For the veteran community, that means we will see the familiar messages again. Check on your buddies. Watch for warning signs. Call the Veterans Crisis Line. Ask someone whether they are okay.

Those messages have value.

But after more than two decades of war, billions of dollars in federal spending, countless programs, public-service campaigns, nonprofit organizations, and repeated declarations that veteran suicide is a national priority, we need to ask a more difficult policy question:

Are we preventing veteran suicide, or are we getting better at responding after a veteran has already reached a crisis?

There is a difference.

The latest national numbers show why that distinction matters.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs reports that 6,398 veterans died by suicide in 2023, the most recent year for which complete national data are available. That works out to approximately 17.5 veterans every day. The number declined slightly from 6,442 in 2022, but the veteran suicide rate actually increased from 34.7 to 35.2 deaths per 100,000 veterans.1

There is another number that should drive the public-policy discussion.

Approximately 61 percent of veterans who died by suicide in 2023 had not received Veterans Health Administration care during the preceding year.

That tells us something important.

If our suicide-prevention strategy depends primarily upon identifying veterans after they enter the VA health-care system, we are designing the system around a door that many of the veterans we are trying to save never walk through.

That is why veteran suicide prevention must become larger than mental-health treatment.

It needs to become an early-intervention public-health strategy.

And Arizona may already have part of the blueprint.

Arizona’s Numbers Should Get Our Attention

Arizona has particular reason to take this issue seriously.

According to the VA’s recently released state data, 223 Arizona veterans died by suicide in 2023.

Arizona’s veteran suicide rate was 46.7 deaths per 100,000 veterans, compared with a national veteran rate of 35.2. After adjusting for age differences, the VA determined that Arizona’s veteran suicide rate was significantly higher than both the national veteran rate and the suicide rate of the general American population. 2

The age breakdown deserves attention as well.

Arizona veterans ages 18 to 34 experienced a suicide rate of 61.4 per 100,000.

Veterans ages 35 to 54 experienced a rate of 42.3.

Veterans ages 55 to 74 experienced a rate of 40.7.

Veterans 75 and older experienced a rate of 52.1.

This is not confined to one generation of veterans.

It affects veterans who served in Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan, the post-9/11 era, and the newest generation transitioning from military service.

That should change the way policymakers think about the problem.

We cannot build a suicide-prevention strategy around the assumption that there is one “high-risk veteran.”

There isn’t.

The intervention points for a 27-year-old Marine struggling after leaving active duty may be different from those for a 48-year-old Army veteran dealing with divorce and unemployment, which may be different again from those for a 76-year-old Vietnam veteran dealing with isolation, declining health, or the death of a spouse.

The common denominator is that government and community organizations often encounter these veterans before the mental-health system does.

That is where Arizona’s experiment becomes important.

Arizona Already Started Building a Different Model

In 2023, a bill we, Arizona Veterans, proposed and that Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed did this. Senate Bill 1454 was sponsored by Senator TJ Shope.

The legislation established the Veteran Suicide Prevention Training Pilot Program within the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services.

The concept behind the law was straightforward. It was born out of a conversation I had with the late Peter Pingerelli, husband of State Representative Beverly Pingerelli.

Instead of assuming that suicide prevention belongs exclusively to psychologists, psychiatrists, hospitals, and crisis responders, Arizona began training people who routinely interact with veterans through the benefits and service system.

The statute authorizes specialized suicide-prevention training and certification for claims examiners and county and municipal veteran service offices. The training must teach participants how to:

1. identify indicators of elevated suicide risk; and

2. provide emergency crisis referrals when veterans exhibit signs of emotional or psychological distress.3

The Legislature initially appropriated $600,000 and one full-time position to the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services to establish and administer the program.4 5

The law also contains something that should become increasingly important as we approach the 2027 legislative session.

The program expires January 1, 2028.

The Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services must report on the program and ultimately recommend whether it should continue.6

That sunset gives Arizona policymakers an opportunity.

Instead of merely renewing the pilot, Arizona should ask whether the pilot should become the foundation of something larger.

The Real Strength of the Arizona Idea

The most important part of Arizona’s pilot may not be the specific training curriculum.

It is where the intervention occurs.

Consider why a veteran walks into a veteran service office.

He may be filing a disability claim.

She may need help obtaining benefits.

Someone may have lost a job.

Someone may be facing financial problems.

Someone may have received a disability decision they do not understand.

Someone may be dealing with housing instability.

Someone may be navigating a divorce.

Someone may be trying to obtain health care.

Someone may simply be trying to figure out what benefits he earned twenty years ago.

These interactions can reveal problems long before someone calls 988.

A Veterans Service Officer may spend considerable time helping a veteran develop a disability claim. During those conversations, the officer may learn about unemployment, chronic pain, family problems, isolation, financial stress, substance misuse, or difficulty transitioning from military service.

Those are not merely administrative facts.

They can also be indicators that someone needs help.

The goal is not to turn Veterans Service Officers into therapists.

It is to teach the people who already interact with veterans how to recognize risk and connect the veteran with someone who can help.

That is an important distinction.

Arizona Has Been Moving Toward This Model for Years

The 2023 pilot did not appear from nowhere.

Arizona has been involved in community-based veteran suicide prevention for years.

Following passage of the federal Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, Arizona became a pilot site for developing VA-community partnerships. That work contributed to the creation of Be Connected, a statewide initiative launched in 2017 by the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services and the Arizona Coalition for Military Families.

The program was designed around a broader concept of prevention. Instead of treating suicide exclusively as a medical event, the model recognizes that social, economic, emotional, and systemic pressures can contribute to crisis. Be Connected developed a 24-hour support line, resource navigation, community training, and connections between veterans, families, service organizations, and providers.

Arizona was also one of the original states participating in the federal Governor’s Challenge to Prevent Suicide Among Service Members, Veterans, and Their Families, launched through cooperation between VA and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

That national initiative has increasingly emphasized three concepts:

Identify veterans and screen for suicide risk.

Promote connectedness and improve transitions between services.

Improve safety planning and lethal-means safety.

The broader federal strategy recognizes that suicide prevention requires cooperation among health-care systems, government agencies, community organizations, families, employers, and veteran organizations.

Arizona’s current pilot fits directly into that philosophy.

But we can take it farther.

What Would a Full Arizona Program Look Like?

The next step should not simply be making A.R.S. § 41-610.02 permanent.

Arizona should consider creating a Veteran Suicide Prevention and Early Intervention Program built around the principle that every meaningful interaction with a veteran can become an opportunity to identify someone who needs help.

That system could contain several components.

1. Expand Training Beyond Traditional Veterans Service Officers

The current statute focuses on claims examiners and county and municipal veteran service offices.

That is a logical pilot population.

A permanent program could gradually expand training to people working in other locations where veterans experiencing problems routinely appear.

That could include Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services personnel, county veterans offices, veteran nonprofit organizations, state and local housing programs, workforce-development personnel, veteran treatment courts, community colleges and universities with significant veteran populations, first responders, and organizations serving homeless veterans.

The objective would not be universal mental-health certification.

It would be creating a network of trained interceptors.

People capable of recognizing that something is wrong and knowing what to do next.

2. Create a Warm-Handoff Requirement

Giving someone a telephone number is not always an intervention.

A veteran in distress may never make the call.

Arizona should evaluate protocols under which trained personnel can facilitate a direct connection between an at-risk veteran and an appropriate provider.

That might mean connecting the veteran to Be Connected.

It could mean connecting the veteran with the VA.

It could mean contacting a community mental-health provider.

It could mean emergency intervention.

Or it could mean connecting the veteran to housing, employment, benefits, legal assistance, transportation, or financial counseling.

The response should depend upon the problem.

The objective should be simple:

Do not tell the veteran where the next door is. Help him get through it.

3. Address the Problems That Occur Before the Crisis

This may be the most important policy change.

Veteran suicide prevention cannot be limited to suicide.

That sounds contradictory, but it isn’t.

If policymakers wait until someone expresses suicidal thoughts before government responds, the intervention is occurring late in the process.

Consider the pressures that may precede a crisis:

unemployment;

housing instability;

chronic pain;

financial distress;

family breakdown;

substance misuse;

legal problems;

loss of purpose;

social isolation;

difficulty obtaining benefits;

transition from military service;

or inability to navigate government programs.

A veteran experiencing three or four of these simultaneously may not identify himself as experiencing a mental-health crisis.

He may simply believe his life is falling apart.

Preventing the next suicide may begin with solving the housing problem, obtaining the disability benefit, finding employment, treating the pain, restoring family stability, or simply reconnecting someone with other veterans.

That is prevention.

This Is Also Where the National Strategy Is Heading

The federal government has begun moving toward this broader model.

One of the clearest examples is the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program, authorized through the Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act.

Rather than concentrating resources solely within VA medical facilities, the program funds community organizations capable of reaching veterans where they live.

The program specifically addresses both mental health and social determinants such as economic hardship, social connectedness, and access to care. Its purpose includes reaching veterans who are not already connected to VA services.

Since the program began in 2022, VA reports that it has awarded approximately $210 million to 111 organizations operating across 46 states, U.S. territories, and Tribal lands.

VA reported that participating organizations had generated more than 24,400 referrals for suicide-prevention support, including emergency-service connections for 854 veterans identified as being at high risk for suicide.

For fiscal year 2027, VA announced another funding opportunity of up to $112 million for community-based suicide-prevention services.

This is movement in the right direction.

But grants alone do not create a system.

States still need infrastructure capable of identifying veterans, coordinating organizations, measuring outcomes, and closing gaps between federal and local services.

Arizona could build that infrastructure.

The 61 Percent Problem

Every veteran policy discussion about suicide should return to one number:

61 percent.

That is the approximate percentage of veterans who died by suicide in 2023 who had not received VA health care during the preceding year.

That means VA cannot solve this problem alone.

It does not matter how good the VA’s suicide-prevention programs become if a large portion of the population at risk never interacts with them.

The system therefore has to reach outward.

Veterans interact with employers.

They interact with community colleges.

They visit county offices.

They file disability claims.

They attend VFW and American Legion posts.

They participate in motorcycle organizations.

They go to churches.

They appear in court.

They visit emergency rooms.

They apply for housing assistance.

They interact with police officers.

They apply for unemployment.

They talk with other veterans.

Each represents a potential intervention point.

The challenge is connecting those points.

We Need to Measure More Than Training

There is another lesson Arizona should take from the pilot.

A permanent program needs measurable outcomes.

Government programs frequently report how many people were trained.

That is useful administrative information.

It does not tell us whether the program worked.

Arizona should track questions such as:

How many veterans were identified as potentially at risk?

How many referrals were made?

How many resulted in completed connections to services?

What types of problems most frequently preceded referrals?

How many veterans were connected to VA health care?

How many were connected to housing programs?

How many received employment assistance?

How many received benefits assistance?

How many required immediate crisis intervention?

How many returned for additional services?

Where are the geographic gaps?

Which veteran populations are being missed?

Arizona should also examine suicide deaths themselves through a structured suicide mortality review process.

SAMHSA and VA now encourage states and communities to use Suicide Mortality Review Committees to examine deaths, identify common risk and protective factors, and determine where intervention opportunities may have been missed.

That could give Arizona something more useful than an annual death count.

It could tell policymakers where the system failed to make contact.

Build the System Around the Veteran, Not the Agency

Government tends to organize problems according to agencies.

Veterans do not experience their lives that way.

A veteran does not wake up with an “Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services problem.”

He has a rent problem.

A disability problem.

A job problem.

A marriage problem.

A medical problem.

A transportation problem.

A legal problem.

A drinking problem.

A loneliness problem.

Sometimes several at once.

The veteran then has to navigate multiple agencies, nonprofits, health-care systems, benefit programs, and eligibility rules while already under stress.

That structure makes sense administratively.

It makes considerably less sense from the veteran’s perspective.

A serious suicide-prevention strategy should reverse the equation.

Instead of asking:

Which program does this veteran qualify for?

Start by asking:

What is happening in this veteran’s life, and who can solve it?

Then connect the veteran to that resource.

Arizona Has a Decision Coming

The Veteran Suicide Prevention Training Pilot Program will not exist forever.

Under current law, A.R.S. § 41-610.02 is scheduled for full repeal on January 1, 2028.

That means the 2027 Arizona Legislature will have an opportunity to examine what the pilot accomplished and decide what comes next.

I do not think the question should simply be:

Should we renew the pilot?

The better question is:

What did we learn from the pilot, and how do we turn those lessons into a permanent statewide early-intervention system?

Arizona already has many of the pieces.

We have the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services.

We have Be Connected.

We have Veterans Service Organizations.

We have county and municipal veteran services.

We have VA facilities.

We have veteran treatment courts.

We have universities and community colleges serving veterans.

We have workforce programs.

We have community organizations.

We have thousands of veterans willing to help other veterans.

The problem is not necessarily the absence of resources.

The problem is making those resources operate as a connected system.

Suicide Prevention Has to Begin Before Someone Is Suicidal

September should remind us to check on each other.

It should remind veterans that asking for help is not weakness.

It should remind families to recognize warning signs.

And it should remind every veteran that the Veterans Crisis Line is available by calling 988 and pressing 1.

But Suicide Prevention Month should also force policymakers to examine the structure behind those messages.

A crisis line is necessary.

Emergency psychiatric care is necessary.

Mental-health treatment is necessary.

None of those should be confused with the entirety of suicide prevention.

The objective should be to intervene before the veteran reaches the point where 988 becomes necessary.

Maybe the intervention begins when a Veterans Service Officer notices something during a disability claim.

Maybe it begins when a veteran loses a job.

Maybe it begins during an eviction proceeding.

Maybe it begins when a police officer encounters a veteran experiencing a behavioral-health problem.

Maybe it begins when someone stops showing up at the VFW.

Maybe it begins when another Marine recognizes that his buddy has disappeared from the group chat.

The system should be capable of recognizing those moments.

Arizona’s suicide-prevention pilot was a step toward that idea.

The next step should be larger.

We should take what we have learned, establish a permanent statewide veteran suicide prevention and early-intervention program, connect federal, state, county, municipal, nonprofit, and veteran-service resources, and measure whether veterans actually receive help.

Because the number that matters is not how many people we train.

It is not how many brochures we distribute.

It is not how many Suicide Prevention Month proclamations we issue.

It is not even how many calls a hotline receives.

The number that matters is the one we should be trying relentlessly to drive toward zero:

How many veterans did we lose?

For Arizona in 2023, that number was 223.

For America, it was 6,398.

Behind every one of those numbers was a veteran.

And somewhere before the final moment was an opportunity to intervene.

The public-policy mission should be finding that opportunity sooner.

That is what suicide prevention should mean.

Additional Sources

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2025 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report, Part 1: Overview (2026).

Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration, Governor’s and Mayor’s Challenges to Prevent Suicide Among Service Members, Veterans, and Their Families.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program.

Arizona received some welcome transportation news last week. According to the Arizona Department of Transportation’s newly released 2025 crash data, 194 motorcyclists were killed on Arizona roads last year. That represents an 11 percent reduction from the 218 motorcyclist fatalities recorded in 2024.¹

Every reduction matters. Twenty-four fewer deaths means twenty-four people who made it home, twenty-four families spared a funeral, and twenty-four reminders that public policy, rider education, enforcement, roadway design, and individual decisions can affect outcomes.

Still, 194 motorcyclist deaths cannot be treated as an acceptable baseline.

The important policy question is not whether Arizona had a better year. It did. The question is whether Arizona can turn that one-year improvement into a sustained reduction without treating motorcycles as an afterthought in transportation planning.

That requires more than telling riders to wear protective gear, slow down, or take another safety course. Rider responsibility is part of the answer, but it is not the entire answer. Drivers must be trained to recognize motorcycles. Transportation agencies must account for motorcycles when designing roads. Local governments must examine whether traffic-calming measures create new hazards for riders. State safety money collected from motorcyclists must reach motorcycle-specific programs. Riders operating on public roads must possess the skills and legal credentials required to operate a motorcycle.

Arizona took a step toward that broader structure during the 2026 legislative session. House Bill 2114, signed by Governor Katie Hobbs on June 22, connects motorcycle registration with lawful motorcycle licensure and directs part of the Motorcycle Safety Fund toward training scholarships for rural and lower-income riders.²

The law takes effect January 1, 2027.

That date is now four months away.

What the New Crash Data Tell Us

The statewide numbers moved in the right direction during 2025.

