The Weekly Reload Podcast

This week, we're previewing how gun politics may impact the upcoming midterm elections. To do that, we have Semafor's Burgess Everett back on the show. He serves as the publication's congressional bureau chief. And he's one of the most knowledgeable political reporters out there. He also broke news of the most recent Giffords $10 million ad buy. He said they're going after vulnerable Republicans, but not necessarily all of them. Everett said the group plans not to attack some of the remaining Republicans who backed the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, like Maine Senator Susan Collins. He said guns aren't playing a major role in the election on either side of the aisle, though. Democrats are focused on opposition to President Donald Trump, and many purple state candidates don't seem to feel pressure to moderate on issues like gun policy. Trump hasn't done much to tout the pro-gun accomplishments of his second term either and skipped the issue entirely during his midterm convention. Still, the issue could tip some key races. And Everett said it's sure to get some focus in the next Congress. If Democrats do control both houses after the election, he said there's an underrated chance that they and Trump could strike a deal on some kind of gun bill--they almost did back in 2019 after all.Special Guest: Burgess Everett .

This week, we have the first interview with ATF Director Robert Cekada and Chief Counsel Robert Leider on their new guidance for how the agency will now handle the National Firearms Act (NFA). Director Cekada and Chief Counsel Leider laid out what the process will look like for legally buying, selling, and making things like silencers, short-barrel shotguns and rifles (SBR), and Any Other Weapons (AOWs) in the wake of Silencer Shop v. ATF. They said the ATF will treat all law-abiding Americans the same under the new guidance and won't enforce the enjoined sections of the NFA against anyone regardless of whether they are technically covered by the injunction. They said for most people, depending on the state they live in, buying a silencer or SBR would now be effectively identical to buying a gun that isn't regulated by the NFA: just pass a background check and pay. The pair also discussed what ATF expects from licensed gun dealers who sell the impacted NFA items. They said the ATF will also treat all dealers the same regardless of whether they are technically covered by the injunction. But they also said dealers will still need a Special Occupational Tax (SOT) designation to sell the items, even though they no longer need to fill out all of the traditional sales paperwork. Cekada and Leider cautioned that neither the injunction nor the ATF's guidance impacts state law, more than a dozen of which require ATF approval for residents to possess NFA items. They said the ATF doesn't have an alternative process for granting permission to possess NFA items, but will allow people to voluntarily continue registering NFA items in order to comply with state law. Cekada also published an open letter, and ATF released a frequently asked questions document that detail how ATF plans to handle the situation. Leider encouraged people to read those documents before reaching out to ATF for more information, but the pair also said they would be fielding more questions down the line.Special Guests: Robert Cekada and Robert Leider.

This week, we're discussing the growing phenomenon of female gun ownership. To dive into the demographic change and its fascinating implications, we have two academics who were involved in a new edition of the magazine Vital City that focused on women and guns. Kerri Raissian, Executive Director of Yale’s Firearm Injury Prevention Team, co-edited the wide-ranging edition. University of Kansas professor Margaret Kelley, author of A Gun of Her Own: The Everyday Lives of Women Who Shoot, wrote what I think is one of the magazine's best pieces. They both join the show to explore the ins and outs of why women are buying more guns. Raissian said she got a grant to put the edition together with Vital City. She said the goal was to bring a focus on the unique ways guns and gun ownership impact women. She argued women are a growing portion of gun owners, but much of the research, discussion, and even laws are focused on how men use guns. That's where Kelley's research comes in. Her piece, an offshoot of her book, focuses on actual conversations and surveys with female gun owners. She said her evidence points to specific motivations women cite for gun ownership, primarily as an extension of their impulse to care for others, that may differ from men. She said they also tend to weigh considerations, like moral injury, very heavily.Special Guests: Kerri Raissian and Margaret Kelley.

This week, we're looking at a Fourth Amendment case out of New Hampshire. To do that, we have the Second Amendment Foundation's (SAF) Bill Sack with us to describe how his group secured a settlement with Hillsboro-Deering High School over the search of a student's car. He said school officials decided to search then-18-year-old Jack Harrington’s car for a gun despite not having permission or a good reason to believe there was one inside. Sack said the officials concluded Harrington might have a gun because he'd told a friend on the baseball team about a traffic stop that had happened more than a week earlier. Harrington described how he'd been pulled over while legally carrying his pistol, and the stop went forward without issue. He wasn't arrested or charged or even accused of doing anything illegal, and the stop didn't happen near the school. Sack said school officials pulled Harrington from class to demand permission to search his car after hearing about the traffic stop. He said they did not have any reason to think Harrington had brought the gun to school or any accusation that he'd made any threats to the school. Still, they pressed him to search his car. Harrington refused to give permission for the search, but the school officials conducted it anyway. Sack said they found there was no gun in the car. That's where the SAF suit came in. They helped Harrington sue, alleging the school violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The school settled and admitted the search was illegal, which Sack said SAF plans to use as a bulwark against similar situations around the country.Special Guest: Bill Sack.

This week, we're talking to the man at the center of a brand new legal fight in the gun world. The Firearms Blog TV founder, James Reeves, was subpoenaed in an Everytown-backed lawsuit seeking to hold Smith and Wesson liable for the Highland Park mass shooting. The plaintiffs are trying to prove the gun company's marketing contributed to the shooting, which is a hard lift but not a new tactic. What is new is how they're trying to do it. That's where Reeves comes in. Reeves doesn't work for Smith and Wesson. He is a lawyer, gun-rights activist, and gun reviewer. He doesn't have any obvious direct connection to the Highland Park shooting. But the plaintiffs want a trove of documents from him anyway. Why? Because, as Reeves puts it, they are treating all gun reviews as de facto advertisements. They believe Smith and Wesson pays reviewers either directly or under the table to try and make their guns more appealing to unstable young people like the Highland Park shooter. Reeves said he has never done any undisclosed advertising for Smith and Wesson or any other gun company. He also said he's never taken direction from them or anyone else on what points to make in a review. He argued that while there are ethical issues in the gun review industry, they aren't nearly as cartoonish as what the gun-control groups imagine. Ultimately, Reeves accused the plaintiffs of lawfare. He said they're trying to circumvent federal protections for gun business, and they're trying to inflict pain on them through the legal process. He then explained why he ultimately decided to tell the plaintiffs he doesn't have what they're looking for, rather than fight tooth and nail to avoid answering at all.Special Guest: James Reeves.

This week, we're taking a look at the briefs backing the plaintiffs in Viramontes v. Cook County. Bearing Arms editor Cam Edwards joins the show to share what he thinks are the most important and the most interesting amicus briefs in the case. He noted that a ton of briefs were submitted, including briefs from all kinds of groups outside your typical gun groups. He said some briefs focus on how the Supreme Court could answer not just whether AR-15 bans are unconstitutional, but also whether magazine bans or other hardware bans are unconstitutional. Cam pointed to one brief that seeks to clarify that AR-15s aren't more powerful than other similar rifles that "assault weapons" bans don't touch and aren't employed by the military. He said the argument sought to debunk the idea that AR-15s are unusually dangerous. We also went in depth on the Department of Justice's brief in the case, which asks the court to adopt a very unique view of the "common use" test. Then, we talk about gun-rights lawyer Alan Beck's brief that unearths some interesting historical evidence to argue the "dangerous and unusual" standard traditionally applied to conduct rather than the weapons themselves.Special Guest: Cam Edwards.

We've looked at the Supreme Court's upcoming Second Amendment case against AR-15 bans with the lawyer who helped craft the Court's view of gun rights and with a professor who is a prominent critic of that view from the left. This week, we're doing the same with a pro-gun critic of the Court's test. That critic is Cato Institute scholar and George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin. Ever since the Supreme Court handed down a new Second Amendment test in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, most gun-rights advocates have been happy with the outcome of the cases where the Court has applied it. But there is a contingent of pro-gun lawyers and professors who've disputed whether it's a good precedent. Somin argued that Bruen's reliance on history and tradition creates a lot of grey areas in the law. He said it is "too flabby" as it stands now, and leaves too much wiggle room for judges to impose their own preferences. He noted that liberal critics of the Bruen test have some valid critiques, but where they worry the test will be used to restrict government action, he worries it will be used to restrict Second Amendment rights. He said he's largely agreed with the outcome of the most recent Second Amendment cases at the Supreme Court, but worried what might come in future cases--especially if the balance of the Court moves left. Somin argued for what he considers a more straightforward test based around the original meaning of the Second Amendment. He argued history could inform that meaning, but he said that the existence of historical laws that contradict that meaning shouldn't mean those laws take precedence over the meaning itself.Special Guest: Ilya Somin.