Attorney General Pam Bondi, under pressure from gun rights groups, is likely to announce this week that she plans to eliminate the “zero tolerance” policy, put in place four years ago, that strips the federal licenses of firearms dealers found to have repeatedly violated federal laws and regulations, the people said.

Bondi plans to order Kash Patel, who is serving as FBI director and the interim leader of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to review two other major policies enacted under the Biden administration, with an eye toward scrapping both. One is a ban on so-called pistol braces used to convert handguns into rifle-like weapons, and the second is a rule requiring background checks on private gun sales.

The moves come at a moment of chaos at a largely leaderless and rudderless ATF, whose small workforce has been partly redeployed to provide support for immigration raids around the country. Patel has spent most of his time running the FBI, and the Justice Department has proposed merging the gun agency with the Drug Enforcement Administration, a plan that has left the ATF’s career leadership demoralized. That, however, is unlikely to take place anytime soon.

President Trump Campaigns on Curtailing Gun Regulations

President Donald Trump campaigned on curtailing gun regulation. In February, he signed an executive order directing the Justice Department “to examine all orders, regulations, guidance, plans” and other actions “to assess any ongoing infringements of the Second Amendment rights of our citizens.”

In late March, Bondi ordered the department’s civil rights division to open an investigation into the potential infringement of Second Amendment rights by officials in Los Angeles County, repurposing an investigative unit that had been used to expose racial discrimination and police violence by local enforcement agencies.

The three new actions, while more than symbolic, were neither unexpected nor likely to have major effect immediately.

Enforcement of the zero-tolerance policy has waned somewhat since Trump was elected. And federal judges have already frozen all or part of the rule involving pistol braces as well as the regulation imposing background checks on a shadow market of weapons sold online, at gun shows and through private sellers.

Move Represents U-Turn From Biden Administration

Taken together, the new moves represent an abrupt U-turn from efforts by the Biden administration, led by the former ATF director Steven M. Dettelbach, to stem the flood of unregulated semiautomatic handguns and rifles that have contributed to mass shootings and exacerbated the violent crime wave that peaked after the coronavirus pandemic.

“This administration inherited a violent crime rate at a 50-year-low — less than three months later they are now looking to roll back popular gun safety policies that keep communities safe,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Emma Brown, executive director of the gun safety group Giffords, accused Trump of giving his “seal of approval” to “reckless dealers who are willing to sell guns to traffickers and criminals.”

Gun owners and manufacturers celebrated the decision.

The Biden administration “purposefully suffocated the firearm industry,” Lawrence G. Keane, general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for firearms manufacturers, said in a statement.

He added: “This reckless policy throttled small businesses and drove many to shut down by threatening crippling administrative costs to fight against penalties for minor errors and infractions.”

—

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Glenn Thrush/Doug Mills
c. 2025 The New York Times Company

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John Alvarado’s came during the COVID-19 pandemic, as he evolved from a self-described “bleeding-heart liberal” to a deeply religious conservative.

A spike in anti-Asian violence in that same period is what motivated John Tsien.

For Victoria Alston, it was living on her own again after separating from her husband.

And for Anna Kolanowski, the tipping point came as she walked to a bar one night to meet friends.

Kolanowski, a 28-year-old epidemiologist in Iowa, had once believed that no one needed to own a gun.

Kolanowski Buys Glock 43X After Coming Out

But when she came out as transgender in 2021, and began transitioning from male to female, she had a realization: “I’m a minority now, in a world that is pretty hostile to that minority.”

In 2022, Kolanowski bought a Glock 43X handgun and started learning how to use it.

In hours of conversations with New York Times journalists, these five Americans shared deeply individual reasons for their leaps into gun ownership. But there were also common threads: new fears about political violence and hate crimes, and a diminished trust in law enforcement.

Most said they had been surprised by how much they enjoyed learning to shoot, and improving their skills.

While a majority of gun owners are white, conservative, male and from rural areas, some surveys have detected an uptick in those who are not. One by Harvard University researchers found that among people who purchased their first gun between 2019 and 2021, 20% were Black, 20% were Hispanic and approximately half were women.

The fear that motivated Kolanowski, who describes her politics as leftist, also drives gun owners on the other side of the political spectrum.

Another Buys Gun Because of Perceived Threat

Alvarado, 30, a service technician and political conservative in southern Maine, said he began buying guns in part because he perceived a threat to stable society, and to his own family, from shifting social norms and practices.