Arizona recorded 1,156 traffic fatalities across all roadways, a 5.2 percent decrease from 2024. Total crashes fell from 123,535 to 118,052, a reduction of 4.4 percent. Motorcycle fatalities declined at more than twice the rate of total traffic deaths.³

That comparison deserves attention. It suggests that the reduction in motorcycle deaths was not simply the result of a proportional decline across every vehicle category. Something more may be happening.

Yet the statewide report does not establish why motorcycle fatalities fell. It does not tell us whether the reduction resulted from fewer miles traveled, different weather patterns, enforcement activity, motorcycle training, changes in rider behavior, public-awareness campaigns, road improvements, or statistical variation. Anyone claiming that a single program caused the decline is moving ahead of the evidence.

The data also show why motorcycle policy cannot focus only on state highways. Arizona recorded 709 traffic fatalities on local roads and 447 on the state highway system. Urban areas accounted for 685 fatalities, compared with 471 in rural areas.⁴

Motorcycle safety is therefore a municipal and county issue as much as it is a state issue.

A rider may spend part of the day on an Arizona highway, but the most complicated portions of the trip often occur on local streets. Intersections, commercial driveways, traffic signals, turning vehicles, construction zones, utility cuts, road debris, lane narrowing, and poorly marked pavement changes all create risks that are different from those encountered on an open highway.

If cities adopt transportation-safety programs without motorcycle-specific analysis, they may miss those risks. A project intended to slow automobiles can create abrupt elevation changes, narrowed lanes, reduced escape space, slick pavement markings, or visual clutter that affects a motorcycle differently.

“Safer for the average vehicle” is not the same as safer for every lawful road user.

Arizona’s New Registration Requirement

Beginning January 1, 2027, the Arizona Department of Transportation may issue or renew a motorcycle registration only when at least one registered owner has a valid Class M motorcycle license.

A person who has not yet received the Class M credential may obtain a thirty-day temporary registration by showing valid proof of enrollment in an ADOT-approved motorcycle training program. Motorcycles owned by businesses are exempt. When a motorcycle is owned through a trust, the trustee identified in the registration record must satisfy the licensing requirement.⁵

The rule is straightforward: if a motorcycle is registered for use on Arizona roads, at least one person connected to its ownership should be legally qualified to operate it.

The requirement does not mean every co-owner must possess a Class M license. It does not require the owner to complete a new course every year. It does not create an annual riding test. It does not prevent a person from buying a motorcycle before completing training. The temporary-registration provision gives a new owner a short period to finish the licensing process.

Arizona already requires a Class M license or motorcycle endorsement to operate a motorcycle legally. House Bill 2114 gives that existing requirement an administrative checkpoint at registration.

National data provide a reason for that connection. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that 35 percent of motorcycle operators involved in fatal crashes during 2024 were riding without valid motorcycle licenses.⁶ That figure does not prove that the absence of a license caused each crash, but it identifies a substantial compliance and training problem.

Licensing is not paperwork detached from safety. Operating a motorcycle requires braking, cornering, balance, hazard recognition, countersteering, lane positioning, and emergency maneuvering skills that are not tested through a standard automobile license.

Arizona allows an applicant to obtain the motorcycle endorsement through Motor Vehicle Division testing or through an approved motorcycle school. A person who completes approved training and receives a Motorcycle Safety Foundation completion card may qualify to have the written and road tests waived.⁷

The registration requirement creates an incentive for owners who have postponed the endorsement process to complete it.

The Motorcycle Safety Fund Matters Just as Much

The licensing provision has received much of the public attention, but House Bill 2114 also changes how Arizona may use the Motorcycle Safety Fund.

Arizona directs $1 from each motorcycle registration fee into the fund. This is not a new $1 charge added by House Bill 2114. It is a dedication of money already collected through motorcycle registration.

Under the new structure, up to 75 percent of the fund may support voluntary motorcycle education, awareness, training, materials, and related programs. Up to 25 percent may support motorcycle driver-education scholarships for people from rural or lower-income communities.⁸

That scholarship authority is important.

A rider in Phoenix, Mesa, or Tucson may have several approved training options within a reasonable distance. A prospective rider in a rural community may face a long drive, limited course dates, lodging expenses, missed work, or few available instructors. The cost of the class is only one part of the access problem.

If Arizona is going to connect registration with licensure, the state also has a duty to ensure that riders have a realistic path to obtain the required credential.

The thirty-day temporary registration provides limited flexibility, but it will not solve a shortage of training seats or instructors. A temporary registration is of little value if the nearest approved course is full for six weeks.

The Governor’s Office of Highway Safety and ADOT should use the remaining months of 2026 to answer several operational questions:

• How many motorcycle owners currently lack a Class M credential?

• In which counties are those owners located?

• How many approved training seats are available each month?

• Which communities lack reasonable access to a course?

• How will an owner submit proof of enrollment for the temporary registration?

• Will the AZ MVD Now system recognize an existing endorsement automatically?

• How will out-of-state licenses, military credentials, trusts, and multiple-owner titles be processed?

• What information will be provided before a registration is rejected?

• How quickly will scholarship money become available?

• What appeal or correction process will exist if the state’s licensing and registration records do not match?

These are not minor details. They will determine whether the law functions as a safety measure or becomes a source of avoidable registration problems.

What the Law Does Not Solve

House Bill 2114 is a useful policy, but no one should pretend that it resolves Arizona’s motorcycle-fatality problem.

A Class M endorsement does not repair deteriorated pavement. It does not remove debris from a travel lane. It does not make a distracted driver look before turning left. It does not prevent a transportation department from installing a motorcycle-hostile traffic-calming feature. It does not ensure that driver-license examinations teach motorists how to recognize and share the road with motorcycles. It does not tell us whether a city’s safety plan accounts for the handling and stability characteristics of two-wheeled vehicles.

Motorcycle safety requires a system in which riders are treated as a distinct transportation class with identifiable engineering, education, and enforcement needs.

That means transportation plans should include motorcycle crash data, not bury motorcycles under a generic “motor vehicle” category. Road-safety audits should examine surface transitions, drainage grates, pavement markings, barrier placement, work-zone plates, gravel migration, and escape paths from a rider’s perspective. Driver education should include motorcycle awareness. Law enforcement reporting should capture enough detail to distinguish rider error from roadway, vehicle, or other-driver factors.

It also means safety agencies should measure results.

If Arizona allocates rider-funded money to education and training, the public should be able to see:

• The amount collected through motorcycle registrations;

• The amount appropriated by the Legislature;

• Administrative expenditures;

• Program grants and recipients;

• The number and location of scholarship awards;

• The number of riders completing training;

• The percentage obtaining a Class M credential;

• Rural access and course availability;

• Motorcycle crash and fatality trends; and

• The relationship between funded programs and measurable outcomes.

Riders are contributing the money. Riders should be able to determine where it went and what it accomplished.

What Arizona Riders Should Do Before January 1

The new law should not catch an informed motorcycle owner by surprise.

First, check the back of your Arizona driver license and confirm that the motorcycle endorsement appears correctly. Do not assume that prior training, years of riding, or possession of a Motorcycle Safety Foundation card means the state’s current licensing record is correct.

Second, check the motorcycle title and registration. If the motorcycle has more than one owner, confirm that at least one registered owner holds the Class M credential. If the motorcycle is owned through a trust, examine whether the trustee information is accurate.

Third, if you do not have the endorsement, begin the licensing or approved-training process now. Waiting until the registration expires may leave too little time to secure a course seat, complete testing, and correct any record problem.

Fourth, retain copies of course enrollment and completion documents. The law permits a thirty-day temporary registration based on valid proof of enrollment in an approved program. Riders should be prepared to document that eligibility.

Fifth, report administrative problems. If ADOT’s system rejects a qualified owner, fails to recognize an endorsement, or cannot process an eligible temporary registration, the motorcycle community needs that information. One isolated mistake may be a customer-service problem. Repeated mistakes may identify a statewide policy problem requiring agency or legislative correction.

The Rider Community’s Next Assignment

The reduction from 218 motorcyclist fatalities in 2024 to 194 in 2025 is a reason to keep working, not a reason to declare the problem solved.

The 2027 registration requirement gives Arizona an opportunity to increase lawful licensing and connect new motorcycle owners with approved training. The revised Motorcycle Safety Fund gives the state a mechanism to expand education and help riders who face geographic or financial barriers.

Whether those provisions produce results will depend on what happens after enactment.

ABATE of Arizona and the broader rider community will monitor the rollout, training capacity, scholarship access, administrative errors, and use of rider-funded money. They will also continue pressing state and local transportation agencies to evaluate motorcycles when roads are designed, altered, resurfaced, narrowed, or subjected to traffic-calming measures.

Motorcycle policy cannot begin and end with demands placed on the rider.

Riders must be trained, licensed, sober, alert, and accountable for their decisions. Drivers must look for motorcycles and respect their lawful place on the road. Agencies must build and maintain roads that account for motorcycle operation. Legislators must protect rider-generated safety money. Local governments must include motorcyclists in transportation planning before a project is approved, not after riders begin reporting hazards.

Arizona’s numbers improved in 2025. The next task is to determine why, preserve what worked, correct what did not, and make sure the improvement continues.

That is how 194 becomes fewer next year.

Rider Action for This Week

Check your driver license, motorcycle registration, and title information. If your Class M endorsement is missing, start the training or testing process before the January 1, 2027, deadline. Share this article with another Arizona rider who may not know the registration rules are changing.

Motorcycle rights are protected when riders remain informed, organized, and present in the policy process.

Footnotes

1. Arizona Department of Transportation, Traffic Fatalities on Arizona Roads Decline for Third Year in a Row (Aug. 27, 2026), reporting 194 motorcyclist fatalities in 2025, compared with 218 in 2024, https://azdot.gov/news/traffic-fatalities-arizona-roads-decline-third-year-row.

2. 2026 Ariz. Sess. Laws ch. 246, §§ 1–3; Office of the Arizona Governor, Governor Katie Hobbs Legislative Action Update (June 22, 2026), https://azgovernor.gov/office-arizona-governor/news/2026/06/governor-katie-hobbs-legislative-action-update-1.

3. Arizona Department of Transportation, supra note 1.

4. Id.

5. 2026 Ariz. Sess. Laws ch. 246, § 2; Arizona House of Representatives, H.B. 2114 Signed Bill Summary 1–2 (2026), https://www.azleg.gov/legtext/57leg/2R/summary/H.HB2114_070826_SIGNED.DOCX.htm.

6. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Motorcycle Safety, reporting that 35 percent of motorcycle operators involved in fatal crashes in 2024 lacked valid motorcycle licenses, https://www.nhtsa.gov/road-safety/motorcycles.

7. Arizona Department of Transportation, Motorcycle License, https://azdot.gov/mvd/services/driver-license-ID/motorcycle-license.

8. 2026 Ariz. Sess. Laws ch. 246, § 1; Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 28-2010.

The Arizona State Board of Nursing states that military programs preparing corpsmen or medical technicians are generally not approved nursing programs. Limited pathways exist for graduates of specified Army and Air Force practical-nursing programs, but the Board expressly states that Navy programs have not been approved for practical-nurse endorsement.¹

The veteran did not lose the skill. The civilian system lacks a consistent method for measuring it.

SO, WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

Arizona law already recognizes the principle that military experience should count. Arizona Revised Statutes section 32-4303 provides that education, training, or experience requirements for an occupational credential must be considered completely or partially satisfied when an applicant presents evidence of substantially equivalent military preparation. The regulating entity decides whether the experience is equivalent and is directed to work with the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services.²

That is enacted law. The problem is administrative execution.

The statute does not establish common evidence standards, occupation-by-occupation equivalency tables, decision deadlines, provisional authority to work, or a uniform appeal process. One board may understand a Joint Services Transcript. Another may ask the veteran to explain military course codes, duty assignments, and competency records that the agency has never evaluated before.

Arizona’s universal licensing-recognition law helps people who already hold an out-of-state civilian license for at least one year. It does less for a separating service member whose competence was acquired inside the military and who never needed a civilian license.³ Recognition of another state’s license and recognition of military competence are different policy problems.

The consequences appear across the workforce:

· An Army medic or Navy corpsman may possess emergency-care experience but still need civilian EMT or nursing education before practicing within Arizona’s regulated scope.

· A military vehicle operator may use Arizona’s commercial-driver skills-test waiver, but the veteran must generally have two years of qualifying experience, apply within one year after an honorable separation, and still pass the required knowledge examinations.⁴

· Military health professionals may encounter civilian program-accreditation requirements even when their clinical tasks overlap.

· Electricians, equipment operators, mechanics, and construction supervisors may have relevant experience for skilled-trade or contractor requirements, but each licensing authority must decide what military records prove.

· Cybersecurity specialists and network administrators usually face employer or certification barriers rather than state licensure. The Department of Defense’s Credentialing Opportunities On-Line system maps military occupations to civilian credentials, but a mapping tool does not compel an Arizona employer or college to accept the underlying competence.⁵

· Military police and security personnel may still face Arizona-specific training. The Department of Public Safety requires eight hours of initial unarmed-guard training and sixteen hours for armed guards. Arizona does not treat an out-of-state security registration as transferable.⁶

· Veterans entering teaching can use the Arizona Department of Education’s Troops to Educators program for counseling, certification guidance, and placement assistance, but military leadership or technical instruction does not itself establish every classroom competency.⁷

· Military police experience does not automatically produce Arizona peace-officer certification. The Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board’s waiver process is designed for applicants who previously served as certified peace officers, which is not the same classification as military police service.⁸

Arizona is not forcing every veteran to begin at zero. It is forcing too many veterans to navigate disconnected systems that cannot provide a predictable answer before the veteran invests time and money.

THE SOLUTION

Four policy tools are available, and they should not be confused.

Competency review compares documented military tasks, training hours, evaluations, and operational experience against civilian requirements. This is the most accurate tool because it measures what the veteran can prove, not merely the title of the military occupation.

Provisional licensure permits supervised or limited practice while the veteran completes identified civilian gaps. It is useful in health care, education, skilled trades, and public safety, where immediate unrestricted practice may present a legitimate risk.

Expedited review shortens the decision period. It addresses delay, but it does not fix an agency’s inability to interpret military records. A fast denial is still a denial.

Transcript recognition converts military education into academic or vocational credit. Arizona law already requires public universities and community colleges to evaluate military transcripts, apply qualifying military education toward selected programs, and report approval data, including separate information for health-care programs.⁹ Transcript credit reduces repeated coursework, but it does not always produce a license.

Arizona should combine these tools through a Military Competency Passport. This is a policy recommendation, not current law or a pending proposal identified for this article.

Each participating board and agency would publish a military-to-civilian competency matrix. A veteran would submit a Joint Services Transcript, service school records, evaluation reports, civilian credentials, and verified duty history through one intake process. The receiving agency would then issue one of four findings within thirty days:

1. Full equivalency and credential approval.

2. Partial equivalency with a written gap list.

3. Provisional authority subject to supervision or testing.

4. Denial identifying the unmet competency and appeal procedure.

The state should begin with occupations where the overlap is measurable: EMT, paramedic, licensed practical nurse, commercial driving, construction trades, information technology, armed security, teaching, corrections, firefighting, and law enforcement support.

THE STRONGEST COUNTERARGUMENT

Licensing exists to protect the public. Treating trauma under military protocols does not establish knowledge of Arizona’s civilian scope-of-practice rules. Driving a tactical vehicle does not prove familiarity with civilian hazardous-material regulations. Military police work does not cover Arizona criminal procedure, tribal jurisdiction, domestic-violence law, or state peace-officer standards.

That objection is valid. The answer is not automatic licensure.

The answer is to test the difference between what the veteran has already mastered and what Arizona still requires. A competency system preserves examinations, background checks, supervised practice, and Arizona-law instruction where those requirements protect the public. It removes coursework that serves no protective purpose.

Veterans currently bear the direct cost through tuition, fees, lost wages, delayed employment, and underemployment. Employers and taxpayers bear the indirect cost when trained workers remain outside occupations experiencing staffing pressure. Licensing boards bear administrative costs when applications require individual interpretation without standard matrices.

APPLYING THE SOLUTION

Three actions can move this from principle to practice.

First, veterans and service organizations should document cases. Record the occupation, military specialty, training completed, civilian credential sought, credits granted, credits denied, processing time, and out-of-pocket cost. Policymakers need a problem record, not a collection of general complaints.

Second, Arizona boards and colleges should publish equivalency decisions. Names and personal information can remain confidential. The public should be able to see which military courses and duties have been accepted, partially accepted, or rejected and why.

