Category: Rights

Americans Increasingly Worried About Uncle Sam Being Big Brother

There’s an intersection between the Second Amendment and anything that has to do with government overreach. If we look at the countless ways the federal government has failed on public safety policy and the execution of its duties, the body count is high. That’s both literal and figurative. Those who exercise the Second Amendment have everything to be worried about when it comes to our own government spying in on them. To progressives, gun owners are essentially an enemy of the state. A recent Rasmussen Reports® survey found that Americans are worried about domestic spying.

Voter concerns about domestic surveillance have not decreased, as the nation prepares for a new administration under President-elect Donald Trump.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 71% of Likely U.S. Voters are concerned about the U.S. government spying on American citizens, including 40% who are Very Concerned. Only 25% aren’t concerned about domestic spying. These findings are only slightly changed from January 2021, when Joe Biden was President-elect. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Forty-five percent (45%) expect government spying on U.S. citizens to increase in the new Trump administration, compared to 32% who think such surveillance will decrease and 15% who expect it to stay about the same. Four years ago, 40% believed spying would increase under Biden.

The phraseology of how voter concerns on spying have not decreased with a President-elect Trump sitting in the bullpen is interesting. How conservatives versus liberals feel about the potential for the government to peek into our lives perhaps is where the story is.

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“GOOD MEN PROJECT” (My Foot)
Author thinks inanimate objects are more of a problem than those with evil intent

Gary Whittenberger, Reducing Gun Violence in the United States

Gary Whittenberger is a retired psychologist and freelance writer known for his thoughtful contributions to discussions on psychology, philosophy, science, and religion. Holding a doctorate in clinical psychology from Florida State University, he worked as a psychologist in federal prisons for 23 years. Whittenberger is an active member of the freethought community and co-directed the Tallahassee Freethinkers’ Forum. He has authored several works, including God Wants YOU to be an Atheist, and has written for Skeptic Magazine, Free Inquiry, and other publications. His articles often tackle complex topics such as personhood, free will, and gun violence prevention.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Quick backdrop questions, what have the work in clinical psychology, in federal prisons, and freethought activism, taught about the American culture’s psyche around guns–the heart of the matter?

Dr. Gary Whittenberger: Scott, I want to thank you for this opportunity to talk about my article “A Comprehensive Program for Reducing Gun Violence in the US” which appeared in the October/November 2024 issue of Free Inquiry magazine.  Also, I compliment you on the great work you are doing with The Good Men Project.  We need more journalism, analysis, and commentary like that.

Turning to your question:  I think Americans have an obsession with guns which is unhealthy.  I think it has roots in the founding of a new country, exploring and settling the western frontier, and rebellion against old governments, all of which occurred a few centuries ago.  Fear and anger at levels higher in our country than what are found in other countries stimulate the ownership, purchase, and use of firearms.  Part of the solution is to lower these emotions and part of it is to reduce the access to and the number of firearms in the country.

Jacobsen: In the Uvalde case, what were the failures of law enforcement?

Whittenberger: Law enforcement officers failed to confront the shooter as soon as they could have and should have.  In my opinion, whenever there are at least two officers who have firearms on the scene, they should call for backup but begin to engage the shooter.  This response needs to be stipulated in policies, laws, and training.  Officers who do not have the willingness or courage to act to defend others in stressful situations should not be in law enforcement.

Jacobsen: How can gun regulations balance with Second Amendment rights?

Whittenberger: As I said in my article, the Second Amendment needs to be amended.  Although American citizens should have a right to possess, own, and use guns, this right should not be absolute.  The right should be regulated, restricted, and limited for the common good, especially to minimize unjustified aggression.  I have suggested that ordinary citizens be limited to three firearms.  Nobody needs an armory.  I think “military type” guns should be held from the public.  I believe that five different groups of persons should be prohibited from having guns.  Any ethical, well-trained, and responsible firearms user has no good reason to oppose these reforms.

Jacobsen: What is the importance of considering mental health in approach reduction of gun violence?

