Harvard University’s $56.9 billion endowment made its first foray into ether ETH$1,978.09 last quarter, even as it scaled back its exposure to bitcoin BTC$68,770.50.

According to an SEC filing, the Harvard Management Company (HMC) bought almost 3.9 million shares of BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA), valued at around $86.8 million.

The company also reduced its stake in the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) by 21%, selling roughly 1.5 million shares. The bitcoin exchange-traded fund remains Harvard’s largest publicly disclosed holding at $265.8 million.

The shift comes after the price of bitcoin dropped from an all-time high of around $125,000 in October to close the quarter just below $90,000.

The move, however, may have less to do with sentiment and more to do with market dynamics, according to Andy Constan, founder and chief investment officer at Damped Spring Advisors.

The sale could reflect the unwinding of a trade that meant to capitalize on bitcoin treasury companies trading at premiums to the value of their BTC holdings, as measured by the multiple of net asset value, or mNAV, which compares enterprise value to bitcoin value.

When bitcoin’s price was booming, digital asset treasury (DAT) firms like Strategy (MSTR) traded at high premiums to the value of the bitcoin in their treasuries. MSTR, for example, at one point traded near 2.9 mNAV, meaning investors buying the shares were paying around $2.9 to own $1 of BTC.

That premium reflects not only the underlying cash-generating business, but also the company’s potential to keep accumulating bitcoin. Still, various investors bet on that mNAV gap narrowing. They held bitcoin indirectly through IBIT and shorted the shares of Strategy and similar digital asset treasury (DAT) companies.

Then the unwind took place, according to Constan. As the price of bitcoin plunged, so did that of DAT shares. Strategy, for example, now trades at 1.2 mNAV. These traders may also be rebalancing their portfolios, as bitcoin’s price nearly doubled last year despite the drawdown, suggesting it could be above the institution’s desired portfolio allocation, he wrote on X.

Data from 13F filings with the SEC gathered by Todd Schneider at 13.info backs these points. It shows that institutions reported owning 230 million IBIT shares in the fourth quarter, down from 417 million in the third.

Harvard also boosted investments in chipmakers Broadcom and TSMC, as well as in Google’s parent company Alphabet and railroad operator Union Pacific, while trimming stakes in Amazon, Microsoft and Nvidia.

Last year restored crypto’s institutional footing. This year, according to Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), is when it becomes more integrated into the financial system.

Regulatory clarity improved in 2025, institutional engagement accelerated and capital markets reopened. Now the focus is shifting from price cycles to infrastructure as digital assets become more deeply embedded into payments, custody, treasury management and capital markets.

“Regardless of how tangible or visible, all the forces shaping crypto today share a common thread: Crypto is moving from expectations to production. Pilot programs are scaling and capital is consolidating,” Anthony Vassallo, senior vice president of crypto at SVB, told CoinDesk in an interview.

The bank, which maintains more than 500 relationships with crypto companies and venture firms investing in the sector, says institutional capital, consolidation, stablecoins, tokenization and AI are converging to reshape how money moves.

After its 2023 collapse, SVB was bought by North Carolina–based First Citizens Bank and now operates within a top-20 U.S. bank with $230 billion in assets. In 2025, it added 2,100 clients and ended the year with $108 billion in total client funds and $44 billion in loans.

Fewer experiments, more conviction

“The suits and ties have arrived,” according to the bank’s 2026 outlook report.

Venture funding in U.S. crypto companies rose 44% last year to $7.9 billion, according to PitchBook data cited by SVB. While the deal count fell, median check sizes climbed to $5 million as investors concentrated capital into stronger teams. Seed valuations jumped 70% from 2023 levels.

The bank warns that demand for institutional-grade crypto companies could outstrip the number of investable firms.

“In 2026, conditions are ripe for continued growth in VC investment in crypto. As institutional adoption accelerates, driving larger venture capital checks, we expect continued capital concentration in fewer companies with investors prioritizing higher-quality projects and follow-ons into proven teams,” Vassallo said.

“For end users, the result will be a more seamless experience across everyday financial interactions, from sending cross-border payments to managing an investment portfolio.”

Corporate balance sheets are reinforcing the shift. At least 172 public companies held bitcoin BTC$68,770.50 in the third quarter of 2025, up 40% from the second, collectively controlling roughly 5% of circulating supply, according to data referenced by SVB.

