The gun control lobby isn’t going away, but they have been dealt a serious setback in recent weeks thanks to the Supreme Court’s decisions in Hemani and Wolford.
Some anti-gunners are putting on a brave face, while others are simply deluding their followers in the hopes of staving off depression and disengagement. Everytown Law’s Janet Carter, for instance, is basically insisting that Wolford wasn’t a big loss for the gun controllers… and in fact was a disappointment to 2A advocates.
Janet Carter (Managing Director of 2A Litigation at Everytown) wants you to know that Wolford won’t stop the lower courts’ defiance of Bruen.@2Aupdates pic.twitter.com/pBw9xhwc2v
— Bryan LaFonte (@bryanlafonte) July 1, 2026
“I don’t think that the gun lobby got what they wanted [in Wolford].”
Well, in a way she’s right. We got everything we wanted and then some. While the decision itself was pretty narrow, the majority opinion fleshes out the “text, history, and tradition” test in a way that is favorable to those of us trying to protect and secure our Second Amendment rights. The Court made it clear that “arms” are both weapons of offense and defense, that self-defense is not the only reason why arms are protected, and most importantly, that if the plain text of the Second Amendment is implicated by a modern gun control law, then that law is presumed unconstitutional and it’s up to the state to prove otherwise.
Carter then predicted that Wolford won’t change the mind of lower courts on things like “assault weapon” bans, and sadly, she’s probably right. But we probably won’t see many (if any) decisions on gun and magazine bans until after the Supreme Court rules on the issue next term, and my prediction is that at least five of the justices are going to rule that bans on commonly-owned arms like AR-15s are unconstitutional.
What about sensitive places? Again, Carter says that Wolford won’t have any impact on the “gun-free zones” that are being challenged in court, but I think she’s wrong, at least in one major regard. On the one hand, I think Wolford will make it at least somewhat easier to uphold gun bans on some government property going forward, but the decision provides a strong hint that government-mandated bans on lawful carry in “places that people routinely visit in the course of their daily routines, such as gas stations, restaurants, and stores” cannot be justified.
The majority opinion stated that “This regime hobbles what the Second Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives.” Again, that’s a pretty clear statement, and one that doesn’t bode well for Everytown’s “no guns anywhere” agenda. To me, it even calls into question carry bans on public transportation, even though the Supreme Court declined to address the issue this term in Schoenthal v. Raoul.
It doesn’t guarantee that every court is going to strike down every challenged gun law, or that the Supreme Court will ride to our rescue every time the appellate courts ignore or abuse the Bruen test to uphold an infringement on our Second Amendment rights. But Wolford does make Carter’s job more difficult, and even if she can’t admit that to interviewers I suspect she’s figured that out for herself.
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