Category: Bureaucraps

SCOTUS Grants Cert in SAF VanDerStok Frames, Receivers ‘Finale Rule’ Case

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday granted certiorari in the case of the “Finale Rule” on frames, receivers and parts kits announced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in April 2022, and subsequently challenged by several entities including the Second Amendment Foundation.

The case is known as Garland v. VanDerStok. It has been described as a case about so-called “ghost guns” built without serial numbers, but the issue is far deeper. It is really about the ATF’s alleged violation of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), and usurping the authority of Congress.

In a statement from SAF, Executive Director Adam Kraut hailed the announcement.

“We are delighted that the Court has agreed to hear our challenge to ATF’s frames and receivers Final Rule,” Kraut said. “ATF has continuously exceeded its constitutional authority and violated the separation of powers by creating law – a job reserved exclusively for Congress. It is time for the Supreme Court to remind ATF that it may not do so and affirm the judgment of the Fifth Circuit.”

SAF was joined in its intervenor complaint by Defense Distributed, a Texas-based firm. In their original complaint, they stated, “To comply with the Second Amendment,” the complaint alleged, “the promulgating agencies needed to jettison balancing tests and consider only whether their regulation is ‘consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.’ Yet because that did not happen—itself a key APA violation—it is no surprise that the new Final Rule tramples true historical traditions.”

The Associated Press is reporting that arguments in the case “won’t take place before fall.” That could push a ruling back to possibly June of 2025.

According to SCOTUS Blog, “A federal district judge in Texas invalidated the rule and entered a national injunction against it. By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court then stayed the order pending resolution of an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit and any cert. petition; Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh voted to deny the stay.”

For more than a half-century, since passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968, the ATF did not consider parts kits or unfinished frames and/or receivers to be firearms. But that changed 15 months into the Biden administration.

“This case typifies the Biden administration’s war on the Second Amendment,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb. “Clearly under Joe Biden, the ATF has unilaterally set itself up as the sole authority on firearms regulation, bypassing Congress and arbitrarily changing long-standing regulations to suit the administration’s anti-gun agenda.”

As noted by NBC News, after the high court granted the stay while the trial moved forward, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals “mostly ruled for the challengers.”

“Because Congress has neither authorized the expansion of firearm regulation nor permitted the criminalization of previously lawful conduct, the proposed rule constitutes unlawful agency action, in direct contravention of the legislature’s will,” the Circuit Court ruled.

The Biden administration does not want to lose this case, which is not actually a Second Amendment case, but has considerable bearing on how far the government can go to regulate firearms without violating the right to keep and bear arms.

Police Website Reveals CDC Suppressing Defensive Gun Use Data

According to a report from Law Enforcement Today, recent revelations have exposed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for allegedly suppressing data on defensive gun use (DGU). This action has ignited debates over the transparency and potential politicization of the agency’s research on gun policy and public health.

The CDC, which studies various factors contributing to injury and mortality including firearm incidents, has been criticized for omitting defensive gun use statistics from its public communications. Despite commissioning a study from The National Academies’ Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, which recognized DGUs as a “common occurrence,” the CDC chose to exclude these statistics following pressure from gun-control advocates.

Documents obtained via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests revealed that individuals such as Mark Bryant of the Gun Violence Archive, Devin Hughes of GVPedia, and Po Murray engaged with top CDC officials. They were introduced by the White House and Senator Dick Durbin’s office and pressed the CDC to downplay DGU frequencies, which range from estimates of 60,000 to 2.5 million annually in the U.S.

Mark Bryant was particularly outspoken, vehemently opposing the highest estimates of DGU. He was quoted in correspondence saying, “that statistic needs to be killed, buried, dug up, killed again and buried again. It is highly misleading, used out of context, and holds zero value even as an outlier in honest discussions surrounding DGUs.”

Despite initial reluctance, the CDC ultimately removed references to DGUs from its publications, a move that has been perceived as aligning the agency more with gun-control advocacy groups than with unbiased scientific inquiry. This has raised concerns about the CDC’s commitment to providing comprehensive and unbiased data.

Gary Kleck, professor emeritus at Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice and a long-time researcher of DGUs, criticized the CDC’s actions, suggesting they indicate the agency is a tool of gun-control advocates rather than a neutral body. Kleck, whose research supports at least 760,000 DGUs annually, emphasized the importance of rigorous methodology and empirical evidence in academic research.

This situation highlights the ongoing tension between scientific research and political influence, particularly in the contentious arena of gun policy. Critics argue that the CDC’s actions compromise its credibility as an evidence-based institution and call for greater transparency and accountability in its research practices.