“Morality is all over the place,” he said, “and because my viewpoints are more traditional, it puts a target on my back.”

Alvarado, who is Black and Latino, said he became a staunch conservative during the pandemic, after years as a liberal voter. As he watched mask and vaccine mandates multiply in 2020, and neighbors turning against those who did not comply, Alvarado lost faith in the government and reconsidered his own politics.

Green, Tsien and Kolanowski, all Democrats, said that President Donald Trump’s first term had factored in to their decisions to buy their first guns; they saw those years as destabilizing the country and normalizing intolerance.

The attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters in January 2021 was the final straw for Green, 70, a retired Navy dentist and physiologist who lives in California. He bought his first firearm, a Smith & Wesson 9-mm handgun, the next month.

His journey toward gun ownership had begun a few years earlier, in 2017, when he learned that white nationalists at a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, had raised swastikas and chanted, “Jews will not replace us.”

The specter of the Holocaust loomed over his decision to arm himself.

“If Trump hadn’t been elected” in 2016, Green said, “I probably would not be a gun owner today.”

Tsien Buys Gun After Violence Against Asians Spiked

Tsien, a father of three young children who recently moved from New Jersey to Massachusetts, bought his first gun, a Ruger .22-caliber pistol, after hate speech and violence against Asians spiked in the early weeks of the pandemic.

Like Green, Tsien, 47, was haunted by history. His Chinese parents and grandparents experienced life-altering trauma and loss during decades of war in their homeland, and their stories permeated his upbringing.

For Alston, a 30-year-old Black woman who works in banking in Little Rock, Arkansas, the desire to own a gun arose after her separation. And her race made her feel particularly vulnerable, she said: “Black women are the least protected and the least respected.”

In 2022, she was rattled by an overnight theft on her rural property. Alston bought a Canik 9-mm pistol and signed up for training at a gun range managed by another Black woman.

Her intent, like that of other women at the range, was not to “look cute,” she said. “We don’t want to always have to look for a man to protect us.”

On a steaming hot day last summer in southern Maine, Alvarado circulated a collection plate at Calvary Baptist Church.

He wore a suit and a gold tie clip that read, “I love Jesus and guns.” A PSA Dagger handgun was holstered at his waist. A small microphone tucked into his ear linked him to the rest of the church security team.

After years of seeking “a reason,” Alvarado said, he had found his here.

Others have found their evolution into gun owners has been fraught. Several said they had to work through concerns about mental health and suicide when considering whether to have guns in the house. Suicides have long accounted for a majority of gun deaths in the United States; experts say one reason is the number of firearms. The country is the only one in the world where civilian guns outnumber people.

Before buying a gun, Tsien had to negotiate the terms with his wife, Sarah McLean. She felt deeply uneasy about his storing his guns at home, even unloaded, in a locked safe.

In Little Rock, Alston’s mother knows she has a gun, and is supportive. But Alston is not sure whether her father, who talked her out of buying a gun when she was younger, is aware.

“Would he see me differently?” she said. “I had to work through that.”

For Kolanowski, the decision to take up shooting while transitioning has brought new anxieties. She worries that she may be unwelcome or harassed if people at the shooting range where she practices become aware that she is transgender.

Kolanowski and the other new gun owners said they had expected to feel more confident and self-reliant after buying guns. Less expected, they said, were the new friends they made, and the uplifting sense of having bridged a societal divide.

—

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Jenna Russell, Emily Rhyne and Noah Throop/Christopher Lee
c. 2025 The New York Times Company

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New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison also announced that top law enforcement officials in 14 states and the District of Columbia are forming a coalition to reduce gun violence by coordinating enforcement of the states’ consumer protection laws.

The moves by mostly Democrat-led states amount to early pushback against President-elect Donald Trump’s second administration, which Platkin, a Democrat, said “routinely sides with the gun industry.”

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Demonstration of Glock Switch Shocks Audience

Before speaking at a Boys & Girls Club in New Jersey’s largest city, Platkin’s office played a video of a law enforcement officer demonstrating how to use the Glock switch. The video shows an officer first firing the pistol without the switch, requiring a pause between shots. The officer then installs the switch and is able to fire multiple rounds without any pause.

Women wearing red Moms Demand Action T-shirts in the gymnasium hosting the attorney general let out a gasp.

