By Tanya Metaksa
What’s New —SCOTUS: The U.S. Supreme Court met on Thursday, June 4, to discuss cases: Louisiana: Fifth Circuit: United States v. Squire: Case No. 25-30324. Case decided June 2, 2026. The Fifth Circuit’s decision in United States v. Squire illustrates a recurring problem in Second Amendment litigation: when convicted felons invoke the Amendment to shield their own illegal firearm use, they don’t advance gun rights — they undermine them; Florida: Eleventh Circuit: Dunn v. Glass: Case No. 8:25‑cv‑02264, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Complaint filed August 25, 2025—Relief sought: The plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief rather than damages. A declaration that the three‑day waiting period mandated by the Florida Constitution and as expanded by statute violates the Second Amendment. On June 4–5, 2026, the parties jointly filed an Offer of Judgment on behalf of the plaintiffs; California: Ninth Circuit: Lopez v. City of Los Angeles: Case No. 2:26-cv-06003: Complaint filed June 3, 2026: Constitutional challenge to Los Angeles and Inglewood’s bans on purchasing more than one handgun in any 30 days; New York: Second Circuit: Heeter v. James: Case No. 1:24‑cv‑00623: Judge John L. Sinatra, Jr. July 1, 2024: Original complaint filed challenging New York’s body armor restrictions. FPC publicly announced on June 1–2, 2026, that it had filed its reply brief in support of its summary‑judgment motion; Texas: Fifth Circuit: Elite Precision Customs v. ATF: Northern District of Texas as No. 4:25-cv-00044; Judge Mark T. Pittman. Challenge to the federal ban on interstate handgun transfers from federally licensed dealers to individual purchasers. Currently on appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
SCOTUS
Calendar: The U.S. Supreme Court met on Thursday, June 4, to discuss cases. All five Second Amendment cases that had been relisted multiple times were still not considered. The next conference day is Thursday, June 11, with the conference dates on June 18 and 25. The court will celebrate the June 19 federal holiday. On Thursday, June 11, the Court will be announcing opinions.
United States v. Cockerham; No. 24-60401; decided 12/17/2025
The Department of Justice filed a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court in February 2026. It was distributed for the June 4, 2026, conference, and on that date, it was denied certiorari.
The decision at the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stands.
• That three-judge panel held that, under Bruen and Diaz, the government may permanently disarm those whose predicate convictions involve violence or historically “severely punished” offenses like theft. Still, it may not impose a lifetime firearms ban based solely on a non‑violent, debt‑like offense such as failure to pay child support once the underlying obligation has been satisfied.
• The opinion emphasized that § 922(g)(1) is “wildly overinclusive” because it sweeps in non‑violent offenders, including people never incarcerated, and disarms them for life, even though history only supports categorical disarmament of “dangerous” persons and those convicted of offenses historically punished with permanent, not merely temporary, sanctions.
• Relying on Diaz, the court reiterated that as‑applied challenges must be analyzed by looking to the nature of the predicate offense and asking whether lifetime disarmament for that offense is “relevantly similar” to founding‑era practices in “how and why” it burdens armed self‑defense, not by treating all felonies alike or by canvassing a defendant’s unproven bad acts.
• Applying that framework, the panel rejected the government’s attempt to analogize Cockerham’s felony child‑support nonpayment to theft, reasoning that founding‑era thieves could be permanently punished and thus permanently disarmed. In contrast, debtors were imprisoned only until their debts were paid and then released, meaning any disarmament was temporary. Because Cockerham had fully paid his child‑support debt and completed probation at the time of firearm possession, the majority finds no historical analog justifying his lifetime disarmament under § 922(g)(1), reverses his conviction on Second Amendment grounds, and remands, while underscoring that in this circuit, violent and theft‑like predicates remain within the historically supported category of lifetime firearm bans.
Court of Appeals
Louisiana: Fifth Circuit
United States v. Squire: Case No. 25-30324. Case decided June 2, 2026. The Fifth Circuit’s decision in United States v. Squire illustrates a recurring problem in Second Amendment litigation: when convicted felons invoke the Amendment to shield their own illegal firearm use, they don’t advance gun rights — they undermine them.
