The Texas Department of Public Safety’s attempt to revoke Timothy Willis’ License to Carry just ran into a major new problem.

For months, DPS has continued fighting to revoke Willis’ LTC based on a decades-old Georgia divorce order that contains no finding that Willis was violent, dangerous, or a credible threat to anyone.

Texas Gun Rights Foundation has already beaten DPS three times on this issue.

Now, a new Texas Supreme Court decision may make DPS’ position even harder to defend.

THE TEXAS SUPREME COURT WEIGHS IN

In Noyes v. State for the Protection of Voges, the Texas Supreme Court ordered a lower court to reconsider a lifetime firearm prohibition issued through a protective order.

The order in that case barred Jonathan Noyes from possessing firearms for the rest of the protected party’s life.

But after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Rahimi, the Texas Supreme Court sent the case back for further review of Noyes’ Second Amendment and Texas Arms Clause arguments.

The key issue is whether the government can impose a firearm ban without the individualized dangerousness finding and temporary limitation Rahimi emphasized.

Justice James Sullivan’s concurrence was especially important.

He warned that Texas’ protective-order statute raises “grave constitutional concerns” when used to impose lifetime disarmament without a finding that the person is dangerous.

That is exactly the kind of issue at the center of Timothy Willis’ fight with DPS.

RAHIMI DOES NOT HELP DPS

DPS appears to be leaning on Rahimi to justify its position.

But Rahimi upheld temporary disarmament only where a court had found that the person posed a credible threat to another person’s physical safety.

That is not what happened here.

The Georgia order DPS is relying on against Willis does not say he committed violence.

It does not say he threatened anyone with a firearm.

It does not say he posed a credible threat to anyone’s physical safety.

And it was not a one-sided order identifying Willis as the dangerous party.

It was a mutual divorce order that applied to both parties.

In fact, the Texas trial court expressly found that no court has ever found Willis to be a credible threat.

That should end the matter.

But DPS is still trying to use that stale, reciprocal order to strip Willis of his License to Carry.

That is why TXGR Foundation attorney CJ Grisham has now filed a Notice of Supplemental Authority asking the Fifteenth Court of Appeals to consider Noyes.

In the filing, Grisham argues that Noyes reinforces what TXGR Foundation has said all along:

Rahimi does not authorize the disarmament of someone no court has found dangerous based on an old, reciprocal, finding-free order.

A CIVIL ORDER SHOULD NOT BECOME A LIFETIME GUN BAN

The implications go far beyond Timothy Willis.

If DPS gets away with this, then old civil orders with no findings of violence could be twisted into lifetime firearm disabilities.

A mutual stay-away order from a divorce case could become a weapon against gun owners decades later.

And unelected agency lawyers could use interpretation games to do what the law does not allow.

That is not how rights work.

The Second Amendment is not supposed to depend on whether a bureaucrat can dig up old paperwork and stretch it beyond recognition.

And the Texas Constitution’s Arms Clause is not supposed to be treated like a suggestion.

The Texas Supreme Court’s Noyes decision confirms that these questions deserve serious constitutional scrutiny.

And that scrutiny should be fatal to DPS’ case against Willis.

TEXAS GUN RIGHTS FOUNDATION IS STILL FIGHTING

Texas Gun Rights Foundation has already defeated DPS three times on behalf of Timothy Willis.

But DPS refuses to stop.

Rather than accept the law as written, the agency is dragging Willis deeper into court, forcing him to defend rights he should never have had to fight to keep.

As TXGR Foundation attorney CJ Grisham explained:

“DPS is trying to turn an old reciprocal divorce order with no dangerousness finding into a firearm disability. Noyes makes clear that Rahimi does not give the government that kind of power. The Constitution requires more than stale paperwork and bureaucratic assumptions before the government can strip someone of his gun rights.”

Texas Gun Rights Foundation is drawing the line.

Because if DPS can do this to Timothy Willis, it can do it to other gun owners too.

But courtroom fights are expensive.

And unlike government agencies with taxpayer-funded lawyers, Texas Gun Rights Foundation depends on grassroots patriots who understand what is at stake.

Chip in $25, $50, or even $100 today to help Texas Gun Rights Foundation defend gun owners, fight government overreach, and stop unconstitutional firearm restrictions before they spread.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a major Second Amendment fight that could shake the gun confiscation lobby’s favorite ban scheme to its core.

At issue: whether the government can ban AR-15-platform and similar semi-automatic rifles — some of the most commonly owned firearms in America — by slapping them with the politically manufactured label of “assault weapons.”