Whittenberger: I think it is extremely important, but I don’t agree with the more conservative pundits who think it should be the only approach to reducing gun violence.  The more guns there are in a society, the more unjustified gun violence there will be.  The more guns are accessible to people likely to misuse them, the more unjustified violence there will be.  Yes, treating mental health problems is necessary, but not sufficient.  We need to identify, diagnose, and treat mental health problems early, during childhood, and this is why we need so many more social workers, counselors, and psychologists to work with children in our schools.

Jacobsen: What community intervention efforts can mitigate gun-related violence?

Whittenberger: I think politicians, office holders, nonprofits, and all citizens of a community should strongly advocate for and support gun control policies, as I have outlined in my article.  We all need to commit ourselves to slightly reducing our freedoms to possess, own, and use guns in order to reduce gun violence and promote the common good.  Give up a little in order to gain so much more!  I support buy-back programs conducted by cities and counties.

Jacobsen: What other training or preparedness might help law enforcement agencies?

Whittenberger: Law enforcement agencies need to improve both their employee selection procedures and their training.  Officers need to use their agency-issued firearms in a prudent, rational, ethical, and legal manner.   Over-use and under-use of firearms by officers are both problems which need to be corrected.  We saw in the Uvalde situation that officers took up to 75 minutes to mount their counter-attack, which was way too long.  On the other hand, we have seen in other kinds of situations that officers are too prone to use their firearms too quickly to resolve a situation.

Jacobsen: What other reasonable and unreasonable approaches to the reduction of gun violence are being proposed other than, for example, pray?

Whittenberger: I think I have mentioned most of the reasonable approaches in my article.  Banning firearms for private citizens in the US would be an unreasonable approach.  I think more than half the citizens do have legitimate uses for the ownership of firearms for protection, hunting, and target practice, but ownership of firearms by some citizens, of military-grade guns, and more than three guns is not reasonable.

Jacobsen: What would be a reasonable estimate of efficacy of these proposition to reduce gun violence?

Whittenberger: I think full implementation of the practical steps I have recommended would reduce gun violence by 90%.

Jacobsen: What might be some criticisms of your approach?

Whittenberger: A common criticism is “Implementation of your recommended gun regulation program would lead to the banning and confiscation of guns among private citizens.”  This is a slippery slope argument which is used to scare people and arouse resistance to gun regulation.  My approach is a common sense and gradual approach which would not be fully in place for about 75 years.  And yet, reductions in gun violence will gradually dissipate over that time period.   Responsible users of firearms should be willing to sacrifice just a little of their freedom for the common good which comes from a reduction of gun violence in our society.

Jacobsen: What might be barriers to implementation at the state of the federal level?

Whittenberger:   Extreme selfishness, fear, the NRA, and owners of large numbers of guns would be barriers to implementation.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Gary.

Whittenberger:   You are welcome.  And thank you for bringing wider exposure to my article and my many ideas about gun control.  Gun violence is rampant in our society and we need to solve the problem!  “Thoughts and prayers” for victims just don’t cut it.  Please continue your excellent work with The Good Men Project.

The Most Dangerous ‘Gun Control’ Argument You Will Ever Read

We don’t make this statement lightly, but the folks over at Giffords and Brady have filed an amicus brief in a matter, challenging all of Maryland’s new sensitive places, that actually argues that the First Amendment and the Second Amendment cannot coexist, and because of that, the 2A will always take a back seat to the 1A. Washington Gun Law President, William Kirk, discusses one of the craziest and most dangerous pro-gun control argument you could ever imagine in the matter of Kipke v. Moore (aka Novotny v. Moore). So learn more today and arm yourself with education.

<(You can find the Amicus Brief here.)

The Final Two 9th Circuit Gun Decisions of 2024

Yesterday, Monday, December 30, 2024, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals published its final two decisions in cases involving guns.

The first decision involved the Federal law that permanently disbars persons convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence from possessing firearms, and the second involved a dispute over what constitutes an arrest when police see a handgun on the floor of an automobile in a state where that is legal.

The first decision is well written and meticulous and leaves no question as to why the three-judge panel reached its decision, a decision they would rather have gone the other way were it not for binding prior precedents.