Third, legislators should require a cross-agency pilot. The pilot should establish competency matrices, thirty-day decisions, written gap analyses, provisional pathways, and annual reporting on applications, approvals, processing time, repeated coursework, employment placement, and ninety-day retention.

Arizona has already declared that substantially equivalent military training should count. The next question is whether the state will measure that principle by the words in the statute or by the number of veterans who reach civilian employment without being told to relearn work they have already performed.

For Warrior Wednesday, that is the call to action: veterans should bring forward the records, agencies should expose the gaps, and policymakers should build a system that distinguishes necessary civilian standards from unnecessary repetition.

Copper Dome Update will continue tracking this issue as part of EPIC Policy Group’s work on veteran workforce mobility, occupational licensing, and military-family economic stability.

Footnotes

1. Arizona State Board of Nursing, Apply for a License: Armed Forces and Practical Nurses with Military Training, https://azbn.gov/licenses-and-certifications/apply-license.

2. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 32-4303 (2026), https://www.azleg.gov/ars/32/04303.htm.

3. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 32-4302(A)–(C) (2026), https://www.azleg.gov/ars/32/04302.htm.

4. Arizona Department of Transportation, Military Personnel & Veterans: CDL Skills Test Waiver, https://azdot.gov/mvd/services/driver-license-ID/military-veterans.

5. Department of Defense, Credentialing Opportunities On-Line Portal,

https://www.cool.osd.mil/

6. Arizona Department of Public Safety, Licensing: Security Guards, https://www.azdps.gov/services/public-services-center/licensing.

7. Arizona Department of Education, Troops to Educators https://www.azed.gov/teach/troops-educators.

8. Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board, Certification and Waiver Process, https://post.az.gov/certification.

9. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 15-1898(A)–(D) (2026), https://www.azleg.gov/ars/15/01898.htm.

That does not make Vision Zero a bad policy. It means the policy must account for the people who experience the roadway differently.

Defining the Problem

On May 12, 2026, the Glendale City Council adopted Resolution No. R26-51, establishing a Vision Zero goal.¹ The resolution sets policy direction. It does not, by itself, narrow a lane, install a speed table, authorize a camera, or approve a protected intersection. Those choices will come later through planning, engineering, budgeting, procurement, and project approval.

Vision Zero begins with a sound premise: death and serious injury should not be accepted as the inevitable price of mobility. The federal Safe System Approach recognizes that people make mistakes, human bodies are vulnerable, responsibility is shared, safety should be proactive, and transportation systems need redundancy.²

Motorcyclists belong inside that framework, not at its edge.

Arizona recorded 3,036 motorcycle crashes during 2024. Those crashes killed 219 motorcycle operators and passengers and injured 2,503.³ Nationally, motorcyclists were almost twenty-seven times more likely than passenger-car occupants to die per vehicle mile traveled in 2024.⁴ A safety program that fails to examine motorcycle exposure is not mode-neutral merely because it uses the phrase “all road users.”

The concern is not Glendale’s zero-death goal. The concern is how that goal is carried into street design and enforcement.

Lane narrowing can reduce operating speeds and discourage aggressive passing. A conventional road diet can remove conflict points and create a center turn lane. Federal Highway Administration studies estimate that properly selected four-lane-to-three-lane road diets can reduce total crashes by 19 to 47 percent, depending on traffic volume, location, and project design.⁵

Those benefits are real. They are also aggregate results. A narrower lane may leave a rider less room to avoid debris, an opening car door, a wandering vehicle, or a pavement defect. Curbs, posts, barriers, and raised islands can replace usable recovery space with fixed objects.

Vertical deflection, including speed humps, raised crossings, and speed tables, can slow traffic without continuous police presence. The motorcycle question is whether the feature has a predictable profile, adequate warning, skid-resistant materials, drainage, nighttime visibility, and proper maintenance. A worn transition or slick marking can affect two-wheel stability before it creates a comparable problem for a passenger vehicle.

Protected intersections can lower turning speeds and separate bicycle and pedestrian movements from motor vehicles. Their channelization may reduce some conflicts. Yet concrete islands and tightened turning paths can also restrict a motorcyclist’s escape route or place the rider where a turning driver does not expect to see a motorcycle. Even FHWA’s separated-bicycle guidance acknowledges that intersection design remains an evolving practice and calls for before-and-after data collection.⁶

Automated enforcement presents a similar tradeoff. Speed and red-light cameras may deter dangerous conduct at selected locations. Arizona law permits photo enforcement under defined procedures, including law-enforcement review before a citation is issued and notice that an initial mailed violation is not a court-issued document.⁷ Glendale’s Vision Zero resolution does not itself require cameras.

A motorcycle-sensitive review should ask what problem the camera is meant to solve. If the crash pattern is dominated by left-turn violations, failed motorcycle detection at traffic signals, poor lighting, or pavement conditions, issuing more speeding citations may produce activity without addressing the controlling hazard.

Addressing the Solution

Glendale should adopt a motorcycle-impact screen before approving any Vision Zero project or enforcement program.

This is not a motorcycle veto. It is a repeatable review that tests whether a proposed treatment protects riders as a distinct roadway mode.

The screen should ask:

1. What do the motorcycle-specific data show? Separate motorcycle crashes from passenger vehicles, bicycles, and broad “vulnerable road user” totals. Examine left-turn, angle, rear-end, single-vehicle, nighttime, weekend, and work-zone patterns.

2. Does the design preserve control and recovery space? Review lane width, turning radius, curb placement, barriers, bollards, drainage, surface transitions, pavement markings, and fixed objects.

3. Does every signal detect motorcycles? FHWA has recommended signal specifications that require equipment to recognize motorcycles.⁸

4. Are vertical and surface features motorcycle-tolerant? Review speed-table profiles, raised crossings, utility covers, steel plates, crack sealants, grooves, milled pavement, edge drop-offs, and temporary traffic controls. FHWA found that riders surveyed about work zones identified grooved pavement, uneven lanes, and longitudinal joints as leading concerns.⁹

5. What will automated enforcement measure, and what will it miss? Compare citations with changes in fatal and serious-injury crashes. Review results by vehicle type and examine whether rear-end or evasive-action crashes change after deployment.

6. How will the city test its assumptions? Use pilot projects where feasible, publish before-and-after findings, and establish a rider hazard-reporting process.

The strongest counterargument is that every added review creates delay, cost, and pressure to weaken treatments already shown to reduce crashes. That concern deserves a direct answer. The screen should be incorporated into existing engineering review, not built as a separate approval bureaucracy. The cost of asking six questions before construction is small compared with rebuilding a completed project or discovering through a serious-injury crash that the model excluded a roadway mode.

The Need to Execute the Solution

Three actions should follow.

First, Glendale should publish a motorcycle-specific baseline before selecting projects. That baseline should identify crash types, corridors, intersections, lighting conditions, pavement factors, and time patterns.

Second, the city should place an experienced rider or motorcycle-safety representative on the advisory or technical review body that evaluates Vision Zero projects. Public participation after a design is nearly complete is too late.

Third, each project should receive motorcycle inspections before opening and at 30 days, 90 days, and one year. The review should cover pavement condition, drainage, markings, signal detection, sight distance, temporary controls, reported hazards, and motorcycle crash experience.

Vision Zero can save lives. It can also create new risks when a passenger car becomes the unstated model for every roadway user. Glendale has an opportunity to get this right before policy direction hardens into concrete, striping, contracts, and enforcement practices.

Motorcyclists should support the goal and insist on a better method. Ask Glendale to adopt the motorcycle-impact screen, publish mode-specific data, and give riders a seat during design review.

Copper Dome Update will continue tracking how Arizona cities move from safety resolutions to street-level decisions. EPIC Policy Group/ABATE of Arizona will keep pressing the question that matters: does the proposed treatment make the road safer for every user, or only for the user represented in the model?

Footnotes

1. City of Glendale, Ariz., City Council Regular Meeting, Resolution No. R26-51 (May 12, 2026).

2. U.S. Department of Transportation, Getting Ready for Safe Streets and Roads for All 15 (Apr. 28, 2022).

3. Arizona Department of Transportation, 2024 Arizona Motor Vehicle Crash Facts 2, 48–57 (July 9, 2025), https://azdot.gov/sites/default/files/2025-07/2024-Crash-Facts.pdf.

4. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Motorcycle Safety (last visited Aug. 23, 2026).

5. Federal Highway Administration, Road Diet Informational Guide: Introduction (reporting expected total-crash reductions ranging from 19 to 47 percent).

6. Federal Highway Administration, Separated Bike Lane Planning and Design Guide (2015).

7. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 28-1602(A)–(D) (2026).

8. Federal Highway Administration, Addressing the Motorcyclist Advisory Council Recommendations: Synthesis on Roadway Geometry, Pavement Design, and Pavement Construction and Maintenance Practices 57 (2021), https://highways.dot.gov/sites/fhwa.dot.gov/files/2022-07/FHWA-SA-21-090_Addressing_MAC_Recommendations_Rpt.pdf.

9. Id. at 51, 57.

The calendar may be short, but the hearing raises a national policy question with consequences for members of the National Guard and Reserve:

Should a servicemember be pressured to surrender an elected or appointed position because military orders temporarily prevent ordinary participation?

This Week’s Hearing

House Committee on Education and the Workforce

Hearing: “Deployed, Not Disqualified: Defending Servicemembers in Our Schools”

Date: Tuesday, August 25, 2026

Time: 11:30 a.m. Eastern, 8:30 a.m. Arizona time

Location: Richmond City Hall, 36725 Division Road, Richmond, Michigan 48062

Witnesses:

• Chris Neeley, Superintendent, South Carolina Public Charter School District

• Amy Stier, Richmond, Michigan

• Jonathan Butcher, Acting Director of the Center for Education Policy and Will Skillman Senior Research Fellow, Heritage Foundation

The hearing is scheduled as a field hearing rather than a Washington hearing. It will be livestreamed through the committee’s online video channel. The schedule and witness list remain subject to change.

The Dispute Behind the Hearing

The hearing appears to grow from the experience of Master Sergeant Raymond Stier, a member of the Richmond Community Schools Board of Education who deployed to the Middle East while serving his elected term.

According to a June 19 statement from Representative Lisa McClain’s office, Stier participated in school board meetings remotely while deployed. Operational demands later limited his ability to attend some meetings. Members of the board reportedly criticized his absence, characterized it as a disservice to the community, and suggested that he should have resigned before deploying.

Amy Stier, his wife, became a public advocate for his continued service on the board and is scheduled to testify Tuesday. Richmond Community Schools continues to identify Raymond Stier as a board trustee serving a term that runs through December 31, 2030.

The account supplied by Representative McClain reflects one side of the local dispute. The committee had not published written witness testimony as of August 24. Tuesday’s hearing should provide a fuller record concerning what the board said, how Stier participated while deployed, what operational barriers arose, and whether existing state or federal law supplied an adequate remedy.

Those details matter. There is a difference between removing a public official under an established vacancy law and applying informal political pressure because military service has made attendance inconvenient. The first is a legal process. The second may create a penalty for answering military orders even when no statute requires resignation.

Michigan Law Already Recognizes the Problem

Michigan’s Open Meetings Act expressly permits a public-body member who is absent because of military duty to participate electronically. The statute requires two-way communication and allows the remotely participating member to be treated as present for the meeting. After December 31, 2021, military duty remains one of the principal statutory grounds for remote participation by a member of a Michigan public body.

That provision reflects a practical policy judgment. A servicemember deployed away from home may remain capable of reviewing documents, joining discussions, and voting even when physical attendance is impossible.

Remote access does not resolve every problem. Military missions can limit internet access, communications, scheduling, and the servicemember’s ability to discuss public business. A meeting held at 7:00 p.m. in Michigan may occur during duty hours or in the middle of the night at the deployed location. Operational security can prevent a servicemember from identifying a location or explaining the reason for an absence. Military obligations can also change without the advance notice expected in civilian government.

A remote-participation statute supplies permission. It does not guarantee that military operations will permit attendance at every meeting.

The policy question is whether an absence caused by military orders should be treated like ordinary neglect of office. Tuesday’s hearing should examine where states should draw that line.

What Federal Law Covers, and What It May Not Cover

The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act protects servicemembers from employment discrimination and preserves civilian employment and reemployment rights during qualifying military service. Congress enacted the law to reduce civilian disadvantages arising from military obligations and to prohibit discrimination based on past, present, or future uniformed service.

USERRA is built around employment. A school board seat or another elective public office does not always fit comfortably within an employment-rights framework. Compensation, appointment method, state civil-service status, and the legal character of the office can affect the analysis.

The Richmond dispute may therefore expose a gap between two bodies of law:

1. Federal law protects a servicemember’s civilian employment.

2. State law governs qualification, attendance, vacancies, and removal from local public office.

A Guard or Reserve member may have clear statutory protection for a civilian job but face less certain protection when serving on a school board, municipal commission, county board, or other local body.

The hearing should not assume that every attendance dispute constitutes unlawful discrimination. Public boards must meet quorum requirements, approve budgets, supervise administrators, and conduct time-sensitive business. Voters also have a legitimate expectation that elected members will perform the duties of office.

The answer cannot be that military status excuses every absence for an unlimited period. The answer also cannot be that receiving deployment orders makes a servicemember unfit to hold office.

A workable standard must distinguish temporary inability caused by military necessity from abandonment, refusal to participate, or long-term incapacity unrelated to military service.

Why Arizona Should Pay Attention

Arizona has a large active-duty, Guard, Reserve, veteran, and military-family population. Members of these communities serve on school district governing boards, municipal bodies, nonprofit boards, advisory commissions, and state committees.

The issue is not limited to education. The same conflict can arise when a Guard or Reserve member serves on:

• A school district governing board

• A city council or town council

• A county board or commission

• A planning and zoning commission

• A veterans advisory council

• A state licensing or regulatory board

• A fire district or special district governing board

Arizona policymakers should examine whether state vacancy, attendance, and open-meeting laws address deployment with enough precision. The review should answer four questions.

First, can a deployed member participate remotely and be counted toward a quorum when communications permit?

Second, does military duty pause or modify ordinary attendance requirements?

Third, what documentation may a public body request without demanding operational information that the servicemember cannot disclose?

Fourth, what process applies when the anticipated deployment is so long that continued service may impair the body’s ability to operate?

Arizona already participates in the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children, which seeks to prevent military-connected students from being disadvantaged by deployments and interstate transfers. The same policy principle deserves consideration when the servicemember is helping govern the school system rather than enrolling a child in it.

What to Watch During the Hearing

The witness testimony should be evaluated against five questions.

1. What conduct prompted the hearing?

The committee should establish precisely what was said or done, whether any formal removal effort occurred, and whether Stier lost any voting, participation, or governance rights. Criticism alone is different from a formal attempt to create a vacancy.

2. Was remote participation legally and operationally available?

Michigan law permits military-related remote participation. The hearing should identify whether the board provided the required access, whether Stier used it, and whether military conditions prevented participation at particular meetings.

3. Is the problem local, state, or federal?

If the conflict arose from board relationships or local political disagreements, federal legislation may have little effect. If state vacancy laws fail to account for deployments, the primary remedy may be model state legislation. If servicemembers across several states face the same gap, Congress may have a basis to consider minimum protections.

4. What protection would preserve accountability?

Any proposal should protect against forced resignation or adverse treatment based solely on military duty while preserving a procedure for prolonged incapacity. Possible tools include remote participation, excused military absences, temporary delegation of limited administrative functions, or a defined review process after a specified period.

5. What evidence exists beyond this case?

One dispute can expose a policy defect, but Congress should determine whether similar disputes have occurred elsewhere. The record should include state-law comparisons, military legal-assistance data, complaints from Guard and Reserve members, and examples from public bodies that have handled deployments without disrupting governance.

The Policy Test

Any federal or state response should meet a basic three-part test:

• No automatic disqualification: Military orders alone should not create a vacancy or establish neglect of office.

• Meaningful participation: Public bodies should provide lawful remote access when operational conditions permit.

• Public accountability: A defined process should address extended periods during which a member cannot participate, with notice, an opportunity to respond, and standards tied to the body’s ability to perform its legal duties.

The goal is not preferential treatment. It is preventing military service from becoming a penalty unrelated to the servicemember’s qualifications, conduct, or commitment to the public.

The Week Ahead

A single field hearing will not settle the relationship between military duty and elected public service. It can establish whether the Richmond dispute is an isolated personnel conflict or evidence of a recurring legal gap.

