This week, we saw the Ninth Circuit reverse itself on a pair of novel Hawaii gun-buying requirements.

An en banc panel of the appeals court delivered a divided opinion greenlighting the Aloha State’s restrictions under a special “carve-out” in the Bruen test. The majority found that exception in a footnote that’s become increasingly important in the post-Bruen landscape. I explain the arguments for and against the majority’s interpretation of it in a piece for members.

We also have some news in the Supreme Court’s AR-15 case. A new poll shows Americans are split on what they want the Court to do. And Jonathan Goldstein, a University of Pennsylvania law professor and NRA board member, explains how Revolutionary-Era privateers fit into the Court’s analysis.

The Department of Justice made news this week as well. The Office of Legal Counsel released a new opinion questioning the constitutionality of the federal ban on gun dealers selling pistols to 18-to-20-year-olds.

Plus, TFB TV’s James Reeves joins the podcast to explain why he was subpoenaed in a gun-control group’s liability suit over the Highland Park shooting. And we have a bunch of additional stories down in the links, like an expansive new report on how a Canadian mass shooter used ChatGPT to plan their attack.

---

Looking downrange at targets through the cylinder of a revolver / Stephen Gutowski

Full Ninth Circuit Reverses Course on Hawaii Handgun Purchase Limits, Upholds Restrictions
By Stephen Gutowski

Hawaii can require gun buyers to report to police stations for inspections before taking possession of their firearms, and it can limit its purchase permit validity to 30 days.

An en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit upheld those regulations in an opinion released on Tuesday. The 6-5 decision reversed a lower court holding that struck down the laws as incompatible with the historical tradition of American gun regulation. Instead, the majority decided the case should be judged on whether the requirements were overly burdensome.

“[W]hile certain background checks, firearms safety courses, lengthy wait times, exorbitant fees, or other components of a shall-issue regime could trigger the Second Amendment’s protections, nothing in Plaintiffs’ Complaint suggests that either the thirty-day restriction or the police station inspection requirement crosses that line,” Judge John Owens wrote for the majority in Yukutake v. Lopez. “At most, the provisions impose only modest, procedural burdens. They require compliance with a reasonable deadline and, for firearms that fall into the categories set out in § 134-3(a) – (c), a brief administrative visit to verify basic information.”

Click here to read more.

---

An instructor helps a woman shoot a handgun at a range in Boulder City, Nevada / Stephen Gutowski

Analysis: Does Bruen’s Footnote Nine Create an Alternate Second Amendment Test? [Member Exclusive]
By Stephen Gutowski

“Never has a single footnote in a Supreme Court opinion been so misread by so many lower courts to deny so many Americans their constitutional rights.”

That’s the contention in the primary dissent from Tuesday’s ruling in Yukutake v. Lopez. The closely divided en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit drew the lines in the case around footnote nine in the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in 2022’s New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. That’s the same brief footnote featured at the center of several rulings against gun-rights litigants in the post-Bruen era.

The main question footnote nine, which dealt with the ruling’s implications for “shall-issue” permitting regimes, has raised is whether Bruen‘s two-step test that requires examining the history and tradition of American gun regulations is the only way to settle modern Second Amendment disputes. Or does the footnote offer courts an alternative?

If you’re a Reload Member, click here to read the rest. If not, buy a membership today for exclusive access!

---

The Supreme Court building in Washington, DC / Stephen Gutowski

Poll: Americans Split on What SCOTUS Should Do in AR-15 Case
By Stephen Gutowski

Americans favor the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) upholding “assault weapons” bans, according to a new poll. But only by a slim margin.

On Wednesday, Marquette Law School published a new edition of its long-running poll on the Supreme Court. In it, the school found that 52 percent of Americans favored the Court finding there is no right to possess AR-15s and similar firearms commonly targeted by “assault weapons” bans. 48 percent said the opposite. That puts support for such bans inside the poll’s 3.3 percent margin of error.

The poll also found the small gap between sides shrank further as it whittled down the sample to registered voters, where 51 percent wanted SCOTUS to say there’s no right to A-15s and 49 percent went the other way. It shrank down to 50 percent versus 49 percent when Marquette looked at respondents it considers likely voters.

Click here to read more.

---

The Supreme Court building in Washington, DC / Stephen Gutowski

Analysis: How Revolutionary-Era Privateers Play Into the Supreme Court AR-15 Case
By Jonathan Goldstein

On December 2, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Viramontes v. Cook County and decide a question that sounds simple but carries enormous weight: does the Second Amendment protect the AR-15?

The Seventh and Second Circuits have both let those bans stand, but the Seventh Circuit’s reasoning is the one that matters most in Viramontes. That court held that the challengers were unlikely to win, because America’s most popular rifle is too much like a soldier’s weapon to belong to an ordinary citizen. It ruled there is “a long tradition, unchanged from the time when the Second Amendment was added to the Constitution, supporting a distinction between weapons and accessories designed for military or law-enforcement use, and weapons designed for personal use.”

That theory has a problem: It is not history. It is the opposite of history.

Click here to read the rest.

