EPS Daily Brief, Saturday June 6: Decision season at SCOTUS, deadline season for regulators
Three stories for EPS subscribers: the Supreme Court's pending Wolford v. Lopez carry decision, Cal/OSHA's workplace violence rule nearing a final vote, and ATF's 34-rule reform package open for comment.
Saturday edition, worth the five minutes: the courts and regulators spent this week quietly setting your 2027 operating environment.
SCOTUS enters decision season with carry rights on the docket
The Supreme Court is in the final weeks of its term, and a June 4 status check lists Wolford v. Lopez among the major cases still outstanding. The case challenges Hawaii’s Act 52, which makes it a crime for licensed carriers to bring a handgun onto private property open to the public unless the owner gives express permission. The case was argued January 20, most justices sounded skeptical of the default ban, and a decision is expected by late June.
The EPS angle: If the Court strikes the default no-carry rule, sensitive-places instruction in post-Bruen states like Hawaii, California, New York, and New Jersey changes overnight. Instructors should be ready to update CCW curriculum and client advisories the day the opinion drops.
Source: U.S. News & World Report
Cal/OSHA’s workplace violence rule for general industry nears the finish line
The comment window on Cal/OSHA’s revised workplace violence prevention standard closed June 1. The draft requires a written prevention plan with 12 specified elements, extends coverage to employer-provided transportation, narrows the small-employer exemption, and requires interactive training. A board vote is expected in late summer 2026, with implementation set for January 1, 2027.
The EPS angle: Every covered California work site will need a written plan, hazard assessments, and documented training on a hard deadline. That is contract-ready work for security providers and trainers; build the assessment and training package now, before the vote turns it into a scramble.
Source: Ogletree Deakins
ATF’s 34-rule reform package is open for public comment
DOJ and ATF released 34 notices of final and proposed rulemaking on April 29 under Executive Order 14206, the first wave of a broader regulatory rewrite. Proposals include extended NICS check windows, electronic forms, and clearer straw-purchase language, and ATF has shifted its enforcement posture toward willful violators rather than inadvertent paperwork errors. Comment periods generally run 90 days from publication, so most windows are open now.
The EPS angle: FFLs, instructors, and dealers who run transfers have a rare chance to shape the rules they will live under. Read the NPRMs that touch your operation and file comments before the windows close this summer.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
The through line this week: courts and regulators are writing the rules you will operate under in 2027. Reply and tell us which of these stories you want covered in more depth; we read every response.
Eight Point Solutions
www.eightpointsolutions.com | rogers@eightpointsolutions.com
What This Means for Operators
A court term, a state regulator, and a federal agency rulemaking package all landing in the same window is a reminder that the compliance surface for security work is wider than most staffing plans assume. The practical implications:
- Carry rights litigation shapes what armed personnel may do off post and in transit, not only on duty, and the answer differs by jurisdiction until it does not.
- A state workplace violence standard for general industry pushes prevention from good practice into an enforceable obligation, which changes what a client is buying when they contract for security.
- A large reform package usually contains one or two provisions that materially affect a given firm and dozens that do not. The work is identifying which.
- Every one of these moves on a published timeline. Tracking those dates is cheaper than reacting to the outcome.
The takeaway is not that any single item is decisive. It is that a firm without someone whose job includes watching these dockets will learn about the change from a client or an inspector.
Background: Workplace Violence Prevention Is a Program, Not a Poster, Fifty States, Fifty Rulebooks: Security Officer Licensing in America, and Use of Force: The Legal Architecture Behind Every Decision.
Related reading: The Ants and the Rock: Notes From the Slowest News Week of the Year.
About the Author
Kawika Rogers is Managing Partner at Eight Point Solutions LLC, a veteran-led defense consulting and training firm based in Maryland. He served as an Infantry Team Leader in the United States Marine Corps, then directed the Field Training Officer program and served as an Armorer for Triple Canopy at Camp Arifjan and Camp Buehring in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. He has also served in an advisory and operational capacity in Eastern Europe. Rogers holds over 15 instructor certifications in firearms, defensive tactics, and emergency medicine, and studied International Relations and Global Security at American Military University.
Eight Point Solutions LLC 7404 Executive Place, 5th Floor, Suite L-17, Lanham, MD 20706 // rogers@eightpointsolutions.com // eightpointsolutions.com SDVOSB // eightpointsolutions.app // eightpointsolutions-tech.com // SAM UEI: EY34ARER2TD9
