Category: Bureaucraps

BLUF
This rule shows the gun community that any “compromise” will be used against gun rights, and the ATF claiming authority through the BSCA shows that the recent losses have the ATF scrambling to prevent future losses by pointing to legislation even if the law has to be taken out of context.

New Leak Shows ATF Will Pass Rule to Eliminate Private Sales

The Biden administration will use executive orders and the weaponized ATF to issue a rule limiting the private sales of firearms. According to the New York Times and verified by AmmoLand News sources, the new rule is expected to be unveiled by the end of the year.

Biden will call on the ATF to develop a new rule requiring anyone who makes any profit by selling firearms to possess an FFL. Guns tend to increase in value over time. A gun purchased in 1980 will likely sell for more money today than its original value.

The so-called “digital loophole” includes marketplaces like Armslist Firearms Classified, where private individuals can list their firearms for sale. The Biden administration wants to see these marketplaces shut down, but it is unclear exactly how that unconstitutional goal will be accomplished. Websites like Armslist do not sell firearms directly.

AmmoLand News spoke to Armslist Founder Jonathan Gibbon about the attacks his company faces and the upcoming ATF rule. Armslist has been battling anti-gun groups for years, fending off several lawsuits. Armslist has a perfect track record at defeating these attacks, but the cases are costly.

“Private-party transactions are not a ‘loophole,’” Gibbon told AmmoLand News. “Buying and selling firearms is a guaranteed right under the Second Amendment. Interfering with state laws allowing citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights should concern everyone. Americans have a First Amendment Constitutional right to use the internet, to communicate about their other Constitutional rights.”

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Biden facing more pressure from Dems over crackdown on school hunting, archery classes

Fox News Digital reported last week that federal guidance highlighting the Education Department’s funding decision and interpretation of the BSCA was circulated among hunting education groups earlier this year, sparking concerns about the future of hunting and archery programs in schools.

In the guidance, obtained first by Fox News Digital, senior agency official Sarah Martinez wrote that archery, hunter education and wilderness safety courses utilize weapons that are “technically dangerous weapons” and therefore “may not be funded under ESEA programs.”

The BSCA — which was criticized as a “gun control” bill, but touted by proponents as an effort to promote “safer, more inclusive and positive” schools — was passed overwhelmingly by Congress and signed into law by President Biden in June 2022 after mass shootings at a grocery market in Buffalo, New York, and a school in Uvalde, Texas.

The law, though, included an amendment to a subsection in the ESEA listing prohibited uses for federal school funding. That amendment prohibits ESEA funds from helping provide any person with a dangerous weapon or to provide “training in the use of a dangerous weapon,” but, according to the bill’s sponsors, was included to prevent ESEA funding for school resource officer training.

“By misinterpreting which activities are now supported by ESEA, the Department of Education is limiting learning opportunities critical to student safety,” Tester continued in his letter to Cardona. “I urge the Department of Education to reconsider the interpretation of BSCA in a way that does not limit learning opportunities for students and does not present barriers to critical hunter safety courses.”

Three of the four BSCA sponsors — Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz.; John Cornyn, R-Texas; and Thom Tillis, R-N.C. — have expressed concern about the Department of Education’s interpretation of the BSCA provision. The lawmakers are working with the administration and other legislators to fix the error, they said.

Senators Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., have both spoken out against the Department of Education’s interpretation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.
In addition, West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin criticized the administration.

“Any defunding of schools who offer critical programs like archery and hunting clubs would be a gross misinterpretation of the legislation and yet another example of this administration trying to advance their radical agenda with blatant disregard for the law,” Manchin told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.

Several Republicans and hunting and pro-Second Amendment organizations have also joined the chorus of voices calling on the administration to reverse course.

“The Biden administration is withholding funding from elementary and secondary schools that offer hunting or archery classes,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., tweeted Wednesday. “This administration is punishing Americans solely because they disagree with their values.”

“This is outrageous. Hunting and archery programs benefit youth across the country,” Rep. Erin Houchin, R-Ind., added. “At best – the administration is misinterpreting the law. At worst – they simply think they can ignore Congress.

Biden Admin Blasted As Nationwide Lightbulb Ban Begins: ‘Impossible For Democrats To Leave Us Alone.’

It seems like only yesterday that Democrats were openly mocking Americans for worrying that the Joe Biden administration was coming for their gas stoves.

“Nobody is taking away your gas stove,” Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) scoffed.

Since then, it’s been proven that the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) has said that a potential ban “is on the table amid rising concern about harmful indoor air pollutants emitted by the appliances.”

Like any conspiracy theory Democrats deny, it eventually came true.

