This is the third part of a five-part series celebrating 50 years of the Second Amendment Foundation. SAF has been a pivotal force in and played a much-needed role in the preservation of civil liberties in the United States.

In part one, we explored the formation and early years of SAF. And, in part two, we took a closer look at Alan Merrill Gottlieb, the founder of the organization and current executive vice president. In this part, we’re going to discuss the current state of affairs.

There were interviews conducted with several SAF employees, and each weighed in on what the organization is up to and how they perceive the current status of the foundation.

“Coming on board, one of the things that I want to do is make sure that people really understand and know about the organization, it's been so focused on its legal program, that it hasn't really focused on marketing, communications, branding, and awareness of the mission and the work that's being done,” Lauren Hill, the senior vice president of SAF told me when we chatted back in April. “So, I think coming in here and building out some of that foundational stuff on that side of the organization, is what I'm working on currently and have been working on for the last several months.”

I first met Hill in June of 2022 in San Diego, California, at an event colloquially called “Gun Prom,” which is hosted by the San Diego County Gun Owners PAC. At that time, Hill worked for whom she refers to as “my former employer,” the Firearms Policy Coalition. In November of that year, Hill joined the staff of SAF.

Other newer members to the SAF team include Adam Kraut, SAF's executive director, and Bill Sack, SAF's director of legal operations.

As for what SAF is up to today? They’re busy. As of April, Sack recounted some impressive numbers on what’s going on in the legal realm.

“We're definitely super busy. I think 59 is right [now]…I'd have to go back and check my spreadsheet. But yeah, it's almost 60, If not 60 pieces of active litigation,” Sack explained. “Now, you know, SAF has been involved in over 200 cases since its founding…200 pieces of litigation.” Sack continued.

“And right now, especially since the Bruen decision came out in June of 2022, the floodgates have been flung wide open again. So, you know, we are involved in as many cases as we can, in as many jurisdictions as we can.” Bill Sack on the post-Bruen world

Executive Director Kraut, when asked about the current state of SAF, acknowledged the period of flux the foundation is in. The additions to the staff aren’t some sort of shock or surprise, but rather, it’s understood they’re going to be pivotal in ushering the foundation into its next 50 years via their responsible stewardship.

So, I think there's a lot to kind of unpack there. Certainly the Second Amendment foundation is undergoing a transition right now. You know, Alan Gottlieb, the founder of the organization, is in his 70s. And part of the reason I was brought on board was to be part of that future. So in that way, anyway, we're expanding the capabilities of the organization at an exponential scale, through new hires and new ideas and being able to have the personnel with the talent and vision to start building out some new programs. 

The foundation itself focuses on legal, I would say activism, not so much advocacy, and education. And as we continue to hire new people to look into those areas to see how we can do things either better or new things we can do. We're increasing our ability to have an impact in the Second Amendment area.

As far as where the organization is positioned. We're certainly the old school organization when it comes to litigation. Since our inception, we've been involved in over 260 lawsuits, that's either as a plaintiff [or] as a funder of one where it wasn't appropriate for us to be a party to the lawsuit…or as an amicus to somebody else's lawsuit.

Right now we have 55 active cases across the country dealing with everything from sensitive places post-Bruen, “assault weapons bans,” magazine capacity challenges, challenges to ATF’s regulations, both as to the pistol braces and the frames and receivers, and a whole other gamut of issues that affect people's day to day lives…both big and small.

So I would say that certainly, you know, litigation is our bread and butter. We're very good at it, we're very fortunate to have a core team of attorneys that we work with who are some of the best in the nation on this issue. I would say that's kind of where we're positioned today.

Some of the specific cases that SAF has in the hopper right now that stand out, Sack talked about at length. Sack said, “There are a couple other interesting cases that were involved in.” He continued.

