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California Wants a Microphone in Your Home. Goldwater Is Fighting Back.
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Imagine the government ordering you to install cameras and microphones in your home office. They must run day and night, recording conversations with clients, coworkers, and family. And you must save the recordings for at least a year in case the government wants to review them. Astonishingly, this is exactly what California is requiring some home-based, firearms businesses to do. Now, the Goldwater Institute is urging the full Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to end this unprecedented invasion of privacy. |
China: Draft rules clarify police procedures on self-defense, school bullying
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One provision seeks to clarify how police should assess acts of justifiable defense in public security cases. Actions taken to stop ongoing unlawful infringements would not constitute public security violations and would not be subject to punishment, even if they cause harm.
If such actions clearly exceed what is necessary and cause relatively serious harm, penalties would apply but must be reduced. Cases involving minor circumstances would be exempt from punishment. The draft also makes clear that provoking an attack as a pretext for harming another person, or engaging in mutual fighting, does not qualify as justifiable defense. |
NC: Police sources: Fatal Spindale shooting ‘appears to be self-defense’
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Police sources told Cops & Congress that the Oct. 23 shooting that killed Wesley Tracy Rhodes “appears to have been in self-defense,” although no final charging decision has been announced.
Rhodes, 59, died after being shot outside the shopping plaza at 239 W. Main St. shortly after 8:30 p.m.
According to an Oct. 24 Spindale Police Department statement, previously reported by Cops & Congress, a business owner asked Rhodes to leave after his behavior concerned customers. Rhodes briefly walked away before returning. Investigators said video showed Rhodes exchanging words with the man and lunging at him, appearing to strike him, before the man fired once. |
OR: What the Silver Rail shooting teaches us about self defense and public safety
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The tragedy at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend has once again forced Americans to confront a difficult reality: when evil strikes without warning, the first person capable of stopping it is often not a police officer, but an ordinary citizen.
It is a story we’ve seen play out far too many times in communities across the country — a gunman forced his way into the school and opened fire, killing three children and a teacher. Yet authorities have indicated that the outcome could have been far worse.
An armed citizen, a father of two students at the school and a concealed-carry permit holder, pursued the attacker into the building and fatally shot him before police reached the classroom. |
The Philippines: Supreme Court acquits wife who killed abusive husband, cites battered woman syndrome
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The Supreme Court has acquitted a woman convicted of killing her abusive husband, ruling that battered woman syndrome (BWS) can justify her actions even when the traditional requirements of self-defense are not present.
In a 16-page decision penned by Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, the Supreme Court’s Second Division overturned the woman’s conviction for parricide after finding that she had endured years of repeated physical abuse.
The woman shot her husband several times with a 9mm pistol in 2011, causing his immediate death. |
SIG SAUER Renews Gold-Level Corporate Partnership
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The Second Amendment Foundation is pleased to announce that SIG SAUER has renewed their corporate partner commitment at the Gold level.
“Protecting the fundamental rights of individuals to keep and bear arms is a full-time job, and the Second Amendment Foundation has been instrumental in leading that effort,” said Phil Strader, Vice President, Consumer Affairs at SIG SAUER. “The SAF actively and aggressively defends the Second Amendment with legal action but also educates the public about the importance of responsible gun ownership. SIG SAUER couldn’t be prouder to support their mission and is honored to be a part of such an important organization.” |
Sandy Hook families urge Supreme Court to uphold state and local bans on AR-15-style rifles
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Relatives whose loved ones were killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting are making an impassioned plea to the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold state and local bans on certain semiautomatic rifles, citing the high body counts and devastating injuries the weapons can inflict.
The parents of five of the 20 first-graders killed in the 2012 Connecticut shooting and relatives of one of six educators who died filed a “friend of the court” brief on Wednesday, weighing in on two cases challenging bans in Connecticut and the Chicago area. Justices are scheduled to hear oral arguments in both cases on Dec. 2. |
Women Are Surging Among New Gun Owners as Self-Defense Reshapes Firearm Ownership
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Women are changing the face of American firearm ownership and new research confirms personal protection is helping drive the shift.