A new class of digital asset treasury companies, firms that treat crypto accumulation as a core strategy, has emerged. The bank expects consolidation as standards tighten and volatility tests business models.

Meanwhile, traditional banks are moving deeper into the sector. JPMorgan, the largest U.S. bank by assets, plans to accept bitcoin and ether ETH$1,978.09 as collateral, Bloomberg reported last year. SoFi Technologies offers direct digital asset trading. U.S. Bank provides custody through NYDIG. SVB expects more institutions to roll out lending, custody and settlement products as compliance guardrails solidify.

M&A and the race to full-stack crypto

Why build when you can buy?

More than 140 venture capital-backed crypto companies were acquired in the four quarters ending in September, a 59% year-over-year jump, according to the bank’s analysis of PitchBook data. Coinbase’s $2.9 billion acquisition of Deribit and Kraken’s $1.5 billion purchase of NinjaTrader underscored the scale.

The trend extends to banking charters. In 2025, 18 companies applied for charters from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), most of them blockchain-enabled firms. The OCC granted conditional approval to digital-asset-focused trust banks including custody provider BitGo (BTGO), Circle Internet (CRCL), the company behind the second-largest stablecoin, trading platform Fidelity Digital Assets, stablecoin issuer Paxos and payments network Ripple.

For SVB, that marks a turning point: stablecoin and custody infrastructure moving inside the federal banking perimeter. The bank expects traditional financial institutions to accelerate dealmaking rather than risk being disrupted by vertically integrated crypto-native rivals.

“We expect M&A to set a record again in 2026. As digital asset capabilities
become table stakes for financial services, companies will focus on acquisition strategies instead of building products from scratch,” Vassallo says.

“To meet market demands ranging from stablecoin capabilities to full-stack crypto banks, exchanges, custodians, infrastructure providers and brokerages will consolidate into multiproduct companies,” he said.

Stablecoins become the ‘internet’s dollar’

Stablecoins, SVB said, are evolving from trading tools into digital cash.

With near-instant settlement and lower transaction costs than interbank transfer system ACH or card networks, dollar-backed tokens are attractive for treasury operations, cross-border payments and business-to-business settlement.

Regulatory clarity is accelerating adoption. The U.S. GENIUS Act, passed in July, established federal standards for stablecoin issuance, including 1:1 reserve backing and monthly disclosures. Similar frameworks are in place in the EU, U.K., Singapore and the UAE.

Beginning in 2027, only permitted entities such as banks or approved nonbanks will be allowed to issue compliant stablecoins in the U.S. SVB expects issuers to spend 2026 aligning products with federal oversight.

Banks are already experimenting. Société Générale introduced a euro stablecoin. JPMorgan expanded JPM Coin to public blockchains. A group including PNC, Citi and Wells Fargo is exploring a joint token initiative.

Venture dollars are following. Investment in stablecoin-focused companies surged to more than $1.5 billion in 2025, up from less than $50 million in 2019, according to SVB.

In 2026, the bank expects tokenized dollars to move into core enterprise systems, embedded in treasury workflows, collateral management and programmable payments.

Tokenization and AI

Real-world asset tokenization is scaling. Onchain representations of cash, Treasuries and money-market instruments exceeded $36 billion in 2025, according to data cited by the bank.

Funds from BlackRock (BLK) and Franklin Templeton have amassed hundreds of millions in assets, settling flows directly onchain. ETF issuers and asset managers are testing blockchain-based wrappers to reduce transfer costs and enable intraday settlement. Robinhood (HOOD) now has tokenized stock exposure for European users and plans U.S. expansion.

SVB sees private and public markets converging on shared settlement rails, with tokenization expanding beyond Treasuries into private markets and consumer-facing applications.

Then there’s the convergence with AI. In 2025, 40 cents of every venture dollar invested in crypto went to companies also building AI products, up from 18 cents the year prior, according to SVB’s analysis. Startups are building agent-to-agent commerce protocols, and major blockchains are integrating AI into wallets.

Autonomous agents capable of transacting in stablecoins could enable machines to negotiate and settle payments without human intervention. Blockchain-based provenance and verification tools are being developed to address AI’s trust deficit.

The consumer impact may be subtle. SVB predicts that next year’s breakout apps won’t brand themselves as crypto. They will look like fintech products, with stablecoin settlement, tokenized assets and AI agents operating quietly in the background.

