City of Winchester concedes in lawsuit challenging gun ban in parking garages
WINCHESTER, Va. — The City of Winchester, Virginia, finally conceded after a multi-year lawsuit challenging its ban on firearms in city parking garages. Gun rights groups backing the suit (Gun Owners Foundation, Gun Owners of America, and Virginia Citizens Defense League) announced the win on May 27.
“Sure, so we almost immediately got an injunction, so that was in place for quite a while, for over a year,” Gun Owners of America Senior Vice President Erich Pratt said in a media statement. “So for over a year they’ve not been able to enforce that ban and the trial, moved forward with discovery, etc., and in fact, we were getting close to where it was time to depose the Winchester police chief, but before we could get to that, I think, Winchester knew ultimately they saw the handwriting on the wall, and so they repealed their ordinance.”
The 2024 suit, challenging the 2022 city ordinance (which also included a ban on firearms in parks and at events), resulted in a June 2024 preliminary injunction and concluded when the court dismissed the suit following the city council’s repeal of the offending ordinance on May 12 of this year. A separate suit in 2021 resulted in overturning the parks and events prohibitions in 2022.
Minnesota appeals court affirms binary trigger ban is unconstitutional
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Although not strictly a decision based upon facial Second Amendment arguments, a Minnesota appeals court nonetheless granted a victory to gun owners by upholding a lower court’s decision to strike down the state’s ban on binary triggers because it violated the state Constitution’s single-subject clause.
In simpler terms, Minnesota legislators tried to sneak a gun control measure into an omnibus bill and lost.
“This is a complete victory on the question we asked the court to decide,” said Bryan Strawser, Chair of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, in a press release. “The Walz administration and anti-gun legislators tried to sneak a firearms ban into an omnibus bill where it didn’t belong. The district court said no. The Court of Appeals said no. Minnesota’s Constitution, not legislative gamesmanship, controls how laws get made in this state, and Minnesota gun owners just proved it twice.”
The lower court issued its ruling in August of 2025, and the Court of Appeals issued its non-precedential decision on May 26, 2026.
ATF continues to implement elements of 34 proposed rules in reform package
WASHINGTON — Following on its promise to modernize and streamline its regulatory approach to rule-making, the ATF implemented one of its 34 rules announced on April 29 (see our full coverage of the ATF reform package).
The ATF published the final rule for “Conforming Change for Approving a Making Application” on May 6, a rule that governs homemade restricted firearms (NFA items), and brings the written requirements for a federal background check for the NICS system in line with the procedures and laws already on the books. All Final Rules are published in the Federal Register.
However, the rule is widely viewed as an infringement in the context of the challenged 1934 National Firearms Act, which regulated elements of firearms as arbitrary as barrel length.
AAG Harmeet Dhillon says “large capacity magazines” are standard issue magazines
WASHINGTON — In a May 26 interview with NewsMax, Assistant Attorney General of Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon spoke about Denver’s “assault weapons” bill, noting that the phrase is a fake term used to “slant the public against the most commonly owned rifle in the United States.”
She went on to add that “the Supreme Court has made clear that commonly owned weapons that are used by law-abiding citizens for legal purposes are presumptively legal under the Second Amendment.”
Ms. Dhillon is also head of the Second Amendment Section, announced in December of last year, which has a 100% pro-2A track record in all of its legal actions related to the Second Amendment. See our new DOJ action tracker.
Eight Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorneys say they will not enforce unconstitutional gun control laws
There are 120 elected Commonwealth’s Attorneys across the state of Virginia, and eight of them have made public proclamations that they will not enforce unconstitutional laws related to the recent Virginia “assault weapons” ban. The first such affirmation was from Ryan Mehaffey on May 15. (The Virginia Citizens Defense League, VCDL, helps track these statements.)
The most recent announcement was from Leslie M. Fleet, Commonwealth’s Attorney for Appomattox County, in a Facebook post. Others known to have made similar statements include:
- Goochland: John L. Lumpkins, Jr.
- Powhatan: Robert “Rob” C. Cerullo
- Pulaski: Justin L. Griffith
- Smyth: Phillip “Bucky” L. Blevins
- Scott: Kyle B. Kilgore
- Spotsylvania: Ryan (G. Ryan) Mehaffey
- Warren: John S. Bell
Connecticut Governor signs “convertible pistol” ban
HARTFORD, Conn. — On Tuesday, May 26, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont signed the bill that will ban so-called “convertible pistols” beginning October 1.
The bill, which he requested, landed on his desk on May 6, after being passed by the assembly in April. H5043 bans future manufacture, sale, and importation of most commonly owned handguns in Connecticut.
Three states now ban sales of Glock or Glock-style firearms: California, Connecticut, and Maryland.