The second decision does not explain why it reached its conclusion, and more importantly, the decision does not explain how future three-judge panels and district court judges are to comply with what is now a binding circuit precedent. Moreso, given that the facts laid out in the decision do not justify the panel’s conclusion under already binding prior 9th circuit precedents.

First, the well-written decision by 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Morgan B. Christen. She is certainly no friend of the Second Amendment, but if there were a candidate for the most intelligent Court of Appeals judge, she would be the one to bet on. The case is US v. Michal Blake DeFrance No. 23-2409.

The first three paragraphs of the opinion summary succinctly describe the case’s what and why, but I will take a stab at an even simpler explanation. In short, if one is convicted of a state law crime of domestic violence, and that state law crime is broader than the Federal definition, even if the state has never prosecuted someone under the broader definition, then the conviction does not qualify as a crime of domestic violence under Federal law. Not even if the crime one committed, such as beating one’s wife or girlfriend, does qualify as a crime of domestic violence under Federal law. You can view the oral argument below.

You can read the opinion (and concurrence) at this link.

The second case is US v. Larry Send In. The opinion is by Judge Gould and was joined by 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Bumatay and District Court Judge Michael Seabright, the latter of whom is no friend to the Second Amendment.

A fun fact about the Fourth Amendment is that from 1833 to 1961, it did not apply to the states. That did not mean police could stop, search, and/or arrest anyone they wanted. Under American common law, which we inherited from English common law, one could use force, including deadly force, to resist an unlawful arrest. That was the rule in California until 1957 when the California legislature repealed that centuries-old common law right. The California Supreme Court upheld the repeal in 1970.

Incorporating the Fourth Amendment right against the states in 1961 means the courts have had far more opportunities in 64 years to poke holes in the right. The decision in this case is yet another hole punched in the right.

Another fun fact is that California once had a bright-line rule. If you were stopped by the police and not free to go, you were under arrest.

The Federal Courts invented the notion that one can be stopped and handcuffed without it being an arrest. It is a “detention,” in which cases often turn on whether or not the detention was lawful and, in this particular case, at what point an arrest occurs. The California Supreme Court has abandoned its bright-line rule for the murky waters of the Federal Courts.

Of course, police forces as we know them today did not exist in the United States until the early 20th century. Before World War II, most arrests were made by private citizens, and private citizens likewise made most criminal prosecutions.

It was not until the 1970s that the US Supreme Court gave prosecutors and judges “absolute immunity” from civil prosecution in the Federal Courts, but I digress.

Under modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, judges look to the totality of the facts in making their decisions. In this case, the district court judge suppressed the gun found in Mr. In’s car, but the panel reversed. Why? I don’t know. Professor Shaun Martin at the University of San Diego School of Law doesn’t seem to know either. He wrote about the case on his blog.

When you read the decision, keep in mind that lying to a police officer is not in and of itself a crime, and Mr. In’s lying to police about having a gun in his car was not probable cause for an arrest, according to the panel. Indeed, none of the facts of the case viewed in isolation or the totality of the circumstances constituted probable cause for an arrest, and if Mr. In had, in fact, been arrested instead of detained for officer safety, then the gun would have been suppressed.

Neither police officer safety nor public safety is a magic talisman. But despite this decision conflicting with prior circuit precedents, it is doubtful that an en banc petition will be granted in this case. There are just too many judges in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals who don’t care a fig about the Fourth Amendment, especially when the case involves guns.

You can view the oral argument below.

You can read the opinion at this link.

The January 6 prisoners strike back with a $50 billion lawsuit

I am one who believes that the events on January 6 were a set-up. Democrats knew that Trump supporters would be flooding D.C., so they withdrew law enforcement, removed physical guardrails, seeded the crowd with provocateurs, trusted the press of people to steer innocents into trouble, and then used a weaponized Justice Department to destroy people who showed up on January 6 and found themselves near the Capitol. That’s why I happen to think the planned $50 billion class action J6 prisoner lawsuit is a good idea to expose the government’s role in J6.

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Why Did the ATF Raid Baltimore Gun Rights Advocate Mark ‘Choppa’ Manley’s House?