From expectation to infrastructure

Silicon Valley Bank’s overarching message is to treat crypto as infrastructure.

Pilot programs are scaling. Capital is concentrating. Banks are entering. Regulators are defining the perimeter. Blockchain technology is poised to underpin treasury operations, collateral flows, cross-border payments and parts of capital markets.

Volatility will remain, and headlines will continue to move prices. But the deeper narrative, the bank argues, is about the plumbing.

“In 2025, momentum in onchain representations of cash, treasuries and money market instruments carried real-world assets into the financial mainstream,” Vassallo said. “This year, cryptocurrency will be treated as infrastructure.”

Read more: R3 bets on Solana to bring institutional yield onchain

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) A graphic showing the percentage of border entries during the Biden administration has gone viral on social media, highlighting that a significant portion of some countries’ populations made their way into the U.S. 

The graphic, created by data scientist Jonathan Pallesen and shared Friday via X, shows that between four and six percent of the populations of Nicaragua, Cuba, Honduras, Haiti, Guatemala and Venezuela were encountered at the border. 

Those figures include the thousands of individuals that Joe Biden’s administration imported under the controversial CHNV program.  

The program — Parole for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans — allowed participants to enter the U.S. for up to two years if they met specific qualifications, including an affidavit of support from a U.S. citizen and claims of persecution. 

Most Americans still don’t fully understand what happened under Biden…

8% of Nicaragua entered the US in 4 years.
8% of the entire country.

7% of Cuba.
6% of Haiti.
5% of Honduras. pic.twitter.com/SnDIfMUpYh

— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) February 13, 2026

The graphic shows Nicaraguans as the most frequently encountered group, with more than 6 percent of the country’s roughly 7.1 million people being represented.  

Nicaraguans were followed by Cubans, also exceeding 6 percent of a population of more than 10 million. 

Hondurans accounted for more than 5 percent of their population of roughly 11 million. Haitians accounted for more than 3 percent of a population exceeding 11 million 

Guatemala and Venezuela were nearly tied, each exceeding 3 percent, with populations of roughly 18 million and over 30 million, respectively. 

Headline USA could not independently verify the graphic’s figures, but a review of border encounters shows that in FY2023, more than 334,000 Venezuelans were encountered nationwide. 

In FY2024, that number was more than 313,000. Nicaragua recorded 138,729 encounters in FY2023 and 91,049 in FY2024. 

Border encounters reflect every instance an individual was stopped at the border, including expulsions and repeated attempts. A single individual may be counted several times if they came across agents at the border more than once. 

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The sheriff of a Washington county praised one of his deputies Friday for maintaining his composure while being harassed by a self-styled activist filming him and attempting to lecture him near an elementary school. 

Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders stood by his deputy after the woman repeatedly cursed and lectured him about “fascism” on Thursday. The exchange, recorded by the woman and posted on Instagram, has since gone viral on social media. 

In a Facebook post sharing the video, Sanders said he would “be placing a letter of commendation in Deputy Domeno’s file for his tact, professionalism, and unwillingness to take the escalation bait that was set for him during this encounter.” 

Unhinged lady at Seven Oaks Elementary School in Washington state approached and harassed a sheriff’s deputy who was parked at the school, claiming he was “scaring families” by being there.

She then criticized the deputy, saying he should be the “defending line between us and… pic.twitter.com/boyIgCmsqY

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 13, 2026

The comments came amid the viral spread of a video that appeared to have been recorded by social media user “Nani Poonani.” 

During the altercation, the woman demanded to know what Deputy Domeno was doing there. Taken aback, he explained he was completing a collision report. 

The woman continued pressing, accusing the deputy of “circling since about 8” and warning that he was “scaring these families.”  

Domeno calmly explained that the collision had just occurred and he was finishing his report. 

Doubling down on her claims, the woman snapped, “You should probably go do your job where your job is”—later launching a tirade about “the defending line between us and the fucking fascism.”  

In response, Domeno stated, “With absolutely all due respect, I’m not gonna continue to go back and forth. I’m gonna try to finish my job as fast as possible.” 

In a separate Instagram post reviewed by Headline USA, the woman doubled down on her grandstanding, this time targeting white men. 

“I still think cops are facilitating the harm of people they swore to protect,” she wrote. “Even without lip filler, Imma keep screaming, LAND BACK WORLDWIDE. White men take a seat!” 

Headline USA contacted the woman behind the clip and offered her a chance for an interview. She did not reply before this article’s publication. 

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Some news outlets in Canada rushed to protect the preferred gender identity of the unhinged suspect behind one of the deadliest school shootings in their country’s history. 

The suspect, Jesse Van Rootselaar—a biological male who identified as transgender—killed six people at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School on Tuesday. Rootselaar killed himself shortly after the mass shooting. 

Critics online noted that the media appeared more focused on optics as more details about Rootselaar began emerging online. 

CityNews drew backlash after using what seemed to be an AI-enhanced or photoshopped image of Rootselaar as the thumbnail for a YouTube video covering the massacre.  

The altered image appeared to soften the suspect’s facial features. Online commenters quickly noted it made Rootselaar look more feminine. 

Headline USA confirmed the altered image by running it through Google Lens, which traced it back to CityNews’ YouTube upload. By then, the outlet had quietly swapped the thumbnail for what appeared to be the original photo, showing Rootselaar with more defined and masculine features. 

BREAKING: Canada media outlet uses an AI filter to make the Tumbler Ridge kiIIer look female pic.twitter.com/JFZhzrsi9U

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 12, 2026

Screenshots circulating online indicated that the video had already surpassed 100,000 views before the image was updated. 

Another outlet, Canadian ABC News, not affiliated with the U.S. network, also sparked outrage after posting on X that the suspect was an “18-year-old woman with mental health issues.” 

The post drew more than one million views and was eventually hit with a Community Note bluntly stating: “The shooter is a biological male who allegedly self-identifies as a transgender woman.” 

Nowhere in the accompanying article did the outlet clearly state that Rootselaar was a biological male. 

#BREAKING: The person who carried out a school massacre is an 18-year-old woman with mental health issues, but she did not give a motive for one of the worst mass shootings in Canada’s history. https://t.co/qOfSYsFDAw

— ABC News (@abcnews) February 11, 2026

Tuesday’s mass shooting reignited debate online over high-profile violence carried out by individuals who identified as transgender or non-binary. 

For instance, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was killed by Taylor Robinson, a 22-year-old man who reportedly told his transgender-identifying boyfriend he “had enough of [Kirk’s] hatred.” 

In 2025, Robert “Robin” Westman, a man who identified as transgender, killed two children and injured 17 others at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. 

In 2022, Anderson Lee Aldrich opened fire at Colorado’s Club Q, killing five people and wounding 19. Defense attorneys later said Aldrich identified as non-binary. 

In 2019, one of the two shooters at STEM School Highlands Ranch in Colorado was identified as a transgender individual. The attack left one student dead and eight others injured, according to reports at the time. 

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) A member of the Trump administration’s “Commission on Religious Liberty” has been removed after a hearing turned contentious over her objection to the idea that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.

Carrie Prejean Boller, a Catholic conservative activist and model, took issue with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which has been embraced by the Trump administration’s Department of Justice and conflates criticism of the modern state of Israel with antisemitism.

“Undoubtedly, anti-Zionism is antisemitism,” Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University in New York, told Boller during one exchange. Boller then pointed to her Catholic faith, which does not affirm the idea that the Jewish people have a divine right to historic Palestine.

“I’m a Catholic, and Catholics do not embrace Zionism, just so you know, so are all Catholics antisemites?” she said. During the hearing, Boller also read testimony from Rabbi Yakoov Shaprio, an anti-Zionist Jew, and asked if his statement was “antisemitic.” In a post on X, Boller said she recommended Shapiro and several other Jewish Americans for the panel, but they were denied.

After facing backlash for her questioning, Boller vowed to continue speaking out. “I will never bend the knee to the state of Israel. Ever,” she said. “I am more determined than ever to speak plainly about political Zionism and the lies we’ve been sold to justify endless war, dead children, and blank checks.”

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, another commission member who interrupted Boller’s questioning during the hearing, said on Wednesday that Boller was being removed. “No member of the Commission has the right to hijack a hearing for their own personal and political agenda on any issue. This is clearly, without question, what happened Monday in our hearing on antisemitism in America. This was my decision,” he said.

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.  

(Chris Wade, The Center Square) The U.S. Justice Department has fired a new top federal prosecutor for New York’s Albany division, just hours after a panel of judges appointed him to fill a vacancy. 