Squire involved a convicted heroin trafficker who challenged 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), arguing that the Second Amendment protected his right to possess firearms despite his felony record. Judge Edith Clement, writing for the panel, disagreed. Drawing on the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Rahimi, she held that individuals who pose a concrete danger to others fall outside the Amendment’s protection — and that drug trafficking inherently meets that standard.
The reasoning rests on two straightforward premises. First, trafficking heroin, methamphetamine, and cocaine predictably causes serious physical harm to others. Second, the drug trade operates outside any lawful dispute-resolution system and is sustained through threats, coercion, and violence. Firearms aren’t incidental to that enterprise — they’re tools of enforcement. Disarming traffickers isn’t a novel regulatory idea; it’s a direct response to demonstrated dangerousness.
Doctrinally, Squire matters more for what it avoids than for what it holds. Cases involving armed, convicted drug traffickers make poor vehicles for developing Second Amendment law. They invite courts to craft broad rules in the least sympathetic factual settings — where the impulse to uphold firearm prohibitions is strongest. The real risk isn’t just that such claims fail; it’s that they fail in ways that generate sweeping language disconnected from the core right recognized in Heller and Bruen.
The pattern is consistent: the Supreme Court has shown little appetite for extending Second Amendment protections to individuals engaged in serious criminal activity, particularly when firearms are tied to that conduct. Bringing cases involving drug traffickers, domestic abusers, or similar defendants doesn’t test the Amendment’s historical limits — it invites the Court to reaffirm the government’s power to disarm dangerous people, often in terms broad enough to burden law-abiding gun owners.
The Court’s landmark Second Amendment decisions tell a different story. Heller, McDonald, Caetano, and Bruen all arose from challenges by law-abiding citizens contesting restrictions on ordinary possession and carry. Those cases are built on the Amendment’s strongest textual and historical ground: the right of responsible citizens to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes. They give the Court clean facts that allow doctrine to develop without the distorting influence of criminal misuse.
Squire therefore illustrates a principle that Second Amendment advocates should take seriously: not every loss is a setback, and not every claim advances the right. When defendants with serious criminal histories try to constitutionalize their firearm possession, they don’t expand the Amendment’s protections — they risk shrinking them, by pushing courts to define the right at its least defensible edges.
The development of Second Amendment doctrine depends as much on case selection as on legal argument. Advancing the right requires disciplined litigation choices: cases centered on law-abiding conduct, not on fact patterns structurally incompatible with the Amendment’s historical scope. Convicted criminals will keep invoking the Second Amendment as a defense. Still, the best response isn’t to litigate those cases to the Supreme Court — it’s to build doctrine through cases that reflect what the right actually protects.
District Court
California: Ninth Circuit
Lopez v. City of Los Angeles: Case No. 2:26-cv-06003: Complaint filed June 3, 2026.
• Federal Second Amendment constitutional challenge to Los Angeles and Inglewood’s bans on purchasing more than one handgun in any 30-day period. Although the Ninth Circuit already held that handgun rationing laws like these are unconstitutional in Nguyen v. Bonta, Los Angeles and Inglewood are still enforcing local ordinances that are identical to the unconstitutional state law.
Florida: Eleventh Circuit
Dunn v. Glass: Case No. 8:25‑cv‑02264, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Complaint filed August 25, 2025. Challenged provisions and legal theory
• The suit challenges Florida’s waiting‑period regime on two fronts: the state constitutional provision and the implementing/expanding statute.
• 1990 Florida Constitution amendment: Florida voters approved an amendment requiring a three‑day waiting period between the retail purchase and delivery of handguns.
• 2018 statutory expansion: After Parkland, the legislature extended the three-day waiting period to cover all firearm purchases—handguns, rifles, and shotguns—subject to limited exceptions.
• Practical effect: Even if a purchaser passes a background check immediately, the buyer must wait at least 3 days from the start of the check before taking possession.
• Argument: The plaintiffs contend that these waiting‑period requirements, both in the state constitution and in statute, lack a historical precedent and therefore cannot pass the text‑and‑history test under New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, making them unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.
• Relief sought: The plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief rather than damages.
• A declaration that the three-day waiting period mandated by the Florida Constitution and expanded by statute violates the Second Amendment.
