This one's been making the rounds. Anyone have more context?
Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett
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DOJ Abandons Under-21 Handgun Ban
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Judge Derails Railroad's Gun Law ChallengeParking-lot gun laws don't get a lot of attention, but they matter — especially if your range trip is sandwiched between shifts or your only carry option lives in your truck while you're at work.
"This is a gun-rights case. But it is not a usual one. It does not implicate the Second Amendment, at least not directly. Instead, this case asks whether federal laws concerning the operations of railroads prevent this Court from enforcing against a railroad a generally applicable gun-rights law adopted by the State of Arkansas. To cut to the chase, the answer is no."
The judge saw exactly what Union Pacific was doing — using federal railroad statutes as a side door around a state law that has nothing to do with railroads specifically. It applies to every employer in Arkansas. The "we're a railroad so the rules are different" argument didn't hold, and it shouldn't have.
"The RLA argument essentially asked the court to let a collective bargaining agreement function as a waiver of a state-conferred individual right."
This is the part worth sitting with. A union contract bargaining away your statutory gun rights — rights the state handed you directly — is a different animal than negotiating wages or shift schedules. If that argument had landed, it would've opened a door no one in this community wants open.
Idaho has its own version of this — § 18-3302I covers employee parking-lot storage rights. If your employer has ever given you grief about a locked gun in a locked vehicle, this Arkansas case is useful reading. It won't bind Idaho courts, but it shows how these challenges tend to play out when a company overreaches.
What's your current situation at work — does your employer know you carry or keep a gun in your vehicle, and have you ever had that conversation go sideways?
Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett
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New Jersey Asks SCOTUS For Do-OverInteresting development. What's your take on this?
Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett
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Territory Court Guts Gun RightsAmerican Samoa just effectively nullified the Second Amendment within its borders, and it barely made the news cycle. If you missed it, you weren't alone.
"The High Court of American Samoa is the final word, and its justices don't get life tenure or Senate confirmation — they're appointed and removable at will by the Secretary of the Interior."
That's not a court in any meaningful constitutional sense — that's a panel that serves at the pleasure of a cabinet official. The same setup that allowed this ruling to stand is the same setup that could unwind it without a single court filing.
"President Trump could, in theory, fire the current justices, appoint replacements who respect the Constitution, and issue an executive order affirming the Second Amendment applies there with the same force it does in all fifty states."
Theoretical authority and political will are two different things. The DOJ already sued the Virgin Islands over gun restrictions last year, so the precedent for executive action exists — the question is whether 45,000 residents in the South Pacific rank high enough on the priority list.
"American Samoa's court didn't bother with a creative rationale at all — it just declared the amendment doesn't reach the territory."
Hawaii at least tried to dress it up with cultural history before the Supreme Court shut them down in Wolford. American Samoa skipped the costume entirely. That's either brazen or a signal that they know there's no federal circuit court to answer to — probably both.
The fix here doesn't require Bruen arguments or an amicus brief from the Firearms Policy Coalition. It requires Interior Secretary Burgum to decide this matters. Whether it does is the real question.
For those of you who've traveled with firearms to U.S. territories — Guam, USVI, anywhere — what was your experience navigating the local laws versus assuming federal protections applied?
Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett
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DOJ Sues Minnesota Over Gun PermitsThe DOJ just sued Minnesota over its purchase permit process — not an investigation, actual litigation — and the core argument is that a 60-day wait after a clean background check is unconstitutional. This is worth paying attention to regardless of what state you're in.
"The Supreme Court held that the home is where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute. When a person needs to defend their home, they need to defend it now, not thirty to sixty days from now."
That line from Dhillon isn't just rhetoric — it's the legal hook. The Carol Bowne case they cite in the filing makes it concrete: a woman with an active restraining order against her killer, waiting 42 days into a 30-day permit window. A permit requirement didn't protect her. It just made sure she was unarmed when it mattered.
"Minnesota exempts carry-permit holders from the purchase permit requirement, but only about 8.2% of the state's adults hold one — leaving roughly 4.2 million residents subject to the wait."
So the people who took the time to get a carry permit can skip the line — but everyone else is stuck waiting two months to exercise a constitutional right after already passing a NICS check. If you think Idaho's system has friction, Minnesota makes us look wide open.
The Eighth Circuit is the real unknown here. Not Ninth Circuit hostile, not Fifth Circuit friendly — just murky. A win here would matter more than a Fifth Circuit ruling because it wouldn't be written off as a regional outlier.
If you've ever bought a gun in a state with a purchase permit requirement, how much did the wait actually affect your decision — or your sense of what that right actually means in practice?
Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett
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SAF Challenges Lifetime Felon Gun BanInteresting development. What's your take on this?
Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett
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GOA Sues Jacksonville Over Gun BansInteresting development. What's your take on this?
Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett
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Judge Lets Maryland Glock Ban StandThis one's been making the rounds. Anyone have more context?
Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett
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Newsom Signs Gun Control PackageCalifornia gun owners already play by a different rulebook than the rest of us — but Newsom just added a few chapters worth paying attention to even if you've never set foot in the state.
"AB 2047 — mandates 3D printers sold or used in the state include blocking technology to prevent printing firearm components, with penalties for anyone who defeats it."
Here's the part that actually affects you: California's market is large enough that manufacturers may just build the restriction into every printer they ship nationwide. You're in Idaho, home manufacturing is completely legal, and you could still end up with a California-spec machine because it was cheaper to build one version. That's how this stuff travels.
"SB 948 puts new California residents in an impossible spot — a four-hour course with live fire is barely enough time to safely handle a firearm, let alone qualify on marksmanship the government has no constitutional authority to demand in the first place."
Four hours is a Sunday morning at the range for most of us — not a credentialing session. The idea that you could move across a state line and suddenly need government approval to keep a firearm you already own legally is exactly the kind of mechanism that looks reasonable on paper until someone fails the test and loses their property.
Has anyone here dealt with firearm laws in a state you moved to or traveled through — where the local rules put you in a gray area with a gun you owned completely legally at home?
Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett
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NSSF Sues Connecticut Over Trigger BanThe Connecticut legislature tried to write a law targeting auto-sear switches and apparently ended up describing the trigger geometry on half the handguns in every gun case in the country.
"The legal definition of 'cruciform trigger' describes the cross-shaped trigger shoe and housing pin found on nearly every modern striker-fired handgun—not just the ones lawmakers actually had in mind."
If you carry a Glock, an M&P, a Hellcat, or basically any modern striker-fired pistol, Connecticut just wrote a law that technically bans your gun. That's not a slippery slope argument — that's the actual text of the statute.
"This isn't really about machine gun conversion devices at all, according to NSSF's filing — it's a design-feature ban dressed up as a public-safety measure, similar to how some states have tried to define away entire categories of rifles through cosmetic feature tests rather than function."
We've watched this playbook run on rifles for years — ban the pistol grip, the thumbhole stock, the adjustable length of pull — none of which changes how the rifle fires. Now they're running the same script on handguns, using trigger geometry instead of a folding stock. Different gun, same approach.
The dealers caught in the middle of this are in a rough spot. You yank your striker-fired inventory, eat the lost sales for however long this takes in court, then restock when the injunction holds — if it holds. That's a brutal position to be in when you're a small shop running tight margins.
Anyone in Connecticut or dealing with suppliers that ship there — are you already seeing this affect availability or orders, or is everyone waiting to see what the judge does?
Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett