Attorney General Blanche restores gun rights for nine Americans
WASHINGTON — On August 27, the Justice Department issued an unpublished notice on the Federal Register entitled “Granting of Relief: Federal Firearms Privileges” in which it confirmed the restoration of federal firearms privileges to nine individuals.
The notice was issued by Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter, and states:
Attorney General Todd Blanche has reviewed all the relevant facts for each individual listed below, including the materials that each individual submitted seeking either a pardon or relief from Federal firearms disabilities, and it is established to his satisfaction that each individual will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety and that the granting of the relief to each individual would not be contrary to the public interest.
Based on this notice alone, it would seem that AG Blanche personally reviewed the individual circumstances surrounding the rights restoration, but did not clarify if this was part of the new process announced by the Justice Department on August 17, which could impact up to 30 million Americans.
The last time a similar announcement was made by the DOJ was in anticipation of a rehearing of a major case before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The then-Bondi DOJ advised the court on February 9 that it had restored rights for 22 individuals.
FBI releases final national crime report for the 2025 calendar year, with historic results
WASHINGTON — On August 14, the FBI released a final report looking at nationwide crime stats for the previous year, and the results were remarkable by any standard.
The report indicates that 2024 to 2025 “marked the largest year-to-year decline in violent crime rates since FBI estimations began in 1936.”
The report’s data is based on data from more than 17,000 agencies, making it both exhaustive and authoritative.
“The 2025 crime data in this report shows the single largest decrease in violent crime and murder since 1937 – as well as huge decreases across the board in terms of aggravated assault, rape, and robbery,” said FBI Director Kash Patel in a press release.
The national results coincide with state-level findings as well, even in blue states like New Jersey and California, which have been forced to admit to historically low levels of violent crime, while concealed carry adoption skyrockets. To date, 29 states have adopted some form of permitless carry (sometimes called “constitutional carry”), and the United States boasts over 100 million firearms owners.
First brief submitted in Viramontes, Supreme Court’s first-ever ‘Assault Weapons’ case
WASHINGTON — On Friday, August 27, plaintiffs submitted their first brief in Viramontes, the first-ever case to be heard by the Supreme Court on the topic of so-called assault weapons. The case was granted certiorari on June 30, 2026.
Viramontes is the lead case of two related cases (one out of Illinois and one out of Connecticut) that both deal with challenges to assault firearms bans.
The brief makes a significant distinction between semi-automatic rifles and machineguns:
This Brief then distinguishes semiautomatic arms from machineguns or other dangerous and unusual weapons, arguing that because of the clear technical distinctions, semiautomatic arms are presumptively within the Second Amendment’s scope.
Some in the gun rights community have viewed this positioning negatively, suggesting that the plaintiffs have “thrown machineguns under the bus” in an attempt to protect other arms, and that a purist’s perspective should be that ALL gun control measures are unconstitutional.
Second Amendment legal scholar Mark Smith suggests that the former is the right approach:
Machine guns are going to get thrown under the bus for now. We have to win A.R. 15s, then suppressors, and then magazines. Then, the sky is the limit. If you pushed a machine gun case to the Supreme Court today, we would set terrible precedent against machine guns. It is better to have no precedent on an issue than bad precedent.
The brief did not cite to the Third Circuit’s July 17 decision to strike down New Jersey’s assault weapons ban, which itself created a break in circuit opinions.
Respondents’ (Connecticut and Illinois) briefs on the merits must be filed by October 21, 2026.
Gun owners’ data may be exposed in massive ATF data breach
WASHINGTON — On Thursday, August 27, the Department of Justice announced a massive data breach of a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) computer system, surmised to be a result of a foreign cyber-attack by the Qilin ransomware gang (which listed the ATF as one of its targets on its website) and has previously targeted other U.S. and global entities.
The ATF designated the event a “major incident” that will trigger congressional notification and subsequent investigation with the DOJ.
The exposed computer system held information about “targets of investigations” by the ATF, according to one source. According to testimony by Director Robert Cekada, the ATF maintains over 1.38 billion pages of Out-of-Business records that include make, model, caliber, and serial number, but not name.
We are still within 24 hours of the announcement, so we don’t actually know the long-term effects of this attack, but they could be significant.
DOJ’s Civil Rights Division brief addresses “12601 argument” in California Glock ban case
LOS ANGELES — On July 1, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, led by AAG Harmeet Dhillon, filed suit against California over its Glock ban and pistol roster. No one expected the state to go down without a fight.
In a recent brief, the state argued that the statute that the Justice Department is applying in the suit (Section 12601) does not authorize the federal government to bring the suit because it applies strictly to abusive police practices. The state further argues that the measure can’t be used to bring a facial challenge against the two gun control laws. On these grounds, it asked the court to dismiss the case.
In an August 25 response brief to the state, Ms. Dhillon points out an error in the state’s reasoning. First, she corrects the state in that the government is not facially challenging the statutes. Second, she notes that the challenge is specific to police enforcing unconstitutional measures, writing, “Rather, [the DOJ] has brought a challenge to law enforcement officers’ enforcement of California’s official policies reflected in two unconstitutional statutes.”
She further notes that a recent August 14 settlement with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on another Second Amendment-related case gives even more weight to the government’s position.
Firearms Policy Coalition updates complaint in Louisiana young adult carry ban
BATON ROUGE, La. — On August 27, the gun rights group challenging Louisiana’s concealed carry handgun ban for young adults under 21 years of age filed an amended complaint.
The complaint names a new defendant, Colonel Frank J. Besson in his official capacity as Louisiana State Police Superintendent. Former Superintendent Robert Hodges retired, and Besson took command on July 31, 2026.
The complaint also adds plaintiffs, four in total, including FPC itself.
The lawsuit was originally filed on July 22, 2026. Read details on the original filing.
Gun rights group seeks feedback on direct-to-home gun sales possible under new ATF rule
WASHINGTON — The National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) is seeking public feedback on a proposed ATF rule that could open the door to firearms sales that ship guns directly to your home.
An ATF proposed rule entitled “Revising Non-Over-the-Counter Firearms Transaction Requirements” was posted on May 8, 2026, and received 4,376 public comments. The rule would allow Remote ID verification for normal firearms sales, with approved transactions resulting in firearms shipped to your home, for same-state residents.
NAGR acknowledged that this is a double-edged sword, stating, “This opens up a level of access and convenience many gun owners have never experienced,” but also adding, “The way the ATF is achieving this will, by default, create mountains of data and the databases that come with it. Whether we like it or not, it could effectively become a digital federal gun registry.”
The comment is particularly significant given that the Department of Justice announced a huge cyber-attack on the ATF on Wednesday, August 26, leaving many American gun owners wondering how safe their information is with the government, and what a foreign government would do with that information.
CDC begins publishing defensive gun use data again, with up to 2.5 million per year
The Biden-Harris administration hated that there are solid stats, tracked by the government nonetheless, that underpin the fact that guns are used to save lives.
In 2022, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) stopped publishing those stats after significant influence by private gun control groups.
The fact of “a range of 60,000 to 2.5 million defensive gun uses each year” disappeared from government websites and publications.
Under the Trump administration, the CDC is now publishing that data again.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Upholds FFL Surveillance Requirements in California
SAN FRANCISCO — On August 27, 2026, a three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit upheld California’s gun-store camera law in a 2-1 decision that resulted in dismissal of the lawsuit.
The suit was brought by a coalition of gun rights groups in December of 2023, challenging Penal Code Section 26806, which requires every FFL to have fixed cameras that record video 24/7 (and audio inside) and allow state DOJ access to those recordings.
The complaint challenged the law on behalf of home-based dealers and customers, arguing that the law violates the Fourth, Fifth, and First Amendments.
The panel held that the plaintiffs failed on all accounts, but the partial dissent by Judge Kenneth Lee suggested otherwise:
The surveillance statute goes far beyond ensuring public safety and violates the First and Fourth Amendments… The knowledge that every word uttered will be captured – and saved for at least a year at the government’s behest – will almost certainly inhibit political discussion.
The litigants have a number of options, including an appeal to the Supreme Court, but have not yet indicated what their course of action will be.
