Category: All About Guns
Mankind defines itself by our discoveries. Truth be known, we seldom, if ever, actually invent much of anything de novo. The vast majority of human advancement stems from simply discovering things that God put in place at the very beginning of time. We take stuff from the natural world, tweak and massage it a bit, and then use those processes to make awesome things like Jell-O, Chia Pets, and silicone breast implants
Black powder revolutionized human combat. The 1851 Colt Navy on the left served
during the American Civil War. The example on the right I built from a kit when I was 13.
Better Living Through Chemistry
Of all the many splendored human contrivances, few have had a more seminal effect on world affairs than gunpowder. Black powder is a mystical combination of potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal. Black powder changed the way we killed each other and, in so doing, altered the trajectory of history.
Gunpowder is considered one of the Four Great Inventions of China. Taoists originally concocted the stuff as a form of medicine. Then, in AD 904, somebody thought to cram it into a length of bamboo behind a rock and made the world’s first gun. It’s been onward and upward ever since.
Black powder is indeed energetic stuff. It is considered a low explosive or propellant as opposed to the really good stuff like C4 or Semtex. However, when cooped up within a firearm or a cannon, black powder can do some of the most amazing things. The downsides are that black powder makes an astronomical amount of smoke. It is also really, really filthy.
I am smitten with most anything that shoots. That ranges from helicopter-mounted cannon down to the humble cap-and-ball revolver. Per American firearms laws, black powder weapons that do not use fixed ammunition are not considered firearms. That means they can still be shipped freely through the mail. I bought my first when I was 13.
I burned hundreds of rounds through that cheap Italian 1851 Colt Navy replica. Over time I came to appreciate that an integral part of the shooting experience was the obligatory cleanup afterward. That necessitated a detailed stripping followed by a thorough scrubbing with hot, soapy water. Failure to do so would eventually ruin the gun due to fouling and corrosion.
In combat, this meant that weapons under hard use could become so fouled as to become non-functional. All of that aforementioned white, billowy smoke often completely obscured Civil War-era battlefields as well. There had to be a better way.
Smokeless powder represented a quantum advance in ballistic technology
The Guy
Christian Friedrich Schönbein was born in 1799 in Metzingen, south of Stuttgart, Germany. He took an apprenticeship with a chemical and pharmaceutical firm at age 13 and found he had a knack for the work. Despite being essentially self-taught, he eventually earned a full professorship in chemistry at the University of Basel in 1828. He served in this place and in this capacity until his death in 1868.
Schönbein was the father of the modern fuel cell. A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that converts chemical energy in a fuel, most commonly hydrogen, into electricity via two distinct redox reactions. Unlike batteries, fuel cells require a steady source of fuel.
Christian Schönbein published his first scholarly article on fuel cells in 1839 in “Philosophical Magazine.” It is hoped that hydrogen fuel cells will eventually replace conventional internal combustion engines powered by petroleum. While that is an undeniably big deal, it was actually a surprise discovery of Schönbein’s that more acutely changed the world.
Christian Schönbein.
Serendipity
Like most such geniuses, Christian Schönbein struggled to leave his work at work. This curious affliction strained the young man’s marriage. His wife had specifically forbidden him from conducting chemistry experiments in her kitchen. Though I have never invented a fuel cell myself, my bride has castigated me for doing dangerous things in her space. In that way, at least, Christian Schönbein and I are similar.
In Schönbein’s case, he was working on some experiment or other in the family kitchen while his wife was away. This task required him to mix nitric acid with sulfuric acid. In his enthusiasm, the 45-year-old chemist spilled the concoction all over the kitchen floor. In desperation, he grabbed his wife’s cotton apron and used it to mop up the mess.
This highly concentrated acidic cocktail did not do the apron any favors. While he tidied up the spill and no doubt crafted some plausible story to justify the chaos, he hung the wet apron up on a nearby peg near the stove to dry. Much to his surprise, his wife’s apron veritably exploded when exposed to heat. Christian Schönbein had just discovered guncotton.
