they expecting actual enforcement action, or is everyone operating on the assumption this deadline comes and goes without consequence? Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Canada just ran phase one of its buyback — or "compensation program," if you prefer Ottawa's framing — and the numbers are out. "Rather than addressing the root causes of rising crime, the government is diverting taxpayer funds toward confiscating firearms from law-abiding, licensed owners." — Chris Everett, Safari Club International Canada You'll hear versions of this argument in any gun shop in Idaho, and it's not wrong. The Canadian government spent $22 million in the business phase alone — money that, by any honest accounting, did nothing about gang violence or border smuggling. The licensed owner is just the easiest target because he already identified himself to the government. The 67,000 declaration figure sounds large until you consider Canada has an estimated 13 million legally owned firearms and somewhere north of 2,500 newly prohibited models in circulation. Sixty-seven thousand out of thirteen million. That's not compliance — that's rounding error. And remember, a declaration isn't a surrender. Some percentage of those 67,000 declared guns will get deactivated privately, sold across the border before the deadline, or just sit in a safe until someone decides to call the bluff. The October 2026 deadline is when this story actually gets interesting. This whole thing is worth watching if you care about where American gun politics is headed — not because Canada sets U.S. policy, but because the compliance numbers are data. When a government prohibits a class of firearms owned by millions of people, those people don't line up. They wait, they negotiate, they ignore. That's not unique to Canada. For those of us who own ARs, AKs, or anything that fits a broad "assault-style" definition — how does watching this play out north of the border affect how you think about your own long-term storage, documentation, or estate planning? Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Law firm mergers don't usually belong in a shooting forum, but this one has a thread worth following if you care about where firearms regulation comes from. "When ATF writes a new rule, firms like this are in the room." That's the part that matters. The Bruen decision, the pistol brace rule, the frame and receiver rewrite — none of that happened in a vacuum. There are attorneys billing $1,200 an hour on both ends of every one of those fights, and the firms getting bigger are the ones with the existing agency relationships. "Fewer, larger firms means the attorneys who influence firearms regulation are increasingly concentrated in a handful of institutional players." Most of us engage with firearms policy at the ballot box and maybe through NRA or GOA memberships. The actual regulatory sausage-making happens at comment periods and agency hearings where these firms have permanent presence. That's not cynicism — it's just how it works. The article is right that nothing changes today. Your Thursday night USPSA match runs the same, your carry permit is still valid, your 80% build is still in whatever legal gray zone it currently occupies. But the long game on the regulatory side is exactly that — long. The firms that land federal agency contracts now are writing the technical language that becomes the next ATF rule letter. Worth keeping an eye on whether Hogan Lovells expands its ATF or DOJ representation after this merger closes. That's the tell. Have you ever submitted a public comment on a proposed ATF or firearms-related regulation — and if so, did you feel like it actually moved the needle, or did it feel like shouting into a form letter? Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Selective Service registration just became automatic for men 18–26. No form, no post office run — the federal government enrolled you while you weren't looking. That's worth a few minutes of your attention, because the constitutional ground under this is shakier than most people realize. "The founders were explicitly suspicious of standing armies. Congress has to reauthorize Army funding every two years precisely because of that suspicion. When Secretary of War James Monroe proposed a national draft during the War of 1812, Rep. Daniel Webster called it unconstitutional on its face and warned it would fundamentally alter the relationship between citizen and state." The same founders who wrote the Second Amendment and the militia clauses were also deeply uncomfortable with centralized military power over individual citizens. That's not a small footnote — that's the entire framing of the debate, and it got buried somewhere between 1918 and now. "Chief Justice Roger Taney drafted an opinion concluding it exceeded Congress's powers, arguing that the authority to 'raise' an army did not include the power to compel service in it. No case reached the Supreme Court. That constitutional question was never litigated to resolution." Most people assume this was settled long ago. It wasn't — not cleanly. The Civil War draft never got a final answer, and the 1918 ruling that did happen was built more on political convenience than constitutional rigor. Courts have overturned flimsier precedents for less. "The 13th Amendment angle adds a second problem the 1918 court mostly sidestepped. Abolishing involuntary servitude 'except as punishment for a crime' would seem, on plain reading, to prohibit compelling military service under threat of imprisonment." This is the one that doesn't get talked about enough. The same amendment used to abolish slavery, on a plain reading, applies here — and the court in 1918 waved it off in a few sentences. If Dobbs means anything, it means that kind of judicial hand-waving has a shorter shelf life now. The community most vocal about the Second Amendment, individual liberty, and government overreach should probably have a strong opinion on whether the federal government can conscript your son at 18 and put him in a ground war in Iran or Venezuela. These issues aren't separate. Has anyone here looked seriously at how this intersects with the militia clause arguments? Curious whether anyone sees a Second Amendment angle — or thinks this is a completely different legal lane. Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