The panel of judges in the Albany-based Northern District of New York said Wednesday they had appointed former prosecutor Donald T. Kinsella to lead the office after a Trump nominee was found to be unlawfully serving in the role. 

But just hours after he was sworn into the new role, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche took to social media to rebuke the judges’ decision and declare Kinsella’s appointment unlawful. 

“Judges don’t pick U.S. Attorneys, @POTUS does. See Article II of our Constitution,” he posted on X. “You are fired, Donald Kinsella.” 

Last month, U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield ruled that acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York John Sarcone — who served as Trump’s campaign attorney — was in that role unlawfully. The judge also barred Sarcone from heading an investigation into New York Attorney General Letitia James and quashed two subpoenas issued in the DOJ’s probe into her handling of Trump’s civil fraud trial and a National Rifle Association investigation 

Sarcone was appointed to the post as an interim U.S. attorney, a term that expired in July after 120 days. In response, Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Sarcone to first assistant U.S. attorney in the Northern District — the office’s second-in-command — allowing him to lead the office by serving as acting U.S. attorney. But Schofield ruled that Bondi’s move violated federal laws governing the appointment of U.S. attorneys. 

On Wednesday, the federal judges in the Albany district declined to extend Sacone’s temporary posting, instead opting to appoint Kinsella as the new U.S. attorney. They cited a federal law allowing them to fill the U.S. attorney’s role if it is vacated. The DOJ’s move hours later leaves the post unfilled, and it wasn’t clear whether there would be a legal fight over Kinsella’s appointment. 

The wrangling over the New York prosecutor’s office comes as the Trump administration’s picks for U.S. attorneys in New Jersey, California, Virginia, Nevada and other states have also faced pushback from federal judges.

That includes former interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan, whose appointment to the job led a federal judge to toss out criminal indictments against Trump critics James and former FBI Director James Comey. 

While presidents traditionally nominate a new roster of federal prosecutors once they take over the White House, the posts are normally Senate-confirmed. But the Trump administration has sought to keep U.S. attorneys in several districts in those jobs on a temporary basis amid a shortage of applicants. The White House is also complaining that Democrats in the Senate have blocked key nominations. 

(Headline USA) Yale University says a prominent computer science professor will not teach classes while it reviews his conduct, after newly released documents show he sent Jeffrey Epstein an email describing an undergraduate as a good-looking blonde while recommending her for a job.

Messages between David Gelernter — who made headlines in 1993 when he was wounded by a mail explosive sent by “Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski — and the late, disgraced financier were among the trove of Epstein-related documents released by the U.S. Justice Department in late January. The documents show Gelernter and Epstein corresponding on a variety of topics including business and art.

In an email to Epstein in October 2011 — several years after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl — Gelernter wrote that he had an “editoress” in mind for a job — a Yale senior whom he described as a “v small good-looking blonde.”

Gelernter defended that message in an email last week to Jeffrey Brock, dean of Yale’s School of Engineering & Applied Science, according to the Yale Daily News, which reported that Gelernter also forwarded the email to the student newspaper.

He noted that Epstein was “obsessed with girls” — “like every other unmarried billionaire in Manhattan; in fact, like every other heterosex male” — and he was keeping “the potential boss’s habits in mind.”

“So long as I said nothing that dishonored her in any conceivable way, I’d have told him more or less what he wanted,” Gelernter wrote to Brock, the paper reported. “She was smart, charming & gorgeous. 

Ought I to have suppressed that info? Never!”

He added: “I’m very glad I wrote the note.”

Students in Gelernter’s computer science class were notified that he would not be teaching on Tuesday.

“The university does not condone the action taken by the professor or his described manner of providing recommendations for his students,” Yale said in a statement. “The professor’s conduct is under review. Until the review is completed, the professor will not teach his class.”

Gelernter, 70, did not respond to emails and a message left at a phone listing for him in public records. A message to Brock was returned by Yale’s Office of Public Affairs & Communications, which provided the statement by the university. Yale declined to provide a copy of Gelernter’s email to Brock.

Gelernter joins a list of people in the U.S. and Europe, including prominent politicians, facing scrutiny because of the Epstein files.

Students in his computer science class were somewhat stunned by his links to Epstein and what he wrote in the emails, said Kris Aziabor, a 21-year-old senior from Atkinson, New Hampshire.