For decades, anti-gun politicians have called these firearms “weapons of war,” claimed peaceable citizens cannot be trusted with them, and used fearmongering to justify outright bans.

But AR-15s and similar semi-automatic rifles are commonly owned by millions of law-abiding Americans for self-defense, training, competition, hunting, and defense of hearth and home.

Now the Supreme Court is finally taking up the fight.

THE CONNECTICUT CASE

One of the cases before the Court is Grant v. Higgins, a Connecticut challenge to the state’s ban on AR-15-platform and similar semi-automatic rifles.

Connecticut’s law treats peaceable gun owners like criminals for wanting the same type of rifle millions of Americans lawfully own across the country.

The Second Circuit allowed the ban to stand, proving once again that too many lower courts are still treating the Second Amendment like a second-class right despite Bruen.

A related Connecticut challenge, National Association for Gun Rights v. Lamont, raised similar issues over Connecticut’s ban on commonly owned rifles and standard-capacity magazines.

But the Supreme Court selected Grant as the Connecticut vehicle.

THE COOK COUNTY CASE

The Court will also hear Viramontes v. Cook County, a challenge to Cook County, Illinois’ ban.

Cook County’s ordinance prohibits possession, acquisition, and transfer of AR-15-style rifles and other targeted firearms.

In plain English, Cook County politicians decided peaceable citizens should not be trusted with some of the most popular rifles in America.

That is the gun confiscation agenda: ban the guns, criminalize possession, and claim it is all about “public safety.”

THE STAKES GO BEYOND ONE RIFLE

This case directly deals with AR-15-platform and similar semi-automatic rifles.

But the impact could reach much further.

So-called “assault weapons” bans are built on the same basic scheme: take commonly owned firearms, attach scary labels, point to cosmetic features, and pretend that makes them unprotected by the Second Amendment.

Many of these laws do not stop with rifles.

They often use the same feature-based test to target certain semi-automatic shotguns and handguns because they accept detachable magazines, hold more than a handful of rounds, or have other features anti-gun politicians dislike.

If the Supreme Court rejects that framework for commonly owned rifles, it could put enormous pressure on the entire “assault weapons” ban playbook.

Not just rifle bans.

The whole scheme.

Because if the government can ban one commonly owned semi-automatic firearm because politicians dislike its features, then no firearm is safe.

The gun-ban radicals are trying to establish the power to decide which arms the American people may keep.

That is exactly what the Second Amendment was written to prevent.

TEXAS GUN RIGHTS WILL FILE AN AMICUS BRIEF

Texas Gun Rights will not sit on the sidelines while the Supreme Court weighs one of the most important Second Amendment cases in a generation.

The same radicals pushing bans in anti-gun states want to bring that agenda to Texas the first chance they get.

“This case is bigger than one rifle, one state, or one ordinance,” said Texas Gun Rights President Chris McNutt.

“The question is whether politicians can ban common firearms by inventing scary labels and pretending the Second Amendment does not apply. If the Court gets this right, it could cripple the gun-ban playbook anti-gun states have used for decades.”

Texas Gun Rights will file an amicus brief in this fight, making it clear the Second Amendment does not protect only the arms anti-gun politicians are willing to tolerate.

It protects every arm.

If the Court rules correctly, it could put every anti-gun state on notice:

Chip in today to help Texas Gun Rights file its amicus brief and keep fighting to defend and restore the Second Amendment — without compromise.

The Bill of Rights protects speech, religion, the press, assembly, due process, privacy, and the right to keep and bear arms.

Only one of those rights has an entire federal agency built around regulating, restricting, investigating, and prosecuting the tools necessary to exercise it.

The Second Amendment.

That agency is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

There is no federal Bureau of Speech.

No federal Bureau of Religion.

No federal Bureau of Press and Assembly.

No federal agency licenses newspapers before they publish, inspects churches for recordkeeping violations, registers printing presses, or forces Americans to pay a tax before exercising a First Amendment right.

But when it comes to the Second Amendment, Washington has built exactly that kind of bureaucracy.

Other Rights Are Abused by Bureaucrats. The Second Amendment Is Policed by Them.  

Federal agencies have abused power against other constitutional rights, too.

The FBI and DOJ have targeted speech, political activity, and religious Americans.

The NSA has raised Fourth Amendment concerns through surveillance.

DHS and TSA have expanded federal search power in the name of security.

The IRS has been accused of politically selective enforcement.

Those abuses are real.

But they are not the same as having an entire agency whose firearms mission is aimed directly at the people, businesses, products, paperwork, and transactions tied to one constitutional right.