“CDC is just aligning itself with the gun-control advocacy groups. It’s just saying: ‘we are their tool, and we will do their bidding.’ And that’s not what a government agency should do,” Kleck told Eddie Killian, the author of the Law Enforcement Today article.

These people are absolute nuts

Internal Documents Show FBI is Worried About White Supremacist Teaming Up With Islamic Extremists

In September of 2022, a Gun Owners of America (GOA) lawyer provided documents to AmmoLand News showing the FBI targeting so-called “militant violent extremists” (MVEs) by referencing symbols such as the Betsy Ross flag and a symbol of a minute man. This leak led GOA to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents.

The FBI initially refused to turn over any documents to the gun rights group, leading GOA to file a lawsuit against the FBI demanding that the Bureau turn over the documents. Instead of the court issuing an order compelling the government to release the documents, the FBI relented and gave them up.

Since we initially broke the story, GOA has furnished AmmoLand News with an exclusive look at the documents. The new documents show that the FBI’s targeting of certain groups is not limited to the Three Percenters and Oath Keepers. The FBI is also targeting other groups. Some threats seem credible, while other threats seem like the government is reaching. AmmoLand News will be running a series of articles about what is in the documents. This series will shed light on what the FBI believes to be threats to the homeland.
The first set of documents is the FBI addressing what it calls “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” (RMVEs) and Islamist extremists. This document covers these two ideologies working together for a shared goal. That goal is to bring about the collapse of Western democracies.

The FBI defines RMVEs as “those that advocate for the superiority of the White race.” The document claims that Islamic “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” (FTOs) are likely discouraged from working with RMVEs due to distrust, but the FBI claims that some RMVEs are sympathetic to Islamists and want to pursue alliances with these groups. It seems like the FBI thinks these groups believe in the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” strategy. The FBI states that both RMVEs and FTOs are brought together by their anti-Semitism and their opposition to liberal Western democracy.

According to the FBI, both groups believe in an “international Jewish conspiracy to control government, international finance, and the media. Islamic extremist believes there is a conspiracy among Jews to promote Zionist imperialism. They view Western countries as part of a “Zionist-crusader alliance.” Whereas RMVEs believe that Jews are complicit in White genocide.

The FBI claims that both groups are concerned with social values being pushed by liberal Western democracies. These values include globalism, multiculturalism, and feminism. Both groups view these values as “corrosive” to society. The Islamic extremists seek to “replicate the legal traditions and customs during the time of the Prophet Mohammed.” RMVEs view these values as compromising the integrity of the White race. The FBI claims that RMVEs have sought an alliance with Islamic extremists to speed up the collapse of Western society through violence.

The FBI is also concerned about “ideology hoppers.” Ideology hoppers are based on the concept of “ideology mixers.” These are US-based people that “adopt aspects of, or switch between, FTO-inspired violent extremist and RMVE ideologies.” The FBI does not consider these moves to be a true ideological conversion. The FBI believes that these conversions outnumber actual conversions. The FBI is also worried about these groups sharing tactical strategies. Suicide terrorism is mentioned in the documents.

VA halts taking away gun rights from veterans who require help managing their benefits — but only for 6 months

WASHINGTON — A new ban that has stopped the Department of Veterans Affairs from taking away the gun rights of veterans who are found to be incapable of managing their own financial affairs will expire in six months, VA officials said.

The VA in March ended its weekly practice of submitting the names of veterans appointed fiduciaries to handle their VA disability benefits to the FBI’s national background check database. The database contains information on people prohibited from buying or receiving firearms. Inclusion in the database legally disqualifies veterans from owning, possessing or buying firearms from licensed dealers.

The VA’s Veterans Benefits Administration, which disperses monthly benefit payments to veterans, has been required by federal law upon the VA’s appointment of a fiduciary to manage a veteran’s benefits to submit the veteran’s name to the FBI’s National Instant Background Check System, or NICS, as ineligible to own or possess firearms, according to the agency.

The new temporary provision does not overturn current law but essentially blocks VA from adding the names of veterans appointed fiduciaries to “the FBI-prohibited persons database in the NICS system,” said Aidan Johnston, director of federal affairs for the Gunowners of America, a nonprofit lobbying organization with two million members. Terrence Hayes, the VA press secretary, said the provision restricts VA from “using appropriated funds” to make reports to the NICS system without a court order or ruling.

The provision had bipartisan support, including from Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jon Tester, D-Mont., who for several years sought to overturn the practice by the Veterans Benefits Administration to notify the NICS system of veterans appointed fiduciaries. Tester said he knew of veterans who refused to apply for or collect VA benefits because they were worried about losing their gun rights. He said the law has punished people who receive VA benefits but need help managing their money.

