I try not to predict what any court will do when it comes to handling cases that revolve around firearms and the Second Amendment. That, quite simply, is a fool’s game. But I can look at what has happened in the recent past—both victories and defeats—and talk about what some decisions mean, as well as what they should mean going forward.
There were a few decisions that came out of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2024 that were significant to the NRA, its members, and those who cherish the Second Amendment. Not all were Second Amendment-specific, but they were all important.
Perhaps the most-important decision to NRA as a gun-rights organization was the unanimous verdict handed down in NRA v. Vullo. I’ve written at great length about it before, but in that case, NRA argued that former New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) Superintendent Maria T. Vullo, at the behest of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), abused the power of her office to coerce institutions subject to DFS regulation to cut ties with NRA in an attempt to “financially blacklist” NRA to suppress our Second Amendment advocacy.
The Court held NRA’s argument had merit, reversing a lower court’s dismissal of NRA’s challenge and remanding the case back to that court for further litigation. That was a unanimous decision, with the opinion being authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor—a Barack Obama nominee who, historically, has been opposed to our right to keep and bear arms.
Besides that critical ruling in support of the First Amendment and the NRA, we also saw the Supreme Court strike down the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives’ (ATF) reclassification of bump stocks as machine guns.
The Court held that the ATF exceeded its authority with the 2018 reclassification, and further held that the definition of “machinegun” under the National Firearms Act (NFA) clearly does not cover bump stocks. The 6-3 decision in Garland v. Cargill was specific to the ATF and bump stocks, while another ruling—this time 6-2 in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo—targeted overly broad federal regulations as a whole. These two cases will be pivotal to our future challenges to ATF’s regulations when they go beyond the scope of their authority.
These cases, along with the previous landmark rulings in the Second Amendment cases of D.C. v. Heller, McDonald v. Chicago, and NYSRPA v. Bruen should pay dividends for years—if not decades—in challenges to laws and regulations designed to undermine or eradicate the rights of law-abiding gun owners.
And, with the exception of the Heller and McDonald cases, these and numerous other judicial victories that have upheld the Second Amendment would likely not have come to be without the first term of President Donald Trump. His appointments to the federal courts during that term were historic. Some might even call them legendary; I know I do.
There are a litany of other challenges working their way through the legal system, and Trump’s hundreds of judicial appointments after winning the 2016 election will likely serve to deal many more Second Amendment victories.
Based on what I have seen out of the courts over the last several years, I anticipate we will see far more victories than losses.
Outcomes of court cases can be hard to predict, however, and the same is true of elections—especially considering how stacked the deck was against a Trump victory. Whether it is anti-freedom billionaires funneling unprecedented amounts of money into propping up Kamala Harris, an unabashedly biased legacy media doing the same with its pro-Harris “news” coverage, or the shockingly undemocratic machinations exhibited when the soft coup kicked Joe Biden off the top of the Democrat ticket and replaced him with Harris—a candidate who has never won a single presidential primary contest.
Cautiously optimistic was the atmosphere at the NRA leading up to Nov. 5. I’ll let you know what it is now in a later column.
Nonetheless, I’m looking forward to facing the challenges that the NRA and the Second Amendment will face in the coming year. I know we all will rise to meet any challenge, and I hope, as you are reading this, you know we will have an ally fighting alongside us from the Oval Office. Even if that is not the case, the groundwork for future success was already laid by Trump when he won in 2016. For that, he has our gratitude.