This is how the federal agency that’s charged with regulating firearms conducts its business. According to the Washington Times, “ATF agents announced themselves to Mark ‘Choppa’ Manley and his family by tossing a flashbang into his living room and ordering everyone out at gunpoint during the predawn search days before Thanksgiving.”

Manley, who is described as a gun rights advocate and lives in Baltimore, thinks the raid by agents in battle rattle was an attempt to send a message to other black gun owners.

“I do feel like I was targeted. I do feel like the amount of guns I have made me a target and [put] me on their radar,” Mr. Manley told The Times. “Especially being a minority from the inner city.”

It isn’t really clear what the feds were looking for in the raid. They spent hours tossing Manley’s home, checking gun serial numbers, and ultimately confiscating his phone. But no one was charged or arrested and no guns were confiscated.

Harassment has been a hallmark of the ATF since the Biden administration launched its war on legal gun ownership not long after it took office. And the agency is, of course, refusing to comment on the case.

Mr. Manley’s growing profile put him in a league of gun owners, dealers and advocates who have either been monitored, approached or, arguably, harassed by the ATF in recent years.

Was ATF acting on bad information? Were they trying to provoke Manley into breaking the law? Whatever their motivation, the raid could have gone much, much worse. It wasn’t long ago that ATF decided that an early morning raid on the home of Bryan Malinowski was preferable to stopping him on his way to or from his place of work. Malinowski thought it was a home invasion, armed himself, and the ATF’s finest shot and killed him.

[Gun rights advocate Maj] Toure said the raid at Mr. Manley’s home was likely done in hopes of provoking the advocate into doing something criminal. At the very least, he said the ATF is putting on a “poker face” to try and intimidate Mr. Manley from organizing gun owners in the future.

“What’s happening is they’re trying to scare people — bluff them — into thinking ‘I better not do this. I better be quiet about it.’” Mr. Toure said. “The wrong party here is the ATF. Not the Constitution, not the Bill of Rights, not the American people that are safe and responsible firearms owners.”

January 20th can’t get here soon enough.

Why Again Do We Still Have a Special Relationship With the Tyrannical UK?

America and the United Kingdom have long had a special relationship, working closely as allies to protect the West from oppressive dictatorships that suppress their own people, arbitrarily jailing them and persecuting them for exercising their God-given right of free speech. Here’s the problem. The UK has become one of those oppressive dictatorships that suppress their own people, arbitrarily jailing them and persecuting them for exercising their God-given right of free speech. And I’m not particularly interested in having a special relationship with a country like that. Nor are many other Americans.

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Never forget what they did to us.
Never forget what they meant to do to us.
Never.
Don’t give them the benefit of the doubt next time.
And did they forget we have guns?

CDC Planned Quarantine Camps, Nationwide

No matter how bad you think Covid policies were, they were intended to be worse.

Consider the vaccine passports alone. Six cities were locked down to include only the vaccinated in public indoor places. They were New York City, Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and Seattle. The plan was to enforce this with a vaccine passport. It broke. Once the news leaked that the shot didn’t stop infection or transmission, the planners lost public support and the scheme collapsed.

It was undoubtedly planned to be permanent and nationwide if not worldwide. Instead, the scheme had to be dialed back.

Features of the CDC’s edicts did incredible damage. It imposed the rent moratorium. It decreed the ridiculous “six feet of distance” and mask mandates. It forced Plexiglas as the interface for commercial transactions. It implied that mail-in balloting must be the norm, which probably flipped the election. It delayed the reopening as long as possible. It was sadistic.

Even with all that, worse was planned. On July 26, 2020, with the George Floyd riots having finally settled down, the CDC issued a plan for establishing nationwide quarantine camps. People were to be isolated, given only food and some cleaning supplies. They would be banned from participating in any religious services. The plan included contingencies for preventing suicide. There were no provisions made for any legal appeals or even the right to legal counsel.

The plan’s authors were unnamed but included 26 footnotes. It was completely official. The document was only removed on about March 26, 2023. During the entire intervening time, the plan survived on the CDC’s public site with little to no public notice or controversy.

