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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