The combination of the cellulose in the apron with the nitro groups in the spilled acid created a fulminant new compound that immediately and utterly oxidized when exposed to heat. The apron was completely consumed. Schönbein saw the potential for this stuff to replace the black powder of the day.
Schönbein sold his invention to an English businessman. However, the first effort at mass production resulted in a spontaneous conflagration that claimed the lives of twenty workers. It did, however, inspire Alfred Nobel to use the same principles to develop dynamite.
Guncotton was and is incredibly unstable. The first few factories built to produce it at scale gained a sordid reputation for spontaneously exploding.
However, in 1884 Paul Vielle used Schönbein’s discovery to create something called Poudre B, an early smokeless propellant. In 1891, James Dewar and Frederick Augustus further refined gelatinized guncotton into cordite, named for its ability to be extruded into long, thin, spaghetti-like strands before drying. With time, this all evolved into the nitrocellulose smokeless powder that now drives every cartridge-firing firearm on Earth.
Do you like to shoot? Yeah, me, too. All modern firearms utilize Christian Schönbein’s 19th-century concept.
Ruminations
Christian Schönbein legitimately changed the world. In addition to the fuel cell and guncotton, he also discovered ozone and coined the term. The word ozone comes from the Greek word “ozein,” which means “to smell.” He observed that this odor was similar to that produced by the slow oxidation of white phosphorus. It is also produced by vigorous electrical sparks. In 1990, an asteroid was named after Christian Schönbein. Not bad for a guy who inadvertently incinerated his wife’s kitchen apron.
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WWII 30 Cal Machine Gun
Massachusetts cannot make a Second Amendment lawsuit disappear simply by issuing carry permits after it has already kept lawful citizens disarmed for months.
That is the central takeaway from a federal judge’s refusal to dismiss the core claims in Lawson v. Campbell, a lawsuit brought by the Second Amendment Foundation, Gun Owners Action League, and three nonresident gun owners challenging Massachusetts’ burdensome License to Carry process.
Chief U.S. District Judge Denise Casper allowed the plaintiffs’ as-applied Second Amendment claim and their Fourteenth Amendment equal-protection claim to proceed. The decision is not a final ruling that Massachusetts violated the Constitution, but it is a significant procedural victory that moves the case toward discovery—and forces the Commonwealth to defend how its licensing system actually operates.
Massachusetts may call its system “shall issue.” According to the lawsuit, however, the state’s one-year nonresident licenses, recurring delays, and refusal to provide a renewal grace period leave lawful gun owners unable to carry for extended periods year after year.
That is not a minor administrative inconvenience. It is government-imposed disarmament.
One-Year Permits and Months of Waiting
Massachusetts treats nonresident gun owners far more harshly than its own residents.
A resident License to Carry can remain valid for six years. A nonresident generally receives a temporary license lasting only one year. Both are charged a $100 application or renewal fee, meaning a nonresident may pay the same amount every year that a resident pays once every six years.
New nonresident applicants must also appear in person at the Firearms Records Bureau in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Applicants face background checks, fingerprinting, training requirements, and other bureaucratic demands before receiving government permission to exercise a right protected by the Constitution.
Massachusetts law generally requires a licensing authority to approve or deny an application within 40 days. The state’s own website reportedly warns nonresidents that processing may take as long as 90 days. The plaintiffs allege even longer delays.
Brian Burns, a Florida resident who maintains a home in Massachusetts, has held at least four nonresident licenses. According to the complaint, one timely renewal was delayed so badly that his new license was not issued until nearly six months after the previous license expired.
Christopher Penta, a New Hampshire resident who frequently travels into Massachusetts for work and family visits, has maintained a nonresident license since 2018. He alleges that one renewal was issued almost two months after his existing license expired.