---

Handguns on display at the 2025 NRA Annual Meeting / Stephen Gutowski

DOJ Says Federal Ban on Handgun Sales to Adults Under 21 is Unconstitutional
By Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has concluded that federal restrictions barring licensed firearms dealers from selling handguns to otherwise law-abiding adults under 21 violate the Second Amendment.

In a memorandum opinion released Thursday, the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) concluded that applying those restrictions to otherwise law-abiding 18- to 20-year-olds violates the Second Amendment. The opinion says the federal restrictions “effectively exclude young adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty from lawfully obtaining a handgun in the primary firearms market.”

“Eighteen-year-olds may vote, serve on juries, be drafted, and face adult criminal penalties, including capital punishment,” Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel said in a statement. “The Constitution protects the people’s right to keep and bear arms. The Department of Justice may not constitutionally seek to impose criminal penalties on dealers who sell handguns to law-abiding adults who, in nearly every other relevant respect, are members of the political community.”

Click here to read more.

---

Podcast: Guntuber Subpoenaed By Gun-Control Group in Mass Shooting Liability Case (Ft. TFB TV’s James Reeves)
By Stephen Gutowski

This week, we’re talking to the man at the center of a brand new legal fight in the gun world.

The Firearms Blog TV founder, James Reeves, was subpoenaed in an Everytown-backed lawsuit seeking to hold Smith and Wesson liable for the Highland Park mass shooting. The plaintiffs are trying to prove the gun company’s marketing contributed to the shooting, which is a hard lift but not a new tactic. What is new is how they’re trying to do it.

That’s where Reeves comes in. Reeves doesn’t work for Smith and Wesson. He is a lawyer, gun-rights activist, and gun reviewer. He doesn’t have any obvious direct connection to the Highland Park shooting.

But the plaintiffs want a trove of documents from him anyway. Why? Because, as Reeves puts it, they are treating all gun reviews as de facto advertisements. They believe Smith and Wesson pays reviewers either directly or under the table to try and make their guns more appealing to unstable young people like the Highland Park shooter.

Reeves said he has never done any undisclosed advertising for Smith and Wesson or any other gun company. He also said he’s never taken direction from them or anyone else on what points to make in a review. He argued that while there are ethical issues in the gun review industry, they aren’t nearly as cartoonish as what the gun-control groups imagine.

Ultimately, Reeves accused the plaintiffs of lawfare. He said they’re trying to circumvent federal protections for gun business, and they’re trying to inflict pain on them through the legal process. He then explained why he ultimately decided to tell the plaintiffs he doesn’t have what they’re looking for, rather than fight tooth and nail to avoid answering at all.

You can listen to the show on your favorite podcasting app or by clicking here. Video of the episode is available on our YouTube channel. An auto-generated transcript is available here. Reload Members can listen on Sunday, as always. Everyone else can listen on Monday.

Plus, Reload Reporter Julie Miller and I cover a new ruling out of Montgomery County, Maryland, that blocks a gun ban at places of worship. We also discuss Washington, DC, attempting to intervene in the legal fight between the NRA and its foundation on the side of the foundation. Then we look at the Department of Justice’s new gun-carry permitting lawsuit against San Jose, California. And I detail how my charity range day for Homes for Our Troops went this year!

Audio here. Video here.

---

Guns for sale at a Virginia gun store / Stephen Gutowski

Analysis: DOJ Takes a Shot at Permit-to-Purchase Laws [Member Exclusive]
By Stephen Gutowski

A new dispute is brewing between the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Minnesota that may foreshadow the next frontier in the national gun fight.

If, as most experts expect, “assault weapons” bans are struck down by the Supreme Court next year, the gun policy debate will move to a close alternative–just as happened with the Bruen-response laws that focused on expanding sensitive places restrictions after denying most gun-carry permits became untenable. Permit-to-purchase laws are likely to become the new fallback from outright sales bans.

That’s what makes the DOJ’s latest litigation threat against the North Star State particularly interesting. It appears likely to become the first of the Civil Rights Division’s Second Amendment suits to take on a permit-to-purchase scheme.

If you’re a Reload Member, click here to read the rest. If not, buy a membership today for exclusive access!

---

Outside The Reload

ChatGPT Helped Tumbler Ridge Shooter Focus on Guns, Tactics, and Terror | Mother Jones | By Mark Follman

Flock’s Gunfire Alerts Raise a New Fourth Amendment Question | Reason Magazine | By Del Schlangen

Gun stores seek clarity as Virginia AG launches FAIR unit to enforce new industry law | WCYB | By Liam Bridgeman

Justice Department Sues Minnesota, St. Paul, and Minneapolis Over Firearm Purchase Waiting Period | Department of Justice

Herrera Gets Good News in Fox’s Latest Power Rankings | Bearing Arms | By Cam Edwards

American kids keep getting shot. Now they’re also increasingly competing for help | The Guardian | By Chip Brownlee

---

That’s it for this week in guns.

If you want to hear expert analysis of these stories and more, make sure you grab a Reload membership to get our exclusive analysis newsletter every Sunday!

I’ll see you all next week.

Thanks,
Stephen Gutowski
Founder
The Reload