• A permanent injunction preventing enforcement of the waiting-period requirements against law-abiding buyers who pass background checks.
Current position: On June 4–5, 2026, the parties jointly filed an Offer of Judgment asking the Middle District to:
• Enter judgment for the plaintiffs.
• Declare Florida’s waiting‑period requirements unconstitutional.
• Permanently enjoin their enforcement statewide.
• Florida’s Attorney General, Commissioner of Law Enforcement, and 20 state attorneys have now agreed—in the Offer of Judgment—that the waiting-period requirement violates the Second Amendment under this framework and cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny.
• As of the latest public reporting, the court has not yet entered final judgment, so technically the waiting‑period scheme remains on the books while the case is pending.
New York: Second Circuit
Heeter v. James: Case No. 1:24‑cv‑00623: Judge John L. Sinatra, Jr. July 1, 2024: Original complaint filed challenging New York’s body armor restrictions.
New York’s 2022–2024 body armor measures make it generally unlawful for civilians to purchase, acquire, or sell “protective body covering intended to protect against gunfire,” with exceptions for enumerated “eligible professions.”
Key docket landmarks:
• July 1, 2024: Original complaint filed challenging New York’s body armor restrictions.
• August 2 and August 7, 2024: Motions to dismiss filed by the state defendants and DA Keane, respectively.
• November 8, 2024: “Decision and Order” denying the motions to dismiss in relevant part, allowing plaintiffs’ core Second Amendment claims to proceed to the merits.
• June 2, 2025: Stipulation of partial dismissal (the specifics require reviewing the underlying stipulation, but at least some claims, defendants, or theories were narrowed).
• March 27–31, 2026: Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment and supporting memorandum filed.
• April 27, 2026: Defendants’ oppositions and cross‑motions for summary judgment filed.
• May 29, 2026: Plaintiffs’ combined opposition to defendants’ cross-motions and reply in support of their own summary-judgment motion filed.
• FPC publicly announced on June 1–2, 2026, that it had filed its reply brief in support of its summary‑judgment motion, confirming that the summary‑judgment briefing is now complete and that the case is submitted to the district court for a decision. No final ruling on the merits of the Second Amendment challenge has been issued yet, so the law remains in effect pending the court’s decision—no final judgment or injunction has been issued.
Texas: Fifth Circuit
Elite Precision Customs v. ATF: Northern District of Texas as No. 4:25-cv-00044; Judge Mark T. Pittman.
Elite Precision Customs v. ATF is a federal Second Amendment challenge to the federal ban on interstate handgun transfers from federally licensed dealers to individual purchasers.
Challenged law
• The case challenges the federal restrictions that generally prevent an out-of-state federally licensed firearms dealer from transferring a handgun directly to an unlicensed individual, requiring instead that the firearm be sent to a federally licensed dealer in the purchaser’s home state for completion of the transfer.
Key docket landmarks
District Court
• January 20, 2025: Original complaint filed in the Northern District of Texas.
• June 9, 2025: Federal defendants filed their motion to dismiss and supporting memorandum.
• July 14, 2025: Plaintiffs filed their motion for summary judgment, supporting brief, and appendix.
• August 13, 2025: Defendants filed their combined reply in support of the motion to dismiss and opposition to plaintiffs’ summary-judgment motion.
• August 19, 2025: The court granted plaintiffs leave to file a reply limited to the scope of relief if they prevailed.
• August 26, 2025: Plaintiffs filed their reply in support of summary judgment.
• September 30, 2025: Judge Pittman granted the government’s motion and denied the plaintiffs’ motion in an opinion and order.
• October 1, 2025: Final judgment entered dismissing the case with prejudice.
US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit; No. 25-11206.
• October 28, 2025: Plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal to the Fifth Circuit.
• November 10, 2025: District-court docket reflected the Fifth Circuit appeal as Case No. 25-11206.
• February 4, 2026: Plaintiffs-appellants filed their Fifth Circuit opening brief.
• May 6, 2026: Appellees filed their Fifth Circuit brief.
• May 27, 2026: Plaintiffs-appellants filed their Fifth Circuit reply brief.
• May 28, 2026: FPC publicly announced that it had filed its Fifth Circuit reply brief.
