Concealed carry has completely and utterly won
Now the entire US is shall-issue, and 29 states have permitless carry. The seven previously may-issue states have taken that in different ways. Maryland took it in relative stride and established basically the system that you’d have imagined after reading Bruen: submit the application, take a course, pay a fee, and get your permit in 1-2 months. Not great, not terrible. On the other end of the spectrum, it’s a 12+ month ordeal to get a carry permit in New York City. So since 2019, the number of people in the US without any meaningful right to carry has been cut by call it 80%. There’s still work to do here.
The ever-shrinking ambitions of the gun control groups
This one is a mixed bag. In the “they keep needing to tactically retreat on messaging” column, Everytown launched a firearms training course. In the “wait but they’re actually making progress on the ground” front, Delaware passed an assault weapons ban in 2022 and Washington passed one in 2023. Colorado is going to have a permit-to-purchase regime for “assault weapons” in 2026. Those were major setbacks. Previously, we had often cited the pleasing fact that all eight states with AWBs had originally passed them between 1989 and 1994. The idea was that AWBs weren’t a trend, they were a relic from a moral panic. That is no longer entirely true.
The AR-15 is just a rifle now
AWBs aside (and their impact on the ground is less than you’d think), this is only more true today than it was in 2019. It’s true to the point of being boring:
OSD 274: What happened to every rifle other than the AR-15?
Per our estimates: “67.5% of rifles sold in 2021 were AR-15s. Everything else — every AK, the dozens of other semi auto rifles, every 10/22, every bolt gun — had to settle for splitting up the remaining 32.5%.”
In 2025, can we still say that gun rights are winning and nobody has realized it? Well, we can say the first half. Gun rights are winning. But now everybody has realized it. That means that this is when the real work starts.
— Open Source Defense in “Gun rights are winning and nobody has realized it”, 2025 edition
MAJOR BREAKING 2A NEWS! HUGE FIGHT OVER ILLEGAL SUPPRESSOR BANS!
In the Ninth Circuit out of California, the court heard oral argument in a very significant case involving suppressor bans. Mark Smith, Four Boxes Diner, discusses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHOqGkbcKjs
I’ll say we won when I can drive anywhere and carry my pistol, have an AR with a suppressor in my trunk, and buy any type of firearm there is in any state. That’s not too much to ask, is it?
There are tens of thousands of laws punishing (impacting the life, liberty, and property of) gun owners.
There are zero laws punishing the infringement of gun rights. There are a few laws “prohibiting” infringements, none of which ever have consequences for the life, liberty, or property of the actual violators.
Until that balance is reversed, and the balance of actual normal-life-ending felony arrests is reversed, anyone saying 2A is winning is simply, obviously l y i n g.
Use caution driving through the state of VA in the near future. It’s about to turn into a disaster. Not winning.
I know. I live in VA and it’s about to get sporty.
Given that we have an uninfringeable right to bear arms, no.
Oregon is way behind. Our super majority democrats would knock down our doors to take our guns if they could. We really need all the help we can get.