On October 7, Firearms Policy Coalition and Gene Hoffman moved for a preliminary injunction in Hoffman v. City and County of Denver, Colorado, No. 1:26-cv-04837 (D. Colo.), asking a federal court to stop Colorado and Denver from denying law-abiding nonresidents any lawful means of carrying a handgun for self-defense. The motion is pending, and no ruling has issued. Whatever the court does, the case presents a question the Second Amendment answers with unusual clarity: whether a citizen forfeits the right to bear arms by driving across a state line.
A Visitor With No Lawful Option
Mr. Hoffman lives in California and holds a California carry permit. He visits his son at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, and he travels through Denver when he does. Colorado generally permits an adult to carry a handgun openly, but Denver’s municipal code prohibits open carry within the city and county. Concealed carry requires a permit, and Colorado issues permits to its own residents and recognizes a nonresident’s permit only when the home state reciprocates. California does not recognize Colorado’s permits, so Colorado does not recognize California’s.
The result is a gap with no exit. In Denver, Mr. Hoffman cannot carry openly because the city forbids it, and he cannot carry concealed because Colorado will not license him. The motion adds that the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act, which bars carrying within 1,000 feet of a school unless the person holds a carry license from the state in which the school is located, and permit-only locations such as the parking areas of public universities, extend the same disability across vast swaths of the rest of the state. I read that as total disarmament for a class of citizens defined by nothing except their address.
The plaintiffs frame the claim carefully. The motion states: “To be clear, this is not a case about concealed carry. Rather, there are certain circumstances in Colorado where the lack of a license means a person cannot carry in any manner.” The relief they seek is that nonresidents be allowed to obtain a Colorado permit, which would cure the gap.
The Bruen Test Applied
The method is not complicated. Under Heller and Bruen, the first question is textual. Mr. Hoffman is an American citizen, one of “the people.” A handgun is an “Arm.” Carrying it in public for self-defense is to “bear” it. The text covers his conduct, and the burden therefore shifts to Denver and Colorado to prove a historical tradition of disarming travelers from other jurisdictions.
The motion argues that no such tradition exists. In its words: “In short, the Nation’s historical tradition does not support laws prohibiting otherwise-qualified nonresidents from carrying firearms in public for self-defense—even though interstate travel of persons with firearms is nothing new.”
The Traveler Was Required to Be Armed
The history here is not merely silent. It points the other way. The motion documents that “[d]uring the Colonial period, at least four colonies required persons traveling to carry arms with them for their safety,” identifying Rhode Island, Virginia, Maryland, and Massachusetts. Rhode Island’s 1639 command is the plainest: “It is ordered, that noe man shall go two miles from the Towne unarmed, eyther with Gunn or Sword[.]” The colonial legislators understood that a person away from home is exposed to the road, unfamiliar ground, and strangers, and they treated armament as part of the traveler’s protection.
Later practice followed the same logic. The motion traces traveler exceptions to carry restrictions from before the founding through Reconstruction, including codified exceptions in states such as New Jersey and Kentucky, with local governments recognizing them as well. A law that excludes the out-of-state visitor from the right to carry inverts that tradition. It takes the person the historical record most clearly protected and makes him the one person the law refuses to arm.
The Same Right on the Road
The motion makes the point with a pair of examples. It asks the court to imagine a state law barring nonresidents from a local protest, or from being baptized in a local church, and then states: “Nobody would seriously contend that citizens give up their First Amendment protected rights to free speech and free exercise when they cross State lines. The same goes for the right to bear arms.” I endorse that reasoning. No one expects a speaker to lose the First Amendment in Denver, or the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches in Fort Collins. The Second Amendment is entitled to the same treatment.
The motion also pleads, as a separate claim, that the carry regime violates the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV, which bars discrimination against citizens of other states. That claim rests on the same premise: a person’s constitutional rights do not depend on his address.
One Brick in a Larger Wall
The case is one step in a larger effort. States have used residency to ration a right the Constitution guarantees to every citizen, and each ruling against that practice makes the next one easier to win.
My forecast is that the ultimate destination is a nationwide right to carry, in which every American may carry a handgun in every state, whatever his residence. I do not claim this motion seeks that result. It does not. But a victory in Denver would be a significant precedent on which later cases could build, one jurisdiction at a time. The history of that future is yet to be written. The history of the traveler, written four centuries ago, already supports Mr. Hoffman.
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.