“For decades, Glock has knowingly sold weapons that anyone with a screwdriver and a YouTube video can convert into a military-grade machine gun in a matter of minutes,” Platkin said.

The Associated Press emailed Glock requesting comment. The Austrian company’s U.S. subsidiary based in Smyrna, Georgia, has not responded to previous AP requests for comment on lawsuits involving the switches. But an industry trade group condemned the lawsuits as “lawfare” that abuses the judicial system and disregards federal law.

“This is clearly an abuse of the courts to attempt to circumvent the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA),” Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said in a statement. “Attorneys General Platkin and Ellison, along with the other colluding states, are attempting to extend the frivolous claims that have no foundation in law and abuse taxpayer dollars to advance an unconstitutional gun control agenda.”

Related Story: Trump Has ‘Lost Faith’ in NRA, Says Gun Group Official

Glock Pistols Popular Choice for Gun Crimes

A September report from the anti-violence organization Everytown for Gun Safety concluded that Glock pistols are a popular choice for gun crimes, in part because the switches enable easy conversions into fully automatic weapons.

Authorities believe shooters who killed four people and injured 17 others in Birmingham, Alabama, in September were using conversion devices to make their guns more powerful. About 100 shell casings were recovered from that scene.

Glock isn’t the only gunmaker whose weapons can be adapted with so-called “Glock switches,” but critics say Glock’s guns are among the easiest to convert. Platkin said Glock is profiting by continuing to sell the adaptable version in U.S. markets, even as they make and sell handguns in Europe that cannot accommodate such a switch.

Also known as “auto switches,” the devices, which are already illegal in New Jersey and some other states, can be bought for about $20 or 3D-printed, and are about the size of a small Lego brick. When added to a pistol, the weapon can be fired like a machine gun, which has been prohibited under federal law since the gangster era of Al Capone.

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Minnesota Attorney General Criticizes Glock’s Inaction

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, speaking at a news conference in St. Paul, said Glock has long known that its guns can be easily and illegally converted to fully automatic fire. He said two of every three handguns sold in the U.S. is a Glock.

“Glock has known about this problem for decades and has done nothing. A change of design could prevent these handguns from being turned into illegal automatic weapons. But Glock has turned a blind eye. And again and again, the death toll continues to rise,” Ellison said.

The Minnesota lawsuit, filed in Hennepin County District Court, alleges violations of Minnesota laws against consumer fraud, deceptive trade practices, false advertising, public nuisance, negligence and product liability. The New Jersey suit, brought in state Superior Court in Essex County, alleges violations of the state’s public nuisance laws.

Ellison also alleged that Glock advertises its fully automatic handguns to civilians who can’t legally own them, depicting them as fun and cool, knowing that it’s very easy for members of the public to convert its semi-automatic handguns.

In addition to New Jersey and Minnesota, the coalition includes California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

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Surveys and growing gun groups indicate that liberals, minorities, and progressives are increasingly purchasing firearms. Jennifer Hubbert, an anthropology professor at Lewis & Clark College, notes, “It’s a group of people who five years ago would never have considered buying a gun.”

The NORC at the University of Chicago found that 29% of Democrats or Democrat-leaning individuals had a gun at home in 2022, up from 22% in 2010. Factors contributing to this shift include rising concerns about personal safety and a volatile political climate.

Today’s liberal gun owners are more diverse than their predecessors. The National Shooting Sports Foundation reported the largest increase in Black Americans buying guns compared to any other racial group in 2023. Women accounted for nearly half of new gun buyers from 2019 to 2021, according to the 2021 National Firearms Survey.

Related Story: Why Anti-Gun Americans Have Joined Wave of New Gun Owners

Some new liberal firearm owners keep their purchases private due to the taboo nature of guns among many on the left. Randy Miyan, who runs Liberal Gun Owners, a 5,000-member group, said, “We have to have harbors and havens.”

Tom Nguyen, founder of L.A. Progressive Shooters, provides a space for liberals to learn about firearms. He stated, “People were hungering for a space that was not this hyperaggressive, male-dominated, toxic gun world.”

While this trend might suggest a potential for compromise in the gun debate, the country’s sharp partisan divide makes this unlikely. Many liberal gun owners, like Michael Ciemnoczolowski in Iowa, support gun restrictions such as universal background checks while exercising their right to own firearms for personal safety.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal

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Senate Bill 2 in 2023 banned guns on more than two dozen types of property and required all business owners to post whether they would allow guns on their property.

