Category: Gun Schtuff

ATF Has NO Authority To Change Rules & Definitions Of Guns Without Congressional Approval

The Second Amendment Foundation and its partners in a challenge of the “Final Rule” issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives redefining frames and receivers as firearms, have filed an appellee’s brief in the case, known as VanDerStok v. Garland.

The brief explains how ATF redefined the term “firearm” without any Congressional action. Last year, the agency announced a Rule expanding the definition of a firearm to include unfinished firearm components and kits used in the process of manufacturing a firearm. SAF and its partners are asserting ATF violated the Administrative Procedures Act (APA).

A federal district court judge agreed and concluded that ATF had acted in excess of its statutory authority and granted summary judgment.

SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb recently promised the organization will pursue this case “vigorously” as it winds through the court system.

“This case challenges the authority of the ATF to change rules and definitions of firearms without Congressional authority,” Gottlieb said. “We simply cannot allow any federal agency to make up its own rules as it goes along, without Congressional approval.”

SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut said the foundation “expects to prevail on the portions of the Final Rule that we challenged.”

“The district court entered a judgment deeming the Rule illegal and vacating it,” Kraut said, “and we are asking the Fifth Circuit to affirm the district court’s decision to issue relief based on the APA. By promulgating the Rule, ATF has appropriated authority reserved for Congress. Such a usurpation of power is antithetical to our system of government and must be stopped.”

To make it to this level of competition, you have to be really good.

12 U.S. Soldiers Compete in ISSF World Championships in Baku

Twelve Soldiers from the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit will compete in the 2023 International Shooting Sports Federation World Championship in Baku, Azerbaijan August 14 – September 1 as part of USA Shooting’s 40 athlete-team.

The ISSF World Championships includes a number of rifle, pistol and shotgun events where more than 1200 athletes from 101 nations will vie for the title of World Champion in their shooting discipline. It is also an opportunity for shooting sports athletes to earn U.S. Olympic Quotas for the 2024 Paris Games.

Olympic Quotas are essentially tickets, or slots, for a country to compete at the Olympics in a specific event. Each country is eligible for two athletes to compete in each event at the Games.

Currently, USA Shooting athletes have earned 15 Paris quotas. Seven of those quotes were earned at prior international competitions by the USAMU Soldiers stationed at Fort Moore, Georgia.

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Vista Outdoor Sporting Products Ammunition Business To Be Renamed ‘The Kinetic Group’

Last year, Vista Outdoor announced plans to split its business and brands into two separate publicly-traded businesses, spinning off its outdoor brands from its remaining sporting products business (ammunition makers Federal, Remington, CCI, Speer and others). This was after Vista sold off Savage Arms in 2019. This week Vista announced the sporting products (ammo) business will renamed The Kinetic Group. They issued this press release . . .

Vista Outdoor Inc. (NYSE: VSTO), the parent company of 41 renowned brands that design, manufacture and market sporting and outdoor lifestyle products to consumers around the globe, today announced its new name and identity that will be effective following the planned spinoff of Vista Outdoor’s Outdoor Products business.

Post-spin, Vista Outdoor will be rebranded as The Kinetic Group, a name that surfaced among employees during the naming process and represents the energy behind the company and its leading ammunition brands. The Kinetic Group will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock ticker “HUNT,” and the brand will feature original logo artwork of a North American ram. Sporting Products leaders unveiled The Kinetic Group’s branding to employees during an employee town hall on Aug. 10 at the CCI-Speer ammunition factory in Lewiston, Idaho.

“The performance of our products is so often measured in energy on target. Kinetic energy is the force behind our world-class brands and exhibits the spirit of the 4,500 American workers who represent our company,” said Jason Vanderbrink, Sporting Products President and CEO. “The process of developing a new company name and identity has been exciting and inspiring. We’re all proud of the brands we represent and the products we make in our four American factories. Harnessing the enthusiasm of our employees throughout this process was pivotal to coming up with the best name and logo as we move closer to becoming a standalone company.”

After careful review of hundreds of name options and logo iterations, Vista Outdoor is now one step closer to completing the strategic separation of its Sporting Products and Outdoor Products segments.