It was called “Interim Operational Considerations for Implementing the Shielding Approach to Prevent COVID-19 Infections in Humanitarian Settings.”

“This document presents considerations from the perspective of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) for implementing the shielding approach in humanitarian settings as outlined in guidance documents focused on camps, displaced populations and low-resource settings.

This approach has never been documented and has raised questions and concerns among humanitarian partners who support response activities in these settings. The purpose of this document is to highlight potential implementation challenges of the shielding approach from CDC’s perspective and guide thinking around implementation in the absence of empirical data.

Considerations are based on current evidence known about the transmission and severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and may need to be revised as more information becomes available.”

By absence of empirical data, the meaning is: nothing like this has ever been tried. The point of the document was to map out how it could be possible and alert authorities to possible pitfalls to be avoided.

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I have only been to Minnesota twice. The first on a summer family vacation decades ago, and second, on a layover when flying to Alaska. Other than necessity required by the latter, I have no plans to ever visit that tyrant run state again

Is Your Private Vehicle a ‘Public Space’ When There’s a Gun Involved?

It’s an odd question stemming from an equally strange case, but that’s the question the Minnesota Supreme Court will soon answer after hearing oral arguments on Monday.

Back in 2022, a guy named Kyaw Be Bee was arrested for the misdemeanor charge of carrying a BB gun, rifle, or shotgun in a public place after police discovered a BB gun underneath the driver’s seat of Bee’s car. The deputy had become suspicious of Bee and another man when he spotted them standing near a vehicle in a parking lot around 2 a.m. Bee and his companion strolled back to their own vehicle when they became aware of the deputy, and once they drove away the deputy pulled them over, which is when he discovered the BB gun.

Bee’s attorney argued in a pre-trial hearing that a private vehicle should not be considered a public place and a judge agreed; dismissing the misdemeanor charge after reasoning that a private vehicle is not a public place, even when it’s on a public road.

Prosecutors appealed that decision and the Minnesota Court of Appeals found in their favor, ruling that private cars on public roads should be considered public spaces. Bee’s attorneys then appealed to the state Supreme Court, which heard from both sides yesterday.

“To focus the law on the method of transportation upon a public roadway, instead of the geographic area of the roadway itself, ignores the clear statutory text, renders portions of the statute ineffective, leads to absurd results and is therefore not reasonable,” Saint Paul city attorney Lyndsey Olson, who argued for the state, told justices Monday.

However Drake Metzger, an attorney for Bee, said the statute is “unambiguous” about what makes a space public.

The law defines public space as “property owned, leased, or controlled by a governmental unit and private property that is regularly and frequently open to or made available for use by the public.”

Lawmakers included exceptions for hunters; target shooters; people’s homes or business; and gun shows and shops.

What the law doesn’t address is whether or not a private vehicle is considered a public place; it simply says that if a gun is being transported in compliance with the law, the statute does not apply.

“At the end of the day, the inside of a motor vehicle is not a public space under this definition,” Metzger said Monday.

Metzger also argued that his client could have been charged with carrying without a license based on how the BB gun was stored in the vehicle, but accusing Bee of having a gun in a public place when it was in his car just doesn’t make sense given the language of the statute.

Olson, arguing for the state, saw it differently.

“I don’t think that this is saying that being in a motor vehicle inherently means that you’re in a public place,” Olson said. “It depends on the geographical place that the vehicle is on.”

Bee could have been charged with another crime as well, Olson said, public safety is at the root of gun laws.

“The consequences of a particular interpretation excluding vehicles on public roadways from public space could risk public safety by allowing the gun possession within vehicles without restriction,” she said.

The problem with Olson’s argument, at least from my perspective, is that it requires “interpreting” the statute instead of simply reading and adhering to the text. As Metzer says, the law in question defines what constitutes a public space, and while it does include some private property, that property must be “regularly and frequently open or made available for use by the public”. Your car, my truck, and (presumably) Bee’s vehicle aren’t open for use by the public, even when they’re on a public road, so how could they reasonably be considered public spaces?