The new legislation does not amend the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which authorizes the VA to report the names of “incompetent beneficiaries” to the FBI database that gun dealers check before selling firearms. Passage of the Brady Act in 1993 led to the establishment of the national background check system for firearm licensees.

Since 1998, the VA has reported veterans appointed fiduciaries to the NICS database. But the new policy, while temporary, means only those veterans declared by a court or magistrate as mentally incompetent and an imminent danger to themselves or others will be reported to the NICS system and legally lose their right to buy, possess or own a firearm. Navy veteran Abraham Conrique, an 82-year-old, part-time cab driver in Maryland, said he understands there are situations when a veteran should not have access to a gun, given his own personal history of service-related mental health problems. “I never had a court hearing over my mental health. But I’m smart enough to know that I shouldn’t have firearms with my level of PTSD. Some veterans need those restrictions,” said Conrique, who referred to his own diagnoses in 2020 for post-traumatic stress disorder. But only a judge should have the power to make that decision, said Conrique, a petty officer second class during the Vietnam War, with deployments in Vietnam and Japan.

The policy was adopted as an amendment to the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024, signed into law last month. But it has an expiration date of Sept. 30, which is the end of fiscal 2024, said Kathleen McCarthy, communications director for the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. “I will note that we are working on a permanent solution to this issue,” she said. “Anything that’s included in an appropriations bill is only authorized for that fiscal year, so next year the policy would need to be included in the appropriations bill for the following fiscal year and so on.”

The temporary provision is also limited in scope. It does not restore gun rights to veterans appointed fiduciaries prior to March 2024. The Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans and American Legion have expressed support for legislation to end permanently the VA practice of submitting the names of veterans to the FBI’s database.

Patrick Murray, the VFW’s national legislative director, said at a hearing last month of the Senate and House Veterans’ Affairs committees that a VA administrator “should not be the person who removes the constitutional right to gun ownership. That is for a judge or magistrate to decide.”

The Battle For National Park Carry Isn’t Over.

In 2009, President Barack Obama signed a law that ended the National Park Service’s ban on guns in parks, monuments, historic parks and every other kind of NPS property. Obama, of course, didn’t want to do it, but because Republicans managed to get national park carry inserted into a “must-pass” bill, Obama was left with little choice but to sign on the line.

This was, of course, a big victory for gun rights. Even if you aren’t visiting a national park, it’s entirely possible to drive through one on the way to somewhere else. For visitors, being able to protect themselves from everything from smugglers and ransom gangs in border parks to drug grow operations elsewhere meant a lot more peace of mind for the family.

Sadly, visitors still face a bit of a minefield. While you can lawfully carry in a national park according to the laws of the state the park is in, “federal facilities” within the parks are still off limits. This basically means any building in which NPS personnel work, so the visitor center, many bathrooms and showers, and even some hotels are off limits. Worse, the National Park Service has stretched the reasonable definition of “building” to include natural structures like the caves at Carlsbad Caverns.

Even worse, the NPS is still going to go after you if you have any reason to use the firearm. According to the NPS website:

Unless authorized, the use or discharge of a firearm within a park area is prohibited. 36 CFR 2.4(b) and 13.30(c). In parks where hunting is specifically mandated or authorized by federal statute, firearms may be used to hunt in accordance with NPS regulations and state laws. 36 CFR 2.2.

Visitors should not consider firearms as protection from wildlife.

So, expect the NPS to jerk you around in court and try to take your freedom away if you need to shoot at animals, whether on two or four legs.

Blatantly Unconstitutional

The good news is that after the 2022 NYSRPA v Bruen decision, the days of these remaining unconstitutional laws and policies are numbered. There’s really no widespread historic example of gun bans on public property from the time of constitutional ratification until the 14th Amendment was adopted. So, there’s no real way to say that visitor centers and caves are a place where guns can be banned. There may be some way to justify banning carry in the actual offices of the Park Service but bans on publicly accessible areas really can’t be justified.

As for the use of firearms in self-defense, parks are likely going to need to defer to state laws on use of force. Things like the reasonable person standard, necessity, and whether one instigated an attack need to come into play instead of a blanket policy that bans all firing of guns, no matter how compelling one’s need for that may be.

But, to make these things happen, the NPS will need to be taken to court. That, of course, is going to require money. So, on top of asking gun rights organizations to take this on, we must also chip in a few bucks to cover the costs. Personally, I’d recommend sending FPC a few bucks, and not only because I’m working with them on another case. But, if you have another organization you think might take it on, be sure to pitch in there, too!