Federal Judge Susan Graber in her opinion for the 9th Circuit determined that guns could still be banned in parks, beaches, and bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.

But the court ruled that categorical bans at hospitals, banks, churches, and gatherings exceeded the state’s powers. The court also said California’s requirement that property owners have to post signs stating guns are allowed could not be defended constitutionally.

Business owners and operators can still individually decide to ban guns on their property or at their event.

But the court also left open the possibility for more lawsuits, calling the method of determining whether bans are legal “arbitrary.”

In an email to GV Wire, a spokesperson with the California Attorney General’s office — the defendant in the case — said the state is continuing to litigate the matter.

The Firearms Policy Coalition, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against California Attorney General Rob Bonta, called the decision a partial victory.

“This partially favorable decision from the 9th Circuit shows how far we’ve come over the past decade. But this case, and our work to restore the right to bear arms, is far from over,” said coalition president Brandon Combs. “FPC will continue to fight forward until all peaceable people can fully exercise their right to carry in California and throughout the United States.”

Bars, Restaurants, Parks, Zoos, Libraries on the Ban List

The court combined the California lawsuit with another similar lawsuit in Hawaii. Both states passed rules limiting where CCW holders can take their guns. For the more than two dozen bans separated by property types, the court looked at those properties’ place in history as they relate to the Second Amendment.

For bars and restaurants, which have existed since the passage of the Second Amendment, judges used previous bans set by cities to justify upholding the two states’ laws.

For playgrounds and youth centers, the court said since those didn’t exist in a modern since when the Second Amendment was passed, the court applied the distinction of being a “sensitive place” and upheld the ban.

“Because many laws prohibited carrying firearms in parks, and the constitutionality of those laws was not in dispute, we agree with the 2nd Circuit and several district courts that the Nation’s historical tradition includes regulating firearms in parks,” Graber wrote in her opinion.

The court applied the same logic to casinos, stadiums, amusement parks, zoos, museums, and libraries.

Parking Lots Not as Clear

Courts did not make a blanket ruling on parking lots. Judges considered how connected a parking lot was to a “sensitive place.” The courts said this could be upheld because gun owners are still allowed to store their guns in their cars.

“We easily conclude that the ban on firearms at some parking lots — parking garages under government buildings, fenced parking areas adjacent to nuclear power plants, student-only parking areas at schools, and so on — are permissible,” Graber wrote.

Businesses Don’t Have to Post Whether Guns are Allowed

The court was concerned about whether a business owner has to say a gun is allowed or not.

The court acknowledged that having to get consent to carry a gun puts another burden on permit holders.

But it also stated property owners have the right to ban guns on their property. What the court was concerned with was how gun owners found out about a ban. It ruled that permit holders still needed permission to carry weapons while on private property open to the public.

It ruled that California’s law requiring businesses to post on a sign that guns are allowed at a business was too stringent.

“We acknowledge that our primary holding — that a national tradition likely exists of prohibiting the carrying of firearms on private property without the owner’s oral or written consent — differs from the decision by the 2nd Circuit and some district courts,” Graber wrote.

The court ruled that categorical bans at hospitals, public events, and on public transit were unprecedented.

But the court left open the possibility for further litigation.

The court called the historical analysis favored by the U.S. Supreme Court supporting bans at museums but not hospitals and libraries but not banks “arbitrary.”

“The seemingly arbitrary nature of Second Amendment rulings undoubtedly will inspire further litigation as state and local jurisdictions attempt to legislate within constitutional bounds,” Graber wrote.

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“Tim Walz and I are both gun owners,” Harris said, referencing her running mate. “We’re not taking anybody’s guns away.”

Harris’s Previous Statements on Gun Ownership

Harris previously talked about owning a gun in 2019 during her first campaign for president.

“I am a gun owner, and I own a gun for probably the reason a lot of people do — for personal safety,” Harris previously said. “I was a career prosecutor.”

At the time, her campaign said that Harris purchased a handgun years earlier and kept it locked up. A spokesperson did not provide any additional details when asked on Tuesday.

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Trump’s Accusations and Harris’s Rebuttal

The exchange about gun ownership came as Trump tried to paint Harris, who started her political career as a San Francisco district attorney, as radically liberal.