The hearing record will matter more than its title. Watch for proposed statutory language, specific examples from other states, distinctions between employment and public office, and any indication that committee members intend to pursue legislation.

For Arizona policymakers, the immediate task is narrower: audit state attendance, vacancy, and remote-participation rules before an Arizona servicemember faces the same conflict.

The congressional committee schedule is subject to change. Readers can review the current weekly schedule and the House committee hearing page for updates and viewing information.

Copper Dome Update will continue tracking federal hearings that may affect Arizona veterans, servicemembers, military families, and state policy. Subscribe for decision-focused coverage that explains not only what Congress is discussing, but what Arizona should do with that information.

Join and follow AzCDL as we fight for Arizona’s right to keep and bear arms.

That distinction is where much of the sensitive-place debate goes wrong. Bruen, Rahimi, and Wolford did not create a national list of every place where firearms may or may not be carried. They created and refined a method. Arizona law then supplies a separate layer of statutes governing public buildings, parks, schools, events, liquor-licensed premises, and municipal authority.

DEFINING THE PROBLEM: THREE CASES, THREE DIFFERENT HOLDINGS

In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Supreme Court held that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect the right of an ordinary, law-abiding citizen to carry a handgun publicly for self-defense. When the Constitution’s text covers the conduct, the government must justify its restriction through the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Courts may reason by analogy, but they may not restore interest balancing under another name.

Bruen also treated schools and government buildings as settled examples of sensitive places. It warned that governments cannot declare every place where people gather sensitive, because that theory would erase public carry in cities. The holding invalidated New York’s discretionary proper-cause licensing rule. It did not adjudicate every modern location restriction.

In United States v. Rahimi, the Court upheld the federal prohibition applicable to a person subject to a qualifying domestic-violence restraining order. The Court explained that a historical analogue need not be a “dead ringer” or “historical twin.” The relevant inquiry considers why and how the modern law burdens the right and whether it fits the principles underlying the historical tradition. Rahimi concerned who may possess a firearm after a judicial finding of dangerousness, not where ordinary citizens may carry.

Wolford v. Lopez, decided June 25, 2026, addressed place and default rules directly. Hawaii had made private property open to the public gun-free unless the owner gave express permission. The Court held that this flipped the common-law default and imposed a serious burden on licensed carriers conducting daily business. Hawaii’s hunting and anti-poaching laws were not adequate analogues for a statewide rule covering stores, restaurants, and other businesses.

The holding is narrow. A private owner still may exclude firearms. Wolford prevents the state from making nearly all private property presumptively off-limits. It did not decide the constitutionality of every park, restaurant, government parking lot, or public event restriction. On August 10, 2026, the Ninth Circuit confirmed that its prior analysis of Hawaii’s other location rules remained unaffected by the Supreme Court’s limited ruling.

THE SOLUTION: APPLY DOCTRINE AND ARIZONA LAW TOGETHER

Arizona public buildings do not operate under a free-floating municipal power. A state or local public establishment may make a reasonable request that a person remove a weapon, but it must provide temporary, secure storage that is accessible upon entry and permits immediate retrieval upon exit. Core government buildings have the strongest constitutional defense under Heller and Bruen. A city’s attempt to stretch that status across shared parking lots, open plazas, or unrelated property presents a different question.

Parks are clearer as a matter of state law. Arizona preempts local firearm regulation. A political subdivision may restrict firearm discharge in parks and preserves, subject to statutory exceptions, but that is not authority to prohibit lawful possession or carry. The Ninth Circuit has allowed park restrictions to operate during preliminary-injunction litigation, but that circuit ruling does not repeal Arizona preemption or turn every park into a Supreme Court-approved sensitive place.

At liquor-licensed premises, Arizona uses an opt-out rule consistent with Wolford: a concealed-carry permit holder may carry at an on-sale retailer unless the licensee posts the statutory sign. A person carrying may not consume alcohol. The property owner retains control without the state presuming that every business rejects armed entry.

Schools occupy the strongest sensitive-place category. Arizona prohibits deadly weapons on school grounds, with exceptions that include an unloaded firearm secured in an adult-controlled vehicle and school-approved programs. The Supreme Court has repeatedly identified schools as sensitive, but questions about boundaries, mixed-use property, parking, and particular applications can still depend on facts.

Public events require more care than signs often suggest. Arizona defines a public event as a named or sponsored event of limited duration conducted by a public entity or by a private entity under a public permit or license. An unsponsored gathering is excluded. If removal is requested, secure storage is required. Neither a crowd nor a permit automatically resolves the federal constitutional question. Bruen rejected the theory that congregation alone makes a place sensitive.

Municipal rules face both tests. A city must possess authority under Arizona law and satisfy the Second Amendment. Arizona declares inconsistent or more restrictive local firearm rules null and void, authorizes injunctions, and permits prevailing plaintiffs to recover fees, costs, and limited actual damages.

THE SOLUTION: AUDIT BEFORE LITIGATING

The strongest counterargument deserves a direct answer. Governments have a duty to protect schools, courts, public employees, children, and crowded events. Rahimi confirms that modern laws can rest on historical principles without an identical founding-era statute. The Ninth Circuit’s treatment of parks and alcohol-serving establishments gives Arizona officials a serious litigation argument.

But public safety is not a substitute for legal authority. The risk falls first on the carrier facing arrest, removal, or disarmament. It also falls on taxpayers when a city adopts a rule preempted by state law, and on public employees asked to enforce a sign unsupported by storage procedures or statutory authority. No reliable statewide fiscal estimate measures those costs, so officials should not invent one.

Three actions follow:

1. Citizens should document the exact sign, location, operator, storage procedure, and request made. A photograph and contemporaneous record are more useful than a generalized complaint.

2. Venue operators and public agencies should audit every firearm sign and policy against Arizona’s definitions, storage mandate, liquor rules, school exceptions, and preemption statute.

3. Policymakers should draft location rules narrowly, identify the historical analogue, state the relevant safety mechanism, and separate buildings from parking areas, open grounds, and temporary events.

The next Arizona dispute will probably turn less on the label “sensitive place” than on boundaries, statutory authority, and how the rule works on the ground. Copper Dome Update will keep tracking that line. EPIC Policy Group helps organizations and public officials test policies before an avoidable enforcement decision becomes a constitutional case.

Join AzCDL to support the fight against unconstitutional mandates and government overreach to your right to keep and bear arms in defense of yourself.

Article 2 Section 26 of the Arizona Constitution says, ”The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself or the state shall not be impaired”.

On paper, the veteran received the benefit.

Inside the home, the family absorbed the cost.

That gap appears across veterans policy. Legislatures create a benefit for the veteran, assign an agency to administer it, and count the veteran as the person affected. The analysis often stops there. It misses the spouse trying to keep a career, the caregiver performing unpaid labor, the child changing schools, the household paying for transportation, and the survivor suddenly responsible for navigating a new benefits system.

Veteran outcomes are household outcomes. Veterans legislation should be written and evaluated that way.

The law sees an individual, but the burden reaches a household

Federal and state law already recognize parts of the veteran family, but they do so through separate programs and eligibility rules.

The Department of Veterans Affairs operates the Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers under federal law. Eligible primary caregivers may receive training, mental-health services, respite care, health coverage in some circumstances, beneficiary travel assistance, and a monthly stipend.¹ During fiscal year 2025, the Veterans Health Administration reported serving about 98,000 caregivers through its broader Caregiver Support Program and obligating approximately $2.6 billion for the program.²

Those are enacted benefits administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs. They also demonstrate something important: caregiving is part of the cost of veteran health care, even when the care occurs at home.

The same pattern appears in employment. Defense Department officials have reported that unemployment among active-duty military spouses has remained near 20 percent for much of the past decade. Permanent-change-of-station moves can interrupt employment, licensing, childcare, health-care continuity, and household income.³ Those effects do not disappear the day the service member becomes a veteran. A spouse may still be rebuilding a career while the family manages disability claims, medical appointments, relocation, or caregiving.

Arizona law provides a path for qualified out-of-state applicants, including military spouses, to obtain occupational or professional licenses when statutory conditions are satisfied.⁴ Arizona also participates in the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children, which addresses enrollment, placement, attendance, eligibility, and graduation problems caused by military moves and deployments.⁵ In 2026, Arizona enacted further protections concerning educational access and services for children of active-duty parents.⁶

These laws are useful, but they remain divided by subject. Licensing law looks at the spouse. Education law looks at the child. Veterans law looks at the veteran. Survivor law activates after death. Transportation policy may reimburse an eligible trip, but it may not account for lost work, childcare, or the availability of a driver.

The household experiences all of these systems at once.

The solution: apply a family-impact test

Every veterans bill should undergo a family-impact test before it receives a committee hearing or fiscal recommendation. This does not mean every bill must create a new family benefit. It means policymakers should identify household effects before voting.

The test should ask seven questions:

1. Employment: Will the proposal affect a spouse’s ability to work, retain a license, accept a promotion, or maintain predictable hours?

2. Caregiving: Does the policy assume that unpaid care, transportation, medication management, or appointment coordination will be available? If so, who provides it?

3. Children’s education: Could treatment, relocation, deployment, disability, or family disruption interfere with enrollment, attendance, special education, course placement, or graduation?

4. Household finances: Does the fiscal analysis count lost wages, childcare, transportation, lodging, insurance changes, or delayed benefits?

5. Access and transportation: Can the veteran reach the service without transferring the logistical burden to a spouse or caregiver?

6. Administration: How many applications, medical certifications, agency contacts, deadlines, and appeals must the family manage?

7. Survivor transition: If the veteran dies, becomes incapacitated, or loses eligibility, does the family receive notice, a warm handoff, and enough time to move into the correct survivor programs?

Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, survivor pensions, education assistance, and other federal benefits exist under enacted law, but survivors still must enter a different claims process and establish eligibility.⁷ A benefit that exists in statute but cannot be found, understood, or accessed during a family crisis is not functioning as lawmakers intended.

The proposed family-impact test is a policy recommendation. It is not current Arizona law, no court has ordered it, and this article does not treat any pending proposal as enacted. Agencies could begin using the questions administratively, but a statutory requirement would provide clearer accountability.

The strongest counterargument

The strongest objection is that veterans programs should remain focused on the person who served. Expanding every analysis to include spouses, children, caregivers, and survivors could increase costs, complicate eligibility, and redirect limited funds away from disabled or low-income veterans.

That concern deserves a direct answer.

A family-impact test does not automatically expand eligibility or spending. It exposes where a proposal depends on uncompensated household labor or transfers public costs to families. Lawmakers may still decide that a veteran-only benefit is the correct policy. They should make that decision with an honest account of who will perform the work and bear the expense.

Ignoring household costs does not eliminate them. It merely removes them from the fiscal note.

Execute the solution

Arizona can begin with three practical actions.

First, legislators should add a short family-impact section to veterans bill summaries and agency fiscal responses. The section should identify effects on employment, caregiving, children, transportation, household finances, and survivor access. Where no material effect exists, the analysis can say so.

Second, veterans organizations should ask family questions during stakeholder review. Do not limit testimony to whether the veteran qualifies. Ask who schedules the appointments, who drives, who misses work, who watches the children, and what happens when the veteran can no longer manage the claim.

Third, agencies should report household-centered outcomes. Measure more than enrollment. Track processing time, appeal frequency, caregiver participation, travel barriers, benefit interruptions, survivor handoffs, and whether families abandon an application before receiving a decision.

The veteran may be the named beneficiary, but the family often supplies the transportation, care, administrative labor, income stability, and recovery environment that make the benefit usable.

Before the next veterans bill advances, someone should ask a simple question:

What happens to the household when this policy reaches the front door?

Citizens and veterans organizations should insist that legislators answer it. Policymakers should require the answer before appropriating money or assigning new duties to an agency. Copper Dome Update will continue examining veterans policy at the point where statutory language meets family life. EPIC Policy Group works with public officials and stakeholders to turn that examination into bill language, fiscal review, and an executable policy plan.

Footnotes

1. 38 U.S.C. § 1720G (2018 & Supp. V 2023); U.S. Dep’t of Veterans Affs., VA Family Caregiver Assistance Program (updated Feb. 11, 2026).

2. U.S. Gov’t Accountability Off., VA Health Care: Efforts to Assess Mental Health Support for Veteran Caregivers, GAO-26-108070 (Apr. 16, 2026).

3. U.S. Dep’t of Def., Military Spouse Survey Spurs DOD Review of Moving-Related Issues (May 20, 2025); U.S. Dep’t of Def., Defense Leader Highlights Support for Military Spouse Employment (Oct. 15, 2024).

4. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 32-4302 (2026).

5. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 15-1911 (2026).

6. 2026 Ariz. Sess. Laws ch. 102 (H.B. 2621); Arizona State Legislature, 2026 Session Laws.

7. 38 U.S.C. §§ 1301–1323, 3500–3699 (2018 & Supp. V 2023); U.S. Dep’t of Veterans Affs., Applying for Benefits (last visited Aug. 18, 2026).

Sometimes that treatment comes from a driver who never looks for motorcycles. Sometimes it comes from a transportation plan written without riders at the table. Sometimes it comes from selective enforcement, roadside profiling, restricted access, insurance practices, or a statute drafted by people who have never considered how it will operate on two wheels.

Those consequences were on my mind last week while riding down Florida’s A1A with John Herlihy. You may know him better as just “Rogue”.

When a legend calls and asks if you want to get some wind therapy, you do not need much time to think about it. You get on the motorcycle. So I borrowed a bike from a cousin and went on the ride.

If you didn’t already know, Rogue is one of the recognized figures in the American motorcycle-rights movement. He has spent more than seven decades riding, organizing, writing, challenging government practices, building relationships, and teaching riders that freedom survives only when people are willing to defend it.

His record includes early motorcycle-rights organizing in Connecticut, leadership within the Connecticut Motorcycle Association, work with ABATE across the country from the beginning, decades of writing for motorcycle publications like Easyrider, and the creation of Bikers Church as a means of helping injured riders and their families. In 2005, the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum recognized his work by naming him a Hall of Fame Freedom Fighter.

Riding beside him was not simply a day on A1A. It was a chance to listen and talk to someone who participated in the motorcycle-rights fight before most of today’s advocacy structure existed.

Riders Have Inherited Rights Without Inheriting the History

I asked Rogue what made motorcycle protests effective in the old days.

“The organized rides to the capitols around the country,” he said. “When 500 bikers showed up, it felt like 5000.”

That answer explains how an overlooked constituency became politically visible.

The early motorcycle-rights movement used helmet-law battles as one organizing point, but the larger fight was never confined to helmets. Riders were challenging exclusion from public roads and parks, discriminatory treatment, government pressure on the states, motorcycle confiscation practices, police harassment, and the assumption that people on motorcycles could be regulated without being consulted. The fight was constantly thinking outside the box. Like wearing helmets strapped on their knees because the law didn’t specify where they had to be worn.

In Rogue’s account, one of his first rights fights began when Bridgeport, Connecticut, prohibited motorcycles from entering Seaside Park. Riders organized, obtained legal assistance because they were being arrested, challenged citations, contacted public officials, and kept pressure on the system until motorcycles were allowed back into the park. This was true civil disobedience.

That episode contains the basic structure of effective advocacy: identify the government action, document the injury, organize the affected people, find the correct decision-maker, use legal and political channels together, and refuse to let the issue disappear.

The motorcycles, technology, and communications tools have changed since then. The underlying problem has not.

Motorcyclists remain a minority within the transportation system. Road construction standards are usually written around passenger vehicles. Crash reports may not capture the circumstances that place riders at risk. Automated vehicles must be trained to detect motorcycles and predict rider movement. Traffic-calming projects can create new hazards when designers fail to consider motorcycle dynamics. Law enforcement practices can affect riders differently based on clothing, club association, motorcycle type, or attendance at an event.

A right that exists in statute but is ignored in practice is not secure.

Relationships and Institutional Memory

I asked Rogue which current motorcycle issue concerned him most.

“The lack of enforcement of current laws,” he said. Whether is was a lack of enforcement for distracted driving, civil rights violations against bikers, etc. They are whittling away at our Constitutional freedoms. As an Air Force veteran, he said numerous times “My oath to protect and defend the Constitution did not expire”.

That answer deserves attention going into Arizona’s 2027 legislative session.

Advocacy organizations often measure success by the number of bills introduced or passed. A new statute creates a visible result. Yet another law may accomplish little when agencies do not enforce existing requirements, local governments do not account for motorcycles in transportation decisions, or officials lack the data needed to determine whether a policy is working.