South Carolina Man Planning Suit Against ATF Over Wrongful Arrest

Imagine showing up for work one morning and finding multiple law enforcement agents waiting to put you in handcuffs for a crime you didn’t commit. That’s what happened to Bryan Wilson last December, when a drug task force comprised of officers from West Columbia, South Carolina and the ATF took him into custody in front of his co-workers and employer after accusing him of trafficking guns and drugs.

Wilson protested his innocence to everyone from the cops who arrested him to the judge who formally charged him, but those pleas fell on deaf ears until a federal public defender was assigned to represent him started to dig into his story and realized that Wilson was telling the truth.

It turned out there was one person in the courtroom who believed him — Jenny Smith, his court-appointed federal public defender — and over several hours, she convinced a federal prosecutor to double check the arrest and see if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives didn’t, after all, have the wrong man.

After more investigation that day, the feds realized they had blown it. They made a motion to drop all charges against Wilson. Federal prosecutors apologized. U.S. Attorney Adair Boroughs apologized.

Federal Judge Joe Anderson quickly granted a motion to dismiss the charges “with prejudice,” meaning they cannot be brought again.

No one has ever explained how the mixup happened. It apparently was not a case of mistaken identity.

We can add this to the ever-growing list of topics that ATF Director Steve Dettelbach should be grilled on the next time he makes an appearance on Capitol Hill. As the lawsuit details, while Wilson is a gun owner, he’s never dealt drugs or trafficked firearms, despite what police testified during his initial court appearance.

At that hearing, a law officer “falsely told the judge that ATF had been watching Mr. Wilson for 13 months and then listed dates the ATF falsely claimed he sold drugs. The agent also falsely told the judge that the Government had Mr. Wilson on tape committing these crimes,” the lawsuit said.

After the hearing, Wilson continued to tell his lawyer there had been a mistake. The lawyer pressed the issue with federal prosecutors and after several hours, the mistake was acknowledged.

Wilson was freed.

But Wilson has suffered since the events of that day, the lawsuit said.

He has begun having migraines. Rumors have been spread about him among his co-workers. He gets messages on Facebook. Some rumors say he “rolled” on other defendants and worse, the lawsuit said.

“He has stopped going to the gym or doing fight training — his fitness passion. He worries about his teenage daughter learning what happened to him. He also worries for his parents, specifically his mother who continues to feel paranoia and anxiety stemming from the incident and now calls her son while he is at work to check on his well-being,” the lawsuit said.

Wilson hasn’t officially filed suit against the ATF yet, but Christopher Kenney, who’s now serving as Wilson’s attorney, says that’s likely going to come once he’s waited the required six months before he can challenge the agency’s actions under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The ATF should be served with Wilson’s lawsuit at some point in June, and it will probably be July before the DOJ files its response, which might tell us something about how the agency managed to screw up so badly.

Kenney said one of the purposes of the lawsuit is to find out exactly how this happened. Ordinarily, law officials in the federal system take great care in identifying the proper people whose names they bring before a federal grand jury. Prosecutors who work with front line law enforcement officers can ask about the suspects.

“Bryan is misidentified from the very first incident,” Kenney said. “One of the reasons to bring this case is to figure out what happened.”

If Wilson was “misidentified”, as Kenney believes, then who was the ATF surveilling for more than a year? How did Wilson show up on the ATF’s radar when it came time to issue an arrest warrant if he wasn’t the actual subject of the investigation? And what happened to the person the ATF was supposed to arrest if Wilson wasn’t their man? Was the actual suspect ever correctly identified and taken into custody after the snafu with an innocent man?

I’m glad that Wilson isn’t going to let this go with just an apology from the U.S. Attorney’s office, but I’d love to see Congress take an interest in this wrongful arrest as well. Bryan Wilson deserves answers, and with Biden’s DOJ going to bat for the agency the House Oversight Committee needs to Dettelbach to account for the inexplicable failure that happened under his watch.