Russell Lawson Jr., a New York resident who owns a Massachusetts hunting cabin, applied for his first nonresident license in January 2025. His earliest interview was scheduled for June. Lawson missed that appointment because of an unexpected work obligation, and the state rescheduled him for October. Officials subsequently requested information concerning an undisclosed out-of-state charge. He eventually received his license in March 2026.
Although Lawson’s individual application involved additional complications, the court found that the plaintiffs collectively alleged a recurring licensing problem sufficient to keep the lawsuit alive.
Late Approval Does Not Erase the Injury
Massachusetts argued that the case was moot because the individual plaintiffs eventually received their licenses. Judge Casper rejected that position.
The court recognized that sufficiently long licensing delays can themselves constitute constitutional injuries. A citizen who cannot legally carry a firearm for self-defense while Massachusetts sits on his application has lost the exercise of that right during the delay. A permit issued months later cannot restore the days when he was forced to travel disarmed.
The judge also found that the delays could qualify as “capable of repetition, yet evading review.” Nonresident licenses must be renewed annually, the individual plaintiffs intend to continue traveling to Massachusetts, and Burns and Penta allege that they have already experienced recurring renewal delays.
Massachusetts cannot run out the clock, issue the permit after a lawsuit begins, and then claim there is nothing left for a federal court to review.
That point reaches beyond this case. AmmoLand recently covered similar permit-delay litigation involving the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Anti-gun jurisdictions lost their ability to demand a special need for self-defense after New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Bureaucratic delay cannot become the replacement for the discretionary carry bans that Bruen struck down.
Second Amendment Claim Moves Forward
The court dismissed the plaintiffs’ facial challenge to the Massachusetts licensing system. A facial challenge requires showing that the law is unconstitutional in every application, and Judge Casper concluded that the plaintiffs had not cleared that demanding hurdle.
The as-applied challenge is another matter. The judge found that the plaintiffs plausibly alleged delays extending well beyond Massachusetts’ 40-day statutory period. When those delays are combined with one-year licenses and no grace period, the system can deprive nonresidents of their right to carry.
The court declined to establish a bright-line rule defining exactly when a licensing delay becomes unconstitutional. It did, however, reject Massachusetts’ argument that only delays lasting 18 months or several years can implicate the Second Amendment.
Most importantly under Bruen, Massachusetts did not identify a historical tradition supporting the alleged delays. The as-applied Second Amendment claim therefore survived the motion to dismiss.
Nonresidents Face Arrest While Residents Receive Protection
The plaintiffs’ equal-protection claim also survived. Massachusetts residents receive a grace period when they submit timely renewal applications. Nonresidents do not. When a temporary nonresident license expires, its holder can be forced to choose between entering Massachusetts disarmed or carrying under threat of arrest and prosecution.
The court found that this alleged distinction could penalize the constitutional right to interstate travel. Because the plaintiffs plausibly alleged an underlying Second Amendment injury, Judge Casper considered the application of strict scrutiny rather than automatically accepting any justification Massachusetts could invent.
The Commonwealth identified its general interest in public safety and verifying applicants’ eligibility. It did not explain why denying nonresidents a grace period—or subjecting them to delays beyond the statutory deadline—was narrowly tailored to serve that interest.
The judge consequently refused to dismiss the equal-protection claim.
Rights Do Not Stop at State Lines
The Second Amendment Foundation correctly described the ruling as a major procedural advance.
“Massachusetts begrudgingly makes carry permits available for out-of-state residents,” SAF Senior Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack said, while making the annual process unconstitutionally burdensome.
SAF founder Alan Gottlieb put the larger principle more plainly: “The Constitution doesn’t know state lines, and neither do our rights.”
AmmoLand has previously warned that forcing Americans to obtain separate government permission from every hostile jurisdiction they might visit turns interstate travel into a legal minefield. Massachusetts’ treatment of nonresidents has already produced extensive litigation, including the cases discussed in our earlier coverage of the Commonwealth’s cross-border carry restrictions and its supposedly reformed nonresident licensing system.