And likewise, anything liberals can get their grubby little paws on, they will.

Enter a nationwide lightbulb ban set to begin Tuesday. The ban, which General Electric warned consumers about last year as being “inconvenient,” will prohibit manufacturers from making, and retailers from selling, incandescent and similar halogen light bulbs.

 

Lightbulb Ban Blasted

Several lawmakers lashed out at the Biden administration’s pending nationwide ban on lightbulbs, with Representative Bob Good (R-VA) leading the way by conveying a succinct yet important point.

“It’s impossible for Democrats to leave us alone,” he tweeted. “States must fight back.”

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

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Ending Chevron deference will protect the Second Amendment from abusive apparatchiks

The United States of America is an exceptional country with an exceptional Constitution and Bill of Rights. The principles enshrined in the founding documents have been copied by several countries over the past couple of centuries. Even the Soviet Union copied American concepts in its constitution. But, as everyone knew, all those Soviet guarantees were nothing but a joke.

So, what sets America apart from all the other attempted cheap knockoffs? For that, I would like to show you this video clip of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (C-Span backup link):

The basic principle that underpins American Liberty is the splintering and separation of powers both “vertically” into local/state/federal governments, and “horizontally” within each level into separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches.

That principle was violated rather egregiously in a 1984 Supreme Court case Chevron v. NRDC, in which the Court created a legal test now known as “Chevron Deference.” Justia summarizes it as follows:

A government agency must conform to any clear legislative statements when interpreting and applying a law, but courts will give the agency deference in ambiguous situations as long as its interpretation is reasonable.

In other words, the Judiciary forfeits its duty to interpret laws to the Executive branch when there’s ambiguity. This is on top of the legislative branch delegating its lawmaking duties to the Executive branch. This opening allowed Executive branch agencies, which are prone to aggrandizing their power, to run amok in abusive ways.

The Supreme Court recently granted a cert petition for a case that may end up overturning the Chevron Doctrine. Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo was brought by a herring fishing company and concerns monitoring costs fishermen must pay the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), even though the law in question doesn’t explicitly authorize it.

Why does Chevron Deference concern gun owners and Second Amendment advocates? Just yesterday, I wrote about how the Biden Department of Education took advantage of ambiguity in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) to cut off funding for schools that have archery and hunting programs.

The abuse of regulatory power can also be seen in the ATF’s arbitrary redefinition of bumpstocks as machine guns, the redefinition of unfinished frames/receivers as fully functional firearms, and the redefinition of AR pistols with braces as Short-Barreled Rifles (SBRs).

There’s also an attempt by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Administration to ban lead ammunition on federal lands.

Second Amendment groups have made note and are getting involved in the Loper case. The Supreme Court website shows almost 50 amicus briefs have been submitted, including those from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, and Gun Owners of America.

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Justice Alito Grants Temporary Stay for ATF’s “Ghost Gun” Rule

U.S.A. — On July 27, 2023, the Attorney General of the Biden Administration, Merrick B. Garland, applied for a stay to Justice Alito at the Supreme Court in the case of VanDerStok v. Garland. The request for an emergency stay had been refused by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on July 24, 2023, as reported on AmmoLand.  One of the possibilities mentioned was the Biden administration would appeal directly to the Supreme Court. The possibility of a request for an en banc decision existed but was unlikely because the Fifth Circuit has been following the Supreme Court guidance in the Bruen decision for enforcing Second Amendment rights and because an en banc panel would not have been emplaced for a period of time.

The district court’s universal vacatur is irreparably harming the public and the government by reopening the floodgates to the tide of untraceable ghost guns flowing into our Nation’s communities.

You are correct if this sounds like the familiar song and dance put forward by dictators and authoritarians worldwide.

Update: Justice Alito grants administrative stay for a week. Responses are due on August 2, 2023.

Alito Grants Temporary Stay for ATF’s “Ghost Gun” Rule by AmmoLand Shooting Sports News on Scribd

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Nipping gun ownership in the bud: Dept of Education’s outrageous moves

It is the job of the Congress to write airtight, unambiguous legislation that allows no opportunity for Executive or Judicial mischief. That’s a tough task to begin with, but an overambitious Executive or Judicial branch can stretch and mangle those words beyond ridicule to do whatever they want. It doesn’t help that the job keeps getting harder with time as long-agreed upon words are intentionally rejiggered to lose their meaning.

The latest example of Executive Overreach is the “reimagining” of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), a gun control law that was passed by government to compensate for the failure of government and placate the insatiable appetites of abusive gun controllers. Fox News reports (archived links):

Biden admin withholding key funding for schools with hunting, archery programs

EXCLUSIVE: The Biden administration is blocking key federal funding earmarked under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 for schools with hunting and archery programs.