The ATF does not merely investigate violent criminals who misuse firearms.

It regulates firearm dealers.

It inspects Federal Firearms Licensees.

It polices paperwork.

It interprets federal gun laws.

It issues rules affecting lawful gun owners.

It decides whether products used by peaceable Americans are legal today and criminal tomorrow.

Other agencies violate constitutional rights when they overreach, but the ATF’s firearms mission is overreach by design.

The Firearms Ecosystem Is Part of the Right

The right to keep and bear arms is not limited to owning whatever the government has not yet banned.

It includes the practical ability to acquire, possess, maintain, train with, and use arms for lawful purposes.

That requires a functioning firearms ecosystem: manufacturers, dealers, gunsmiths, ranges, parts suppliers, ammunition sellers, collectors, and instructors.

The ATF regulates and threatens that entire ecosystem.

A right is not protected if the government can choke off the lawful businesses, products, and transfers necessary to exercise it.

The gun confiscation lobby understands this.

That is why they target dealers, manufacturers, accessories, paperwork, and every pressure point they can find.

They want lawful gun ownership to become so legally risky, expensive, and complicated that fewer Americans exercise the right at all.

The Problem Is the Agency, Not One Rule

The problem is not one regulation or one administration.

The structure itself is the problem.

When a federal agency is empowered to regulate a constitutional right, mission creep is inevitable.

Paperwork errors become enforcement opportunities. Technical interpretations become criminal exposure. Political pressure becomes rulemaking.

That is how lawful gun owners are left wondering whether something they bought legally will be treated as contraband after the next ATF memo.

Americans saw it with bump stocks, pistol braces, forced reset triggers, and “zero tolerance” attacks on firearm dealers over technical paperwork mistakes.

But ATF’s record goes far beyond rulemaking.

The agency has been tied to some of the most infamous federal enforcement disasters in modern American history, including Waco and Ruby Ridge.

Its record also includes Operation Fast and Furious, the botched gun-walking scheme that allowed firearms to flow into the hands of Mexican cartels. One of those firearms was later found at the scene of the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

More recently, the ATF raid on the home of Little Rock airport executive Brian Malinowski ended with Malinowski dead, raising serious questions about the agency’s use of force and tactics.

And while federal law forbids a national gun registry, ATF has accumulated more than one billion firearm transaction records — exactly the kind of registry-style infrastructure gun owners were promised would never exist.

The pattern keeps repeating.

The ATF stretches the law.

Peaceable gun owners get threatened.

The firearms industry gets punished.

Americans pay the price.

That is not how constitutional rights are supposed to work.

Prosecute Gun Crimes. Stop Policing Gun Owners.

Violent criminals who misuse firearms should be prosecuted.

Armed robbers should be prosecuted.

Murderers should be prosecuted.

Cartels and organized criminal networks trafficking firearms to violent offenders should be dismantled.

No serious defender of the Second Amendment objects to punishing actual gun crimes.

But prosecuting violent criminals is not the same thing as maintaining a federal bureaucracy dedicated to policing peaceable gun owners and the lawful firearms industry.

If someone commits a gun crime, prosecute the crime.

If a criminal network traffics firearms, dismantle the network.

If a cartel moves weapons across borders, target the cartel.

But do not use those crimes as an excuse to regulate, threaten, and punish millions of Americans who have done nothing wrong.

Abolish the ATF

Texas Gun Rights has been leading the fight to abolish the ATF.

Not “reform” it.

Not “modernize” it.

Not put a friendlier face on the same federal gun control bureaucracy.

Abolish it.

Any agency with this long of a record of abusing peaceable gun owners, targeting lawful businesses, inventing backdoor gun bans, and stretching federal law to fit a political agenda has no business policing a constitutional right.

A friendlier administration may slow the abuse, replace bad leadership, and rescind some of the worst rules.

But the machinery remains.

And in two years, that machinery can be re-weaponized by the next anti-gun administration.

That is why gun owners cannot let up just because Washington temporarily changes hands.

Every fight must move toward the same goal: strip the ATF’s power, cut its funding, shut down its gun control schemes, hold its bureaucrats accountable, expose its abuses, block its backdoor bans, and abolish the agency once and for all.

The Second Amendment does not need a federal police bureau.

Peaceable gun owners do not need federal agents looking for paperwork traps.

Lawful firearm dealers do not need to live under political “zero tolerance” campaigns.

And constitutional rights should never depend on whether the current administration feels friendly.

Chip in today to help Texas Gun Rights keep fighting to abolish the ATF and defend the right to keep and bear arms without compromise.