A September RAND Corporation analysis found women accounted for nearly half of new gun owners in recent years. The General Social Survey data reveals personal firearm ownership among adult women climbed from 10 percent in 2018 to 16 percent in 2024, a not insignificant increase. Women’s share among all firearm owners also increased from 22 percent to 32 percent, while men’s ownership rates remained relatively stable.
The RAND report lays out clearly the impact women gun buyers are having on broader gun ownership demographics. |
Gun-Control Groups Ask Supreme Court to Gut Bruen and Strip AR-15s of Second Amendment Protection
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In an October 28 amicus brief, Giffords Law Center argues that the Supreme Court should overturn its landmark 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen if that precedent requires striking down bans on commonly owned semiautomatic rifles.
Virginia’s attorney general goes even further, telling the justices that AR-15s are not protected by the Second Amendment. Meanwhile, a group of historians is relying on 19th-century Bowie knife restrictions and questionable comparisons involving Winchester repeating rifles to defend modern bans on semiautomatic firearms. |
Choosing the state gun
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As part of their celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Idaho voters will go to the polls on November 3 to choose their state gun.
American voters are facing difficult election choices this Fall, and Idaho voters are no exception. They will have to pick one of six guns. And according to HB 932, which passed unanimously, legislators “may add additional guns to the list.” The Nov. 3 vote is advisory: the legislature will pick the actual state gun later this year. |
UK: 19 US attorneys general urge Supreme Court to uphold Cook County and Connecticut assault weapons laws
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A coalition of 19 US attorneys general, including California’s Rob Bonta, filed an amicus brief in the US Supreme Court on Wednesday backing assault weapons laws in Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois.
The brief, filed in Viramontes v. County of Cook, urges the Court to uphold appellate rulings that the challenged laws are consistent with the Second Amendment and the nation’s historical tradition of regulating uniquely dangerous weapons, the California Department of Justice said.
The filing is one of a number of amicus briefs submitted on the docket of No. 25-238 on the same day. Others came from the Cook County parties, the Commonwealth of Virginia, the American Academy of Pediatrics and a group of members of Congress. |
FL: Florida Judge Refuses to End Gun Waiting Period Despite State’s Admission It Violates Second Amendment
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Florida’s top law enforcement officials have agreed that the state’s mandatory three-day firearm waiting period violates the Second Amendment, but a federal judge has refused to enter the judgment that would end its enforcement. Now, instead of Florida gun owners getting relief from a law the state itself has conceded is unconstitutional, two national gun-control organizations have been invited to argue the issue before the court.
On October 28, 2026, U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday denied a joint motion for entry of final judgment in Dunn v. Glass, Case No. 8:25-cv-02264-SDM-AEP, an NRA-backed lawsuit challenging Florida’s firearm waiting-period requirements. |
5th Circuit Panel Rules Federal Switchblade Act Violates Second Amendment Protections
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A federal court has ruled that Section 1242 of the Federal Switchblade Act violates the Second Amendment and can no longer be enforced.
A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit ruled in the case Knife Rights, Inc. v. Blanche that the federal government’s restrictions on the interstate manufacture, transportation and distribution of automatically opening knives cannot survive constitutional scrutiny under the Second Amendment.
Applying the Supreme Court’s framework set forth in Bruen, the 5th Circuit determined that the government failed to carry its burden of establishing a historical tradition supporting the FSA’s restrictions. |
Virginia AG: ‘AR-15s Are Machine Guns Except That They’ Are Not
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Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones, who fantasized about murdering his political opponent and wishing death upon the man’s children, thinks the most popular semiautomatic rifle on the market is the same thing as a machine gun.
