If you're a Second Amendment supporter, you know - or you should know - that you can't take your eye off the ball. The battle is never over.
But it helps to take stock of the victories, when you have them. And there are a few to celebrate.
Because while it's too early to get cocky - like maybe a generation or two early - gun rights are slowly, bit by bit, winning the broader culture war. This piece - by Kareem Shaya, in Open Source Defense from a few years ago - is a long read, but it makes a fairly solid case, showing how the culture has swung over the past 40 years or so. Remember - in 1985, a majority of people supported gun control, and a strong plurality favored banning all hand guns; there were so few "assault weapons" in circulation they weren't even an issue.
Today, the battlefeld is very different:
On one hand you have an idea that has been growing for almost 30 years across almost all demographic groups; is more popular with young people than ever; spread permissive carry laws from just nine states in 1986 to 42 states and DC today; grew the installed base of its dearest shibboleth by a factor of 30 since the 1990s; and by its nature grows exponentially after reaching critical mass, because it spreads via the same natural laws that drive social networks, compound interest, and nuclear fission (see Kevin Simler's incredible "Going Critical" for more on how that works).
On the other hand you have an idea that went from grand national ambitions to eking out compromises in a small minority of states, and which gets less popular the more people learn about it. (That's also compound interest, but with a negative sign in front of it.)
Thinking probabilistically, which outcome would you bet on?
Now, if you're a law-abiding gun owner in a Blue state - like me - you might be thinking "Hold up, Tex. Explain what's going on in CaliradoJerseySotaHawaii!"
Similarly, states with a gun-control frame have gotten much more restrictive. For example, in six out of the seven states with assault weapons bans, the bans’ provisions have ratcheted tighter and tighter every 10–15 years.
The force driving this is that when persuasion doesn’t work, the dominant strategy is to use a greedy algorithm: anywhere you can win, take it immediately. Doesn’t matter if it makes sense or even if you really care that much about it. If it upsets the other side, you do it.
One cultural signpost I've never seen, and never thought I'd see: the Federal Government taking sides in a Second Amendment case, on the side of the Second Amendment and law-abiding gun owners.
But here we are - the Department of Justice has filed an amicus brief in a case against one of those "greedy algorithm" laws, which essentially makes most of Hawaii a no-go zone for people with permits to carry:
On May 1, the DOJ filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court in support of a petition for writ of certiorari in Wolford v. Lopez. The case challenges a Hawaii law passed in retaliation for the landmark 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, prohibiting citizens from carrying firearms on publicly accessible private property without the owner’s express permission. Masquerading as a property rights measure, the law amounts to nothing more than a concealed carry ban that applies to most of the state, as business owners and facilities in general do not post signs informing the public that guns are welcome.
The SCOTUS, being mostly hands-off originalists, has largely let lower courts do most of heavy work since its three seminal gun rights decisions (Heller in 2008, McDonald in 2010, and Bruen in 2022).
Trump's Department of Justice would apparently like to see that change:
“The Second Amendment, which binds the States by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, provides: ‘A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’ In NYSRPA v. Bruen, this Court held that the Second Amendment guarantees ordinary Americans a ‘general right to publicly carry firearms’ for lawful purposes such as self-defense… As eight judges correctly recognized in dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc, Hawaii’s private-property default rule violates—in fact, functionally eliminates— that right,” Sauer continued.
In a notably less abrasive and more diplomatic tone than yours truly, [US Solicitor General Dean John Sauer] dresses down the Justices for their cowardly display of kicking Second Amendment rights clarification can down the road. He points out that Wolford provides an opportunity to settle costly and hotly contested legal battles over American gun rights, which the Court failed to do in Bruen and United States v. Rahimi, a casein whichthe majority of Justices ignored due process and ruled that federal law prohibiting individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms is Constitutional under the Second Amendment.
That's good news.
The bad-ish news? We're one bad Presidential election from having at least that particular bit of progress reversed.
The good news in response? This will only help accelerate the shifts that make gun control a social third rail in most of the United States, and a legal quagmire even in anti-gun states like Hawaii.