Arizona recorded 219 motorcyclist fatalities during 2024. The Arizona Department of Transportation also identified at least 8,289 drivers involved in collisions who were engaged in some form of distracted behavior. The department stated that distracted-driving involvement was probably underreported. Arizona law already prohibits a driver from physically holding a portable wireless device or reading and sending text-based communications while operating a vehicle.

The policy question is not limited to whether Arizona needs another distracted-driving law. It is whether the present law is being enforced, whether officers can document violations, whether prosecutors treat motorcycle crashes with appropriate seriousness, and whether crash data allows policymakers to identify where enforcement is failing.

Rogue’s generation understood that passing a law was not the end of the fight. They monitored what happened on the street. They maintained relationships with legislators, lawyers, reporters, police officials, motorcycle businesses, club leaders, and riders who did not belong to any organization.

That network created institutional memory. When a new problem developed, people knew which attorney to call, which legislator would listen, which reporter understood the issue, and which riders could turn out for a hearing.

Rogue’s writings also reflect a broader philosophy. He argues that owning a motorcycle makes someone a motorcyclist, but becoming part of the motorcycle community requires something more. It requires keeping one’s word, respecting experience, helping others, and passing knowledge to the next generation.

That philosophy should guide the modern motorcycle-rights movement.

Three Lessons for Arizona Riders

I asked Rogue whether newer riders understand how their rights were secured.

“Not at all,” he said. “We need to remind the newer riders of the fight for freedom.”

Arizona riders should carry three lessons into 2027.

First, preserve the history. Motorcycle organizations should record interviews with longtime advocates, digitize newsletters and photographs, document past legislative fights, and explain why current protections exist. Institutional memory should not disappear when a longtime member retires or passes away.

Second, audit government performance. Before requesting another statute, advocates should examine enforcement data, crash-reporting practices, roadway-design standards, public records, agency rules, and local ordinances. If a law is not being enforced, identify why. If a transportation plan excludes motorcycles, intervene before construction begins.

Third, make the constituency visible with a defined purpose. Organized rides to the Capitol still matter, but the motorcycles must arrive with a specific request. Riders should know the bill number, the decision-maker, the committee pathway, and the desired result. Five hundred motorcycles create attention. Five hundred informed constituents create political leverage.

The strongest criticism of old-school tactics is that a large demonstration can harden opposition or allow officials to dismiss riders as disruptive. That risk is real. Public presence must be disciplined, lawful, and connected to a policy objective. The lesson from Rogue’s generation is not to create disorder. It is to demonstrate organization, commitment, and the ability to hold officials accountable.

The long fight for motorcycle rights has never belonged to one organization or one generation. The old-school freedom fighters secured a place at the table. The responsibility of today’s riders is to keep that seat occupied.

The ride down A1A was a privilege. It was also a reminder that motorcycle rights were secured by people who showed up, built relationships, learned the system, and stayed in the fight after the crowd went home.

Arizona riders should enter 2027 prepared to do the same.

Copper Dome Update will continue documenting the laws, enforcement practices, agency decisions, and transportation policies affecting Arizona riders. EPIC Policy Group will continue to work with motorcycle organizations and policymakers across the country to convert those findings into oversight requests, statutory language, coalition strategy, and sustained legislative action. We will continue the fight alongside ABATE of Arizona.

The freedom to ride has a history. Protecting it requires a plan.

To Rogue – Thank you for taking the time, sir. I am looking forward to the next time we can go for a putt. Ride safe.

Supporters take photographs in the hearing room. The sponsoring organization sends an email celebrating the win. Everyone leaves the Capitol believing the hardest part is over.

Three months later, the Legislature adjourns.

The bill never received another vote.

Nobody defeated it. No hostile amendment stripped out its purpose. The Governor never had the opportunity to sign or veto it.

The bill simply stopped moving.

When this happens, supporters usually blame politics. They may point to a committee chair, legislative leadership, the opposing party, or a lobbyist working against the bill.

Sometimes that explanation is correct.

More often, the bill died because its supporters confused agreement with the policy goal with control over the legislative process.

Those are two different things.

A proposal can solve a real problem. It can attract bipartisan support. It can pass a committee. It can still die because nobody resolved the fiscal questions, an agency opposed the final language, the coalition divided over an amendment, or the bill ran out of time.

A good bill is not always a passable bill.

That is the part of the legislative process the public rarely sees.

A Committee Vote Is Only One Step

For an Arizona bill to become law, it must survive a series of decisions.

The bill must be written in proper statutory form. Legislative leadership must assign it to committees. Each committee chair must place it on an agenda. The sponsor must secure the votes. Any amendments must be reviewed. The bill must clear its committee assignments before the applicable deadlines.

It then moves to the Rules Committee, caucus, Committee of the Whole, and a final floor vote.

After that, the process begins again in the second chamber.

If the second chamber changes the bill, the originating chamber must agree to those changes. Only after the House and Senate pass the same language does the bill reach the Governor.

Arizona’s Constitution requires bills to receive three readings on different days and to secure a majority of all elected members in each chamber.[1] House and Senate rules add committee deadlines, agenda requirements, Rules Committee review, and leadership control over which bills reach the floor.[2]

A favorable committee vote proves one thing: the bill had enough support to pass that committee on that day.

It does not prove that the bill has a complete fiscal record, enough floor votes, a second-chamber sponsor, or a path through the Governor’s office.

That is why the key question is not simply, “Do we have the votes?”

The better question is, “What is the next decision, and who controls it?”

Read more

The dealer may agree. The dealer may refuse. Another dealer may insist on an approved Form 4. A law-enforcement officer encountering the same suppressor may ask for registration documents that the owner was told are no longer required.

That is the operational consequence of federal firearms law changing faster than state statutes, agency instructions, and commercial compliance systems can adjust. A court ruling may block federal enforcement for one group without repealing the statute, rewriting Arizona law, or compelling every dealer to change its procedures.

The headline may be correct and still be incomplete.

Defining the Problem: Four Different Forms of Legal Change

Congress enacted the National Firearms Act in 1934 as a tax measure. The NFA imposed taxes on making and transferring suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, machine guns, destructive devices, and certain other weapons. Registration, advance approval, fingerprints, and transfer records supported collection of those taxes.^[1]

Congress changed that structure in 2025. Section 70436 of Public Law 119-21 reduced the making and transfer taxes on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and “any other weapons” to zero, effective January 1, 2026. Congress retained the $200 taxes on machine guns and destructive devices.^[2]

That was enacted law. It did not, by itself, repeal registration.

ATF responded administratively. In May 2026, the agency amended its regulations to reflect the zero-dollar tax while maintaining that Form 1, Form 4, advance approval, fingerprints, and registration remained legally required.^[3] That was agency administration, not a new act of Congress.

Then came Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF, consolidated with Jensen v. ATF. On August 5, 2026, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas held that the challenged registration and approval requirements could no longer be justified under Congress’s taxing power when no tax was being collected on the affected firearms. The court entered a permanent injunction against enforcement as to the plaintiffs and, where applicable, their current and future members, customers, agencies, and political subdivisions.^[4]

That was a court holding. It was not a nationwide repeal of the NFA. The court did not decide the plaintiffs’ Second Amendment claims, which were dismissed without prejudice as abandoned. Machine guns and destructive devices remain taxed and regulated. The judgment also does not erase prior registrations or invalidate the Gun Control Act.

The seven-day stay attached to the judgment expired without DOJ obtaining appellate relief. That executive litigation choice allowed the injunction to take effect. It does not amend the United States Code. Federal defendants ordinarily retain sixty days to file a notice of appeal in a civil case, so the expiration of the seven-day stay should not be confused with expiration of the complete appellate period.^[5]

Speculation begins when someone claims that every NFA restriction has disappeared everywhere and for everyone.

Read the Layers Together

Arizona law creates the complication.

Arizona defines suppressors, machine guns, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns as “prohibited weapons.” It then excludes those items from that category when they are possessed, manufactured, or transferred “in compliance with federal law.”^[6] Knowingly possessing, manufacturing, transporting, selling, or transferring a prohibited weapon can otherwise constitute a class 4 felony.^[7]

Senate Bill 1069, that was sponsored by Senator Wendy Rogers, would have removed suppressors from Arizona’s prohibited-weapons definition. The Legislature passed the bill, but the Governor vetoed it on June 19, 2026. The proposal never became law.^[8] We were anticipating this court decision and attempted to get ahead of it.

This leaves Arizona relying on a federal-compliance clause at the exact moment federal compliance has become dependent on who is protected by a particular injunction.

A covered Silencer Shop customer or member of a protected plaintiff organization (GOA, CCRKBA, etc) has a substantial argument that a transaction completed within the injunction is compliant with federal law because ATF is judicially barred from enforcing the challenged requirements against that person or transaction. Yet the federal judgment does not directly bind Arizona prosecutors, amend Arizona Revised Statutes, or define what Arizona’s phrase “in compliance with federal law” means after an as-applied federal injunction.

Commercial practice supplies another layer. Federal firearms licensees must still follow the Gun Control Act, including purchaser eligibility rules, dealer records, Form 4473, and the National Instant Criminal Background Check System when applicable. A dealer may also use a more cautious process while evaluating the judgment, insurance requirements, distributor contracts, or ATF instructions. ATF’s public firearms pages still list Forms 1 and 4, even though the court has barred enforcement of specified provisions against covered parties.^[9]

The strongest counterargument deserves a fair hearing. Supporters of continued registration contend that the NFA process provides identification, background review, traceability, and notice beyond an ordinary retail transfer. ATF reported more than 6.5 million registered suppressors as of July 1, 2026.^[10] Eliminating that process could reduce the information available to investigators.

The response is constitutional and legislative. A policy may serve an asserted public-safety purpose and still require valid congressional authority. If Congress wants a federal regulatory system based on the Commerce Clause or another enumerated power, it must enact that system openly and within constitutional limits. An agency cannot preserve a tax-enforcement apparatus after Congress removes the tax simply because the apparatus remains useful.

Three Actions

First, Arizona purchasers should verify the legal basis for a transaction before taking possession. Ask whether the dealer is operating under the injunction, which plaintiff relationship covers the purchaser, what federal paperwork will be completed, and what records will document the transaction. Do not rely on a social-media headline as proof of coverage.

Second, dealers and manufacturers should adopt a written compliance protocol. It should identify covered customers, separate suppressors and short-barreled firearms from machine guns and destructive devices, preserve Gun Control Act records, address pending Form 1 and Form 4 applications, and establish a response procedure for ATF or Arizona law-enforcement inquiries. Do you trust the government to actually adhere to the Constitution? Yeah, me either.

Third, Arizona policymakers should revisit the state-law dependency exposed by this case. A renewed bill should do more than delete one reference to suppressors. It should clarify that possession, manufacture, and transfer are lawful when permitted under federal statute, a final court order applicable to the person or transaction, or controlling federal precedent. That language would reduce the chance that Arizona criminal exposure turns on shifting federal paperwork. We are already working on it just so you know.

The lesson is straightforward: federal firearms policy does not move as one unit. Congress changes statutes. Agencies administer them. Courts decide disputes. Executives choose whether and how to defend them. States retain their own criminal laws. Dealers make commercial risk decisions.

Arizona gun owners need the whole chain, not just the headline.

Follow Copper Dome Update for Arizona-specific analysis as the judgment, agency response, and state-law consequences develop. EPIC Policy Group and AzCDL will continue separating enacted law from litigation, administrative practice, and proposals so citizens and policymakers know what changed, what did not, and what Arizona should address next.

^[1] National Firearms Act, ch. 757, 48 Stat. 1236 (1934) (codified as amended at 26 U.S.C. §§ 5801–5872); Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, National Firearms Act.

^[2] One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Pub. L. No. 119-21, § 70436, 139 Stat. 72, 247–48 (2025).

^[3] National Firearms Act Making and Transfer Taxes, 91 Fed. Reg. 25,112, 25,112–18 (May 8, 2026), GovInfo

^[4] Silencer Shop Found. v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, Nos. 6:25-CV-056-H & 6:26-CV-277, Final Judgment at 1–2 (N.D. Tex. Aug. 5, 2026).

^[5] Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(B); Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure

^[6] Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-3101(A)(8), (B) (2026), Arizona Legislature

^[7] Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-3102(A)(3), (M) (2026), Arizona Legislature.

^[8] S.B. 1069, 57th Leg., 2d Reg. Sess. (Ariz. 2026); Office of the Arizona Governor, Legislative Action Update (June 19, 2026)

^[9] 18 U.S.C. §§ 921–923; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, Firearms Forms

^[10] Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, Current Processing Times and NFRTR Registration Data (data updated July 1, 2026)

On paper, that veteran has access to care. In practice, distance is deciding what care the veteran receives.

This is the policy choice facing Arizona and the federal government: continue treating transportation, telehealth, workforce shortages, community referrals, prescriptions, and caregivers as separate programs, or build a rural health system that connects them.

Rural Access Is More Than a Clinic on a Map

About 4.5 million veterans live in rural or highly rural communities. Three million were enrolled in Department of Veterans Affairs health care during fiscal year 2025. Rural veterans enroll at a higher rate than urban veterans, 66 percent compared with 47 percent. Sixty-five percent of enrolled rural veterans are at least 55 years old.1

Older veterans are more likely to manage several health conditions at once. One veteran may need primary care, cardiology, audiology, physical therapy, behavioral-health treatment, and prescription monitoring. When those services are scattered across several cities, each appointment creates another transportation problem.

Distance must be measured in more than miles. It includes driving time, fuel, vehicle wear, lodging, missed work, physical pain, weather conditions, and the availability of someone who can accompany the veteran.

The VA Beneficiary Travel Program reimburses eligible veterans for approved travel. The mileage rate remains 41.5 cents per mile, a figure established in 2010.2 That assistance matters, but reimbursement after a trip does not provide transportation to a veteran who cannot drive. Nor does it replace a spouse’s lost wages or compensate for an entire day spent reaching a 30-minute appointment.

Transportation is part of health care. When a veteran misses an oncology visit because no ride is available, the result is a medical failure, not merely a travel inconvenience.

Telehealth Cannot Carry the Entire System

Telehealth can reduce travel for medication reviews, follow-up visits, mental-health counseling, and consultations that do not require physical contact. It should remain part of any rural-access strategy.

It cannot become the default answer every time distance exposes a service gap.

A video appointment cannot perform an MRI, draw blood, administer an infusion, stabilize a heart attack, or complete many physical examinations. Telehealth also fails when a veteran lacks stable broadband, a suitable device, digital skills, privacy, or assistance using the equipment.

The Government Accountability Office has found that rural veterans may lack reliable cellular service and broadband. Veterans with serious mental illness may also experience cognitive or organizational barriers that reduce the usefulness of virtual treatment.3

The better approach is hybrid care. Rural clinics, tribal health facilities, veterans centers, libraries, county buildings, and mobile units could offer private telehealth rooms with reliable internet, basic diagnostic equipment, and trained personnel. A remote VA specialist could conduct the consultation while a nurse or technician assists the veteran locally.

Telehealth should reduce unnecessary travel. It should not be used to conceal the absence of hands-on care.

A Referral Is Not Care

The VA MISSION Act permits eligible veterans to use community providers when VA cannot meet designated access standards. Current rules generally permit community care when average drive time exceeds 30 minutes for primary or mental-health care or 60 minutes for specialty care. Wait-time standards are generally 20 days for primary and mental-health care and 28 days for specialty care.4

Those standards create eligibility. They do not create an available specialist.

A rural community may have a hospital but no neurologist, oncologist, psychiatrist, rheumatologist, or vascular surgeon. The veteran may qualify for community care only to discover that the closest participating specialist is located in the same metropolitan area as the VA medical center.

Administrative processing can add another layer of delay. VA personnel must review the referral, determine eligibility, locate a participating provider, issue an authorization, schedule the appointment, and obtain the resulting records.

The Government Accountability Office reported that VA had established time frames for processing referrals and scheduling community appointments but had not established a uniform standard governing when the appointment must actually occur.5

That distinction matters. A referral can be processed on time while the veteran waits months for treatment.

Community referrals should remain open until care is delivered and the results return to the veteran’s VA team. Each referral should have a named coordinator responsible for confirming the appointment, addressing transportation, collecting records, reconciling medications, and arranging follow-up care.

The system should measure completed treatment, not paperwork completed.

Community Care Cannot Create Clinicians

Expanding community care is often presented as the answer to VA capacity problems. It can help, but only where community providers exist.

Federal workforce data show that rural areas account for more than 60 percent of designated mental-health professional shortage areas.6 Rural hospitals, tribal health systems, community clinics, and VA facilities compete for the same physicians, nurses, pharmacists, therapists, technicians, and home-health workers.

Sending more referrals into an understaffed local system may move veterans from one waiting list to another.

Arizona should connect rural-veteran care with broader health-workforce policy. Rural medical residencies, loan-repayment programs, shared specialist positions, military-spouse licensing pathways, and partnerships with community colleges could increase local capacity. VA specialists could support several rural sites through hybrid appointments while visiting those communities periodically for in-person services.

A health professional recruited to rural Arizona would serve more than veterans. That person would also support families, tribal communities, older residents, emergency departments, and the regional economy.

Emergency Care and Prescriptions Cannot Wait

Rural access becomes most serious during an emergency.

A veteran who believes that life or health is in danger should call 911 or go to the nearest emergency department. Prior VA approval is not required. VA generally must receive notice within 72 hours after emergency treatment begins.7

That requirement can create confusion when a veteran is unconscious, medicated, hospitalized, or transferred between facilities. Family members may not know about the deadline, and rural hospital staff may not know how to notify VA.

Hospitals and ambulance services should ask about veteran status and transmit emergency notifications directly to VA whenever possible. Coverage decisions should not depend on a seriously ill veteran remembering an administrative deadline.

Prescription access presents a similar problem. Mail-order pharmacy works for routine medications, but not every prescription can wait several days. A veteran discharged from a community emergency department may need antibiotics, pain medication, insulin, or another treatment immediately.

VA should authorize participating rural pharmacies to dispense limited bridge prescriptions while the regular prescription is processed. The veteran should not become the sole coordinator between the emergency physician, local pharmacist, and VA care team.

The Strongest Objection Is Cost

A rural transportation network, staffed telehealth sites, navigators, workforce incentives, and prescription coordination require money. Critics may argue that these services duplicate existing VA programs.

That objection deserves scrutiny. The answer is not to create another disconnected program.

Arizona should identify where federal services stop, where state and local systems already operate, and where veterans continue to fall through the gaps. State funds should supplement federal benefits, support shared infrastructure, and require measurable results.

The relevant fiscal question is not only what better access costs. Policymakers must also examine the cost of delayed treatment, missed appointments, emergency deterioration, caregiver exhaustion, and repeated diagnostic work caused by incomplete records.

Arizona Should Build One Rural Access Plan

Arizona cannot control federal VA operations. It can coordinate the systems surrounding them.

The Arizona Legislature should direct the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services to produce a county-level Rural Veterans Health Access Plan before the 2027 legislative session. The plan should map veteran populations, travel distances, specialist shortages, broadband gaps, emergency facilities, pharmacy access, transportation resources, and caregiver-support capacity.

It should then identify where Arizona can support transportation, regional navigators, hybrid telehealth sites, workforce partnerships, emergency notification, and prescription access without duplicating VA services.

The plan must measure outcomes that veterans experience: completed appointments, treatment delays, miles traveled, missed visits, prescription interruptions, and caregiver time.

The veteran who wakes before sunrise for a six-hour round trip does not need another directory of programs. That veteran needs a connected route from diagnosis to treatment.

Arizona should begin by mapping that route and identifying every place where it currently breaks.

Each step creates a potential failure point.

That matters in Arizona, where autonomous vehicles share roads with more than 200,000 registered motorcycles. Riders may move within their lane to avoid debris, improve visibility, prepare for a turn, or maintain an escape route. Arizona law also permits limited lane filtering when surrounding traffic is stopped, the roadway speed limit does not exceed forty-five miles per hour, and the motorcycle travels no faster than fifteen miles per hour.1

An automated driving system must recognize these movements as lawful motorcycle behavior rather than an object moving unpredictably through traffic.

How Does an Autonomous Vehicle Identify a Motorcycle?

Most autonomous vehicles use a combination of cameras, radar, LiDAR, and location data. Cameras help identify the object’s appearance. Radar measures distance and relative speed. LiDAR creates a three-dimensional representation of surrounding objects. Sensor-fusion software combines these inputs into a single estimate of what is happening around the vehicle.

A motorcycle creates perception challenges because it has a smaller visual and radar profile than a passenger vehicle. It can be partially hidden behind a truck, travel near the edge of a lane, lean through a curve, or blend into roadway shadows. Arizona adds bright sunlight, glare, dust, nighttime arterials, construction zones, and faded lane markings.

The system must do more than detect an object. It must classify that object correctly.

A motorcycle classified as a bicycle may receive an inaccurate speed estimate. One classified as a passenger car may be assigned the wrong width or lane position. A motorcycle labeled as an unknown object may cause unnecessary braking or hesitation. A motorcycle that is not classified at all may disappear from the automated vehicle’s planned path.

The timing of detection matters as much as the final classification. If the vehicle recognizes a motorcycle only after entering the intersection, the system technically detected the rider but failed to do so in time to prevent the collision.

Predicting What the Rider Will Do

After identifying a motorcycle, the automated system tracks its speed, heading, acceleration, lateral movement, and relationship to surrounding vehicles. Prediction software estimates where the motorcycle may be several seconds later. The automated vehicle then uses those estimates when deciding whether to turn, merge, pass, brake, or change lanes.

Motorcycles complicate prediction because riders do not remain fixed in the geometric center of a lane. A rider may shift left to become visible in a mirror, move right to avoid debris, change position before a curve, or create distance from a turning vehicle.

Those movements should not automatically be interpreted as a lane change or loss of control.

The unprotected left turn presents one of the clearest risks. An autonomous vehicle must detect an oncoming motorcycle, calculate its speed, account for uncertainty, and decide whether enough time exists to complete the turn. A motorcycle’s smaller profile can make it appear farther away than it is. If the object track is lost behind another vehicle, the system must not assume the roadway has become clear.

When detection or prediction confidence falls, the proper response is usually more space, less speed, and a delayed maneuver.

The SB 1417 Foundation

Arizona Senate Bill 1417, introduced during the 2026 legislative session by Senator Shawnna Bolick and proposed by ABATE of Arizona, attempted to create this accountability structure. The bill defined motorcycles as “distinct roadway participants” because their size, acceleration, lane position, and visibility differ from passenger vehicles.

The proposal would have required quarterly safety reports, disclosure of material software and mapping changes, motorcycle-specific performance review, preservation of crash and near-miss data, and clearer access to records for the Arizona Department of Transportation and Department of Public Safety.

SB 1417 did not advance beyond Senate second reading. It received no committee vote and did not become law. The bill still provides a useful starting point for a narrower 2027 proposal.

The next version should concentrate on operator accountability, safety disclosures, evidence preservation, and Arizona crash investigations. It should avoid directing manufacturers to use particular sensors, algorithms, or vehicle designs.

Four Questions Arizona Must Answer

1. What safety data must operators disclose?

Arizona should require operators to report autonomous miles traveled in the state, crashes involving motorcycles, defined near-miss events, traffic violations, operating conditions, system status, and corrective actions.

Counts must be accompanied by exposure rates. Five crashes across 50,000 miles mean something different from five crashes across 50 million miles.

Public reports should identify whether the system detected the motorcycle, whether the vehicle was operating within its declared geographic and environmental limits, whether remote assistance was involved, and whether a software or mapping change followed the incident.

2. How should Arizona investigate crashes?

A conventional crash investigation relies on physical damage, roadway evidence, witnesses, and video. An autonomous-vehicle investigation also requires digital records.

Operators should preserve camera information, object tracks, speed, braking, steering, system commands, map versions, remote-assistance communications, and operating-limit status. Arizona should require a standardized export that investigators can read without relying entirely on the manufacturer’s interpretation.

Local police should retain authority over the ordinary crash investigation. The Department of Public Safety should provide technical and evidentiary support, while the Arizona Department of Transportation reviews whether the operator violated state operating requirements.

A manufacturer’s internal review should never substitute for an independent government investigation.

3. What information may remain proprietary?

Source code, model weights, cybersecurity credentials, proprietary maps, and detailed system architecture may qualify for confidential treatment. The facts surrounding a crash should not.

The operator should not be permitted to hide whether the vehicle detected the motorcycle, lost the object track, entered the rider’s path, violated a traffic law, or operated outside its stated limits.

The proper rule is confidential but reviewable. Regulators, law enforcement, courts, and qualified technical experts should have access to protected material when necessary. Public versions may redact trade secrets and personal information.

“Proprietary” cannot become a substitute for explaining what happened.

4. What authority remains with Arizona?

Federal law governs vehicle construction, equipment standards, manufacturer certification, safety defects, recalls, and federal exemptions. Arizona retains authority over licensing, registration, insurance, road use, traffic enforcement, crash investigation, evidence preservation, and civil remedies.

Federal law limits states from imposing vehicle-performance standards that differ from federal standards covering the same aspect of performance. 49 U.S.C. § 30103(b)(1). Arizona should avoid requiring particular sensors, detection ranges, or technical designs.

The state can still require an operator to disclose its safety case, report Arizona outcomes, preserve crash evidence, cooperate with investigators, and follow its declared operating limits.

That is the policy line a successor to SB 1417 should follow.

The Standard Arizona Should Set

The question is not whether autonomous vehicles should operate in Arizona. They already do. The question is whether Arizona will require enough information to determine how these systems interact with motorcyclists before a pattern of serious injuries emerges.

Motorcyclists do not need an automated vehicle to understand every personal riding choice. They need it to identify them early, account for uncertainty, respect their lane position, recognize lawful filtering, and avoid turning or merging when the available safety margin is too small.

After any serious motorcycle interaction, an operator should be required to answer four questions:

Did the vehicle detect the rider? What movement did it predict? What response did it select? What will prevent the same failure from happening again?

If those questions cannot be answered, Arizona should not accept secrecy as a safety policy.

This Sunday’s audio deep dive examines how conditional-use permits, separation distances, noise standards, operating restrictions, and political discretion can turn ordinary land-use regulation into a backdoor gun ban.

We also examine the key protection in Arizona law: firearm-related businesses must be regulated in the same manner as other commercial businesses.

What does that requirement mean in practice, and is Arizona law strong enough to stop exclusionary zoning?

Yet there is a pressure point that deserves attention: zoning.

Arizona law allows local governments to regulate commercial property occupied by firearm retailers, shooting ranges, training businesses, manufacturers, and ammunition companies. The statute permits that regulation only when these businesses are treated “in the same manner as other commercial businesses.”1

That limitation is where the real fight begins.

When “permitted” does not mean possible

A city does not need to pass an ordinance titled “Gun Store Ban.” It can make firearm businesses conditional uses, confine them to narrow industrial districts, impose large separation distances, restrict operating hours, or require repeated public hearings.

On paper, the business remains legal. On the zoning map, there may be nowhere for it to operate.

Consider a city that requires firearm retailers to remain 1,000 feet from schools, parks, churches, residences, day-care centers, public buildings, and other firearm businesses. Each restriction may sound reasonable when considered alone. Map them together, and nearly every commercial parcel may disappear.

The city can then claim it never prohibited gun stores. It merely adopted “reasonable” location standards.

That is exclusionary zoning, and it can produce the same result as a direct ban.

Conditional-use permits create another problem

A conditional-use permit shifts a business from objective compliance to political discretion.

A general retailer may open after satisfying building, parking, fire, and sign requirements. A firearm retailer may need approval from a hearing officer, planning commission, or city council. That process invites neighborhood opposition that has little to do with land use.

Residents may object because they dislike firearms or believe a gun store will make the area unsafe. Those views may be sincere, but they do not establish a parking, traffic, noise, or building-safety problem.

If sporting-goods stores, jewelry stores, martial-arts schools, and other specialty businesses may operate by right, why must a firearm retailer or training classroom ask for political permission?

Arizona’s preemption law requires cities to answer that question.

Shooting ranges require a separate analysis

Shooting ranges create physical concerns that ordinary retailers do not. Noise, ventilation, lead management, ballistic containment, and firearm discharge can support site-specific standards.

Arizona has already established statewide rules for outdoor-range noise. Local noise standards are preempted as applied to outdoor shooting ranges, and the state generally limits range noise to sixty-four A-weighted decibels under a defined measurement process.2

Outdoor ranges near residential and other specified uses generally cannot operate between 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m.3

A city should not use zoning stipulations to impose a second, more restrictive noise or operating system after the Legislature has established statewide standards.

Indoor ranges remain subject to building, fire, ventilation, and sound-containment requirements. Those standards should be measurable and technically achievable. A requirement that no sound ever be detectable outside the building could become a prohibition disguised as a performance standard.

Retailers, trainers, and manufacturers also face classification risks

Not every firearm-related business has the same land-use footprint.

A classroom offering firearm-safety instruction with no live fire resembles a vocational school. A dealer completing transfers by appointment may resemble a low-traffic professional office. A company machining firearm components may resemble another precision manufacturer.

Local codes should classify businesses according to what happens on the property, not according to political discomfort with the product.

A firearm-parts manufacturer using the same equipment, materials, and delivery patterns as another machine shop should not be pushed into a heavy-industrial district solely because its products relate to firearms.

Gun shows remain exposed

Gun shows can face temporary-use permits, venue rules, security requirements, operating-hour limits, and event restrictions. Neutral rules concerning occupancy, parking, fire safety, and traffic are legitimate.

A city should not use those rules to eliminate gun shows because officials oppose lawful firearm transactions.

The Legislature attempted to address this issue through Senate Bill 1189 in 2024. The bill would have prohibited local governments from banning gun shows or adopting rules that effectively prevented them. Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed the measure.4

That leaves gun shows dependent on the broader protections of Arizona’s preemption statute.

Arizona needs a clearer rule

Local governments need zoning authority. The issue is whether that authority addresses measurable land-use effects or becomes a substitute for firearm regulation.

The Legislature should define what “in the same manner as other commercial businesses” means. Cities should be required to identify comparable businesses, document the land-use concern, and demonstrate that reasonable locations remain available.

The principle should be direct: regulate traffic, parking, construction, noise, hazardous materials, and building safety. Do not regulate lawful firearms commerce by manipulating zoning maps and permit procedures.

Arizona’s firearms-preemption law cannot protect the right to keep and bear arms if local governments can zone every supporting business out of existence.

Then the civilian system responds: start over.

Take the course again. Repeat the training. Accumulate civilian experience. Obtain a credential proving that you can perform work you may have performed under combat conditions, around classified systems, or while responsible for other service members’ lives.

That is the military credential gap.

It is easy to view this as a veterans’ benefit issue. It is that, but it is also an Arizona workforce and economic-development issue. When military training is not translated into civilian credentials, veterans lose income, employers lose qualified workers, and the state pays to duplicate training already funded by taxpayers.

Arizona is home to over a half a million veterans, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Many possess technical training that aligns with occupations Arizona needs to fill. The problem is not a lack of skill. The problem is that civilian licensing, education, and hiring systems do not always know how to recognize it.

Consider an Army combat medic, Navy hospital corpsman, or Air Force medical technician. These veterans may have treated trauma, administered medications, monitored patients, and worked under conditions most civilian students will never encounter. Their training may not cover every element of civilian nursing or emergency medical practice. Pediatric care, long-term care, state protocols, and civilian documentation may require further instruction.

That does not mean the veteran should repeat an entire entry-level program.

The proper response is a competency review: determine what the veteran already knows, identify what is missing, and require only the missing education or clinical practice.

The same principle applies to commercial driving. An Army motor-transport operator or Marine Corps motor-vehicle operator may have years of experience driving heavy vehicles. Arizona permits some qualified military drivers to waive the CDL skills test, but the state still requires knowledge testing and does not participate in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s full Even Exchange Program.

A veteran may have driven military tractor-trailers across multiple countries in extremely stressful combat convoy situations yet still face a civilian testing process that another state has chosen to waive.

The credential gap also reaches skilled trades. Military electricians, welders, mechanics, equipment operators, and construction supervisors may have years of experience but lack civilian apprenticeship records. The military documented readiness and duty assignments, not civilian licensing hours. When a state system relies only on civilian paperwork, military competence can disappear on paper.

Information technology presents a different problem. Arizona does not issue a general license to work in IT, but state agencies, colleges, and employers may use degree requirements or civilian job titles that fail to capture military cyber and communications experience. A veteran can manage secure networks for the Department of War and still be screened out because an application system does not recognize the military occupational code.

Arizona has taken some steps in the right direction. State law allows occupational boards to count substantially equivalent military education, training, and experience. Arizona has created a military medical pathway for emergency medical certification, a practical-nursing bridge program, and an alternative peace-officer pathway for certain military police veterans beginning January 1, 2027.

The weakness is inconsistency. Each occupation follows a different process. Some agencies provide a bridge. Others provide discretionary credit. Some publish clear military instructions. Others leave the applicant to prove equivalency without a standard crosswalk or written explanation.

Arizona should create a common military credential-recognition framework.

Every covered agency should accept military transcripts, conduct an individualized competency review, issue a written explanation of credit awarded, and identify only the requirements that remain. Veterans who satisfy core safety standards should have access to provisional licensing while completing state-specific training. Complete military applications should receive expedited review.

Military spouses must also be part of the policy. A service member’s transfer can interrupt a spouse’s career even when the spouse already holds a professional license in another state. Arizona should make federal license-portability protections easy to use, with clear applications, firm processing deadlines, and temporary authority when review cannot be completed promptly.

This is not a proposal to lower professional standards. It is a proposal to measure competence honestly.

Arizona should ask four questions:

What did the veteran learn?

What work did the veteran perform?

Which civilian requirements have already been satisfied?

What state-specific knowledge remains?

The veteran should complete the fourth category, not repeat the first three.

Arizona invests in attracting businesses, expanding health-care access, filling teaching vacancies, strengthening public safety, and developing a skilled workforce. Those goals are undermined when qualified veterans sit outside the workforce because civilian systems cannot translate military experience.

Veterans should not receive a license merely because they served. They should receive a fair opportunity to prove what their service already taught them.

Arizona cannot afford to keep mistaking missing civilian paperwork for missing skill.

This is just one of the policy initiatives that Arizona Veterans will be proposing in the 2027 legislative session.

In this case, the question is whether Arizona can better match education to the conduct it is trying to correct.

ABATE of Arizona is developing a proposal for the 2027 Arizona Legislative Session that would allow judges, at their discretion, to approve completion of a state-approved motorcycle safety course instead of a traditional defensive driving class for certain qualifying motorcycle traffic citations.

Notice what this proposal does not do.

It does not eliminate defensive driving school. It does not excuse traffic violations. It does not create a loophole for motorcyclists. It simply gives judges another option when they believe motorcycle-specific education is the better choice.

That distinction matters.

Arizona’s Defensive Driving Program has served the state well. It allows eligible drivers to complete an educational course that can result in dismissal of a qualifying citation while encouraging safer driving habits. The program is built on the idea that education can improve future behavior.

ABATE’s proposal embraces that same philosophy. It simply asks whether the education should better fit the vehicle involved.

Motorcycles are not cars. They brake differently, accelerate differently, corner differently, and react differently to road conditions. Riders must manage hazards that most automobile drivers never encounter, including lane positioning, surface debris, counter-steering, emergency braking, and visibility challenges.

Traditional defensive driving courses provide valuable instruction for the average motorist, but they are not designed to teach advanced riding techniques or motorcycle risk management. If the goal is to reduce future crashes, it makes sense to ask whether a motorcycle rider might benefit more from education that focuses specifically on riding a motorcycle.

This proposal is grounded in a principle already found throughout our justice system. Courts routinely tailor educational requirements to the offense involved. Drivers convicted of impaired driving may complete alcohol education programs. Other diversion programs address anger management, parenting skills, or substance abuse because those courses directly relate to the behavior being corrected.

This proposal follows the same logic. When the violation involves a motorcycle, judges would have the authority to consider motorcycle-specific training as the educational remedy.

The key word is authority.

This proposal does not require judges to approve a motorcycle safety course. Judicial discretion remains central to the concept. A judge could still order traditional defensive driving school or determine that no diversion option is appropriate under the circumstances.

The proposal simply expands the court’s available tools.

Eligibility would remain limited. Serious offenses such as reckless driving, impaired driving, excessive speeding, or crashes involving serious injury would remain outside the scope of the proposal. It would apply only to qualifying traffic violations that are already eligible for Arizona’s existing defensive driving framework.

Quality control is equally important. Any substitute course should be a state-approved motorcycle rider education program taught by certified instructors using an approved curriculum. Successful completion would be documented and reported to the court just as other diversion programs are today.

Arizona has already invested in motorcycle safety education through its licensing system and approved rider training providers. ABATE’s proposal builds on that existing framework rather than creating an entirely new program.

The ultimate objective is simple: improve rider education and make Arizona’s roads safer.

If a rider leaves a motorcycle safety course with stronger emergency braking skills, better cornering techniques, improved hazard recognition, and greater situational awareness, everyone benefits. Better-trained riders mean fewer crashes, fewer injuries, and safer roads for motorists and motorcyclists alike.

Public policy works best when it addresses the actual problem. Motorcycles require specialized skills, and it is reasonable to ask whether specialized education should play a larger role when correcting riding behavior.

Over the coming months, ABATE of Arizona will continue refining this by working with riders, judges, legislators, motorcycle safety instructors, law enforcement, and traffic safety professionals. Stakeholder input will help shape the final proposal before it is introduced during the 2027 Arizona Legislative Session.

This conversation is just beginning.

Good legislation is rarely written overnight. It develops through research, collaboration, and open discussion. By starting that discussion now, Arizona has the opportunity to consider a practical reform that strengthens public safety while preserving judicial discretion.

What do you think?

Should Arizona give judges the option to substitute an approved motorcycle safety course for defensive driving school when the circumstances make it the better educational choice?

I’d like to hear your thoughts. Your feedback will help shape this as we continue preparing this proposal for the 2027 legislative session.

A veteran attempts suicide. A family loses housing. A former service member is arrested, hospitalized, or disconnected from benefits. At that point, the system responds, but the earlier warning signs may have been present for months.

This policy deep dive examines a proposal to move Arizona from reactive crisis management toward proactive early intervention.

The central idea is straightforward: Arizona agencies and community partners already encounter veterans during the events that often precede a final crisis. Eviction courts see housing instability. Hospitals see repeated emergency visits. Unemployment offices see sudden income loss. Jails see veterans entering the justice system. Benefits offices see denied claims and interrupted support.

The problem is that these systems rarely communicate, and many do not consistently ask whether the person they are serving has a military background.

The proposal calls for a statewide veteran early-identification network. Courts, hospitals, workforce offices, behavioral-health providers, legal-aid programs, and other public-facing systems would use a standard military-service question and offer voluntary assistance when signs of instability appear.

Instead of handing a veteran another phone number, the system would provide a warm handoff to a trained navigator who could help coordinate housing, employment, legal, healthcare, transportation, and benefits support.

This is not a proposal to create a government watchlist or predict suicide through administrative data. It is a proposal to recognize that housing loss, unemployment, benefits denials, legal problems, and family instability can become crisis accelerators when no one intervenes.

Arizona Veterans is working to develop this proposal for introduction during the 2027 Arizona Legislative Session.

Listen to the deep dive and consider the central policy question:

How many veteran crises could Arizona prevent if the state learned to recognize the warning signs before the final emergency?

That is the purpose of firearms preemption.

Arizona law assigns most firearms regulation to the state. Cities, towns, counties, police departments, parks departments, and other political subdivisions generally may not create their own rules governing the possession, carrying, transportation, sale, transfer, storage, discharge, or use of firearms. The Legislature made that policy choice to create a uniform statewide legal framework.

The statute is broad. It is also stronger than many people realize. Arizona law declares conflicting local firearm rules null and void, authorizes injunctions, permits civil penalties, creates a private cause of action, requires attorney-fee awards for prevailing plaintiffs, and provides a separate process through which a legislator may request an Attorney General investigation.

Yet statutory language does not remove a prohibited sign from a park entrance. It does not automatically delete an outdated ordinance from a municipal code. It does not revise a police training bulletin, stop an employee from enforcing an unwritten directive, or compel a city attorney to acknowledge that a local policy exceeds municipal authority.

That is the central problem: a local firearm restriction may be legally preempted while remaining practically operative.

A law can be invalid on paper and still influence conduct. Citizens may obey it because they do not want to risk detention, citation, arrest, legal expense, or the temporary seizure of a firearm. Police officers may enforce it because it remains in a codebook or departmental reference system. Municipal employees may apply it because no one has instructed them otherwise. Prosecutors may rely on it until a court, city attorney, council, or county board forces the issue.

Preemption establishes the legal boundary. Enforcement determines whether local government respects it.

Define the Problem: Preemption Does Not Enforce Itself

Arizona’s firearms-preemption statute begins with a sweeping rule. Except for specified statutory exceptions, a political subdivision may not enact an ordinance, rule, or tax relating to firearms, ammunition, firearm components, or related accessories. The prohibited subjects include transportation, possession, carrying, sale, transfer, purchase, acquisition, gift, devise, storage, licensing, registration, discharge, and use.1

The statute also prohibits political subdivisions from requiring firearm licensing or registration, maintaining certain firearm-owner records, or adopting firearm rules that are more restrictive than state law. An inconsistent or more restrictive local firearm ordinance or rule is “null and void,” regardless of whether it was enacted before or after July 29, 2010.2

The phrase “null and void” is legally significant. A local government cannot make an unauthorized firearm restriction valid merely by enforcing it for several years. Nor can a municipality preserve an unlawful rule by asserting that no one has challenged it.

Still, there is a practical distinction between legal invalidity and operational compliance.

Consider four situations:

1. A municipal code expressly prohibits carrying firearms in all city parks.

2. A parks department posts signs saying that firearms are prohibited, even though the municipal code contains no such prohibition.

3. A city attorney advises employees to remove the signs but the signs remain posted.

4. A police department has an unwritten practice of instructing armed park visitors to leave.

Each situation presents a different enforcement problem.

The first involves an ordinance. The text, enactment history, penalties, and responsible governing body should be identifiable.

The second may involve a department rule, sign directive, facility policy, or administrative error.

The third involves a gap between formal legal advice and operational conduct.

The fourth may be the hardest to prove because there may be no published policy. Evidence may exist only in dispatch records, body-camera video, incident reports, emails, training materials, or repeated experiences involving multiple citizens.

Arizona law anticipates more than formally codified ordinances. The private cause of action in Arizona Revised Statutes section 13-3108(K) refers to an “ordinance, regulation, tax, measure, directive, rule, enactment, order or policy.”3 That wording matters. A political subdivision should not be able to evade preemption by moving a restriction out of the municipal code and into an administrative handbook, an employee directive, a facility sign, or a departmental practice.

The enforcement question is not limited to what the city council enacted. It includes what the government is doing.

What Arizona Firearms Preemption Covers

Arizona Revised Statutes section 13-3108 is not a general statement of legislative preference. It imposes specific limits on local power.

The starting presumption is that firearm regulation belongs at the state level. A political subdivision may regulate only where state law supplies authority or where the conduct falls within one of the statute’s listed exceptions.

Those exceptions include:

• Generally applicable privilege or use taxes on retail transactions;

• Certain restrictions involving unaccompanied minors;

• Regulation of commercial land and structures in the same manner as other commercial businesses;

• Regulation of employees or contractors acting within the course and scope of their government work, subject to statutory limits;

• Certain restrictions on the discharge of firearms in parks and preserves; and

• Ordinances otherwise enacted pursuant to state law.4

These exceptions should be read according to their text. They are not a general grant of authority to regulate firearms whenever a local government invokes public safety, property ownership, or administrative convenience.

The distinction between possession and discharge is important in the park context. Arizona law permits political subdivisions to limit or prohibit firearm discharge in parks and preserves, subject to exceptions for lawful activities such as supervised ranges, approved hunting areas, nuisance-wildlife control, certain special permits, and defense against an animal attack.5

A power to regulate discharge is not a general power to prohibit possession or carrying.

A park rule stating “No target shooting” may fall within the statutory authority to regulate discharge. A sign stating “No firearms anywhere in this park” presents a different question because it regulates possession and carrying. Local governments cannot convert a limited discharge exception into a general possession ban.

Arizona law also distinguishes open park grounds from public establishments. For purposes of the misconduct-involving-weapons statute, a “public establishment” is a government-owned, leased, or operated “structure, vehicle or craft.”6 An open lawn, trail, parking area, or ordinary park ground does not become a public establishment merely because a city owns it.

A city-owned recreation building, library, office, vehicle, or enclosed facility may qualify. State law permits an operator to request that a person remove a weapon from a public establishment or public event, but the operator must provide temporary, secure storage that is accessible upon entry and permits immediate retrieval when the person exits.7

A “public event” also has a statutory meaning. It is a specifically named or sponsored event of limited duration conducted by a public entity or by a private entity acting under a public permit or license. An ordinary gathering of people in a public place is not automatically a public event.8

These distinctions are more than legal details. They determine whether a park sign accurately states Arizona law or creates a firearm restriction that the local government lacks authority to impose.

Local Ownership Does Not Create a Firearms Exception

One recurring local-government argument is that a city or county should be able to regulate firearms on property it owns in the same manner as a private property owner.

Arizona law addresses that claim.

Section 13-3108 defines “political subdivision” to include a political subdivision acting “in any capacity,” including under its police power, in a proprietary capacity, or otherwise.9 A city does not escape preemption merely by labeling itself a property owner, landlord, event operator, or commercial participant.

The Arizona Supreme Court addressed a related issue in State ex rel. Brnovich v. City of Tucson. Tucson had an ordinance requiring the destruction of certain unclaimed and forfeited firearms. State law prohibited government agencies from facilitating firearm destruction and generally required eligible firearms to be sold through authorized businesses.

Tucson argued that disposing of its property was a matter of local concern protected by its charter-city authority. The Arizona Supreme Court rejected that position. The Court held that firearm regulation, police handling of firearms, and the disposition of forfeited or unclaimed firearms implicated statewide concerns. The state statutes displaced Tucson’s conflicting ordinance.10

The case demonstrates why preemption requires an enforcement mechanism. Tucson’s ordinance did not disappear when the Legislature enacted the conflicting statutes. Between 2013 and October 2016, Tucson destroyed approximately 4,800 firearms under its local policy.11

The state law was on the books. The city continued its practice. Compliance came only after investigation, litigation, and judicial resolution.

A statute without a credible enforcement pathway may establish a right while leaving the right-holder to absorb the cost of proving it.

Ordinances Are Only the Most Visible Part of the Problem

Municipal-code review is the logical starting point for preemption oversight, but it is not the end.

Local firearm restrictions can appear in:

• City and county codes;

• Park rules and facility regulations;

• Administrative policies;

• Employee manuals;

• Police general orders;

• Event-permit conditions;

• Facility-use agreements;

• Vendor contracts;

• Procurement documents;

• Recreation-center rules;

• Library conduct policies;

• Transit policies;

• Signage directives;

• Frequently asked questions on government websites;

• Training materials;

• Internal legal memoranda;

• Dispatch instructions;

• Citation codes; and

• Unwritten enforcement practices.

A code search may reveal an ordinance adopted twenty years ago that no one has reviewed since the Legislature expanded preemption. A website may contain a firearm prohibition that no longer appears in the code. A parks department may use a standard sign template inherited from another jurisdiction. A police department’s field guide may list a repealed ordinance. An event permit may impose firearm conditions that neither the council nor county board approved.

The legal form of the restriction affects the remedy.

An ordinance usually requires formal repeal or amendment by the governing body. A department policy may be rescinded by a department head, city manager, or county administrator. A sign may be removed through administrative direction. A contract provision may require amendment, nonrenewal, or a new procurement instruction. An enforcement practice may require revised training, written guidance, supervisory review, and confirmation that past citations have been identified.

This is why a preemption inquiry should ask two separate questions:

1. What does the local government’s law say?

2. What does the local government actually do?

A city can repeal an ordinance while leaving its signs in place. It can remove signs while preserving the ordinance. It can declare that a rule will not be enforced without formally repealing it. It can deny that a policy exists while officers continue applying it.

Full compliance requires alignment among the code, written policies, training, signs, contracts, websites, and field conduct.

Public Records Turn Suspicion Into Evidence

Public records are often the bridge between a suspected preemption violation and a legally supportable claim.

