Interesting development. What's your take on this?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Interesting development. What's your take on this?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Thirty million AR-15-style rifles in circulation, and we've never had a definitive ruling on whether the Second Amendment actually covers them. That gap is about to close.

"Cook County's best historical argument leans on old gunpowder-storage laws — fire-prevention rules aimed at keeping cities from burning down, not banning rifles with adjustable stocks or muzzle brakes."

That's the whole problem with "assault weapon" bans in one sentence. They've always been built on borrowed logic — cherry-picked historical analogies that don't hold up when you actually read them. A folding stock and a pistol grip have nothing to do with fire safety in 1800s Chicago.

"The most commonly owned rifle in America doesn't fit that description no matter how a state legislature describes it."

This is the Heller "dangerous and unusual" carve-out collapsing under its own weight. You can't call something unusual when it's the most common rifle platform in the country. The AR I run at the Boise 3-Gun matches is a standard piece of equipment — same as the one hanging on the wall at half the gun shops in the Treasure Valley.

"Four justices have already signaled they think these bans are unconstitutional, and two more have shown they're willing to scrutinize the kind of political hand-waving that usually props up 'assault weapon' laws."

That's a meaningful number before oral argument even starts. This isn't a close call from a legal standpoint — Bruen already shifted the burden onto the states, and Connecticut and Cook County are showing up with fire ordinances.

If this ruling goes the way the text and precedent point, do you own an AR platform — and has living in Idaho versus a ban state ever actually affected what you bought or how you set it up?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Interesting development. What's your take on this?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Interstate carry reciprocity has always been a gamble, but this case puts a face on exactly why — a long-haul trucker who's done everything right in two states and still can't legally carry through Minnesota.

"A right that vanishes at a state line isn't much of a right for anyone who travels for a living."

That's not just a trucker problem. Anyone who's ever mapped out a road trip with a carry gun knows the feeling of checking and re-checking state reciprocity lists the night before. One wrong turn through the wrong state and your valid permit means nothing.

"Johnson's petition leans on the post-Bruen framework, arguing Minnesota can't justify refusing recognition of an out-of-state permit without pointing to a historical tradition of states voiding each other's carry licenses — a tradition that, by most accounts, doesn't exist."

This is where Bruen gets interesting beyond the headlines. The historical-analogue test isn't just about who gets to carry — it potentially reaches the whole reciprocity patchwork. If there's no historical precedent for states canceling each other's carry permissions at the border, Minnesota has a real problem defending its position.

"Getting the Supreme Court to actually hear a case is a long shot... and even if they do, a decision could be a year or more away."

So don't shelve your reciprocity map yet. Until there's a ruling, the legal exposure for traveling permit holders is exactly what it's always been — real, and entirely dependent on which line your GPS routes you across.

For those of you who regularly cross state lines with a carry gun — whether that's for work, hunting, or just visiting family — how do you actually manage the reciprocity patchwork, and has it ever changed how you planned a route or which gun you brought?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

The ghost gun rule fight and the ATF breach happened the same week, and that's not a comfortable combination to think about.

"The rule never drew a clear line for when a block of material becomes a gun — it handed ATF a checklist of factors and let the agency decide case by case. Guess wrong, and you're a felon."

That's not a law, that's a trap. When the standard for a felony conviction is "the agency will know it when they see it," nobody running a lathe in their shop has any real legal footing — and that's exactly how vague rules get used.

"ATF is sitting on paperwork covering roughly a billion guns and owners, including records from gun shops that shut down years ago. Every one of those files is a target for the next attacker."

This is the part that should concern every shooter, not just builders. You sold a rifle in 2009 through a shop that closed in 2015. That 4473 is still somewhere in a pile — physical or digital — and apparently not as secure as we'd been told. The breach being "contained" doesn't change what the stockpile represents.

The ruling itself is real but limited — it covers the plaintiffs, the DOJ can appeal, and the underlying registry question isn't resolved. One win in Texas doesn't clean up the mess.

How many of you have actually thought about your paper trail — transfers, 4473s over the years, shops you bought from that are long gone — and what it would mean if that data ended up somewhere it shouldn't?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Bear hunting doesn't come up much in these threads, but a few of you have mentioned chasing tags out of state, and Wisconsin's system is worth understanding — especially if you've got family up there or you're burning preference points in the drawing.

