By Tanya Metaksa
What’s New — United States Supreme Court: denies review of interstate carry-permit dispute: Johnson v. Jacobson, No. 26-255 certiorari denied; US Court of Appeals: Illinois – Seventh Circuit: Anderson v. Raoul: Case No: 25-2642. District court case: No. 3:23-cv-00728-DWD, Southern District of Illinois. Anderson v. Raoul challenges Illinois’s ban on firearm suppressors. The Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives extended nonenforcement nationwide; Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court: Pratt v. Westbrook, No. SJC-13822 a challenge to discretionary licensing “suitability was heard on October 7 before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial .Court
Weekly Second Amendment developments — week ending Friday, Oct. 9, 2026.
The week’s most consequential development was DOJ and ATF’s nationwide retreat from enforcing several National Firearms Act requirements for suppressors and certain other firearms. The central legal distinction is scope: the underlying district-court injunction protected specified plaintiffs, while the October 9 administrative policy extends nonenforcement more broadly; neither eliminates applicable state restrictions. Weekly Second Amendment developments.
U.S. Supreme Court
Johnson v. Jacobson, No. 26-255 — U.S. Supreme Court denies review of interstate carry-permit dispute. Jurisdiction: Minnesota; Eighth Circuit; U.S. Supreme Court. Development date: Oct. 5, 2026.
On Oct. 5, the Supreme Court denied Jeffrey Johnson’s petition challenging Minnesota’s refusal to recognize his Georgia and Florida carry permits. The denial leaves undisturbed the Eighth Circuit’s judgment in No. 25-3036, which upheld dismissal of his Second Amendment claim on the ground that he could apply for a Minnesota permit. The denial is not a Supreme Court merits decision
Why it matters: The case presented the practical burden of obtaining additional permits when exercising the right to carry across state lines. The denial leaves that dispute unresolved nationally and preserves Minnesota’s existing permit-recognition
US Court of Appeals
Illinois – Seventh Circuit
Anderson v. Raoul: Case No: 25-2642. District court case: No. 3:23-cv-00728-DWD, Southern District of Illinois. Anderson v. Raoul challenges Illinois’s ban on firearm suppressors. The district-court case is No. 3:23-cv-00728-DWD, and the Seventh Circuit appeal is No. 25-2642; both were consolidated with the corresponding Morse v. Raoul proceedings. As of Oct. 12, the appeal remains pending with oral argument scheduled for Oct. 28.
U.S. District Court
Carlin Anderson and Dave Clark v. Kwame Raoul, et al. (S.D. Ill.). Case No. 3:23-cv-00728-DWD, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Judge David W. Dugan; consolidated with Larry Morse and Theodore Ray Buck, Jr. v. Kwame Raoul, et al., Case No. 3:22-cv-02740-DWD. The dispositive memorandum and order was issued on Sept. 5, 2025, under the consolidated Morse caption.
Anderson and Clark filed suit on Feb. 27, 2023, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against Illinois’s prohibition on possessing devices designed to silence a firearm’s report, 720 ILCS 5/24-1(a)(6). The court consolidated their case with Morse on June 15, 2023, directing subsequent filings to the Morse docket while preserving the cases’ separate identities. On Sept. 5, 2025, Judge Dugan granted defendants’ Rule 12(c) motion for judgment on the pleadings, concluding that plaintiffs had not plausibly alleged that suppressors qualified as “arms” within the Second Amendment’s historically fixed meaning, particularly because they identified no eighteenth- or nineteenth-century precursor. The court entered judgment for defendants and ordered the case closed, leaving the Illinois ban in place.
District Court
Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF, No. 6:25-CV-056-H — U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas
As a result of the Silencer Shop decision,: the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives extended nonenforcement nationwide
On Oct. 9, ATF announced that it would no longer require NFA approval before making or transferring short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, suppressors, and “any other weapons” covered by 26 U.S.C. § 5845(e), or require their registration in the federal NFA registry. This implements a nationwide enforcement policy following Judge James Wesley Hendrix’s Aug. 5 decision that, after Congress reduced the relevant making and transfer taxes to zero, the challenged requirements could no longer rest on Congress’s taxing power. The new development is the agency’s policy—not a new nationwide court injunction or a new Second Amendment holding this week.
- Why it matters: The policy substantially changes federal compliance obligations for the covered items, but machine guns and destructive devices remain subject to the NFA, business occupational taxes remain payable, and Gun Control Act background-check, recordkeeping, and prohibited-person rules remain applicable. State and local restrictions also remain in force; ATF expressly warns that unregistered items may still violate state law and that interstate transportation raises additional issues.
- Jurisdiction: Underlying litigation in the Northern District of Texas; administrative policy nationwide.
State courts
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Pratt v. Westbrook, No. SJC-13822 a challenge to discretionary licensing “suitability”.
On Oct. 7, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court heard argument over whether police chiefs’ authority to deny a license to carry based on “suitability” is consistent with the Second Amendment. The dispute concerns Holyoke’s denial of Randy Westbrook’s application based on earlier criminal proceedings that ended without convictions; the justices questioned counsel about objective standards, the age of the underlying conduct, and historical disarmament practices. The argument included competing interpretations of Massachusetts’s treatment of participants in Shays’ Rebellion.
- Why it matters: The case tests the boundary between permissible dangerousness screening and discretionary licensing that can burden the right to bear arms. A decision could materially affect Massachusetts licensing practices, especially the use of old, nonconviction conduct to establish present unsuitability.
