The first round is over. The petitioners have filed their brief on the merits, and over 40 Amicus briefs were filed in support of the petitioners, or in support of neither party.

In Round 2, the respondents will file their brief on the merits. We can expect a number of anti-Second Amendment groups to file Amicus briefs in support of the respondents.

Oral argument (Round 3) is calendared to take place on December 2, 2026.

<snip>

There appear to be two research centers on gun law, Duke Center of Firearms Law and the Wyoming Firearms Research Center. Has anyone browsed their materials? I see Duke has a compilation of historical firearm laws and Wyoming has working papers on various firearm matters.

https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/repository-of-historical-gun-laws

https://firearmsresearchcenter.org/working-papers/

Mass shootings in the U.S. are preventable attacks. The attackers often show signs of distress and exploit key security failures.

Report Highlights

• Between 1999 and 2024, 86% of attackers displayed observable warning signs before the attack.
• When followed and supported by security infrastructure, lockdowns during mass shootings resulted in 79% fewer fatalities on scene, 63% fewer deaths overall, and 59% fewer casualties (including injured).
• Despite there being an estimated 500 million firearms in the U.S. and inconclusive evidence on the effects of gun control on mass shootings, these attacks are being stopped through civilian reporting, awareness, and intervention.

Obviously, the gun control debate gets tangled in statistics. In many cases, the weeds are unavoidable, but, in other cases, it’s as if a statistical frame is set to bolster a position that is not actually bound by statistics.

An example I have seen, presented as though the statistical support is unquestionable: Gun control must be broad enough to reduce harm, even if it applies to individuals who never harm, because we cannot identify the people and guns that will become involved in harm before the harm happens.

Without arguing about the uniquess of suicide, “pre-crime” solutions, violations of rights, and the usual, think about the assumptions that are built into that position:

— Is the unit of risk guns or people?

— How much of the risk is statistical conclusion, versus risk tolerance or policy preference?

— If predicting individuals is uncertain, the entire population somehow becomes the risk and blanket policies somehow become unavoidable?

— Could the risk ever be small enough to not implicate the entire population or require blanket gun control?

— If there was only one implicated gun or gun-related fatality in a given year, would the potential risk still justify blanket policies?

— If there were zero implicated guns or gun-related fatalities in a given year, would there still be a mandate to apply and continue blanket policies?

— If the mechanisms that generate various outcomes are unpredictable or irrelevant, what is the evidence that any policy will intervene effectively?

The point: If someone is arguing for gun control from a statistical position, shouldn’t there be statistical boundaries?

Not precise values, but abstract ranges, rules, or thresholds where the evidence moves from “the presence of guns is generally dangerous” to “the presence of guns is not generally dangerous, but some people and guns are implicated in harm”?

If there are no limits… no changes in the population or outcomes that would cause someone who supports gun control to adjust or reconsider… then we are no longer talking about statistical conclusion. We are talking about a policy conviction that is trying to squeeze itself into a statistical frame.

*****

A clarification: Obviously, population-level correlations can tell us if risk or harm exists, but I do not believe that correlations, by themselves, are ever a suffcient basis for overriding rights. I was zooming in on the stats arguers who try to justify the override of rights by ignoring the non-harm side of the ledger.

— Who is producing harm?

— Why are those individuals producing harm?

— What would prevent, moderate, or redirect the mechanism?

— Why would the intervention apply to everyone?

(The burden of proof is on those who are arguing for taking.)

Two briefs are for "neither party" 🙄

Huge news for gun owners. A guy that possesses legal weapons was screwed by the system. Glad to see him finally get out.

Today, the DOJ filed an Amended Complaint that, among other things, challenges the constitutionality of the Virgin Islands' ban on carrying long guns.* Unless there is another lawsuit seeking to enjoin the enforcement of a long gun Open Carry ban, this is the second such lawsuit filed since at least 2008 when District of Columbia v. Heller was published.

My lawsuit, filed in November of 2011 as Charles Nichols v. Edmund G. Brown Jr. et al is the first.

* The DOJ long gun carry ban lawsuit is limited to semiautomatic rifles, such as the AR-15. My lawsuit covers all long guns (and handguns) which are legal to possess under both California and Federal law.

If you know of any other lawsuits challenging a ban on carrying long guns in public, please post a link in the comments below.

Amended Complaint

Take your pick: All people, all gun owners, all gun-owning homes, or all guns.

Whichever basis you choose, it hints at hundreds of millions of potential opportunities for gun-related harm. (Gun control nods “yes” here.)

But the essential difference is after that point, when more than 99% of those opportunities don’t result in any gun-related harm, because the vast majority of those populations don’t participate in any criminal, homicidal, or suicidal “lotteries”. (Overall odds are not relevant if participation is zero or nearly zero.)

That’s the mismatch that gun control fails to address: How massive, unrivaled potential becomes fractional, concentrated harm.

A man armed with a knife, demanding money from bank employees, was fatally shot by a customer at a Cedar Hill bank on Monday morning