“She is destroying our country,” he said. “She has a plan to defund the police. She has a plan to confiscate everybody’s gun. She has a plan to not allow fracking in Pennsylvania or anywhere else.”

Harris rebutted each of Trump’s allegations, adding that he should “stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.”

Walz, the Minnesota governor, has also talked about gun ownership and boasted of his marksmanship.

Related Story: As Trump and Harris Spar, ABC’s Moderators Grapple With Conducting a ...

Republicans frequently describe Democrats as a threat to the Second Amendment, while Democrats describe their proposals as common sense measures to protect public safety.

Harris has called for implementing universal background checks and expanding red flag laws to take away guns from people who are deemed dangerous or unstable. She also wants to ban so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

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At Colt Gray’s hearing, the teen was advised of his rights along with the charges and penalties he faced for the shooting at the school where he was a student.

After the hearing, he was escorted out in shackles at the wrists and ankles in khaki pants and a green shirt. The judge then called Colt Gray back to the courtroom to correct an earlier misstatement that his crimes could be punishable by death. Because he’s a juvenile, the maximum penalty he would face is life without parole. The judge also set another hearing for Dec. 4.

Shortly afterward, his father, Colin Gray, was brought into court. Colin Gray, 54, was charged Thursday in connection with the shooting for letting his son possess a weapon. Nine people were also hurt in Wednesday’s attack at Apalachee High School in Winder, outside Atlanta.

Colin Gray, dressed in a gray-striped jail uniform at Friday’s hearing, answered questions in a barely audible croak, giving his age and saying he finished 11th grade, earning a high school equivalency diploma.

About 50 onlookers were in the courtroom for the hearings, in addition to members of the media and sheriff’s deputies. Some family members of victims in the front row hugged each other and one woman clutched a stuffed animal. Before the hearings at the Barrow County courthouse, workers set out boxes of tissue along courtroom benches.

Related Story: Father of Georgia School Shooting Suspect Arrested on Charges Including ...

Details of the Shooting and Charges

According to arrest warrants obtained by The Associated Press, Colt Gray is accused of using a “black semi-automatic AR-15 style rifle” to kill two students and two teachers at the school. Authorities have not offered any motive or explained how he obtained the gun or got it into the school.

Colin Gray has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and second-degree murder related to the shooting, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said.

“His charges are directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon,” Hosey said.

It’s the latest example of prosecutors holding parents responsible for their children’s actions in school shootings. In April, Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting. They were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for not securing a firearm at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health before he killed four students in 2021. The Georgia shootings have also renewed debate about safe storage laws for guns and have parents wondering how to talk to their children about school shootings and trauma.

Related Story: Shooting at Georgia High School Leaves Multiple Casualties, Officials Say

Threats and Investigations

The morning hearings for the father and son came as police in the Atlanta suburb of Dunwoody said schools there and nationwide have received threats of violence since the Apalachee High School shooting, police said in a statement. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation also noted that numerous threats have been made to schools across the state this week.

Before Colin Gray’s arrest was reported, the AP knocked on the door of a home listed for him seeking comment about his son’s arrest.

Colt Gray was charged as an adult with four counts of murder in the deaths of Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53.

A neighbor remembered Schermerhorn as inquisitive when he was a little boy. Aspinwall and Irimie were both math teachers, and Aspinwall also helped coach the school’s football team. Irimie, who immigrated from Romania, volunteered at a local church, where she taught dance.

Colt Gray denied threatening to carry out a school shooting when authorities interviewed him last year about a menacing post on social media, according to a sheriff’s report obtained Thursday. Conflicting evidence on the post’s origin left investigators unable to arrest anyone, the report said. Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said she reviewed the report from May 2023 and found nothing that would have justified bringing charges at the time.

Related Story: Shooting at Georgia High School Leaves Multiple Casualties, Officials Say

Broader Context of School Shootings

The attack was the latest among dozens of school shootings across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut; Parkland, Florida; and Uvalde, Texas. The classroom killings have set off fervent debates about gun control but there has been little change to national gun laws.

It was the 30th mass killing in the U.S. so far this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. At least 127 people have died in those killings, which are defined as events in which four or more people die within a 24-hour period, not including the killer — the same definition used by the FBI.

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Split Decision in Civil Trial

The split decision from Judge Joel Cohen came on the final day of arguments in the second stage of a civil trial brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The first phase of the trial, decided in February by a Manhattan jury, found LaPierre and another deputy liable for misspending millions of dollars on lavish trips and other personal expenses.