Elizabeth Goitein

Call Your Reps Now – Tell them to vote “NO” on the extension of warrantless government surveillance.
Buried in the Section 702 reauthorization bill (RISAA) passed by the House on Friday is the biggest expansion of domestic surveillance since the Patriot Act. Senator Wyden calls this power “terrifying,” and he’s right. 2/25 twitter.com/RonWyden/statu…
Ron Wyden
@RonWyden
Apr 12
View on Twitter
This bill represents one of the most dramatic and terrifying expansions of government surveillance authority in history. I will do everything in my power to stop it from passing in the Senate.
I’ll explain how this new power works. Under current law, the government can compel “electronic communications service providers” that have direct access to communications to assist the NSA in conducting Section 702 surveillance. 3/25
In practice, that means companies like Verizon and Google must turn over the communications of the targets of Section 702 surveillance. (The targets must be foreigners overseas, although the communications can—and do—include communications with Americans.) 4/25
Through a seemingly innocuous change to the definition of “electronic communications surveillance provider,” an amendment offered by House intel committee (HPSCI) leaders and passed by the House vastly expands the universe of entities that can be compelled to assist the NSA. 5/25
If the bill becomes law, any company or individual that provides ANY service whatsoever may be forced to assist in NSA surveillance, as long as they have access to equipment on which communications are transmitted or stored—such as routers, servers, cell towers, etc. 6/25
That sweeps in an enormous range of U.S. businesses that provide wifi to their customers and therefore have access to equipment on which communications transit. Barber shops, laundromats, fitness centers, hardware stores, dentist’s offices… the list goes on and on. 7/25
It also includes commercial landlords that rent out the office space where tens of millions of Americans go to work every day—offices of journalists, lawyers, nonprofits, financial advisors, health care providers, and more. 8/25
When the amendment was first unveiled, one of the FISA Court amici took the highly unusual step of sounding a public alarm. Civil liberties advocates noted that the provision would encompass hotels, libraries, and coffee shops. 9/25 zwillgen.com/law-enforcemen…
zwillgen.com/law-enforcemen…
House Intelligence Committee FISA “Reform” Bill Would Greatly Expand the Class of Businesses and…
The version HPSCI leaders offered Friday therefore exempts… hotels, library shops, and coffee shops, plus a handful of other establishments. But as the FISA Court amicus promptly pointed out, the vast majority of U.S. businesses remain fair game. 10/25 zwillgen.com/law-enforcemen…
zwillgen.com/law-enforcemen…
FISA 702 Reauthorization Amendments: The Second Time is Not the Charm
The amendment even extends to service providers who come into our homes. House cleaners, plumbers, people performing repairs, and IT services providers have access to laptops and routers inside our homes and could be forced to serve as surrogate spies. 11/25
None of these people or businesses would be allowed to tell anyone about the assistance they were compelled to provide. They would be under a gag order, and they would face heavy penalties if they failed to comply with it. 12/25
That’s not even the worst part. Unlike Google and Verizon, most of these businesses and individuals lack the ability to isolate and turn over a target’s communications. So they would be required to give the NSA access to the equipment itself… 13/25
…or to use techniques or devices (presumably provided by the NSA) to copy and turn over entire communications streams and/or repositories of stored communications, which would inevitably include vast quantities of wholly domestic communications. 14/25
The NSA, having wholesale access to domestic communications on an unprecedented scale, would then be on the “honor system” to pull out and retain only the communications of approved foreign targets. (Let that sink in.) 15/25
HPSCI leaders deny that the administration has any intent to use this provision so broadly. Supposedly, there is a single type of service provider that the government wants to rope in. But they didn’t want anyone to know what that service provider was… 16/25
…so they hid the real goal by writing the amendment as broadly and vaguely as possible. But no worries, Americans! The administration isn’t actually going to USE all the power it just persuaded the House to give it. 17/25
I cannot overstate how mindblowingly irresponsible that is. I don’t think *any* administration should be trusted with an Orwellian power like this one. But even if *this* administration doesn’t plan to make full use of it… (Go ahead and fill in the blank.) 18/25
There are certain powers a government should not have in a democracy. The ability to force ordinary businesses and individuals to serve as surrogate spies is one of them. Even if the targets are supposed to be foreigners, a power this sweeping WILL be abused. 19/25
By the way, when a privacy advocate tried to get @Jim Himes 🇺🇸🇺🇦 to engage on this issue, here is the thoughtful and conscientious reply given by the ranking member of HPSCI, a man who clearly cares deeply about civil liberties. 20/25 twitter.com/jahimes/status…
Jim Himes
@jahimes
Apr 14
View on Twitter
You do that. But life is really too short to engage with people who need to use bombastic absurdities like “Stasi-like”. Yes I know exactly what is in there. Some of it is classified. And none of it is remotely “Stasi-like”. Sell your nonsense elsewhere.
The Senate MUST stop this train before it is too late. The Senate is scheduled to vote on the House-passed bill this week. If there’s an opportunity to remove this provision, senators should remove it. If not, they should vote against the bill. 21/25
The White House will tell senators they have no choice other than to pass the House bill, because Section 702 expires on April 19, and trying to fix the House bill—or pass different legislation—would take too long. But the April 19 deadline exists only on paper. 22/25
The administration has already obtained FISA Court approval to continue Section 702 surveillance until April 2025. According to the administration itself, that approval “grandfathers” surveillance for a full year, even if Section 702 expires. 23/25 news.bgov.com/bloomberg-gove…
news.bgov.com/bloomberg-gove…
FISA Court Approves One-Year Extension of Surveillance Power
A notional deadline is no reason to create a surveillance state. The Senate must take the time to get this right. It’s not just our civil liberties that are at stake—it’s our democracy. @Michael Bennet @SenatorBooker @Sherrod Brown @Senator Laphonza Butler @Sen. Maria Cantwell… 24/25
…@Senator Ben Cardin @Office of Sen. Coons @Senator John Fetterman @Senator John Hickenlooper @Senator Ben Ray Luján @Chris Murphy 🟧 @Senator Patty Murray @Ossoff’s Office @Senator Alex Padilla @Senator Jacky Rosen @Senator Brian Schatz @Senator Tina Smith @Sen. Debbie Stabenow @Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock @Senator Peter Welch 25/25

