Dru Stevenson, Professor of Law

What happens when an unstoppable force meets a bureaucratic wall? For years, the legal battle between the NRA and Maria Vullo was framed as a grand constitutional showdown—a fight for the very soul of the First Amendment. But if you look closer, the story isn’t just about free speech. It’s about the "efficiency of litigation." We often think of the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of truth, but in this case, the clock simply ran out. With the recent denial of cert, a decade-long crusade ended not with a bang, but with a ledger. It turns out that in the world of high-stakes law, the most expensive victory is the one you never actually win. I’ve unpacked the "rest of the story" regarding the NRA’s unsuccessful retaliatory litigation over at the Duke Center for Firearms Law. Read the full analysis here: In the End, Vullo Prevails Against the NRA