“The Kinetic Group will be our name moving forward after the separation and be used for corporate identity to bring employees and stakeholders together with a common purpose and strategic approach,” Vanderbrink said. “To hunters and shooters, their favorite brand of ammunition will take center stage as it always has — they’ll look for CCI, Federal, HEVI-Shot, Remington and Speer on the shelf, at events and online.”

To watch the launch video, visit www.thekineticgroup.com.

The rebranding of Sporting Products is one of several milestones for Vista Outdoor as the company plans to separate its Sporting Products and Outdoor Products segments. In the Sporting Products segment, Vanderbrink was named CEO of the segment in April to go along with his title of President. In July, he was appointed to the Vista Outdoor board of directors, and he will be a director on The Kinetic Group’s board of directors post-spin. Joining Vanderbrink on The Kinetic Group’s leadership team are Andy Keegan (CFO) and Jeff Ehrich (General Counsel and Corporate Secretary).

In the Outdoor Products segment, Eric Nyman will begin as CEO of the segment on Aug. 21, and he will be CEO of the new Outdoor Products company post-spin. The new Outdoor Products company will be led by Nyman and a dedicated management team that he will hire. Vista Outdoor will announce the name of the new Outdoor Products company in the coming weeks, followed by the unveiling of the company’s branding at Investor Day in October in New York City.

Gary McArthur will continue as interim CEO of Vista Outdoor until the completion of the spinoff. McArthur will focus on completing the separation of Vista Outdoor’s Sporting Products and Outdoor Products segments in calendar year 2023, in addition to overseeing Vista Outdoor’s corporate, administrative and financial reporting functions, risk management, stockholder engagement, and ensuring strategy cohesion and coordination across both segments. McArthur will continue serving on the board of directors of Vista Outdoor until the separation and will become the chair of the Outdoor Products company’s board of directors post-spin.

“Sporting Products’ selection of The Kinetic Group as its new name has given Vista Outdoor a surge of energy as we prepare to separate into two independent, publicly traded companies,” McArthur said. “The dedicated, talented and hard-working employees of our Sporting Products segment have delivered a brand name and identity that will be the envy of the industry — much like the products they make at our factories around the United States.”

First Look: True Velocity 5.56mm Composite Ammunition
Three different bullet weights will be available using True Velocity’s composite case.

True Velocity 556

True Velocity Ammunition Inc, the company known for selling .308 Win. rifle cartridges loaded with composite casing technology, is now expanding its ammunition product line to also offer 5.56 NATO composite cartridges. True Velocity’s composite casings are intended to make rifle ammunition be more lightweight, accurate, consistent and reduce the amount of heat transfer from the ignition of propellants to the chamber area of a firearm. The new 5.56mm cartridges will be loaded with projectiles weighing 55, 69 and 77 grains, three very popular bullet weights for this caliber. By loading both the .308 Win. and 5.56 NATO rounds, the company now covers two of the most popular and versatile rifle cartridges used in North America for hunting, sport, recreation, self defense and tactical uses.

“There are hundreds of millions of rounds of 5.56 ammo consumed in this country every year,” said True Velocity Chairman and Co-CEO Kevin Boscamp. “We’re extremely excited to make True Velocity’s composite case technology available to the shooters who rely on this caliber. I’m confident they will see very quickly what makes our ammunition superior.”

True Velocity’s new 5.56 NTAO product line will be the company’s first to be loaded using their Generation 3 advanced loading techniques which reflects a higher level of control, precision and innovation in the commercial ammunition industry.

True Velocity Ammunition 55 grain 5.56mm Specifications:

  • Projectile: 55-grain Full Metal Jacket (FMJ)
  • G1 Ballistic Coefficient: 0.243
  • Muzzle Velocity: 3,170 fps
  • Drop at 500 yards with 100-yard zero: -57 inches
  • Muzzle Energy: 1,227 ft.-lbs.

(Test barrel length was 20 inches with 1:7-inch twist, specifications for the 69- and 77-grain Sierra Matchking load coming soon)

True Velocity cartridges are sold in boxes of 20 rounds and retail pricing for the new 5.56 NATO product line starts at $24.99 for the 55-grain loading. Both SKUs loaded with either 69- or 77-grain Sierra Matchking projectiles have a starting retail price of $39.99 per box of 20. Please visit tvammo.com to learn more about this new ammunition.

No pause in gun sales, record 48 million over four years

The end of July marked the latest record in United States firearms sales — 48 straight months of one million or more gun purchases.