If it hasn’t become clear to you by now; This new ATF/DoJ rule isn’t to ‘tighten background check’ or somehow stop criminals from getting guns. They know those are futile dreams.

Neither the ATF nor the DOJ care one itty bit about getting more people to obtain FFLs. In fact they go out of their way to rescind FFLs for the piddliest of reasons.
This is merely another tactic to give them the power to prosecute whoever they have on their radar for “dealing without a license”.

Dystopian novels weren’t meant to be instruction manuals, but 1984 and Atlas Shrugged sure do seem to be.

Ayn Rand:
There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them.

One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed or enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt.

Well, the demonbureaucraps have finally issued their latest definitions of what it takes to be a eeeee-vil gun dealer. What this really is going to used for it not to point out who should get a FFL, but to propersecute the ‘wrong’ people for ‘dealing without a license’.

Final Rule: Definition of “Engaged in the Business” as a Dealer in Firearms

The pdf document is available here.

ATF Report Finds Licensed Gun Dealers Rarely Supply Illicit Traffickers

The ATF released a decades-long report on gun trafficking this week. There is a lot of data to sift through, but one thing that stands out is how rare it is for a licensed gun dealer to be involved in trafficking.

Just 1.6 percent of cases the ATF examined during a five-year period implicated a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL), a significant decline from the last time the ATF did a report like this. As Contributing Writer Jake Fogleman explains, that undermines one of President Joe Biden’s key gun initiatives.

It wasn’t all good news for the gun industry this week, though. Gun sales were down for the third month in a row. That should be concerning given how long the hangover from pandemic-era record sales has lasted and the fact that even a presidential election featuring a candidate calling for an “assault weapons” ban hasn’t motivated buyers.

Plus, gun-rights lawyer Matt Larosiere joins the podcast to explain why he believes the Second Amendment applies to nearly everyone in the US–even those here unlawfully. That topic has been one of our most-viewed this year. So, it seemed like a good idea to get a bit more in-depth on the topic.

A new ATF report undermines the Biden administration’s rationale for cracking down on gun dealers.

On Thursday, the ATF released Volume Three of the National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment. The report, the first comprehensive analysis of criminal gun trafficking by the agency since 2000, examined over 9,700 ATF firearm trafficking investigations between 2017 and 2021 to create a picture of the most common sources of black-market firearms.

It found sales by unlicensed private sales and straw purchases represented just over 80 percent of all cases. Stolen firearms accounted for another quarter of the trafficked guns.

On the other hand, the report identified just 136 cases of illegal trafficking by Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs). That represents 1.6 percent of cases during the five-year period.

Continue reading “”

March Gun Sales Top Previous Month

un sales are an important aspect of gun rights. The more people who buy guns, the more people who will, at least in time, become advocates for the right to keep and bear arms. They start to realize that having a gun doesn’t make you stupid, mean, adversarial, or anything else, but it does make you safer from criminals.

And gun sales are good. They’ve been good for a while, but they always seem to pick up when we have a Gun-Grabber-in-Chief occupying the Oval Office.

While President Joe Biden may not know where he is half the time (at best), we know he wants our guns.

Yet March gun sales topped an already strong February.

Americans continue to reach for their wallet when it comes to practicing the right to keep and bear arms, with data suggesting over-the-counter gun sales passing the 1 million mark for the 56th month in a row.

Last month was the 7th-highest March on record in terms of federal background checks for likely over-the-counter gun transfers since the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System was established over 20 years ago.

The unadjusted figures of 2,497,577 checks conducted through NICS last month– while a 15.5 percent decrease from the unadjusted FBI NICS figure of 2,954,230 in March 2023– is 6.6 percent higher than the 2,336,390 logged in February 2023.

