By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Second Amendment Foundation President Massad Ayoob—the nationally-recognized author, self-defense expert, firearms instructor and expert witness—assured a room filled with grassroots activists that “We’ve come a hell of a long way” over the past half-century.
As proof, he reminded them, “You have watched the history of the director of ATF come to a Gun Rights Policy Conference and tell you they’re pro 2A.”
His deep voice resonating throughout the ballroom where the GRPC convened last weekend, Ayoob went through a brief history of what has essentially been restoration of Second Amendment rights. Fifty years ago, there were only a couple of “shall issue” concealed carry license states, reciprocity was virtually unheard of, and about the only way to secure a carry permit in many states was to have political influence or make a donation to the mayor or county sheriff.
But things began changing with the Supreme Court’s landmark Heller decision of 2008, followed by the 2010 McDonald ruling striking down Chicago’s handgun ban, and in 2022, the Bruen ruling, which did away with “may issue” laws. Now carry licenses and permits are available in all 50 states, but anti-gun lawmakers reacted by creating so-called “sensitive spaces” where owners of private property open to the public first had to grant permission for an armed citizen to enter.
“We called it the ‘Vampire Rule,’” Ayoob explained. “A vampire can only enter a home where he’s been invited. In 2026, the Wolford decision put a stake in the heart of the Vampire Rule, didn’t it?”
The Supreme Court’s Wolford ruling earlier this year struck down the “sensitive spaces” restriction in Hawaii.
Meanwhile, Ayoob observed, “We’re making inroads into the laws that discriminate against young adults in terms of gun owners’ civil rights. If you’re old enough to die for your country with a real assault rifle of government issue in your hand, damn it, you’re old enough to go out and buy a gun.”
He noted the abolition of the $200 tax on suppressors and short-barreled rifles as another advance.
But the battle over Second Amendment rights is far from finished.
“The midterms are coming up, they’re not looking good,” he candidly acknowledged. “Do not despair, do what all of you have already been doing, tell everyone you have you have any influence over, get the hell out there and vote.”
He then reminded the audience of the 2016 presidential election.
“All the pundits were saying Hillary Clinton was about to win and become the most anti-gun president in American history,” he recalled. “Who remembers that? Right up to election night. I found it so depressing I went to bed early.”
But the next morning, he was awaked by his wife to be told “Trump won.”
The next presidential election is two years out, and he cautioned the audience, “You know what the other side is going to do if and when they take power.”
His advice: “Keep pushing as you have been.”
“My one quibble with the Gun Rights Policy Conference,” Ayoob said, “is that I don’t believe in gun rights. Guns are objects. Objects don’t have rights. Every one of you at this seminar is here to fight for the civil rights of gun owners. Every one of you is here fighting for human rights.
“The great commentator on the Common law, Lord William Blackstone, famously said that self-defense was the highest of all human rights,” Ayoob continued. He then told the audience that on his trip home following the conference, if anyone were to ask what he was doing in Dallas, he would simply tell them, “I was at a gathering of human rights activists.”