The just released FBI tally of background checks showed another sky-high number of 1,987,650, down a bit from July 2022, but still more than 19 of the other 24 years the system has been in operation.

When adjusted just for likely sales of firearms, it was 1,023,903.

“July 2023 marks the 48th month in a row, 4 years, that has exceeded 1 million adjusted background checks in a single month,” said the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade group for the industry.

Mark Oliva, the NSSF spokesman, said the long stretch of likely gun sales is unlike anything the nation has ever seen and has been fueled by politics and safety.

“This is a remarkable milestone of four continuous years of over 1 million background checks for the sale of a firearm. That’s no small achievement and is indicative of the strong and sustained appetite for law-abiding Americans to take ownership of their Second Amendment rights,” Oliva said.

“This milestone was achieved in the midst of the continuous attacks by the Biden administration, which has demonstrated nothing but contempt for the Second Amendment and has twisted the levers of government to impede the ability of law-abiding citizens to legally possess firearms of their choosing. Americans are sending a clear signal each and every month. The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is not up for negotiation,” Oliva added.

While surveys have shown that many gun owners have more than one firearm, the numbers also reinforce reports that more women, blacks and urban dwellers are buying arms for the first time as crime surges in America’s cities.

Judge Willett concurs, saying that the pistol brace rule likely also violates the Second Amendment.

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Let’s require the Secret Service and FBI to switch to this technology exclusively for a 4-year test period. After that we can talk. Of course, they won’t.
– Tom Gresham

The First Smart Gun Is Finally Coming to Market. Will Anyone Buy It?
Gun makers have been working for decades on a weapon that can only be fired by an authorized user

Sasha Wiesen sleeps with a .40-caliber handgun in a safe by his bed. The commercial real-estate broker from Florida recently preordered a new type of firearm he hopes will make the safe unnecessary.
The new weapon is the Colorado startup Biofire’s 9mm Smart Gun, which can only be fired if it recognizes an authorized user with a fingerprint reader on the grip or a facial recognition camera on the back.
“I’m usually an early adapter,” said Wiesen, 46 years old. “It might be the gadget part of me that made me buy it, but it’s also the safety aspect.”
Guns that use technology to ensure that they can only be fired by their owners, called smart guns, have been developed and debated since the 1990s. The Biofire Smart Gun will be the first widely available for sale if it ships in December as planned.
Proponents tout smart guns as a way to reduce accidental shootings and firearm thefts. Gun-rights supporters have been wary, in part over concern that governments could outlaw sales of weapons that don’t have smart-gun technology.
Earlier efforts to bring smart guns to market have failed, largely because of pressure from gun-rights activists or because they didn’t work as promised.
As with other technologies such as electric cars that changed long-established products, the question for smart guns is whether they can work at least as well as the traditional versions they replace and find customers behind affluent early adopters.
The Biofire Smart Gun costs $1,499. Similar handguns without high-tech features typically cost between $400 and $800.

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Not as long as I’ve got the ammo I’ve got on hand, it ain’t.  While I’m not advising people that don’t have one to go out and buy one, for us that have them, they’ll do just fine.

GLOCK 22: IS .40 S&W A DEAD CARTRIDGE OR STILL RELEVANT? 

I remember a time when folks routinely bragged that their go-to concealed carry gun was chambered in .40 S&W, and I’ve met plenty of law enforcement officers who were issued pistols in the same caliber over the years. But it seems like the chatter about .40 S&W is all but gone these days.

In fact, over the last year, I have met only one shooter who routinely carries a Glock 22, specifically for the hard-hitting .40 S&W round it’s designed to shoot.

So, what gives? Is .40 S&W dead, dying, or still relevant?

To get started on answering that question, I pulled a gently used – and very budget-friendly – law enforcement trade-in Glock 22 from the Guns.com Vault. After all, it’s kind of hard to judge a round if you don’t spend some time using it.

Table of Contents

.40 S&W History
Glock 22: Accurate, Powerful, Reliable
Specs Comparison: G22, G21, G17, G19
Ballistics Comparisons: 9mm, .40 S&W, .45 ACP, 10mm
Some Ballistic Testing
10mm Resurgence
Pros & Cons: Why Get a .40 S&W Pistol?

Fifth Circuit Upholds District Court Decision Against ATF Partial Frame Rule

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a district court decision against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ (ATF) “partially complete” pistol frame rule.