Arizona’s public-records law provides a right to inspect public records and requires public bodies to maintain records reasonably necessary to provide an accurate account of their official activities.12 When a government denies access, the requester may seek relief through a special action in superior court. A person who substantially prevails may receive attorney fees and costs, and a person wrongfully denied access may pursue damages resulting from the denial.13

In a firearm-preemption inquiry, a public-records request can seek:

• The current ordinance and every amendment;

• Council or board agendas, minutes, and staff reports;

• Park-rule adoption records;

• Photographs and location lists for firearm signs;

• Work orders for sign installation or removal;

• Emails discussing firearm restrictions;

• Communications between the city attorney and operational departments, subject to lawful privilege claims;

• Police general orders and training bulletins;

• Dispatch instructions;

• Citation and arrest data linked to the local provision;

• Incident reports involving armed visitors;

• Body-camera retention information;

• Facility rules and employee instructions;

• Event-permit templates;

• Contracts assigning firearm enforcement duties to private security;

• Firearm-storage policies;

• Records showing whether secure storage is available;

• Inventories of seized, forfeited, or unclaimed firearms;

• Auction, transfer, retention, and destruction records;

• Communications with advocacy groups or outside organizations concerning the policy; and

• Records showing whether the government received prior notice that the rule might violate state law.

Public records serve at least five functions.

First, they establish who made the decision. A sign may have been installed by a facilities employee, ordered by a department director, required by a risk manager, or approved by the governing body. Responsibility cannot be evaluated until the decision chain is known.

Second, records identify the legal theory used by the government. A city may claim authority under the park-discharge exception, public-establishment law, event rules, charter authority, property rights, or a generally applicable trespass provision. Each theory requires a different response.

Third, records show whether the violation was knowing and willful. That issue matters because section 13-3108 authorizes a civil penalty of up to $50,000 when a court determines that the political subdivision knowingly and willfully violated the statute. It also provides that a person who knowingly and willfully violates the statute in an official capacity through a directive, order, policy, or similar action may be subject to termination to the extent permitted by state law.14

Fourth, records establish actual enforcement. A local government may say that an ordinance is dormant, but citations, incident reports, dispatch records, and body-camera files may show that employees continue to rely on it.

Fifth, records preserve the factual basis for political and legal action. A council member is more likely to act when presented with the ordinance, photographs, enforcement records, and relevant state statutes than when presented with an unverified accusation.

Public-records work is not a substitute for enforcement. It is how an advocate determines what must be enforced, against whom, and through which process.

Standing: Being Right About the Law Is Not Enough

Standing answers a separate question from preemption.

Preemption asks whether the local measure conflicts with state law. Standing asks whether the person or organization bringing the lawsuit has a sufficient connection to the dispute.

Arizona Revised Statutes section 13-3108(K) provides that a person, or an organization whose membership is adversely affected by a prohibited local measure, may bring a civil action for declaratory relief, injunctive relief, and actual damages.15

That provision creates a private enforcement route, but the phrase “adversely affected” still matters.

Arizona courts generally require a plaintiff to show a distinct and palpable injury rather than a generalized disagreement with government policy. The injury need not always be a completed prosecution. A credible threat of enforcement, a change in conduct, an inability to use public property on equal terms, exposure to a penalty, or an organizational injury tied to affected members may establish the necessary stake. The facts must be developed.

A plaintiff who lives hundreds of miles away, has no intent to visit the property, has never encountered the policy, and faces no credible enforcement threat may have difficulty establishing standing even if the ordinance appears preempted.

A local resident who lawfully carries, regularly uses the affected park, has encountered the sign, has been directed to disarm or leave, and intends to return presents a stronger claim.

An organization should identify members who are directly affected. It should document where they live, how they use the affected property, whether they possess or carry firearms lawfully, what the local rule requires, how the rule changes their behavior, and whether enforcement is threatened.

The Arizona Supreme Court has described standing as a requirement that the plaintiff allege a “distinct and palpable injury.”16 Arizona’s Constitution does not contain the same case-or-controversy language found in Article III of the United States Constitution, but Arizona courts still apply standing as a matter of judicial restraint. Courts generally do not issue advisory opinions to settle abstract policy disagreements.

The 2025 Pima County lost-or-stolen-firearm case illustrates the point. Pima County adopted an ordinance requiring firearm owners to report a lost or stolen firearm within forty-eight hours and authorizing a civil penalty of up to $1,000. Arizona Citizens Defense League and Chris King, a Pima County firearm owner, challenged the ordinance represented by the Goldwater Institute attorney Parker Jackson.

Pima County argued that the plaintiffs lacked standing and that their claims were not ripe. The superior court rejected those arguments, found that the plaintiffs had standing, and held that the ordinance was preempted by section 13-3108(A) and (D). The court ordered a permanent injunction against the ordinance’s enforcement.17

The case supplies a practical lesson. Preemption litigation should not begin with the assumption that the statutory conflict alone will carry the lawsuit. A preemption case needs both a legal theory and an injured plaintiff.

Arizona’s Direct Enforcement Mechanisms

Section 13-3108 provides several remedies against a political subdivision.

1. Invalidity and Permanent Injunction

An ordinance, regulation, tax, or rule enacted in violation of the statute is invalid and subject to a permanent injunction. The political subdivision cannot defend the violation by claiming good faith or reliance on legal counsel.18

That last provision prevents a city from arguing that its attorney approved the restriction or that officials sincerely believed they possessed authority. Good faith may be relevant to whether the violation was knowing and willful, but it does not make an unlawful firearm rule valid.

2. Civil Penalty Against the Political Subdivision

If a court finds that the political subdivision knowingly and willfully violated the statute, the court may assess a civil penalty of up to $50,000 against the political subdivision.19

This is a discretionary penalty. The statute says the court “may” assess it. A plaintiff seeking the penalty needs evidence supporting the mental-state requirement. Prior notice, legal memoranda, legislative history, meeting statements, earlier challenges, and refusal to repeal after receiving a cure letter may become relevant.

The money comes from the political subdivision, which means taxpayers may bear the financial result. That structure creates political pressure but does not necessarily impose a personal financial consequence on the individual official responsible for the decision.

3. Employment Consequence for an Official-Capacity Violation

If a court determines that a person knowingly and willfully violated the statute in an official capacity through an ordinance, directive, rule, order, or policy, the person may be subject to termination to the extent permitted by state law.20

This provision is narrower than a direct personal civil penalty. It does not expressly create personal monetary liability. Its force also depends on employment law, the person’s position, and whether the official is an employee, elected officer, appointed officer, or other actor.

An elected council member cannot be treated as an ordinary at-will employee. A department employee, manager, or appointed official may present a different question. The statutory language should not be overstated.

4. Private Civil Action

An adversely affected person or organization may seek:

• Declaratory relief;

• Injunctive relief;

• Actual damages;

• Reasonable attorney fees and costs; and

• Actual damages capped at $100,000.21

If the plaintiff prevails, the court “shall” award reasonable attorney fees and costs. The mandatory fee provision changes the economics of enforcement. It gives affected citizens and membership organizations a path to recover litigation expenses when they prove a violation.

The damages provision still requires actual damages. A plaintiff should document financial loss, denied access, costs caused by the policy, and other concrete harm. The statutory cap does not create damages where none exist.

The Legislative Referral and Attorney General Process

Arizona also provides a state-level process for alleged local violations of state law.

Under Arizona Revised Statutes section 41-194.01, one or more state legislators may request that the Attorney General investigate an ordinance, regulation, order, official action, or qualifying written local policy alleged to violate state law or the Arizona Constitution.22

The Attorney General must issue a written report within thirty days.

If the Attorney General concludes that the local action violates state law, the local government receives notice and has thirty days to resolve the violation. If it fails to do so, the Attorney General must notify the State Treasurer, who is directed to withhold and redistribute state-shared revenues until the violation is resolved.23

If the Attorney General concludes that the local action “may violate” state law, the Attorney General must file a special action in the Arizona Supreme Court. The case receives priority, and the local government must post a bond equal to six months of specified state-shared revenues.24

For a written policy, rule, or regulation adopted by a local department or agency, the statute requires an extra preliminary step. Before requesting an Attorney General investigation, the legislator must provide written notice to the local chief executive officer or governing body. If the local government does not repeal or resolve the alleged violation within sixty days, the legislator may submit the investigation request.25

This process creates financial leverage that a private lawsuit may not provide. The possible loss of state-shared revenue can move a compliance dispute from the city attorney’s office to the governing body’s immediate attention.

It also creates a political gateway. A citizen cannot directly compel an investigation under this statute without legislative participation. The person or organization must persuade at least one state legislator to submit the request.

That makes sponsor recruitment part of enforcement. A legislator considering a referral will need a concise factual package:

• The challenged text or policy;

• The state statute allegedly violated;

• Evidence that the rule is current;

• Evidence of enforcement or credible threatened enforcement;

• The local government’s response;

• Records establishing who adopted the measure;

• A legal comparison showing the conflict; and

• The requested cure.

A legislator should not be handed a folder of grievances and asked to find the legal issue. The referral package should make the issue visible within minutes.

Political Remedies Should Usually Begin Before Litigation

Litigation is sometimes necessary. It should not be the only enforcement tool.

Many preemption disputes can be corrected through a documented municipal cure process. The goal is not simply to tell a city that it is wrong. The goal is to produce repeal, policy revision, sign removal, employee guidance, and confirmation that the prohibited rule will no longer be enforced.

A structured cure effort can proceed in stages.

Step One: Verify the Rule

Obtain the current code language, administrative policy, sign photographs, website statements, facility instructions, and adoption history.

Confirm that the restriction belongs to a political subdivision covered by section 13-3108. Separate federal, tribal, state, local, school, and private-property rules. Different legal authorities govern each.

Step Two: Compare the Rule with State Law

Identify the conduct regulated by the local measure. Is it possession, carrying, transportation, storage, sale, transfer, discharge, or another covered subject?

Determine whether an express exception applies. A park-discharge rule, for example, should not be evaluated as if it were a general firearm-possession ban.

Step Three: Identify the Decision-Maker

Determine whether the city council, county board, manager, attorney, police chief, parks director, library director, event coordinator, or private contractor controls the challenged action.

Sending a letter only to the city attorney may produce legal discussion without operational correction. Sending it only to the parks department may produce sign removal without ordinance repeal. The correct recipients depend on the source of the restriction.

Step Four: Send a Cure Letter

A cure letter should identify:

• The local provision;

• The controlling state statute;

• The specific conflict;

• Any supporting judicial authority;

• The requested corrective action;

• A response deadline;

• A request to preserve relevant records; and

• A request for written confirmation of all corrective measures.

The requested action should address the full compliance chain. If the city repeals the ordinance but leaves the signs and police instructions untouched, the problem remains.

Step Five: Use the Public Process

If staff decline to act, the issue should move to the governing body.

Public comment, council agenda requests, supervisor meetings, written constituent submissions, and direct questions during budget or oversight hearings can force public accountability. The political question is simple: Why is the local government spending taxpayer money to defend a firearm rule the Legislature has prohibited?

The issue should be presented in legal and fiscal terms, not only ideological terms. A municipality faces possible injunctions, mandatory attorney-fee awards, damages, a civil penalty, staff time, outside counsel costs, and possible exposure of state-shared revenue.

Step Six: Secure Legislative Review

If local remedies fail, an advocate can seek a legislative notice or Attorney General referral under section 41-194.01. The legislator should receive a completed evidentiary package, a draft notice letter, a draft referral request, and a chronology of the local government’s response.

Step Seven: Prepare the Plaintiff Before Filing

If litigation becomes necessary, standing should be developed before the complaint is filed.

Identify a person who is directly affected, document the person’s intended conduct, preserve photographs and communications, retain proof of the enforcement threat, and describe how the policy changes the person’s use of public property.

A membership organization should document affected members rather than rely on a general mission statement.

Reveal the Solution: Build a Statewide Preemption Compliance System

Arizona does not need to wait for the next citation or arrest before reviewing local firearm restrictions. A statewide compliance project can identify problems before they become lawsuits. And this is what we have been doing.

The project includes five components.

1. Municipal Code Audit

Review of every Arizona city, town, and county code for firearm-related language. A search for terms such as firearm, gun, weapon, ammunition, pistol, rifle, shooting, carry, possession, park, public building, event, storage, forfeiture, disposal, and dangerous instrument.

Each provision should is classified as:

• Clearly authorized;

• Potentially authorized;

• Potentially preempted;

• Clearly preempted;

• Obsolete but still published; or

• Requiring factual investigation.

2. Administrative Policy Audit

We request park manuals, police policies, facility rules, event-permit conditions, employee directives, firearm-storage procedures, and sign inventories.

We do not assume that a clean municipal code means full compliance.

3. Standardized Cure Packet

Each suspected violation should receive the same core treatment:

• Issue summary;

• Local text;

• State-law comparison;

• Relevant exception analysis;

• Supporting case law;

• Records request;

• Cure letter;

• Follow-up schedule;

• Escalation decision; and

• Final disposition.

4. Public Compliance Dashboard

We are working to put together a statewide dashboard that lists each jurisdiction, identified provisions, review status, cure status, governing-body action, and remaining concerns.

The purpose is accuracy and public accountability. Jurisdictions that correct outdated rules should receive credit for doing so. Jurisdictions that refuse should face documented scrutiny.

5. Legislative Enforcement Review

Arizona’s enforcement law is substantial, but experience exposes several points for legislative review:

• Whether personal civil liability should apply to knowing and intentional violations;

• Whether elected officials should face a defined enforcement consequence;

• Whether the $50,000 civil penalty creates enough deterrence;

• Whether citizens should be able to initiate an Attorney General review without first securing a legislative sponsor;

• Whether cure deadlines should apply uniformly to ordinances and administrative policies;

• Whether governments should be required to remove signs and revise training after repeal;

• Whether a court should be able to order review of past citations issued under a preempted measure;

• Whether officials should be required to certify compliance after receiving notice;

• Whether local governments should publicly disclose firearm-related policies that do not appear in the municipal code; and

• Whether repeated violations should trigger enhanced penalties.

The goal should be compliance, not a cycle in which a local government adopts a restriction, forces private parties to sue, loses, pays the judgment with public money, and repeats the process under a different policy label.

Execute the Solution: A Practical Enforcement Sequence

For EPIC Policy Group, AzCDL, and affected citizens, the working sequence is:

1. Identify the local restriction.

2. Preserve the text, sign, communication, or enforcement event.

3. Confirm the responsible government entity.

4. Compare the restriction with section 13-3108 and related state law.

5. Evaluate all statutory exceptions.

6. Request the adoption, enforcement, training, and legal-review records.

7. Identify an affected person or organizational member.

8. Send a written cure demand.

9. Request formal repeal and operational correction.

10. Present the matter to the governing body.

11. Recruit a legislator for a section 41-194.01 referral if the violation remains.

12. Prepare litigation based on documented injury and a complete factual record.

13. Verify that signs, policies, websites, contracts, and enforcement instructions have been corrected.

14. Publish the outcome so the same dispute does not recur elsewhere.

The final verification step is essential. A council vote is not the same as field compliance. The signs must come down. The website must change. The officers and employees must receive corrected guidance. The facility must supply required storage if it intends to invoke the public-establishment rule. Any unlawful citation practice must stop.

The Larger Principle

Firearms preemption is sometimes described as a debate over state power versus local control. That description misses the citizen’s interest.

The practical purpose of preemption is legal uniformity.

A person traveling from Glendale to Goodyear, Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff, Prescott, or Yuma should not face a new firearm code at every municipal boundary. Local governments may disagree with the policy adopted by the Legislature. They may lobby to change it. They may ask lawmakers to repeal or narrow preemption. What they cannot do is replace statewide law with a local rule that state law prohibits.

Arizona has already supplied much of the enforcement structure. The state has declared conflicting rules invalid. It has authorized injunctions, damages, attorney fees, civil penalties, employment consequences, Attorney General investigations, Supreme Court review, and the withholding of state-shared revenue.

The remaining task is sustained oversight.

Every ordinance must be read. Every park rule must be compared with state law. Every sign must have an identified legal basis. Every administrative policy must remain within delegated authority. Public records must be used to determine what local governments are actually doing. Plaintiffs must be selected based on real injury. Political remedies must be pursued with the same discipline as litigation.

A right that depends on voluntary government compliance is not secure.

Arizona firearms preemption becomes meaningful when local officials know that prohibited ordinances, policies, and enforcement practices will be identified, documented, challenged, and corrected.

That is the difference between having a preemption statute and enforcing one.

What YOU can do!

Have you encountered a firearm-prohibition sign, park rule, facility policy, or local ordinance that appears inconsistent with Arizona law?

Send the location, a photograph, the date observed, and any communication you received from the local government. The first step in enforcing statewide uniformity is building an accurate record of where local policy and state law no longer match. This AzCDL project is ongoing and will continue until every municipality conforms to Arizona Revised Statute. They could always use your support. Learn more HERE.