Jones made his remarkable ignorance on guns and the Second Amendment known on Wednesday in the form of a brief to the Supreme Court, which is slated to weigh a challenge to an Illinois county’s ban on the possession and transfer of so-called “assault weapons”: AR-15s and similar semiautomatic firearms. In the document filed in support of Cook County’s firearm prohibitions, Jones argues that “AR-15s bear nearly all the same features that take machineguns outside the Second Amendment’s protection.” |
TN: Man dies after shooting near Nashville Hookah Lounge, self-defense claim under review
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A man shot Sunday outside a Hookah Lounge in South Nashville has died from his injuries, and police say the case is being investigated as self-defense.
Daniel Davila, 25, had a critical head wound from the shooting and Metro Police reported Wednesday he died from his injuries at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Police say this is being investigated as a possible self-defense case and will be staffed with the district attorney's office. |
VA: Acquaintance Pulls a Weapon at a Charlottesville Taco Bell at 9 A.M. Sunday, Gets Shot in the Shoulder by the Person Who Was Carrying
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A dispute between two people who knew each other ended with one of them shot in the shoulder at the Taco Bell on 5th Street Sunday morning, and the Charlottesville Police Department says it is investigating the shooting as self-defense.
The shooting happened around 9 a.m. The person who fired stayed at the restaurant and cooperated with officers, Chief of Police Michael Kochis said Tuesday, as reported by Cville Right Now.
According to Kochis, the two had some type of dispute and confronted each other at the Taco Bell. One person pulled a weapon. The other drew a firearm and fired. The round struck the first person in the shoulder. |
Hero Recounts Stopping Shotgun-Toting Murderer In Bend, Oregon, Elementary School
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The hero armed citizen who shot and killed a gunman early in his attack on a special education classroom in an elementary school in Bend, Oregon, is speaking out, describing exactly what happened on that fateful morning.
Kaylub Giamanco, a concealed carry permit holder, saw the gunman enter the school, where two of his daughters attend, as he drove past on his way home for lunch. In an interview with Oregon Public Broadcasting, the carpenter said he was headed home for lunch when he Giamanco told OPB that he saw a “man in black” shoot twice at a pickup truck and fire another shot at a woman mowing the school’s lawn. |
MA: SJC gun ruling exposes divide over Second Amendment
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What divided them was a question of methodology vexing courts nationwide: Who should undertake the historical research that the U.S. Supreme Court‘s Second Amendment test demands, and on what record?
In Commonwealth v. Thomson, Justice Gabrielle R. Wolohojian wrote for the majority that the court could canvass the legal history itself to find that the state’s age restriction fits the nation’s tradition of firearm regulation.
Justice Scott L. Kafker, joined by Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt, would have sent the case back for expert historical evidence, faulting the commonwealth for a thin showing and the majority for filling the gap. |
NY: US Federal Judge Strikes Down New York Body Armor Ban, Recognising Constitutional Right to Ballistic Protection
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A federal judge in New York has ruled that the state’s restrictions on the sale and purchase of body armor violate the Second Amendment, marking a significant development in the legal debate surrounding civilian access to ballistic protection in the United States.
In a decision issued on 21 October 2026, US District Judge John L. Sinatra Jr. held that body armor qualifies as an “Arm” protected by the Second Amendment. The court concluded that New York had failed to demonstrate that its restrictions were consistent with the historical tradition of firearm regulation required under the Supreme Court’s constitutional framework. |
CA Attorney General: States Must Have the Ability to Protect Residents from Assault Rifles Commonly Used in Mass Shootings
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California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Wednesday, as part of a coalition of 19 attorneys general, filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of laws enacted in Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois, restricting the sale, manufacture, and possession of certain uniquely dangerous assault rifles. The brief, filed in Viramontes v. County of Cook, urges the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold appellate court rulings that affirmed that these challenged assault weapon laws are consistent with the Second Amendment and the nation’s strong historical tradition of regulating weapons that are uniquely dangerous. |
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| QUOTES
TO REMEMBER |
| As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight. And it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness. — Justice William O. Douglas, US Supreme Court (1939-75) |
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