Breitbart News reported that the ATF used its pistol frame rule to redefine “partially complete pistol frames” as “firearms.” This allowed the ATF to require background checks for certain gun parts kits by claiming said parts could be used to build guns.

On July 2, 2023, Breitbart News reported that Judge Reed O’Connor in the United States District Court Northern District of Texas Fort Worth Division decided against the ATF’s rule in a suit brought by Jennifer VanDerStok, the Firearms Policy Coalition, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and others.

O’Connor stressed that the redefinition of gun parts is actually up to Congress rather than a federal agency. Moreover, O’Connor noted, “Because Congress did not define ‘frame or receiver,’ the words receive their ordinary meaning.”

He also pointed out that “weapons parts are not weapons.” He then vacated the ATF final rule.

The federal government appealed the ruling, and on July 24, 2023, the Fifth Circuit upheld the decision to vacate. The appeal was heard by Ronald Reagan-appointee Jerry Edwin Smith, George W. Bush-appointee Leslie H. Southwick, and Donald Trump-appointee Cory T. Wilson.

According to the Fifth Circuit:

Because the ATF has not demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on the merits, nor irreparable harm in the absence of a stay, we DENY the government’s request to stay the vacatur of the two challenged portions of the Rule. ‘[V]acatur …reestablish[es] the status quo ante’…which is the world before the Rule became effective. This effectively maintains, pending appeal, the status quo that existed for 54 years from 1968 to 2022.

The lawsuit is VanDerStok v. Garland, No. 23-10718, in the United State Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

More Thoughts On The Defensive Shotgun
Good training and good technique makes the scattergun even more effective.

One of the reasons that the shotgun is often overlooked as a defensive tool is recoil. Folks who have spent a lot of time shooting the .22 LR, .223 Rem. or even the lighter-caliber deer rifles either don’t know how to manage recoil or have gotten sloppy about it. When folks tell me about how a 12 gauge kicks, I like to tell them about a 110-pound lady I know who has hunted all over the world with a .375 H&H Magnum.

To manage the kick of a 12 gauge, it is important to first tuck the buttstock firmly into the shoulder pocket. The strong hand, the one on the pistol grip, needs to continually pull the gun solidly into that shoulder pocket. Some even suggest that the support hand, at the same time, should push forward on the gun, creating an isometric hold.

One additional problem for the defensive shotgun is that the standard 14-inch buttstock is too long for most people. It probably works fine for the bladed stance that most bird hunters use, but the bladed stance is a mistake for the defensive shooter.

The defensive shooter should address the target with a shotgun in the same way one does with the handgun. That is, the shooter should be squared away with the target, facing it. Knees should be slightly bent and one’s weight should be on the balls of the feet. In addition, elbows should be tucked down, not stuck out there like chicken wings. This type of stance not only allows the shooter to move quickly but it also helps manage recoil.

When shooting the shotgun in this preferred manner, the 14-inch buttstock is just too long. I have a 33-inch shirt sleeve and do my best work with a 12-inch buttstock. Another advantage of the shorter stock is that other, smaller members of the family will also be able to manage it more effectively. It is a simple fact that we can all manage a shorter stock more effectively than we can one that is too long.

As I said in the previous column, the defensive shotgun is quite a bit different than the typical bird gun. Once a person learns the difference and how to deal with it, the fighting shotgun will have another fan.

As I heard it explained many years ago; ‘Fast with a gun’ didn’t mean the “quickdraw” that western movies, TV & some artists have made famous. It meant the man was fast -as highlighted below – in deciding that he would draw and shoot and then not hesitate in doing so.

Lessons on Gunfighting from Wyatt Earp.

Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was an American Old West gambler, a deputy sheriff in Pima County, and deputy town marshal in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, who took part in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which lawmen killed three outlaw cowboys.

Here is an interview that Wyatt Earp shares on “gunfighting“. This was dated back in the 1910 he offered to give an interview about his thoughts on using a gun. In his own words, Wyatt is going to explain how he became one of the most feared and accurate gunslingers… even if he was about the slowest.
The interview was originally posted on primaryandsecondary.com forum.

The most important lesson I learned from those proficient gunfighters was the winner of a gunplay usually was the man who took his time. The second was that, if I hoped to live long on the frontier, I would shun flashy trick-shooting—grandstand play—as I would poison.

