By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Gun Violence Solutions has released its 2025 National Survey of Gun Policy showing strong public support for gun control measures including mandatory safe storage and permit-to-purchase laws.
There’s just one problem, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Salam Fatohi. Such requirements are unconstitutional according to two major U.S. Supreme Court rulings: District of Columbia v. Heller, and New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.
Fatohi, who is NSSF’s director of research, wrote a response to the John Hopkins report on Sept. 17. In that Op-Ed, he wrote, “For instance, the survey suggests 74 percent of Americans ‘support laws that require a person to lock up the guns in their home when not in use.’ There is just one big brick wall standing in the way of mandatory storage laws the Johns Hopkins center would love to institute – the Constitution.
“In its 2008 landmark Heller decision,” Fatohi continued, “the U.S. Supreme court ruled that Washington, D.C.’s mandatory firearm storage requirement for firearms while “not in use” in the home violated the U.S. Constitution because the law prevents firearms from being used by law-abiding Americans for self-defense. NSSF encourages all gun owners to practice safe and responsible firearm storage that works for their individual situation but opposes unconstitutional mandatory storage laws.”
Here’s what the high court said in Heller: “We must also address the District’s requirement (as applied to respondent’s handgun) that firearms in the home be rendered and kept inoperable at all times. This makes it impossible for citizens to use them for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional.”
As for the permit-to-purchase mandate now signed into law in Colorado and Washington by anti-gun Democrat Governors Jared Polis and Bob Ferguson, respectively, Fatohi said such laws “are unconstitutional under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision and are similar to unconstitutional poll or sin taxes. Discretionary permit-to-purchase laws…make exercising Second Amendment rights only permissible with a state-approved permission slip.”
Alarmingly, according to the Johns Hopkins report:
- Nearly two-thirds of gun owners (62%) and a large majority of non-gun owners (81%) support laws requiring gun owners to keep firearms locked when not in use.
- Since 2023, support increased across each group including a 4% increase among gun owners and a 6.5% increase among Republicans. Overall, support increased 2% from 2023.
- 72% of Americans support requiring a person to obtain a license from a local law enforcement agency before buying a gun.
A paragraph near the end of the 2008 Heller ruling, authored by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, noted about the Second Amendment: “We know of no other enumerated constitutional right whose core protection has been subjected to a freestanding ‘interest-balancing’ approach. The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon…The First Amendment contains the freedom-of-speech guarantee that the people ratified, which included exceptions for obscenity, libel, and disclosure of state secrets, but not for the expression of extremely unpopular and wrong-headed views. The Second Amendment is no different.”
As noted by Fatohi, “The Center for Gun Violence Solutions was created in 2022 when Johns Hopkins University announced a partnership with billionaire former New York City mayor and failed presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg, of course, is the financial backer behind the gun control groups Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action and Mayors Against Illegal Guns. He also funds The Trace, which is a mouthpiece for gun control that has infiltrated newsrooms under the guise of “collaborations.”
“The entire purpose of the partnership,” he wrote, “is to hijack health care research to restrict the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans under the cover of “science” and study criminal gun misuse through a lens of “public health.”
There is something else, Fatohi observed, which calls into question the veracity of the research. He noted the poll “surveyed twice as many non-gun owners as gun owners and 500 more self-described Democrats than self-described Republicans. Readers should keep that in mind when considering the ‘findings.’”
Indeed, the survey acknowledged, “The 2025 Johns Hopkins National Survey of Gun Policy survey included 2,977 respondents, 1,001 gun owners and 1,976 non-gun owners and 959 Republicans and 1,419 Democrats. The survey was fielded from January 6–24, 2025.”
Whether the Johns Hopkins survey results will ultimately be determined to be invalid, or upheld as valid, remains to be seen.