Even if the Minnesota Supreme Court finds in favor of Bee (which, given the makeup of the court, is probably unlikely), as his own attorney pointed out, the state could still have charged Bee with improper storage of the BB gun. Whether that statute is constitutional under the text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment is another question for another day, but when it comes to the question of whether a private vehicle is a public space, I think the answer is and should obviously be “no.”

Polls Are Now Open. The Fate of the 2nd Amendment Rests in Your Vote Today

If you are reading this, and you have not yet voted, stop what you are doing and go vote. And if it isn’t clear to you yet, Harris is not the one to vote for.

Has J. Edgar Hoover’s Spy Program Been Resurrected?
The Bureau Apparently Now Targets MAGA Activists

Although the legacy media has buried the story, it turns out that over the last several years the Federal Bureau of Investigation has resurrected a hated and unconstitutional spying program once directed by the late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. His program, called the COINTELPRO program, targeted Americans who committed no crime, but simply sought to express their political views.

Former President Richard Nixon directed Hoover to aggressively infiltrate and disrupt many political movements in the late ‘60’s and ‘70’s. This included the Vietnam War activists, the Rev. Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders. They even spied on environmentalists, women’s rights groups and animal rights activists.

According to an exclusive Newsweek expose that was published three weeks ago, it now appears the ghosts of Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover were resurrected by the Biden administration with a new expanded government spying and infiltration program based on political views. The FBI apparently redefined extremism to include those whom the administration determined hold unacceptable political views.

We now learn that during the Biden administration, the Bureau changed its domestic violence definitions from the “furtherance of ideological agendas” to “furtherance of political and/or social agendas.” They report that it was a “gigantic departure for the Bureau.”

As Newsweek explained, “For the first time extremist groups worthy of surveillance and even infiltration could be so labeled because of their politics.” The FBI’s main target: Trump MAGA activists.

A review by its investigative reporters of previously unpublished FBI documents shows, “nearly two-thirds of the FBI’s current investigations are focused on Trump supporters and others suspected of violating what the FBI calls “anti-riot” laws.”

Although I’m not a MAGA activist, I personally abhor any government spying program against its citizens. In fact, I was a plaintiff in a 1970’s leftwing legal lawsuit against the COINTELPRO program. The United States Supreme Court ruled in the case, called Hobson vs. Wilson, that the federal government’s political surveillance program was unconstitutional.

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Shades of Commie East Germany and its STASI
The “monkey wrench” is for lots of tips on the demoncraps.

Michigan And Hawaii Launch Tip Lines To Encourage Anonymous Snitching On Gun Owners

Michigan and Hawaii, both Democrat-led states, have launched taxpayer-funded tip lines for individuals looking to report perceived firearms violations anonymously. While these dumpster fire states claim the lines are aimed at lawbreakers, Second Amendment groups are reasonably skeptical, as they should be, because such a system can easily be abused. Let’s face it, we know that the weaponization of this service against law-abiding gun owners is exactly what they are intended for.

On Thursday, October 10, Hawaii’s Democrat Governor Josh Green announced the state’s Department of Law Enforcement had established a confidential “Gun Tip Line for people to make anonymous reports of illegal gun ownership and gun crimes,” where tipsters can either call, text or drop a dime via the DLE’s website or a downloadable app where they can submit photographs and videos to back up their report.

The governor’s office went even further during the brown shirt recruiting exercise saying, “People reporting tips are encouraged to leave detailed information including the names of those in possession of illegal guns or committing gun crimes, a location where those people may be found and a description of the guns.” Sure, what could go wrong when hiring unpaid, untrained, overzealous, anti-Second Amendment sycophants typically knowing very little about firearms to play the role of a detective, spying on and recording their neighbors?

Meanwhile, Gretchen “Lockdown” Whitmer, known for hosting the most oppressive COVID lockdowns in America while still having more deaths per capita than any neighboring Midwestern states, signed House Bill 5503, a measure passed off as an education funding bill that allocates $1 million in School Aid Funding to support an anonymous tip line for students to report firearms thought to be “improperly stored.”