We’re involved in a case called Hunter versus CHA, which is a public housing case. We've done cases like this in the past, and I think we're interested in doing a few more that we're looking at right now…where we have folks that live in federally and state subsidized public housing, and the government’s acting as landlord [and they] are putting in the lease agreement that you can't possess firearms in your own home, which is a clear violation of the Second Amendment. And multiple courts have already found such. Yet, we have housing authorities all over the country that are still kind of dragging their feet and fighting…fighting, kicking and screaming, to take these unconstitutional lease provisions out of their leases. [Those who] need subsidized housing and need assistance from the government to help with their housing, don't have to choose between putting a roof over their head and exercising their rights. So that's one that we're interested in…

The other fun one that we're doing right now is Green v. Garland. That's out of the Western District of Pennsylvania. That's our medical marijuana case.

Outside of the legal arena, Hill expanded on some of the initiatives that she’s been involved in with the foundation since joining. “One of the things that I first did when I came on board was revamp our corporate partner program,” Hill said. “In the last year I think we've onboarded 60 new corporate partners, which also helps with some of that branding and mission awareness, because they're usually really great in helping us reach out to their customer base.”

Some of the other image-related moves that were made, Hill told me, involved the launching of a new website, and they’re also in the process of developing a new webstore.

New for the 50th anniversary year also came some minor changes to SAF’s logo. The iconic 2A eagle head got some sharpening. I asked Gottlieb about the logo, the slight rebranding, and the significance of it. I asked him about its origin story. He kind of chuckled and told the story of the changes and inception of the original design.

The genesis of the logo stayed the same. The eagle inside number two, for the Second Amendment. But he's got a little more feathering, a little bit more ferocious look, a little bit better beak on him. It's minor, but it's meaningful.

The reason why he didn't change a whole lot, quite frankly, is the story behind it's really great. When Jimmy Carter was president, because he was not a pro-gun rights president, was anti-gun, the White House artist was pro-gun and wasn't very happy with the White House's positions that Jimmy Carter and his staff was taking.

And so one day out of nowhere shows up on my desk, our new logo that the White House artist did for us, on his own time, gratis. It's got a really fun backstory to it. And people don't really know that. It's not that we get a chance to publicize that. But that's where our logo came from.

One of the things that was so prevalent that kept coming up when talking to these partners at the foundation was the level of gratitude they all have for the membership. There’s no mincing words, this is an organization that cares about their membership and values them.

“To the members, donors and contributors, I want to say without them, we couldn't do what we do,” Gottlieb said. “They deserve a lot of credit for our accomplishments, because without their [...] helping fund us, we couldn't do what we do.” Gottlieb Continued, “They deserve a lot of the credit [and] should take a lot of credit for our work, because they're the foundation that makes it work.”

Gottlieb also said that the membership should be proud of all the accomplishments that they’ve helped SAF achieve. He said that those accomplishments are “only going to get bigger and better” and that the organization is “going to get stronger as time goes on.”

“I think as far as SAF members, and supporters…first of all, thank you. Without you folks, this work would not be possible,” Kraut said when we discussed his message to the membership. “I would not be sitting here being able to do this on your behalf, so thank you for being a member of SAF. Thank you for supporting SAF financially and through other means as well.”

The Second Amendment Foundation is doing yeoman’s work in the arena of safeguarding this important civil liberty. The current state of the foundation is one of vitality, good spirits, and they have a focus on doing today for what will be possible tomorrow.

The Second Amendment Foundation is celebrating their 50th anniversary all year. But, they’re really showcasing and coming together at their annual Gun Rights Policy Conference. This year’s GRPC is being held in San Diego, Calif. September 27th through the 29th. For more information about the upcoming GRPC, head over to saf.org/grpc/, hope to see you there! 

If you’d like to tune into part two of a three-part video series on the Second Amendment Foundation produced for this article series, you can check out that video HERE or in the embed below.

Also, be sure to check out next week’s article, “Part 4: Second Amendment Foundation 50 Years - Adam Kraut, Executive Director,” which is slated for publication on August 19th, 2024.