Ruling from the bench, Cohen said the state’s request for a monitor was not the correct remedy, suggesting the oversight mechanism would be “time-consuming, disruptive and will impose significant costs on the NRA without corresponding benefits.”

Cohen also said he had concerns about “speech-chilling government intrusion on the affairs of the organization.”

He said the same First Amendment concerns did not apply to whether LaPierre could return to the organization anytime soon.

“This relief is about the privilege, not the right, to serve as an officer or director of a New York not-for-profit,” he said.

LaPierre, who sat in the front row as the judge read his ruling, did not respond to questions as he left the courtroom.

Related Story: NRA Chief Wayne LaPierre Says He’s Resigning Days Before Trial ...

LaPierre’s Opposition to Monitor

Earlier Monday, LaPierre told the judge that appointing a monitor to oversee the gun rights group’s finances would be “equivalent to putting a knife straight through the heart of the organization and twisting it.”

He described the appointment of a monitor as an existential threat to the group because it would send a message to prospective members and donors that the NRA was “being surveilled by this attorney general in New York.”

An attorney for the NRA, Sarah Rogers, echoed those concerns. She said the group had implemented new controls since the jury’s verdict, including bringing on fresh board members and a new compliance team.

But Assistant Attorney General Monica Connell dismissed those efforts as lackluster, arguing that the old guard leadership effectively still controls the organization.

In his ruling, the judge said the NRA’s reaction to the February verdict had been “decidedly mixed” and accused the group’s leaders of displaying “a stunning lack of accountability” about their own culpability in the yearslong mismanagement.

He invited attorneys for the NRA and the state to submit further proposals on reforming the organization.

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LaPierre’s Resignation and Trial Spotlight

LaPierre served as the group’s CEO and executive vice president for more than three decades. He resigned in January on the eve of the first phase of the trial.

Those proceedings cast a spotlight on the leadership, culture and financing of the organization, with state lawyers accusing LaPierre of siphoning millions of dollars from the organization to fund his lavish lifestyle, including trips on private jets, expensive suits, and family vacations.

The jury ordered LaPierre to repay almost $4.4 million to the organization, while the NRA’s retired finance chief, Wilson “Woody” Phillips, was ordered to pay back $2 million.

Related Story: Biden and Gun Control Advocates Want to Flip an Issue Long Dominated by the NRA

The second phase of the proceeding was a bench trial, meaning there was no jury and the judge handed down the verdict.

James sued the NRA and its executives in 2020 under her authority to investigate not-for-profits registered in the state. She originally sought to have the entire organization dissolved, but the judge ruled in 2022 that the allegations did not warrant a “corporate death penalty.”

The latter phase of trial came as the NRA faces an internal power struggle, pitting its new reform-minded chief executive, Doug Hamlin, against longtime leaders who remain close to LaPierre.

The NRA has seen a precipitous drop in revenue and lost more than 1.3 million members since 2018, according to an expert witness called by the group.

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The manufacturer claims it’s a safer method than online or shelf sales, but experts worry about the increased availability of ammo in a country already plagued by gun violence.

American Rounds LLC has placed its “automated ammo retail machines” in eight supermarkets across Alabama, Oklahoma, and Texas, with expansion planned for Colorado. CEO Grant Magers says the company has requests from 200 grocery stores nationwide.

Related Story: California’s Ammo Background Check Law Goes Back in Effect

The vending machines, in use since November 2023, are secured steel boxes that scan IDs and perform facial recognition to verify age, set at 21 for purchases. Magers asserts this method prevents theft and illegal online purchases.

Federal law bans handgun ammo sales to those under 21 and long gun ammo to those under 18. Some states require background checks for ammunition purchases, but federal law does not.

Gun control advocates argue the machines pose safety risks and legal liabilities. The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence calls for their removal from stores.

Experts highlight that while AI-enforced age checks could prevent minors from buying ammo, the machines can’t assess customer intent or mental state. Cybersecurity concerns also loom, as vending machines could be vulnerable to hacking.

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Studies indicate that increased ammo availability could lead to higher rates of gun violence. The U.S. has seen more than 8,900 homicides, 17,000 injuries, and 284 mass shootings in 2024.

Despite this, Magers plans to expand the machines’ offerings and believes they could enhance firearm safety.

Read more at NPR. 

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