Published August 16, 2026 at 10:00 AM ET · Updated August 16, 2026 at 12:36 PM ET
1 independent outlet is covering this story, first reported here by The Truth About Guns. Verification: Watching (how we verify). Every headline links to the original reporting.
The National Rifle Association has joined a legal challenge to Colorado's permit-to-purchase gun law. The law requires individuals to obtain a permit before purchasing a firearm in the state.
Patriot Watch first flagged this story 4 hr ago, when The Truth About Guns reported it. So far this remains a single-source report. The most recent report came 4 hr ago from The Truth About Guns.
⚖ The Constitutional Angle
Heller recognized an individual right to keep arms for self-defense and noted longstanding conditions on commercial sale remain presumptively lawful, Colorado's best anchor. Bruen sets the test: once the covered conduct is shown, the State must justify its permit scheme with the historical tradition of firearm regulation. McDonald binds states to that right, so the outcome turns on history, not applicability.
New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Kevin P. Bruen, Superintendent of New York State Police 597 U.S. 1 (2022)
Vote: 6-3 · Opinion: Thomas
New York's requirement that applicants demonstrate 'proper cause' — a special need for self-protection distinguishable from the general community — to obtain an unrestricted public-carry license violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in public. The Court held the Second Amendment protects a right to carry handguns publicly for self-defense, and rejected the two-step means-end framework lower courts had applied after Heller.
District of Columbia v. Heller 554 U.S. 570 (2008)
Vote: 5-4 · Opinion: Scalia
The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use it for traditionally lawful purposes such as self-defense within the home. The right is not unlimited: the Court noted that longstanding prohibitions (e.g., possession by felons and the mentally ill, carrying in sensitive places, conditions on commercial sale) remain presumptively lawful. D.C.'s ban on handgun possession in the home and its requirement that lawful firearms in the home be kept nonfunctional violate the Second Amendment.
McDonald v. City of Chicago, Illinois 561 U.S. 742 (2010)
Vote: 5-4 · Opinion: Alito
The Second Amendment right recognized in Heller is fully applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. A four-Justice plurality incorporated the right via the Due Process Clause as fundamental to the Nation's scheme of ordered liberty and deeply rooted in its history and tradition; Justice Thomas supplied the fifth vote via the Privileges or Immunities Clause. The Seventh Circuit's judgment upholding Chicago's and Oak Park's handgun bans was reversed and remanded.
Precedent facts from the PW Law Library — primary-source verified & independently audited
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