When the numbers for last month were adjusted by the National Shooting Sports Foundation to remove gun permit checks and rechecks, the adjusted figure stands at 1,442,061, which is a shallower drop of about 7.4 percent compared to the March 2023 NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 1,556,492. However, last month’s figures were 14.7 percent ahead of February 2024’s, which came in at 1,343,478.

Industry analysts argue that this massive number of gun sales suggest that Americans are as pro-gun as they ever were, if not more, and I can’t find it in my heart to disagree.

Keep in mind that March’s gun sales outstrip the total number of firearms in private, civilian hands in numerous other countries. That was just a month for us, and not a massively strong month for gun sales, either. I mean, it’s the seventh highest total for March, which means there were six better.

Yet 1.4 million gun sales in March is still important because a significant number of those are likely to be first-time gun buyers. These are people who had no skin in the gun debate before, but now they do. Now they have to think about red flag laws in the context of someone arguing their guns should be taken. They have to think about universal background checks in the context of them buying or selling a gun to a family member or a friend they’ve known since middle school.

That’s why gun owners become gun voters, and now there are more of us.

After April, there will be even more.

Yes, many others of these sales were people buying an additional firearm, and that’s good news as well. We need as many gun sales as possible to keep the industry thriving. Without gun makers and gun dealers, our ability to access firearms diminishes. The right to keep and bear arms only matters if we can actually obtain arms, so those additonal sales are also big.

Buying a product shouldn’t be a political statement, but when it comes to guns, they are. It’s not this side of the debate that made it necessary to make it into a statement, either, but it is and frankly, March was still a hell of a statement.

Pete Buttigieg Hates Your Car, but Mostly He Thinks You’re an Idiot.

America’s eminently mockable Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, went on national TV on Tuesday to mock Americans who find that electric cars don’t suit their transportation needs.

“Sometimes, when these debates happen,” the failed former mayor of South Bend, Ind. told Fox News, “I feel like it’s the early 2000s and I’m talking to some people who think that we can just have landline phones forever.”

Spoiler: Nobody was saying that in the early 2000s. Even before the iPhone came out in 2007 and changed phones forever, Americans were snapping up Nokias and Blackberries and wondering if we still needed our landlines at all. As early as 2005, 69% of Americans already owned cell phones, which was pretty much the entire adult population. Six percent of households had even given up their landlines.

But back to SecTrans Buttigieg, who insisted, “Let’s be clear, the automotive sector is moving toward EVs and we can’t pretend otherwise.” This is like telling a death row prisoner that he’s moving towards the electric chair and can’t pretend otherwise. The prisoner might not want to make the “transition” to the next life, but the government has set a date for him — just like the Biden administration is trying to transition the entire country to EVs.

Even though Americans have to be bribed, browbeaten, and mandated into buying EVs, Buttigieg insisted that Big Government knows best — even when that Big Government is the one in Beijing. EVs are “the economically smart play,” he said. “We’ve been working to make sure that advantage comes back on American soil.” China has the opportunity to undercut more established players like Tesla precisely because Washington is trying to force a massive EV market into existence.

Tesla is the most successful electric vehicle company in the West, and its stock was sent plunging on Tuesday after reporting its first-ever year-on-year sales decline last quarter. “Tesla’s deliveries for the quarter fell far below even the most bearish of analysts’ expectations,” CNBC reported.

Overall, EV sales growth has slowed since 2022, despite billions spent on incentives and record-high prices for gas-powered cars.

Presidentish Joe Biden can’t even bribe people into building EV charging stations. Biden’s misnamed Inflation Reduction Act — really the Green New Deal in drag — set aside a massive $7.5 billion in your tax dollars for fulfilling Biden’s dream of building 500,000 new charging stations over the next few years. But just seven have been built in two years.

Seven. Even with all those government billions just waiting to be taken.

Maybe that’s because, while EV sales hit a record 1.2 million in the U.S. last year, they still represented just 7.6% of the vehicle market. While EV sales are expected to take maybe 10% of the market in 2024, there are so many locations, needs, and situations where EVs make no sense at all. Virtually mandating that they make up two-thirds or more of all sales by 2032, as the EPA did last month, is a quasi-religious crusade courtesy of the most anti-religious White House in history.

Still, at least we’ll always have Pete Buttigieg’s smug ignorance to mock.

Ruling: Millions of NRA Members Exempt From Pistol Brace Ban

The ATF can’t go after NRA members over guns with pistol braces on them.

