"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