By Tanya Metaksa
What’s New—SCOTUS: Conference scheduled for May; How has the Pulitzer Prize Committee helped Second Amendment supporters by awarding this year’s prize to the Washington Post for their multipart series on the AR-15?; Adrian Dominican Sisters v. Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc., Judge Hardy dismisses lawsuit.
SCOTUS
According to Second Amendment scholar Mark W. Smith: “The Supreme Court will NOT grant cert on May 16. What we want is for the AR/Mag cases to be ‘relisted,’ and then subsequently heard at a future conference. If SCOTUS is inclined to grant cert, then they will relist the case once or twice as the law clerks study the potential case very carefully looking for any procedural flaws like standing, mootness, etc.”
Conferences are scheduled for May 9, 16, 23, and 30. The orders from each conference will be issued on the following Monday at 7 a.m. EDT—May 13, 20, 28, and June 3.
How has the Pulitzer Prize Committee helped Second Amendment supporters by awarding this year’s prize to the Washington Post for their multipart series on the AR-15?
This information also comes from Second Amendment Scholar Smith, who hosts a YouTube channel entitled “Four Boxes Diner.”
According to Smith, in 2023, the Washington Post ran a multi-part series on the AR-15 rifle. The Post submitted this series as a candidate for a Pulitzer Prize in the Public Service Category. According to the Pulitzer announcement, the board moved this nomination from the Public Service category to the National Reporting category. The winners of the 2024 Pulitzer Prizes were announced on May 6.
During the publication of this series, the authors wrote: “National surveys by Ipsos in 2022 found that 31 percent of adults own guns. The Post-Ipsos survey of AR-15 owners estimates that 20 percent of gun owners own an AR-15-style rifle. Taken together, the polls find that 6 percent of Americans own an AR-15, about 1 in 20. The data suggests that with a U.S. population of 260.8 million adults, about 16 million Americans own an AR-15.”
Smith explains that this quotation has already been used in two certiorari applications before SCOTUS, and he is confident it will be widely quoted.
State Courts
Adrian Dominican Sisters v. Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc., No. A-23-882774-B in the District Court of Clark County, Nevada: On May 6, 2024, Judge Joe Hardy dismissed the lawsuit filed by a group of anti-Second Amendment stockholders against Smith & Wesson. As a result of the plaintiff’s failure to post bond by April 23, 2023, the judge acted.
Background: This lawsuit was filed on Dec. 5, 2023. Although the plaintiffs, who included not only the Adrian Dominican Sisters, but also Sisters of Bon Secours USA, Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia and Sister of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, understood that the PLCAA protected firearms manufacturers, they tried to claim that because S&W continued building AR-15s after a mass shooting that included the use of a S&W AR-15, the company had forfeited their PLCAA protection. In February Judge Hardy noted various reasons for this unlikelihood, one of which was a victory for the anti-gun shareholders would deliver not “benefit the corporation or its security holders.” The transcript of court proceedings make clear that Hardy does not believe the anti-gun shareholders’ positions are in line with the vast majority of Smith & Wesson shareholders.
