Arizona Moves Forward With K-12 Firearm Safety Education Bill

Arizona Senate Bill 1424 has passed the Senate and has passed the House Education Committee and the House Rules Committee. The bill requires school districts and charter schools to provide age-appropriate firearm safety awareness training in all grades, kindergarten through 12th grade.

The instruction is to be objective and not promote firearms ownership or any political position. The instruction is to be limited to accident prevention and personal safety awareness. It is to include guidance on safe firearms storage in homes and vehicles. The instruction is to provide guidance on what to do if a firearm is encountered, including not touching it and notifying an adult.

Inside the bill, there is a long list of restrictions on six things that may not be included in the instruction:

 3. NOT INCLUDE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:

(a) A LIVE FIREARM.

(b) AMMUNITION OR SIMULATED AMMUNITION.

(c) A DEMONSTRATION THAT INVOLVES HANDLING, OPERATING, LOADING, UNLOADING OR FIRING A FIREARM.

(d) INSTRUCTION THAT IS INTENDED TO TRAIN STUDENTS IN THE USE OF FIREARMS.

(e) A MORAL JUDGMENT REGARDING LAWFUL FIREARM POSSESSION.

(f) AN INQUIRY, SURVEY OR REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ABOUT WHETHER A STUDENT, STUDENT’S PARENT OR MEMBER OF THE STUDENT’S HOUSEHOLD OWNS, POSSESSES OR MAY POSSESS A FIREARM OR ABOUT THE FIREARMS STORAGE PRACTICES OF A STUDENT, STUDENT’S PARENT OR MEMBER OF THE STUDENT’S HOUSEHOLD.

The Arizona Citizens Defense League (AZCDL) supports the legislation.

An advocate for gun storage legislation made the argument that the legislature should pass a bill requiring safe storage of guns instead.  The SB 1424 is considered a partisan bill, supported mostly by Republicans, according to Legiscan.

Fatal firearms accidents have declined greatly since the 1930’s high mark. The number of firearms per person has increased about 3X during that period.

Firearms are among the many hazards children encounter as they grow up. Education, not prohibition, is the surest answer to their safety.

The bill has passed the Arizona legislature, which is narrowly controlled by Republicans. Republicans have a 17-13 advantage in the Senate and a 33-27 advantage in the House. SB 1424 might avoid a veto from Governor Hobbs (D), but it seems unlikely. Governor Katie Hobbs has earned a reputation for the number of vetoes she has given. Governor Hobbs is facing serious re-election challenges. She might sign SB 1424 to claim she is not against rights protected by the Second Amendment.

SB 1424 severely restricts what may be taught to students. This may be necessary to secure passage in a legislature with a very small Republican majority.

The bill is a step toward greater understanding of firearms safety. It makes students more aware of firearms. It has the advantage of not being overtly against the ownership or use of firearms. As “age-appropriate” instruction on firearms safety, later grade levels might include information about the legal status of firearms in Arizona. It is difficult for people to obey the law if they do not know what the law is. Firearms are among the many potentially hazardous items children encounter as they grow up.

It is far better to gun-proof the child than to attempt to create a gun-free environment.

Be nice if they also offered it as a ‘pistol’ with a brace.

Rock River Arms Celebrates “No Tax” with the New Retro A1 Carbine SBR

Rock River Arms wants to remind everyone that the newly implemented “zero tax” on NFA items doesn’t only apply to suppressors but also to Short-Barrel Rifles (SBRs).

To celebrate, RRA introduces the new 10.5-inch A1 Carbine SBR.

This retro A1 Carbine SBR is an ideal pairing for anyone looking to run a suppressor on a high-mobility, exceptionally maneuverable defensive AR platform. This “old school is the new cool” configuration is the perfect SBR for those who value operational simplicity and no-fail performance as the base for their suppressed home defender. With its lightweight, chrome moly 10.5-inch A-1 barrel assembly and CAR gas system, the A1 Carbine SBR with an attached suppressor (suppressor not included) is compact and easy to handle in close quarter environments.

The A1 Carbine SBR comes chambered in 5.56 NATO/223 Rem. and is built on RRA’s forged LAR-15M lower receiver and forged A1 carry handle upper. The barrel is fitted with a conventional F-style front sight/gas block and A1 flash hider (1/2-28 thread) and hosts a classic A-1 triangular handguard.

Two variants of the A1 Carbine SBR are offered: one with a multi-position M4-style stock and the other with a fixed entry stock. Both include RRA’s A1 grip and single-stage trigger.

If you’ve been considering purchasing an SBR for personal or home defense, the A1 Carbine SBR from Rock River is the ideal candidate and now is the perfect time to make your move.

RRA A1 Carbine SBR Specifications

  • Caliber: 5.56 NATO/223 Remington
  • Barrel: 10.5-inch lightweight chrome moly
  • Upper Receiver: forged A1 w/carry handle
  • Lower Receiver: forged RRA LAR-15M
  • Trigger: RRA single-stage
  • Handguard: A1 CAR triangle
  • Buttstock: M4 adjustable or fixed entry
  • Grip: RRA A1
  • Muzzle: A1 flash hider / 1/2-28
  • MSRP: $1,135 (entry stock); $1,150 (M4 stock)

To see the full range of firearms, components, and accessories offered by RRA, visit RockRiverArms.com.

Virginia Illustrates Insidious Anti-Gun Threat

I’ve joked before that Virginia’s politics swing back and forth like an unlatched screen door in a hurricane. From red to blue to red to blue, all so fast it makes your head spin.

But last year’s elections opened the door for a lot of troubling things in Virginia, up to and including their redistricting plan that seeks to essentially wipe out Republican representation from the state, and with it, support for gun rights. Sure, there’s one district, but only because there was no way to gerrymander the state badly enough to make it solid blue.

However, Virginia reveals an insidious threat because the state is too purple to suddenly swing this far left.

Progressive groups are behind a wave of tougher restrictions on firearms, wielding a quiet power that Second Amendment proponents worry could unravel gun rights in friendly territory.

Earlier this month, Virginia lawmakers sent a spate of gun bills tightening firearms restrictions to Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s (D-VA) desk. It’s a development fueled by Moms Demand Action, and one that one of the country’s most prominent pro-gun rights organizations fears foreshadows things to come in other purple states.

“Virginia is a purple state, and so having this sweeping, massive gun control package in the state that’s got a lot of gun owners, to see that happen and happen so rapidly should really be alarming to everybody in this country,” National Rifle Association’s Director of Public Affairs, Justin Davis, told the Washington Examiner.

“It’s really just a blueprint of what’s to come in this country. This is a trial balloon for the midterm elections,” he said. “They’re seeing what they can pass in a purple state? What is the backlash from that? And how do people react?”…

Davis said many such state races can be “so easily” flipped with small “injections“ of cash. Due to progressive activism, every state is “ripe for flipping at any time,” he said.

“To think that the stuff they’re pushing here is happening in Virginia should wake up every single purple state in the country, any place that is, it was in the realm of what a ‘moderate state’ is that there’s a very well-trained, very concerted effort to get progressives elected positions,” Davis said. “There are people who literally look at these races, race by race, and say, ‘How do we make sure that we can flip this for a broader scale, to flip this state to pass these same leftist laws?’”

Groups like Moms Demand Action and Everytown for Gun Safety are specifically named for injecting a significant amount of cash into the race, and the truth of the matter is that these groups will run ads that feature policies other than gun control, usually pretty progressive ones.

So what happens is that for a few million dollars, they can push a candidate who might not appear all that bad in the grand scheme of things–remember, Spanberger tried to position herself as a moderate, and a lot of people listened–only to take office and start trying to run the table with things like gun control.

Virginia is a purple state, but the current agenda in Richmond looks like something you’d expect in California.

No, it doesn’t help that Virginia governors can only serve a single term at a time, thus meaning they never have to worry about re-election. That means they can trot out their agenda on day one, and other than the midterms, there’s nothing stopping them from going as far left or right as they’d like. In this case, it means trotting out the most ridiculous anti-gun agenda you’re ever going to see in any part of the South.

This is something we need to be on guard against and work to counter if we don’t want to see our rights destroyed at the state level.

Would-be intruder shot by Rancho Cordova homeowner after forcing way into home

A Rancho Cordova homeowner shot and wounded a man Thursday night who tried to force his way into the home after making threats to kill one of the occupants, according to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies said the man, who was known to the homeowner but did not live at the residence, tried to force entry about 9:15 p.m. into the home in the 2900 block of Hunt Drive.

The two people inside the home — an adult man and woman — called 911 and repeatedly told the man to leave, sheriff’s officials said.

The 25-year-old man told the victims multiple times he was going to kill one of them, according to the Sheriff’s Office. He then broke a window and entered the home, prompting one of the victims to open fire, officials said.

Deputies responded to the scene and the man was taken to a hospital with a gunshot wound that was not considered life-threatening. After being medically cleared, the man was booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail on suspicion of felony burglary and making threats to commit a crime resulting in death or great bodily injury, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

He was being held on $100,000 bail and was scheduled to appear in court Monday

ATF Says Brace Rule Case Is Moot, Warns Some Braced Pistols Still Face NFA Enforcement

In a blunt court filing from Monday, March 16, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) urged a federal judge to dismiss a high-profile challenge to its now-defunct pistol stabilizing brace rule, arguing the case has become completely moot. At the same time, the agency made clear it has no intention of abandoning enforcement against certain braced pistols under the National Firearms Act (NFA) and Gun Control Act (GCA).

The 6-page reply brief, filed in State of Texas et al. v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives et al., marks the latest twist in a legal saga that began three years ago. The plaintiffs, led by the State of Texas and joined by Gun Owners of America (GOA) and several Texas citizens, had sued to block the ATF’s January 31, 2023, “Factoring Criteria for Firearms With Attached ‘Stabilizing Braces’” rule (88 Fed. Reg. 6478). That rule used a complex points-based system to reclassify many popular braced pistols as short-barreled rifles (SBRs), subjecting owners to NFA registration, a $200 tax stamp, and potential felony charges for non-compliance.

But the landscape changed dramatically when another federal court issued a universal vacatur of the entire rule, a decision that became final in mid-2025. With the rule formally nullified and revoked nationwide, the ATF now argues that nothing remains for this Texas court to enjoin or declare unlawful.

“The case became moot,” the ATF’s lawyers wrote. “Plaintiffs appear to accept that the Court can no longer grant them meaningful relief in relation to the Rule, which has already been formally nullified and revoked through universal vacatur.”

The agency’s earlier motion to dismiss cited Fifth Circuit precedents holding that, once an agency rule is vacated, APA challenges lose their live controversy. Plaintiffs’ opposition brief sought to keep the case alive by insisting the court could still block the “legal theories” that underpinned the rule, specifically the ATF’s position that at least some pistols equipped with stabilizing braces qualify as NFA-regulated short-barreled rifles.

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Missouri court considers if cities can regulate how guns are stored in parked cars

The city of St. Louis was a state appeals courtroom on Thursday arguing for the right to require gun owners who want to leave their firearms in unattended vehicles to put them in a lock box.

Last July, a judge struck down a 2017 St. Louis ordinance that required gun owners to use lock boxes if they wanted to leave firearms in unattended vehicles, saying that it violated Missouri’s law banning local gun regulations. The city of St. Louis appealed.

A Missouri appeals court is weighing whether the city of St. Louis can require gun owners to lock up their firearms if they want to leave them in an unattended parked vehicle.

The city passed its lock-up requirement in 2017, in response to a rash of cases in which guns stolen from cars were later used in crimes. In 2024, St. Louis resident Michael Roth had his gun stolen from the middle console of his locked car while he attended Mass at the Cathedral Basilica in the Central West End. When he reported the theft to police, he was cited for failing to keep the weapon in a locked box.

Though city prosecutors dropped the case, Roth sued. He argued they could issue the charges again and had also filed similar cases against other gun owners, in violation of a state law that strips cities of most of their power to regulate firearms.

Circuit Judge Joseph Whyte ruled in favor of Roth last July. The city appealed. Oral arguments were Thursday.

Attorneys for the city and for Roth agree that state law places limits on local gun regulations. But they disagree about the extent of those limits.

The state law in question has two key subsections. The first says the General Assembly “occupies and pre-empts the entire field of legislation touching in any way firearms, components, ammunition and supplies to the complete exclusion of any order, ordinance or regulation by any political subdivision of this state.”

A second subsection says local political subdivisions cannot pass any regulations on “the sale, purchase, purchase delay, transfer, ownership, use, keeping, possession, bearing, transportation, licensing, permit, registration, taxation other than sales and compensating use taxes or other controls on firearms, components, ammunition, and supplies.”

Roth’s attorney, Matt Vianello, told the court it was the broader first subsection that set the limits on what’s legally known as preemption — where a higher level of government sets limits on a lower level of government. Judges, he said, have to look at the plain language of the law to determine how far the General Assembly intended it to go.

“Their intent is clear: uniform firearm legislation throughout the state, so that you don’t have a hodgepodge of regulation just because you cross Skinker Boulevard coming into the city of St Louis,” Vianello said.

Nathan Puckett, an attorney for the city, told the court that the second subsection — which lists specific categories — was where the judges should look to decide the validity of the ordinance.

“The problem with looking to subsection one is that legislation ‘touching in any way firearms’ is not a specific area of legislation at all,” he said. “It is so general as to be nearly unlimited,” he said. Therefore, the court needs to look to subsection 2, which outlines specific areas like transportation and taxation.”

The city’s ordinance, Puckett said, dealt solely with the storage of firearms, which is not something on the list. Therefore, he said, it remains valid and the city should be allowed to enforce it.

Vianello disagreed with that analysis. Requiring someone to lock up a gun if they want to leave it in their car in the city, he said, regulates the transportation and possession of guns by making a person choose whether or not they bring their gun into the city if they don’t have a lock box.

The court will rule at a later date.