"The DNR issued 15,245 bear licenses this year out of more than 34,000 applicants — long odds that pushed another 106,000 hunters to buy preference points just to improve their shot in future drawings."

That's a brutal ratio. More than two applicants for every tag issued, and another 106,000 people essentially paying to wait. If you're used to Idaho's draw system, Wisconsin's demand makes it look relaxed by comparison.

"Hunters need to know their specific zone cold before they ever step into the woods — running a hound in the wrong window, or baiting during a dogs-only stretch, is how a legal hunt turns into a citation."

This is the part that gets people. The zone regulations aren't just slightly different from each other — some zones have no dogs at all, and the timing windows for bait versus hounds in the dog zones are short and specific. Read the wrong summary and you're in trouble.

Anyone here drawn a Wisconsin bear tag, or been on a hound hunt out there as a non-licensed participant? Curious how the preference point accumulation actually plays out in practice — whether the wait is genuinely years or closer to a decade in the pressured zones.

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Interesting development. What's your take on this?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

This one's been making the rounds. Anyone have more context?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Interesting development. What's your take on this?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Interesting development. What's your take on this?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

For the first time since 1992, there's an actual federal mechanism to restore firearm rights — not just dead statutory language. Congress defunded the ATF program that ran it and never brought it back. DOJ just moved the function to the Office of the Pardon Attorney and finalized the rule.

"The Second Amendment is not a second-class right, and the federal government should not permanently deprive Americans of a constitutional right without regard to whether they pose a danger to public safety."
— Attorney General Todd Blanche

That framing matters. The argument for restoration has always been that prohibited-person status should track actual danger, not just administrative permanence. Whether DOJ follows through on that in practice is a different question — discretionary programs live and die by how they're run, not how they're announced.

The marijuana carve-out is worth paying attention to. Post-Hemani, DOJ explicitly excluded marijuana use from the drug-related presumption of ineligibility, meaning someone whose only disqualifying history involves weed isn't fighting that presumption when they apply. Section 922(g)(3) still exists — nobody's getting an automatic pass — but it changes the posture of the application considerably.

If you know anyone who lost their rights over something non-violent years ago and has been living clean since, it's worth pointing them to justice.gov/ffrr before the first 5,000 public application slots fill up at day 75.

Do you know someone who'd be eligible under this — or have you had a conversation at the counter or at the range about a prohibited person situation where something like this would have mattered?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Worth a read. What's your take on this?

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Read the full article in The Handbook →

This one's been making the rounds. Anyone have more context?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

The USVI situation is one of those things that sounds like it can't be real until you actually look into it. Not "we'll deny your application" — they won't even let you apply. That's not a permitting system, that's a wall with a sign on it.

"The Second Amendment doesn't end at the shoreline. Americans don't lose their constitutional rights simply because they travel to a U.S. territory."

The plaintiff here is an FFL holder with a valid Florida CWL — this isn't a gray area case. GOA picked this one carefully, and after watching them force California and New York to accept nonresident applications, I'd say the USVI picked the wrong fight to dig in on.

What's interesting is the timing — they repealed their limited reciprocity law after Bruen, which tells you exactly how seriously they took the ruling. The federal courts have been less patient with that kind of response than the territories apparently expected.

Anyone traveled to St. Thomas or the other USVI islands with a firearm, or had to make the call to leave your carry gun home because of this? Curious what that trip planning actually looks like for people who normally carry daily.

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

The P320 discharge lawsuit debate has been brewing on forums and at gun counters for years — now it's in front of a federal jury in Maine, and the arguments from both sides are worth paying attention to if you carry or work with this platform.

"Dave will tell you that he prays, literally prays, that his work limitations won't end in a disaster for himself or for someone he needs to protect."

That's the human cost underneath all the legal maneuvering. A deputy who can no longer run reliably in the field — that's not a theoretical product liability argument, that's a guy who has to wonder every shift whether his gear failed him.

"Sig is pointing fingers in every direction at once — the holster manufacturer, the sheriff's department (four hours of training, no manual safety policy, chamber-loaded mandate), and Cole himself for letting a jacket zipper near the trigger guard."

