NAGR’s Taylor Rhodes on the Gun Rights Outlook for 2026

In May 2025 I had a chat with Taylor Rhodes, the communications director, from the National Association for Gun Rights. I was covering the top five national Second Amendment groups in the U.S. and what their plans are for 2026. This interview was part of coverage I did for Concealed Carry Magazine.

National Association for Gun Rights is a 501(c)(4) lobby organization. Their sister organization, the National Foundation for Gun Rights, is a 501(c)(3). Rhodes and I talked about the two groups, lobbying, as well NAGR’s path forward into 2026.

Petrolino: Hello, and today I’m speaking with Taylor Rhodes, who’s with the National Association for Gun Rights. And Taylor is the Director of Communications. Taylor, how are you today?

Rhodes: I’m doing pretty good. Thanks for having me on. 

Petrolino: I definitely appreciate your time that you’ve given me today to talk to me about both National Association for Gun Rights and the Foundation. I guess that’s kind of a good place to start is, let’s talk about this, because there’s two different organizations, a couple of different hats, a couple of different key players. So I guess let’s talk about the Association, because that was formulated first, correct?

Rhodes: That’s right. The National Association was founded in direct response to there not really being a group that was taking a hard, no compromise stance in state legislatures, primarily on the constitutional carry issue. We are proud now to have 29 constitutional carry states around the country, most of which NAGR played a very large role in if, if it wasn’t the reason that it is law today and most of those states.

Petrolino: Okay, so now NAGR, you’re a 501(c)(4), so traditionally, this is a lobbying organization, right? 

Rhodes: That’s correct.

Petrolino: I think that’s kind of important to get out there, because when people talk about the Association and your role, you guys started out as lobbyists, right?

Rhodes: Correct and that’s where the majority of our funds still go, is lobbying. Not only in state legislatures around the country, we have a D.C. office, well, it’s actually in Alexandria, where we lobby on Capitol Hill. Just this morning, we had members of our federal team at the Capitol working on some of the VA gun ban issues, which has been a flagship issue for us for many years.

Petrolino: And the other organization, which we’ll refer to as the sister organization, is the National Foundation for Gun Rights. And that’s a 501(c)(3), right?

Rhodes: That’s right. So it primarily does our lawsuits, which we have had a push on assault weapons bans and magazine bans. That is our primary issue that we’re suing over. Though we have other lawsuits, such as our three day waiting period lawsuit in Colorado, 18-to-20-year-old bans, things of that nature as well that we’re attacking in the judicial system.

Petrolino: When was the Foundation formulated? If you know off the top of your head.

Rhodes: It was formulated within the last decade, and really didn’t grow to what it is today until after the Bruen decision a few years ago. Which, at the time, we thought that was going to be our silver bullet to fight gun control, and in some cases, it still may be. However, the courts we’re now seeing —  we still have activist judges that are really pushing, unfortunately, not the Constitution, but what they believe they interpret it to be.

Petrolino: I think it was important to bring up the history of the Association versus the Foundation, because what you’re saying is that the Bruen timeline is when we really started to see more coming from the Foundation. I think one of the first top-tiered lawsuits that I saw you guys really involved in recently was in San Jose, California right? 

Rhodes: Yep. 

Petrolino: So you want to talk a little bit about that, and if I’m hitting the nail on the head on the timeline.

Rhodes: Well, San Jose had a — it was a kind of a permit to purchase scheme that was so ludicrous, or was it the tax that they did? I believe it was the tax that we actually sued over. Either way we filed that lawsuit, the city backed down, and actually it was the National Foundation for Gun Rights in conjunction with our state group at Rocky Mountain Gun Owners that actually kind of opened the floodgates on Bruen.

We actually got the first post-Bruen win in the nation against a little tiny town in Superior, Colorado. And why that mattered so much, it has really shaped a lot of the way the pro gun litigation is going is because we actually were granted a TRO in that initial suit, which is still being upheld today. This gave not only us, but other gun rights organizations hope that the Bruen decision was going to do exactly what it said it was going to do, and actually having to hold to the text, history and tradition of the Second Amendment.

Petrolino: Yeah, I remember that case quite well, and it was kind of Earth shattering. And I talked to Dudley Brown, the founder and president of your organization, back when that had happened. It really was a very exciting case and an exciting time. And again, this is coming from a pair of groups that weren’t necessarily associated with litigation efforts. I think in the past, you guys did challenge a post office ban on carry. So it wasn’t like you guys were really involved in litigation, like say, Second Amendment Foundation or NRA-ILA. That was a huge case. So today, you guys have got your fingers in all kinds of litigation, right?

Rhodes: Correct. Ultimately we are only as powerful as our members, right? And our members were almost demanding that we start filing lawsuits. That’s what we did. And essentially just worked up the Foundation. We now have Hannah Hill that’s doing a fantastic job of running that Foundation and really keeping us on track in our legal work. You may know we’ve been involved with cases such as Lawrence DeMonico, Rare Breed trigger case, where we’re finally seeing that that could come to an end in the next few weeks in a positive way. We have really taken on a whole nother level of activism through the courts and trying to take back what the left has stolen from us.

Petrolino: One of the things that I’ve actually been kind of gathering, I haven’t spoken to too many people up front about but I’ve been gathering the information, who’s talking to who — in regards to the White House. If you don’t want to comment, don’t comment. But has the Association made contact with the White House? You guys communicating with them? Is that something that’s going on now?

Rhodes: I can’t say all that much about it, but I will say we have been in contact with the White House. Actually, our former chairman Dave Warrington, is now the chief White House counsel, which is huge. Also, Harmeet Dhillon, who ran the law firm that we were running many of our lawsuits through – the Rare Breed Trigger one being, being the flagship — is actually assistant attorney general now. We do have pathways into the White House and we’re hoping that this presidential term turns out to be a good one.

Petrolino: That’s what I’m kind of hearing from a lot of the organizations. There are talks, but you’ll have to see.

Rhodes: Right.

Petrolino: I’m cool with that, but I just wanted to get on the record that this organization, much like some of the other organizations that are out there, are communicating with the White House, I think that’s an important thing.

This kind of ties into some of our conversation, what brought us today is your path forward. What do you see the Association and the Foundation focusing on going into 2026? You know midterms are also right around the corner as well. What are your bellwethers? What do you see going on?

Rhodes: We have a couple of things that are on the top of our agenda. Actually, when the presidency changed from Democrat to Republican, we launched our program for freedom, which we uniquely coined Make America Armed Again. This is a multi-point plan to take back the rights that the Obama Administration and even past Republican administrations have pushed on us.

The main point of legislation that we are looking to pass is a national constitutional carry bill. This is not national reciprocity, though it is a form of reciprocity. We actually believe that reciprocity is kind of a half measure, because you still have to go to the government and ask permission. This national constitutional carry bill, which is HR 9534 [HR 645 this term] I believe, is sponsored by Representative Thomas Massie. That would essentially allow every citizen, regardless of what state you live in — if you live in California or Illinois or New York, New York State, you could carry a firearm without going to the government and asking for a permission slip. 

We are pushing the SHUSH Act, which would deregulate suppressors from the NFA. We’re also pushing the SHORT Act, which would deregulate short-barreled rifles and shotguns from the NFA. 

Abolishing the ATF is always a top priority, or at least reducing its budget. Cutting it down at least a billion dollars, that’d be 50 percent down from the fiscal year of 2025. 

Other initiatives include going back and overturning some of Biden’s executive orders, such as the engaged in business rule or bans on homemade firearms, or the ridiculous Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

Petrolino: I know you had said for litigation efforts you guys have been focusing on so-called “assault weapon” bans and things like that. Are there any other areas that you’re going to be targeting, or you’re thinking of targeting?

Rhodes: As of right now, I’m not at liberty to say. We’re always speaking to our attorneys about what makes sense. We always calculate the risk of losing. We want to make sure that we’re taking on cases that we think that we can win. So that is an ongoing conversation. We have conversations with our attorneys every two weeks about our current litigation and potential litigation that we’re considering.

Petrolino: Speaking of conversations, obviously there’s, I like to say there’s about five main national groups with their sister organizations. The Association being one of them, with the Foundation. Then of course, you have the NRA with NRA-ILA and SAF with Citizens Committee. Gun Owners of America and their foundation as well. And FPC. Are you working with any of the other groups? Is this something that you guys are planning on, you know, in the future? Is there anything current going on that you guys are doing?

Rhodes: As of right now, most of our ongoing efforts to work with other groups is working with state groups. We have worked with Texas Gun Rights, who was previously a group of National Associations, a state group. They’ve gone off on their own. Now we’ve recently started working with Bama Carry here in Alabama, where I sit today. And we’re always open to working with groups as long as we are not going to compromise on behalf of our members. And that’s something that we always make sure of before we get in bed with anyone.

Petrolino: I think we covered a lot of the high points here. Is there anything that I’m leaving out that I’ve left on the table that you’d like to discuss, that you’ve got going on, or your overall message?

Rhodes: The National Association for Gun Rights is a very unique group, and I say that because we are very calculated in what we do. We actually have a strategy — which I’ve been in politics for some time now and you might hear of a political consultant or someone in the political class that says they have a strategy, but when you actually ask them what that strategy is, they don’t know. Or they have an idea of what it is, but they can’t actually put it into words.

We actually train our staff through the Foundation for Applied Conservative Leadership, this strategy. We train activists that want to be involved with the National Association for Gun Rights in this strategy, and having that strategy and being able to mobilize gun owners for the fight for their Second Amendment rights is really what we are experts in.

We know how to count votes. You would be surprised of how many gun lobbyists that I run into, that say, “I Don’t know if this is going to pass.” Or, “I don’t think we can kill this.” And the first question I ask them is, “Well, have you counted the votes?” And they haven’t. They haven’t counted the votes. They just think what the political climate is, and they think that they are either going to pass it or it will fail. This has been the case, and most of the constitutional carry states that we’ve worked in where the establishment gun lobby would come in and say, “Wow, we can’t pass it this year.” But we’re only a vote or two away, and we put that pressure on those few votes so that we can pass the legislation that so desperately needs to be passed.

Petrolino: Where’s the best place for people to follow what the Association is doing, what the Foundation’s doing? What are all the socials? What do you want to plug?

Rhodes: The best way to find us is on our website, at GunRights.org. Of course, we are on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and all of the all of the prominent social media accounts. Twitter or X – I guess now is probably the best way to stay informed on a day to day basis. We have a staffer that’s full time that does nothing but talk to our team and put out the information that our members need to know, and that’s normally going to get out even faster than our email alert.

Of course, if you’re not on our email list, you should be, because we are sending out really critical updates about the federal government, what they’re doing in Congress, and what they’re doing in your state legislatures.

And just because you live in a blue state, you might say, “Well, people have forgotten about us.” That’s not the case with us. We’ve actually taken on projects in Colorado this year. We’ve taken on projects in Washington state and in Rhode Island, where many gun groups wouldn’t touch. But we believe that just because you live in a blue state, that doesn’t mean that you’re not worth fighting for. We want to always make sure that we’re fighting for the rights of individuals, regardless of their zip code and regardless of what the political climate is. We believe that our strategy works and that we can win. We saw that in Hawaii this year, where we’ve helped out —  admittedly at a fairly low level — but that strategy does work when activating activists on the ground.

Petrolino: Taylor, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate the work that you guys are doing, and I appreciate you giving me a little bit of a look into what the Foundation and the Association’s up to.

Rhodes: Yeah. Of course, any time.