The court also dismissed the plaintiffs’ claim under the Article IV Privileges and Immunities Clause. That loss and the dismissal of the facial Second Amendment claim should not be ignored. But neither changes the importance of what survived.
A permit does not create the right to bear arms. The right existed before Massachusetts imposed its application, fee, fingerprinting, interview, and annual renewal requirements.
When the government prevents a qualified citizen from carrying for months, the constitutional injury occurs during every day of forced disarmament. Massachusetts will now have to defend that conduct instead of burying the case under a stack of late-issued permits.
About Duncan Johnson:
Duncan Johnson is a lifelong firearms enthusiast and unwavering defender of the Second Amendment—where “shall not be infringed” means exactly what it says. A graduate of George Mason University, he enjoys competing in local USPSA and multi-gun competitions whenever he’s not covering the latest in gun rights and firearm policy.
Duncan is a regular contributor and editor-in-chief for AmmoLand News and is responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.
The Supreme Court’s Second Amendment record has never looked stronger. Yet that strength rests on a five-vote majority, and a growing bloc of Democrat leaders has said out loud that they want to change the math by adding seats to the Court. If they succeed, the doctrine protecting your right to keep and bear arms could be rewritten faster than it was built.
That is the plain reason court packing matters to gun owners. The decisions that anchor modern gun rights are strong today because of who sits on the bench. Change the roster, and you change the outcomes.
What Heller, Bruen and Wolford Actually Established
To understand what is at stake, you have to understand what these rulings did. In 2008, District of Columbia v. Heller confirmed that the Second Amendment protects an individual right held by Americans generally, not a right tied only to militia service. Two years later, McDonald v. City of Chicago applied that right against the states. Then in 2022, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen set out how courts must judge gun laws.
Bruen created a two-step test. As one SCOTUSblog analysis explains, step one asks whether a challenged regulation restricts conduct covered by the plain text of the Second Amendment.
If it does, step two shifts the burden to the government to show the regulation fits “this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” If the government cannot meet that burden, the challenger wins. This approach rejects interest-balancing, which is the practice of weighing whether a law is tailored well enough to serve a modern policy goal. The test asks about history, not present-day preferences.
Wolford v. Lopez pushed back on a creative attempt to work around all of this. The Court struck down Hawaii’s presumptive ban on carrying firearms on private property open to the public without the owner’s express permission.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing in concurrence, warned courts not to “smuggle additional limits, drawn from our regulatory tradition, into the plain-text stage of the inquiry.” Doing so would flip the burden of proof onto ordinary gun owners and let the government off the hook. Wolford also confirmed that the Second Amendment sets “a uniform national standard” that does not shift from state to state. The “spirit of Aloha,” as the Court put it, could not shrink the right inside Hawaii’s borders.
Why This Regime Looks Secure Right Now
On the current Court, these rulings sit on solid ground. That SCOTUSblog analysis describes the “Heller-Bruen regime” as “here to stay,” and the record supports the point. In United States v. Hemani, the justices held 9-0 that disarming someone solely because of occasional marijuana use violates the Second Amendment. A unanimous Court agreeing on a gun-rights outcome is a strong signal.
Even the internal disagreement stayed small. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a Hemani concurrence that she “continue[s] to believe that we veered off course in Bruen,” but only Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined her. No justice questioned Heller’s core holding that the Second Amendment protects an individual right. Barrett’s Wolford concurrence tightened the doctrine rather than loosening it.
That is the whole point. The durability of Heller, Bruen, and Wolford depends on the votes. Two justices want to revisit Bruen. Seven do not. Flip that ratio, and the entire structure becomes vulnerable.
How Court Packing Would Change the Math
This is where the political side enters. Adding seats to the Supreme Court and filling them with justices friendly to gun control would erase the majority that produced these decisions. There is no constitutional barrier to Congress changing the number of justices, which means a party controlling the presidency and Congress could raise it.