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No integral light or even the ability to mount a light
No luminous sights or ability to mount optics (and the sights are not adjustable!)
Not FULLY ambidextrous as you have to order either a left, or right handed version for the fingerprint reader. Lose the ability to use that hand and what you’ve got left is a image reader that you hope will read your face when it matters.
No independent tests for failure modes
In other words: Not ready in any respect for self defense use.

BLUF
“If even one or two cases get out where it’s found that someone was unable to protect themselves because the gun didn’t recognize them… I think that’s going to kill the movement for a long time,” Wolf said.

Metro company offers first commercially available ‘smart guns’
Kai Kloepfer is the CEO of the Broomfield-based company Biofire. He said making a gun like this was impossible until very recently.

At first glance, the Biofire Smart Gun is different from other firearms. The large handgun looks part Halo, part Cyberpunk in design.

It’s an appropriate look since the gun is made with new technology ripped straight from science fiction. It’s unlocked biometrically, meaning it can only be activated with an authorized user’s fingerprint or face. That, in turn, means only authorized users can shoot it.

Kai Kloepfer is the CEO of the Broomfield-based company Biofire. He said making a gun like this was impossible until very recently.

“A lot of the technology we’re using did not exist two years ago, in most cases,” Kloepfer said.

Kloepfer began thinking about the smart gun in high school. He grew up in Colorado and remembers the 2012 Aurora theater mass shooting, where 12 were killed. He brought an early design to an international science fair and won first place. More than a decade later his plastic prototype has evolved into a fully functional handgun.

“I’ve gotten a chance to be shooting it, handling it. Even got to take one home for a little bit. It’s just been really cool to see something that I only dreamed of like 11 years ago,” Kloepfer said.

Experts say putting a computer into a gun is a remarkable feat—a gun’s explosive force once made it unthinkable. But beyond the computer, the gun is unremarkable in its function. Biofire’s smart gun is a semiautomatic 9mm handgun, meaning a user can pull the trigger, a round goes downrange, and a new round is fed into the chamber. It functions exactly like any other handgun of its class and caliber—and that’s by design.

The Biofire Smart Gun is the first commercially available smart gun in the United States. Bryan Rogers, a lead designer for the weapon, leaned into a futuristic design as an expression of its futuristic technology. (Dylan Simard/KUNC)

It takes an expert like Bryan Rogers, the lead designer at Biofire, to bring the gun to commercial production. He said the secret to making a reliable smart gun is to enable more than one way to unlock it.

“It uses both fingerprint and facial recognition to recognize you as the owner,” Rogers said.” It’s either/or—whichever one it gets first.”

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Fifth Circuit panel appears skeptical of ATF pistol brace rule

This has been one of the busiest weeks in recent memory in terms of court hearings on Second Amendment issues. Not only did we have the Seventh Circuit’s oral arguments on a possible injunction against Illinois’ ban on so-called assault weapons and “large capacity” magazines and the Ninth Circuit’s hearing on California’s AB 2571, but another Ninth Circuit panel heard oral arguments in a challenge to the state’s ban on open carry on Thursday, and a three-judge panel on the Fifth Circuit also heard from both sides in a Thursday hearing to determine whether a temporary injunction halting enforcement of the ATF’s new rule on pistol braces should be left in place and possibly expanded to cover more than just the named plaintiffs in the case.

Advocates for the rule point to deadly mass shootings while arguing that the braces make concealable handguns more deadly. Opponents of the rule say the devices make handguns safer to use by making them more stable, comfortable to fire and accurate — an argument noted in questions from appellate panel judges Don Willett and Stephen Higginson at Thursday’s hearing.

“All that to me seems synonymous with safer. Do you disagree with that?” Willett asked administration attorney Sean Janda.

Janda argued that regulating the braces is consistent with longstanding federal law outlawing sawed-off shotguns or other short-barreled non-handgun-type firearms.

“That particular combination, Congress has determined, is dangerous,” Janda said.

Well no, Congress has made no such determination about pistol braces. That’s one of the main arguments of the lawsuit; that the ATF has abrogated authority left to Congress in imposing the new rule, which not only reverses more than a decade of previous guidance from the agency but in essence establishes a brand new gun control law created by an executive branch agency, not the legislative branch.

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