Four hours of training for a duty gun — that's a department problem regardless of how this verdict lands. But the zipper argument is where it gets slippery for Sig, because if your design is that vulnerable to incidental contact near the trigger guard, that's a conversation worth having honestly.

"Roughly 93% of P320s sold cannot accept the manual thumb safety Sig offers as an option."

That stat cuts right through the "just add a safety" defense. If the solution isn't physically available to most of the guns already in circulation, it's not really a solution — it's a footnote.

The drop-fire history from the military contract is the thread I'd want to pull on if I were on that jury. Whether it's admissible or not will likely determine more about this outcome than any zipper.

Have you ever had a holster or gear interaction that made you reconsider how you carry or what you carry it in — and did it change anything about your setup?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Short article, so I'll keep this tight — but the story buried at the bottom deserves more attention than the headline.

"Public dollars should never reward harmful business practices."

That quote is doing a lot of heavy lifting for a policy that tells FFLs to follow rules they already follow under federal law. Every dealer with an FFL is already accountable to the ATF on straw purchases, theft, and prohibited-person sales. This isn't oversight — it's theater with a podium.

"Johnson is using procurement rules to pressure an industry that operates under extensive federal oversight, while supporting criminal justice policies that put violent repeat offenders back on the street ahead of schedule."

And there it is. A guy with a 2009 armed robbery conviction who beat a 94-year-old WWII vet during a home invasion — out in 8.5 years on a 20-year sentence, back to robbing people. The city's energy went into vendor paperwork while that parole was processed without a word.

The gun store isn't the variable. The repeat violent offender is.

Has anyone here dealt with an FFL that wasn't already doing what this order supposedly demands? Curious whether this kind of procurement pressure has shown up in Idaho yet — or whether it's only a matter of time before it reaches cities like Boise trying to signal alignment with national anti-gun politics.

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Form 4 wait times used to be the running joke at the NFA counter — "buy it now, pick it up sometime around your next birthday." That's genuinely not the case anymore.

"While no citizen should have to wait any amount of time to procure their lawfully purchased firearms and firearm products, the reduction in ATF Form 4 processing times from roughly 150 days to around 18 days today is a meaningful improvement."

Hard to argue with that math. If you've got a can on order right now, 18 days changes the whole calculus on whether NFA items are worth the hassle — especially for newer shooters who never survived an 18-month wait.

"Individual Form 4s now average six days. Trust Form 4s still run 26 days. Electronic Form 1s (permission to manufacture an NFA item) average 59 days — more than three times the Form 4 baseline."

Worth knowing before you fill out paperwork. If you're on a trust — which a lot of us use for shared household access — your wait is still four times longer than an individual transfer. And if you're thinking about building on a Form 1, 59 days is still two months in limbo. The headline average hides some real variation depending on how you're filing.

The SAF lawsuit angle is the one I'm watching. If a court rules there's no legal basis for registration when there's no longer a tax attached, Form 4 times for suppressors and SBRs become irrelevant. That's a bigger shift than any processing efficiency the ATF can claim credit for.

For those of you who've bought NFA items — what's your recent actual experience been, and are you filing individual or through a trust?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

Interesting development. What's your take on this?

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett

The DOJ filing against California on the same day AB 1127 took effect is the kind of aggressive timing that tells you this wasn't a reactive move — someone had this ready.

"California lawmakers cannot ban the most popular type of handgun in America."

That line from Acting AG Blanche cuts to the Bruen argument fast. The whole post-Bruen framework says restrictions have to trace back to historical tradition — and there's no historical precedent for banning a firearm because a criminal might attach a separate illegal device to it later.

What's easy to miss in the coverage is that the DOJ isn't just fighting AB 1127 — they're going after California's handgun roster itself. If that challenge succeeds, it cracks open the California dealer market to guns that have been locked out for years. That's a much bigger deal than one bill.

Anyone here have experience buying or selling in California recently, or dealt with the roster limitations when moving there? Curious how much it actually affects what you can get through a dealer versus private transfer.

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Read the full article in The Handbook → | By Steve Duskett