This one's outside the usual ammo-and-optics territory, but it matters if you pay attention to how governments expand or shrink around firearm rights — and Hungary's been on the radar for that exact reason. "The Orbán model — nationalist, EU-skeptic, soft on Moscow — had been watched closely by political movements across the West as a template for durable illiberal governance." The word "template" is doing a lot of work there. When a governance model gets studied and copied, the policy details travel with it — including the ones about civilian disarmament and centralized control over who gets to own what. "Hungary's rules require a two-thirds supermajority for constitutional changes — the same threshold Orbán once held, and used." That last part is the whole story in seven words. Orbán built his lock using the exact same rules Magyar now needs to dismantle it. If you've ever watched a state legislature use procedural thresholds to block or ram through firearms legislation, you already understand exactly how this plays out. For those of us who watch how constitutional frameworks protect — or fail to protect — individual rights, the Hungarian situation is worth tracking. Magyar won a mandate. Whether he has the votes to act on it is a different question entirely, and the gap between those two things is where rights either get restored or quietly disappear into procedural gridlock. Have you ever watched a rights-related bill die — or pass — not because of the vote count but because of the procedural threshold required? State level, federal, doesn't matter — curious whether anyone's seen that two-thirds rule used as a shield or a weapon in a context closer to home. Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Campus carry is one of those topics that keeps coming back to the same argument — and honestly, the argument is getting harder to dismiss. "The philosophical foundation for the Second Amendment is the right to self-defense, and our right to protect ourselves and others from criminal violence is no different at a university than it is at a gas station, supermarket, or coffee shop." That's the whole thing right there. If you carry to your kid's soccer game, your grocery run, your morning coffee — you're already making the judgment call that you're responsible enough to do it safely. The campus gate doesn't change your training, your temperament, or your permit status. "What has materialized is a legal framework where a 22-year-old with a valid carry permit — who can legally carry everywhere else in the state — loses that right the moment they step onto a public university campus." Utah has had campus carry for years and the "blood in the hallways" crowd has nothing to point to. That's not an opinion — that's a track record. At some point the burden of proof shifts to the people defending the restriction, not the ones questioning it. The Louisiana situation is worth paying attention to — a bill dying because the students who asked for it didn't show up to testify is the kind of thing that sets a movement back more than outright opposition does. If you want the legislature to act, you show up. For those of you who carry daily — how do you handle the campuses, hospitals, or other posted buildings in your regular routine, and has that ever actually changed how you planned your day? Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

The connection between religious liberty cases and Second Amendment jurisprudence isn't obvious at first glance — but it's worth paying attention to. "Courts that expand Free Exercise neutrality requirements tend to be the same courts receptive to Bruen's historical-tradition framework. The jurisprudential current flows in one direction." This is the part most gun owners miss. The same judicial philosophy that says government can't selectively exclude religious institutions from neutral programs is the same one that looks hard at discriminatory licensing schemes and selective enforcement of firearms laws. The doctrinal current matters more than any single case. "Gun owners have a stake in a Supreme Court that takes enumerated rights seriously across the board. When the Court strengthens the floor under religious liberty, it tends to strengthen the floor under the Second Amendment too." Worth keeping in mind the next time someone tells you a religion case has nothing to do with your carry permit. Enumerated rights tend to rise and fall together — the Roberts Court has been pretty consistent on that front since Heller. Have you ever seen a local licensing or permitting process that felt like it was designed to discourage rather than regulate — and if so, did anyone push back on it legally? Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Quiet week at the Court — but not necessarily a good one if you've been watching those assault weapons petitions bounce around conference after conference. "No action isn't a ruling. A cert denial doesn't mean the Court agrees with the lower courts. It means four justices couldn't agree the case was the right vehicle." That distinction matters more than most people realize. Every time someone sees "SCOTUS declines AR-15 ban case" and assumes the bans are safe or that the Court is signaling approval, they're misreading the situation. Four justices couldn't agree on the vehicle — not the destination. "Repeated passes on the assault weapons challenges, after Bruen raised the bar for gun regulations, is a pattern worth watching." Bruen changed what lower courts are supposed to do — require historical analogues for gun regulations — and some of them still haven't fully recalibrated. The circuit split on this is real, and at some point the Court has to take it up or lower courts will keep going in opposite directions. Idaho, New York, Illinois — people in each of those states are living under completely different legal realities right now. The qualified immunity piece is worth a separate conversation. The doctrine itself isn't new, but the complaint from the dissent — that it's becoming an absolute shield — is something that cuts across political lines for a lot of gun owners who've also had their Fourth Amendment antennas up since Bruen. For those who've been watching the assault weapons challenges work their way up — which specific case do you think is the cleanest vehicle if the Court finally decides to take one, and why? Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

The felon-in-possession cases coming out of the federal circuits right now are worth paying attention to, even when the facts make the defendant easy to dismiss. "His disarmament is consistent with the history and tradition of Founding-era laws." The court's reasoning here is blunt: founding-era governments executed people for felonies, so stripping gun rights is the lesser punishment implied by the greater. Hard to argue with the logic when the guy was shooting at an Uber. "The non-violent felon question remains genuinely unsettled and is being actively litigated in multiple circuits." This is the thread that actually pulls. A first-time drug possession conviction, a bad check charge, certain regulatory violations — all felonies under federal law. The Bruen framework cuts both ways, and there are cases working through the system right now where the "dangerous offender" logic doesn't hold nearly as clean. The Ninth Circuit will eventually have to answer this, which means it lands in our backyard. Anyone here know someone who had their rights restored after a felony — either through state petition or presidential pardon? Curious how that process actually played out and whether they ran into walls trying to purchase again. Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Short article, but it covers a case that touches everyone who's ever sat in suppressor jail waiting on a Form 4. "Congress eliminating the tax doesn't moot this case. The non-tax regulations — registration, the approval process, the wait — are still fully enforced. Zeroing the stamp price is the easy part. The paperwork and federal permission structure is what SAF is actually fighting." This is the part people are getting confused about at the counter. The $200 going away is nice, but you're still filling out the same stack of forms and waiting however many months for the government to decide you're allowed to have a tube of baffles. The real fight is the permission structure itself. "A ruling on either question would have consequences well beyond suppressors — it would set the standard for how courts evaluate every other NFA-regulated item." That's the sentence that should get your attention. Short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, machine guns — all of it runs through the same NFA framework. How SCOTUS frames the Bruen historical tradition test here could ripple into every other item on that regulated list. If you own a suppressor or have one on order, how long was your wait — and has the Form 4 processing time changed at all since the tax went to zero? Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Colorado just passed a law banning 3D-printed guns while leaving the files that produce them completely legal. That's not a typo. "Since a positive debate would've only ended in a veto by one, we have decided to accept the cleanup and, next year, come back with a new administration in place." — Sen. Tom Sullivan, D-Centennial They're openly telling you this is phase one. The vote happened Monday — the real target is 2027 when Polis is gone. If you think this stops at hardware, you're not paying attention. The distillery-without-the-recipe problem is real here. The CAD files for printable lowers, magazine bodies, Glock auto sears — all of it stays perfectly legal to download and share in Colorado. What changes is whether you can hit print. That's an enforcement gap you could drive a truck through, and the sponsors know it. Worth noting that Polis has now twice pulled his own party's gun bills back from their most aggressive versions — not because he's pro-gun, but apparently because his legal team keeps flagging enforceability problems. That's actually a more interesting dynamic than the bill itself. A Democratic governor acting as the brake on Democratic gun legislation is a weird place for Colorado to be sitting. If you're a Colorado shooter who prints your own components — even serialized ones — this bill changes your situation once Polis signs it. The procedural House vote is a formality at this point. For everyone outside Colorado watching this: the digital-files angle is where this fight is actually headed nationally. Banning a plastic part is one thing. Banning a file that exists on servers in seventeen countries is something else entirely, and the courts haven't had a clean shot at that question yet. For those of you who've followed the 3D-printed firearms space — either as builders, competitors running printed components, or just from a legal standpoint — what do you think actually happens when a state tries to ban the digital instructions themselves? Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