That’s the outcome of a preliminary injunction issued by a federal judge on Friday. US District Judge Sam A. Lindsay sided with the gun-rights group and enjoined the federal agency from enforcing its rule reclassifying pistol-brace-equipped guns as short barrel rifles (SBRs) under the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA). The decision keeps any NRA member who owns a braced gun from facing six-figure fines or imprisonment if they didn’t register their gun by last year’s deadline–something most owners didn’t do.

“[C]ompliance with the Final Rule is not discretionary, and the NRA’s members face severe penalties for their failure to comply with the Final Rule,” Judge Lindsay wrote in NRA v. ATF. “Accordingly, both of the final requirements for injunctive relief are satisfied because the threatened injury to the NRA’s members outweighs the threatened harm to the Defendants, and enforcement of the Final Rule under the circumstances will not disserve the public interest.”

The ruling is a concrete, if temporary, win for the NRA. While the group has lost millions of members due to an ongoing corruption scandal, and it’s unclear exactly how many remain, those who’ve stuck with the group will now enjoy protection from the long arm of the ATF. The decision puts NRA members under the same legal umbrella employed for members of the Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, and Gun Owners of America through previous rulings.

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Courts Demand Info About People Who Viewed Specific YouTube Videos.

Federal authorities have reportedly ordered Google to provide information about viewers of select YouTube videos, including their names, addresses, and phone numbers, as well as provide information about video viewers who weren’t signed into YouTube while watching.

The requests are raising alarms for privacy experts who say the requests are unconstitutional and are “transforming search warrants into digital dragnets” by potentially targeting individuals who are not associated with a crime based simply on what they may have watched online.

Specifically, authorities have reportedly asked for information about individuals who watched certain videos on the site between Jan. 1-8, 2023 as part of an investigation into “elonmuskwhm.” The authorities also requested the user activity for those accounts.

According to Forbes, the investigation into elonmuskwhm is focused on that individual selling Bitcoin for cash, which is a violation of money laundering laws. The sale also constitutes an unlicensed money-transferring business. As part of the investigation, undercover agents reportedly sent links of YouTube tutorials that covered mapping via drones and augmented reality software to elonmuskwhm, and then asked Google to provide details on who had viewed the videos. The videos received more than 30,000 views.

According to documents viewed by Forbes, a court granted the government’s request for the information; however, it asked Google to not publicize the request.

In the court order, the authorities commented: “There is reason to believe that these records would be relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation, including by providing identification information about the perpetrators.”

YouTube App for Apple Vision Pro May Be Coming After All
Forbes reports that in another case, authorities requested user data after discovering that video of officers investigating a bomb threat in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was being broadcast on a YouTube livestream, an act which officers said had occurred with other bomb threats in other parts of the country as well.

In both cases, it’s unclear whether or not Google complied with the requests.

BLUF
This new office is another way for the Biden administration to make it appear as if it is doing something about violent crime, when it is actually making it harder for lawful gun owners to keep and bear arms.

HOT TAKES: Social Media Slices and Dices Biden’s New Anti-Gun Red Flag Center

The Biden administration is stepping up its war against the right to keep and bear arms. On Saturday, Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Parkland, Florida, to stand on the graves of the children who perished in a tragic school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School six years ago.

The vice president spoke at the school, pushing for red flag laws and other restrictions on lawful gun ownership ostensibly to combat gun violence. During her visit, she touted a brand spanking new anti-gunner initiative: The National Extreme Risk Order Resource Center.

The new office is supposedly aimed at helping local and state law enforcement agencies enforce red flag laws to stop mass shootings and other forms of violence before they happen. Naturally, not everyone is on board with this anti-gun endeavor.

Gun Owners of America, a pro-gun rights organization, wrote a post on X, accusing the White House of weaponizing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, while taking a shot at Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) who supported the legislation.

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Former names include the Stasi, Gestapo and Santebal.
Here we go with the Federal goobermint getting involved in enforcing state laws.

Justice Department Launches the National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center

The Justice Department launched the National Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) Resource Center (the Center) which  will provide training and technical assistance to law enforcement officials, prosecutors, attorneys, judges, clinicians, victim service and social service providers, community organizations, and behavioral health professionals responsible for implementing laws designed to keep guns out of the hands of people who pose a threat to themselves or others.

“The launch of the National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center will provide our partners across the country with valuable resources to keep firearms out of the hands of individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The establishment of the Center is the latest example of the Justice Department’s work to use every tool provided by the landmark Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to protect communities from gun violence.”

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Another ‘She said what!?’. The Justice that can’t tell you what a woman is, thinks that the goobermint should have the power to restrict the freedom of the press to protect the populace.

Just to refresh your memories. Here’s the preamble to the Bill of Rights with my emphasis of really important parts.

The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.