The Supreme Court just handed the anti-gun crowd a 9-0 loss that has nothing to do with the Second Amendment on its face — and everything to do with the Second Amendment in practice. The case is First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Davenport, No. 24-781 (Apr. 29, 2026), and it is going on the shelf in every Second Amendment lawyer’s office in the country.
A Subpoena That Started in New Jersey
After Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022), overturned Roe v. Wade, then–New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin issued a sweeping subpoena to First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, a network of faith-based pregnancy counseling centers in New Jersey. Among other things, the subpoena demanded the names of the people who donate money to the organization.
First Choice did not turn over the donor list. Instead, the centers filed an action in federal district court asking a federal judge to enjoin the state from enforcing the subpoena, on the ground that compelled disclosure of donor identities violates the First Amendment rights of free speech, association, and petition.
The federal district court tossed the case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in a divided panel, affirmed. Both courts said First Choice lacked Article III standing because, as they saw it, the centers had not yet been “injured” — no one had been forced to comply, and the state had not yet gone into state court to enforce the subpoena. By the time Platkin left office and Acting AG Jennifer Davenport replaced him, the case caption had automatically updated to v. Davenport.
What the Supreme Court Actually Held
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court. The lower courts were wrong. The subpoena itself — the mere demand for donor information — caused an Article III injury, because that demand chills donors from giving in the first place. That chill is a present, ongoing, constitutional injury. It is fairly traceable to the Attorney General’s subpoena. And a federal court can redress it by enjoining enforcement. That is all three Article III standing elements: injury in fact, causation, redressability. Done.
The opinion is worth reading in Gorsuch’s own words:
“The First Amendment guarantees all Americans the rights to speak, worship, publish, assemble, and petition their government freely. Each of these rights, this Court has long understood, necessarily carries with it a corresponding right to associate with others. Without such a right, no two men could safely share the same soapbox, no two women the same church. The government could reduce any assembly to a party of one, and the right to petition would amount to nothing more than the power to sign one’s own name.”
That is the Court reaffirming the freedom of association as the structural backbone of the rest of the First Amendment. Then comes the passage that leans directly on NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449 (1958), the unanimous decision that protected the NAACP’s membership list from a subpoena issued by the Alabama Attorney General:
“Compelled disclosure of affiliation with groups engaged in advocacy can constitute an effective restraint on the freedom of association.”
And the line that should be tattooed inside every Second Amendment litigator’s binder:
“Government actions tending to curtail the freedom to associate warrant the closest scrutiny under the First Amendment … particularly likely to follow when the government seeks to intrude into the workings of groups that hold dissident beliefs disfavored by those holding the reins of power.”
Read That Sentence With Second Amendment Eyes
“Dissident beliefs disfavored by those holding the reins of power” describes every gun owner and every pro-2A donor in California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and the rest of the blue-state map. We are the dissident minority in those jurisdictions. We are the people whose donors get harassed when their names get out. We are the ones whose contributions to the National Rifle Association, the Second Amendment Foundation, the Firearms Policy Coalition, and Gun Owners of America make us targets when the wrong attorney general decides to fish through the records.
A donor in New York or California today thinks twice before writing the check. Not because giving to a 2A organization is illegal — it is not. But because the political environment has been weaponized to make that giving costly: doxxing, employer pressure, cancellation campaigns, and yes, attorney-general subpoenas designed to surface the names. First Choice says the federal courts will not stand by and let that play continue.
Why This Precedent Matters Beyond New Jersey
The next time a blue-state AG sends a subpoena demanding a Second Amendment organization’s donor list, the response writes itself. The injury is the chill. The chill is real. Federal court has jurisdiction the moment the subpoena hits the door. Stand down.
That is a sea change. Until yesterday, the Third Circuit’s reasoning gave hostile attorneys general a free first move: demand the list, drag the target into state court, and grind out compliance before any federal court could weigh in on the constitutional question. First Choice shuts that gambit down at the threshold. The injury is now actionable the moment the subpoena is served.
The Bigger Picture
The only way the other side wins the gun argument is by cutting off our ability to make the argument. Cut off the donors and you cut off the lawyers, the litigation, the expert briefs, the YouTube channels, the organizations themselves. That is the play. Yesterday a unanimous Supreme Court — every justice, no exceptions — said no.
Without the soap box, the cartridge box does not survive. The First Amendment win in First Choice is also a Second Amendment win, and any 2A organization that does not study this opinion line by line is missing the point.
This article is based on analysis by Professor Mark W. Smith, constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner 2nd Amendment channel. Watch the original video here. This does not constitute legal advice.