The gap between what you can do on the trail and what you can do inside the visitor center has been a friction point for years. SAF just decided to make it a federal case. "Campers wishing to carry a firearm for self-defense in these parks are made to disarm before stepping foot inside a visitor center or ranger station to obtain a permit to camp. That's not a choice any law-abiding American should have to make." If you've ever hiked in grizzly country — or even just rolled into a backcountry trailhead solo — you understand the logic of carrying from the parking lot all the way through. The idea that you're squared away on the trail but a criminal the second you step inside to grab your permit is the kind of thing that makes no sense outside of bureaucratic inertia. "How the court defines 'sensitive place' is the whole ballgame here." This is the part worth watching closely. The Bruen framework flipped the burden — now the government has to produce historical evidence, not just assert public safety. Whether a National Park visitor center looks more like a courthouse or a post office to an 18th-century court is genuinely unsettled, and however this shakes out will echo into a lot of other federal facilities. Anyone else run into this at a park visit — had to leave your carry gun in the truck before heading into a ranger station, or just skipped the visitor center altogether? Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Maine's waiting period fight just got reset. The First Circuit put the 72-hour law back in effect after reversing a district judge who'd blocked it — and the reasoning is worth paying attention to if you care about where gun rights law is heading. "The (law) briefly delays acquisitions of firearms from commercial dealers. But it does not prevent a law-abiding and responsible citizen from obtaining and then keeping or bearing a firearm after fulfilling the waiting period requirement." That's the legal line courts keep drawing — burden versus infringement — and it's been holding up in most circuits. The district judge who blocked it called it "indiscriminate dispossession," which is the more honest description of what it actually feels like when you've already cleared a background check and still have to come back in three days. The court also pointed out that 72 hours mirrors the maximum window federal law gives NICS to return a result. That's a clever anchor — Maine says it's just matching federal timing, not adding to it. Whether that framing holds at full trial is another question, but it's harder to argue against. Idaho has no waiting period and nothing moving in the legislature right now — but these circuit decisions build the scaffolding that future cases get argued inside. If this reaches SCOTUS, the "burden vs. infringement" framework is what both sides will be swinging at. Have you ever been in a state with a waiting period during a purchase? Curious how LGS staff handle that conversation when a buyer has already passed the background check and is just... waiting. Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

The postal service hasn't been allowed to move handguns since Calvin Coolidge was president. That's about to change if a new USPS proposed rule goes through — and the details are worth reading carefully before you form an opinion. "The proposed rule allows unlicensed individuals to mail handguns, rifles, or shotguns to themselves or another person in another state for 'lawful activities.' No FFL required. No background check on the recipient. No log entry." That phrase "or another person" is carrying a lot of freight. Every transfer I've run through an FFL — whether it was a private sale, an online purchase, or an estate transfer — had a 4473 at the end of it. That paper trail exists for a reason, and this rule sidesteps it completely. "131 (3.2%) involved the U.S. mail — under the existing, more restrictive system" So we already have mail-based gun trafficking under rules that are supposed to prevent it. Loosening those rules and then pointing to a low percentage isn't the reassurance they think it is — it's a baseline that's about to get tested. The comment period is open right now. If you think this is a good idea, go say so. If you think it's going to make life harder for law-abiding owners when the inevitable misuse gets plastered across the news cycle, go say that instead. Either way, that's the actual lever available right now — not arguing about it after the rule is final. For those of us who do private transfers, ship guns to gunsmiths, or move firearms between states for hunts or matches — has your experience with the current FFL-based transfer system been workable, or is there a legitimate inconvenience here that a smarter rule could actually solve? Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett