January 29, 2025

Top Cops Speak About State Efforts to Combat ‘Lawfare’ at SHOT Show

By Matt Manda

This year’s SHOT Show^® featured a continuation of a top-drawing event among attendees who want to hear from several top pro-Second Amendment state attorneys general. They spoke about their efforts to combat ramped-up lawfare attacks on the firearm and ammunition industry and the Constitutional rights of their law-abiding residents.

The inaugural State Attorneys General Forum drew a crowd at last year’s show and this year’s 2^nd Annual State Attorneys General Forum was even bigger. Five attorneys general joined together on stage to discuss the legal landscape surrounding the Second Amendment and antigun “lawfare” attacks against the firearm industry during the Biden-Harris administration. Several of these cases discussed are ongoing legal battles. Amicus briefs filed in those cases by these attorneys general argued against those threats to the Second Amendment and the industry, as well as challenge many of the proposed and final rules unilaterally implemented by the Biden-Harris administration. The new Trump administration was unsurprisingly a welcomed political victory and was a center point topic of conversation as well.

Participants of this year’s 2^nd Annual State Attorneys General Forum included West Virginia AG J.B. McCuskey, Kansas AG Kris Kobach, Georgia AG Chris Carr, Montana AG Austin Knudsen and Missouri AG Andrew Bailey. The conversation was moderated by NSSF Senior Vice President for Government and Public Affairs and General Counsel Larry Keane.

The full hour-long forum conversation is highly recommended viewing for any Second Amendment supporter or member of the firearm and ammunition industry and clearly demonstrated the strength of the states’ top cop bench as true stars who are fighting for those who support Constitutional rights.

Mexico Top of Mind

The first question right off the bat was deservedly about Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unios Mexicanos, Mexico’s frivolous $10 billion lawsuit against several members of the firearm industry. Filed in federal court in Boston and now before the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) bars Mexico’s lawsuit. Mexico is alleging that U.S.-based firearm manufacturers are liable for the harm caused by the criminal misuse of illegally obtained firearms in Mexico by Mexican narco-terrorist cartels. NSSF filed an amicus brief in support of the industry defendants, asserting the lawsuit is a blatant violation of the PLCAA.

Noting that every single Republican attorney general signed on to an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court supporting the firearm industry members, Keane asked, the AGs why the case is so important and why it is such a danger, not just to the firearm industry but to the rule of law more broadly.

“What’s stunning to me in this case is that you’ve got a foreign government trying to avail itself of America’s federal court system,” AG Knudsen began. He was crucial in leading the attorneys general effort to all sign the amicus brief. “The fact that Mexico is trying to come into our courts and with a straight face argue that the reason they’ve got so much violence in Mexico is because of American gun manufacturers – not the cartel violence, not the fact that’ve got a completely disarmed populace, not the fact that their government is completely corrupt from top to bottom…I just take offense to that.”

“If this is allowed to proceed, this is very dangerous and this is clearly what the framers of the PLCAA meant, this is precisely the type of frivolous lawsuit that that legislation was passed…to prohibit,” the Montana attorney general added.

“It’s absolutely laughable,” Georgia AG Carr offered. “It’s the same theory, though, that we’re seeing in a lot of jurisdictions around the country. Instead of going after criminals, they go after companies that make a legal product, that in the United States are intended for law-abiding citizens to defend themselves, their family and their property. It’s all the same theory. It’s public nuisance on steroids and I don’t think anybody anywhere ever contemplated, thought or considered that a foreign country would come to the United States of America and do this.”

Hardware Head Scratcher

Another significant topic included observations about the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal – so far – to grant cert and hear a case involving hardware, namely state bans on Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs) or traditional standard-capacity magazines. The two cases pending before the Court for consideration right now include Snope v. Maryland (MSR ban) and Ocean State Tactical v. Rhode Island (standard-capacity magazine ban).

Keane noted the support of several of the attorneys general and thanked them for their signing on to amicus briefs opposing those state-level bans. He laid out the frustration with the Court for those in the audience not fully aware of the background.

“Many petitions have been presented to the Court, often in preliminary injunction stages, so I can understand that but as many of you well know…the circuit courts are just defying the Supreme Court,” Keane explained. “It’s open and it’s blatant, in my opinion…There’s a lot of growing concern, ‘what are they waiting for?’”

“In Missouri, we have a state constitution…that explicitly, textually says the state shall defend an individual’s right to bear firearms, ammunition and accessories,” Missouri AG Bailey stated. “I think the United States Supreme Court will get there. Certainly, that’s my reading of Heller and its progeny.”

Kansas AG Kobach chimed in with a dose of optimism for the crowd. “I don’t think there’s anything nefarious or unusual in the Court not taking up the cases. Over the course of my career, doing various complex civil litigation cases, there’s so many times where we had a circuit split on an important question and we didn’t get cert. It just happens over and over again. Here we don’t yet have a circuit split among final decisions – I think when we get that circuit split maybe after the seventh Circuit rules, on final action, then they’ll probably take it,” AG Kobach told the audience.

Agency Overstep

Keane asked another pertinent question on the topic of federal agencies overstepping their authority on regulations to go beyond what is written and penalize or criminalize law-abiding businesses and citizens, chiefly coming from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), including the bump stock, frame or receiver rule, the stabilizing arm brace rule and the “engaged in the business” (EIB) rule, among others. West Virginia AG McCuskey jumped at the question.

“The federal government has often done this because Congress has refused to act,” AG McCuskey began. “It’s really why, amongst all reasons why it’s so cool to be an attorney general, is that we have sort of become as a group the de facto hedge against what the Congress allows the bureaucracy to do…The bureaucracy fills a void that our Congress does not fill and the most important people in that world now become the attorneys generals because we are the only ones who can swiftly and quickly challenge what the bureaucracy is doing. It should be Congress, but it isn’t. And we get to step in and say, ‘this is well beyond what you get to do Constitutionally and legally,’ and we can wipe those statutes off the books.”

Additional topics discussed during the 2^nd Annual Attorneys General Forum included the “engaged in the business” rule, mandatory locked firearm storage, the deluge of anti-industry regulations and many, many more.

To watch the entire hour-long 2^nd Annual Attorneys General Forum from SHOT Show 2025, click here.

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