The bill goes on to mandate that Michigan’s Department of Education develop materials concerning improper storage of firearms, including tip line usage, and distribute those materials to school districts across the state. The Gestapo may not pay you for your work, but you will receive free training, whether you want it or not.

As the NRA-ILA points out, language regarding the tip line was added to the bill as an amendment that was then swiftly passed by the Democrat-controlled legislature.

“The expedited pace and the silencing of opposition when the bill came up for a floor vote underscores the reality that this was a political move and another attack on gun owners,” says the NRA.

These tiplines will ultimately create a situation that will lead to wasted resources, unwarranted confrontations with law enforcement and what could amount to unconstitutional searches of homes, businesses and other private property based on vendettas and other nefarious agendas. Not only does this negatively impact the community’s relationship with authorities, but those who abuse the tip lines will undoubtedly drive wedges within communities as well, drawing lines at a time when we need to be working together to strengthen and solidify those connections.

Opening Arguments Begin in ‘Ghost Gun’ Challenge

While so-called ghost guns get a lot of hype in the media, the reality is that they account for only a tiny fraction of those firearms used in illegal acts. However, because they’ve grown in supposed popularity–probably because of media hysterics cluing bad guys in that these are a thing–they’re the worst thing ever.

When the Biden administration took steps to try to regulate these firearms, the usual suspects in the media and anti-gun activism celebrated it.

However, such a decree was never going to go unchallenged. Today, opening arguments begin in that case. (Arguments begin at 11:00 AM Eastern; you can watch them here.)

Among those party to the challenge is the Second Amendment Foundation, which sent a press release about today’s opening statements.

On Tuesday, Oct. 8, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Second Amendment Foundation’s (SAF) challenge to ATF’s regulation expanding what constitutes a “firearm.”

Arguments will begin at 11 a.m. EST and will be broadcast live here.

SAF is joined in the case by Defense Distributed and Not an LLC (doing business as JSD Supply). SAF and its partners are represented by attorneys Charles R. Flores and Josh Blackman of Houston, and SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut.

In April 2022, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) published its Final Rule amending the regulatory definition of the term “firearm” to encompass precursor parts that, with enough additional manufacturing operations, would become functional firearms frames and receivers, but in their current state were non-functional objects.

In seeking to regulate these “non-firearm objects” the ATF’s Final Rule directly contradicted Congress’ definition of “firearm” set forth in the Gun Control Act of 1968. The ATF’s re-definition of “firearm” in the Final Rule establishes a practical ban on the private manufacture of firearms – a constitutionally protected tradition.

In December 2022, SAF filed to intervene in an existing lawsuit in the Northern District of Texas known as VanDerStok v. Garland. The case challenges the lawfulness of ATF’s regulatory re-definition of a “firearm” under the Administrative Procedures Act. SAF scored a major victory in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which vacated significant portions of the Rule. The Biden Department of Justice now seeks to resurrect the rule before the Supreme Court.

For more information about the case, visit saf.org. To listen to the arguments live, click here or follow SAF’s X page for live updates.

The key takeaway is that the argument will be that the ATF exceeded it’s regulatory authority by trying to redefine what is and isn’t a firearm. This is what the ATF did with bump stocks when they opted to redefine them as machine guns. The Supreme Court ruled they had no such authority, so it’s unlikely this will be any different.

That’s bad news for the anti-gun side because the reason Biden went the executive order route and had the ATF act unilaterally was because there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hades that Congress was going to pass any bill trying to accomplish what the ATF tried.

Yet that’s not a valid reason to try and go around Congress like this and redefine things differently than Congress did.

Had there never been a law that specifically defined a firearm, they might could have gotten away with it. One could argue that the lack of definition would put the onus for defining what is and isn’t a gun on the ATF. The problem is that they did define it. The ATF has to work within that definition, not make up their own because they really don’t like that people do things they don’t approve of.

The Vanderstock case is likely to be another smackdown of the ATF’s overreach, much like what we saw in Cargill.

Biden’s agency bosses say Americans have ‘too much freedom’
The ‘swamp’ thinks you have it too good.