“I think there was definitely an initial kind of like wave of shock, just because you know I think it just sounds ridiculous that one of your professors, like someone who is teaching you, is literally in these Epstein files,” Aziabor said. “But I think what really was the most surprising to me was how he was trying to defend his like past words and past actions.”

In a message to students on Tuesday, Gelernter again defended his emails to Epstein and said they were the reason he was suspended from teaching the class. The message was first reported by Hearst Connecticut Media Group and later obtained by The Associated Press.

In the message, Gelernter discussed his 2011 email to Epstein about the undergraduate student, saying he was recommending her for a summer job with Epstein’s private bank, and she wanted the recommendation. He said he and the student did not know at the time that Epstein was a convicted sex offender.

“The university’s Smoking Gun is a personal, private email, dug out of the dump of Epstein files,” Gelernter wrote. “(If someone handed you a stack of other people’s private correspondence, would you dive in and read them? Of course not. Gentlemen and ladies don’t read each other’s mail. (Courtesy 101.)”

In 2008 and 2009, Epstein served jail time in Florida after pleading guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. He died by suicide in a jail cell in 2019, while awaiting trial in New York on U.S. federal charges accusing him of sexually abusing dozens of girls.

On the Yale faculty since 1982, Gelernter is known for his work in parallel computation — the use of multiple computer processes to solve complex problems — and for helping develop the Linda computer programing system, beginning when he was a doctoral candidate in the late 1970s. His 1991 book “Mirror Worlds” foreshadowed the World Wide Web and inspired the Java programming language, according to his biography on the Yale website.

On June 24, 1993, he suffered extensive wounds to his abdomen, chest, face and hands when he opened a package that exploded in his Yale office. Authorities later determined the package was mailed by Kaczynski, who ran a 17-year bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23 others.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

(Chris Wade, The Center Square) A Georgia-based gunmaker has agreed to stop selling a high-capacity magazine accessory used in the 2022 Buffalo mass shooting after settling a lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Under the settlement, announced Wednesday, Mean Arms, also known as Mean LLC., has also agreed to pay $1.75 million to the families of the victims, survivors and those who were injured in the “racist” mass shooting at Tops supermarket in Buffalo, according to James’ office.

“The racist mass shooting at Tops in Buffalo was an unbearable tragedy,” James, a Democrat, said in a statement. “We lost 10 beautiful lives in a horrific act of violence and hate, and no amount of money can ever return those individuals to their families or erase the devastation the community was forced to endure.”

In a 2023 lawsuit, filed in New York Supreme Court, James argues that the device Payton Gendron used to modify his AR-15 rifle in the Buffalo grocery store massacre turned it into “an even deadlier” weapon.

James alleged the company “falsely” advertised that the so-called MA Lock device makes the weapon legal in New York but included instructions on how to remove the lock. The lawsuit notes the lock can “easily be removed” so that high-capacity magazines — illegal in New York — can be inserted into an AR-15 rifle. 

“That’s exactly what the shooter did,” James told reporters Wednesday. “He brought an AR-15 style with the M.A. lock, easily removed it and added 30 round detachable magazines. “With a pistol grip and the high-capacity magazines, he did not have to stop to reload his weapon, and when he did reload, he could do so quickly. As a result, he was able to kill 10 people and injure three others.” 

The lawsuit was part of broader efforts by James to crack down on firearm violence and enforce New York’s gun laws following the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in the N.Y. State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen case, which struck down a New York law requiring applicants to show “proper cause” to get a permit to carry a firearm.

The court’s conservative majority affirmed the constitutional right to carry firearms in public places for self-defense, which has prompted reviews of firearm licensing laws in New York and other states that heavily restrict gun ownership.

But the ruling prompted New York and other Democrat-led states to tighten their gun laws to restrict further firearm carrying, which spurred other legal challenges from Second Amendment groups. New York is facing several lawsuits over its gun control laws, the outcomes of which are still pending.

Gun control advocates praised James’ court victory, which they say will hold gun manufacturers accountable for mass shootings carried out with their products. 

“Nothing will ever bring back those who were murdered at Tops, Leigh Rome, senior litigation attorney at the GIFFORDS Law Center. “These efforts can stop future acts of violence before they happen, so that no more families have to endure what our clients have been put through over the past four years.”