In an unusual look at federal agency managers, most believe Americans have too much freedom, and they back President Joe Biden‘s efforts to impose 

The bosses of federal agencies were asked in a new Napolitan Institute survey about the “individual freedom” Americans have, and 51% said they have “somewhat” to “far too much freedom.”

But just 16% of voters agreed and 57% believe the government has too much control over their lives.

Democratic “swamp” managers felt the country has too much freedom at the highest levels in the survey, at 68%. Among Republican federal agency chiefs, just 33% agreed.

But the partisan bureaucrats were more in agreement when it came to choosing who is best at deciding if new regulations are needed, found the polling outfit headed by Scott Rasmussen.

Said the analysis shared with Secrets on Friday, “Fifty-four percent (54%) of government managers say that if, after carefully researching an important issue, they determine that a regulation is needed, yet voters overwhelmingly oppose it, they should follow their research and issue the regulation anyway. This includes 49% of Republican government managers and 60% of Democrats,” it said.

Unlike Democrats and Republicans in America, and even on Capitol Hill, partisans that work in the swamp generally think like the other, according to Napolitan’s latest poll of America’s 1% elitists.

“On many topics, there is a disturbing level of bi-partisan agreement among federal government managers. Fifty-three percent (53%) of Republican government managers and 48% of Democrats believe the federal government should be allowed to censor speech that is posted on social media platforms. Forty-three percent (43%) of ‘Elites’ and just 16% of voters share this view. Seventy-four percent of Republican government managers and 79% of Democrats favor banning private ownership of guns. This view is shared by 77% of ‘Elites,’ but just 36% of voters,” said the analysis.

In his polling of elites, Rasmussen has found a stunning gap with Middle Americans, which could be a danger sign considering the outsize effect of elites, especially in the media.

Rasmussen said, “The ‘Elite’ 1% wield a tremendous amount of institutional power but are wildly out of touch with the nation they want to rule. Over the years they have built institutions and mechanisms of regulatory power that are immune to the checks and balances of elections. Worse still, these same ‘Elites’ own, operate, and control a large majority of media outlets, blocking out the true voice of the American people and broadcasting their own out of touch viewpoints.”

18th century America was influenced by the “Glorious Revolution” 0f 1688 in ‘mother’ England. And no one had a bigger impact on American attitudes towards freedom of speech than Englishmen John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, who wrote about it in Cato’s Letter Number 15

…
Freedom of speech is the great bulwark of liberty; they prosper and die together: And it is the terror of traitors and oppressors, and a barrier against them. It produces excellent writers, and encourages men of fine genius.

Tacitus tells us, that the Roman commonwealth bred great and numerous authors, who writ with equal boldness and eloquence: But when it was enslaved, those great wits were no more.

Postquam bellatum apud Actium atque omnem potestatem ad unum conferri pacis interfuit, magna illa ingenia cessere.
[After the battle at Actium ( when Octavian Caesar defeated Marc Antony) and when all power was brought to one peace (when Octavian was made Emperor Augustus), those great characters ceased.]

Tyranny had usurped the place of equality, which is the soul of liberty, and destroyed publick courage.

The minds of men, terrified by unjust power, degenerated into all the vileness and methods of servitude: Abject sycophancy and blind submission grew the only means of preferment, and indeed of safety; men durst not open their mouths, but to flatter.

No Second Amendment, No First: God, Guns, and the Government

 

Today’s Left endlessly preaches the evils of “gun violence.” It is a message increasingly echoed from the nation’s pulpits, presented as common-sense decency and virtue. Calls for “radical non-violence” are routinely endowed with the imprimatur of religious doctrine.

But what if such teachings were misguided, even damaging? What if the potential of a citizenry to exercise force against violent criminals and tyrannical governments is not just compatible with church teaching, but flows from the very heart of Biblical faith and reason? What if the freedoms we treasure are intimately tied to the power to resist violent coercion?

This is the long-overdue case John Zmirak makes with stunning clarity and conviction in No Second Amendment, No First. A Yale-educated journalist and former college professor, Zmirak shows how the right of self-defense against authoritarian government was affirmed in both the Old and New Testaments, is implied in Natural Law, and has been part of Church tradition over the centuries.

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