According to federal guidance circulated among hunting education groups and shared with Fox News Digital, the Department of Education determined that, under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) passed last year, school hunting and archery classes are precluded from receiving federal funding. The interpretation could impact millions of American children enrolled in such programs.

“It’s a negative for children. As a former educator of 30-plus years, I was always trying to find a way to engage students,” Tommy Floyd, the president of the National Archery in the Schools Program, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “In many communities, it’s a shooting sport, and the skills from shooting sports, that help young people grow to be responsible adults. They also benefit from relationships with role models.”[…]

According to Floyd, his organization boasts 1.3 million students from nearly 9,000 schools across 49 states who are enrolled in archery courses. Some of those schools have already canceled plans to include archery or hunting education courses in their curriculum due to the Education Department guidance.

Why oh why would the Federal Department of Education target hunting and archery in schools? It’s perhaps a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a puzzle to some, but it’s obvious to me that the DoE is trying to nip gun ownership in the bud by choking off exposure and interest in the next generation. Gun controllers are playing a long game, and this is a move to advance their disarmament agenda.

The legislation included an amendment to an ESEA subsection listing prohibited uses for federal school funding. That amendment prohibits ESEA funds from helping provide any person with a dangerous weapon or to provide “training in the use of a dangerous weapon.”

I looked up the text of the law and this is what it says:

Subtitle D–Amendment on ESEA Funding

SEC. 13401. AMENDMENT ON ESEA FUNDING.
Section 8526 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965

(20 U.S.C. 7906) is amended–
(1) in paragraph (5), by striking “or” after the
semicolon;
(2) in paragraph (6), by striking the period at the end and</sp
inserting “; or”; and
(3) by adding at the end the following:
“(7) for the provision to any person of a dangerous weapon,
 as defined in section 930(g)(2) of title 18, United States Code, 
 or training in the use of a dangerous weapon.”.

I can see how this amendment could be stretched to construe the prohibition of funding for archery and hunting programs.

However, in a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona earlier this month, Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., expressed concern that the agency is misinterpreting the provision which they said was included in the BSCA last year to withhold education funds for programs training school resource officers, not for hunting and archery classes. School resource officer training was funded under a separate provision.

“We were alarmed to learn recently that the Department of Education has misinterpreted the BCSA to require the defending of certain longstanding educational and enrichment programs — specifically, archery and hunter education classes — for thousands of children, who rely on these programs to develop life skills, learn firearm safety and build self-esteem,” Cornyn and Tillis wrote to Cardona.

“The Department mistakenly believes that the BSCA precludes funding these enrichment programs,” they continued. “Such an interpretation contradicts congressional intent and the text of the BSCA.”

Senators Cornyn, Tillis, and every self-proclaimed Second Amendment supporting elected official have some serious explaining to do to their voters. This language slipped under the radar and is now rearing its head. Gun control-supporting apparatchiks at the DoE are taking advantage of it because the text did not explicitly state that such training programs are exempt.

Overall, the ESEA is the primary source of federal aid for elementary and secondary education across the country, according to the Congressional Research Service. The BSCA earmarked an additional $1 billion for educational activities under the ESEA.

Personally, I want to see a complete and permanent separation of School and State and the Department of Education eliminated. But that’s not happening anytime soon.

With so much money at stake, this was a legislative fumble to put it mildly. Let’s see what the Biden DoE does next.

Rand Paul announces ‘official criminal referral,’ claims email shows Fauci COVID testimony ‘absolutely a lie’
Paul argues a newly unredacted email ‘directly contradicts’ Dr. Anthony Fauci’s past testimony about COVID-19 gain-of-function research

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., announced an “official criminal referral” to the Department of Justice regarding Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Paul pointed to an email from February 2020 in which Fauci detailed a call with British medical researcher Jeremy Farrar, who was director of the Wellcome Trust at the time. According to Fauci, those on the task force call, including Francis Collins, former Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, and other “highly credible” scientists with expertise in evolutionary biology, expressed concern about the “fact upon viewing the sequences of several isolates of the nCoV, there were mutations in the virus that would be most unusual to have evolved naturally in the bats and that there was a suspicion that this mutation was intentionally inserted.”

“The suspicion was heightened by the fact that scientists in Wuhan University are known to have been working on gain-of-function experiments to determine the molecular mechanisms associated with bat viruses adapting to human infection, and the outbreak originated in Wuhan,” Fauci wrote, according to a screenshot of the newly unredacted email shared by RealClearPolitics White House reporter Philip Wegmann.

Sen. Rand Paul questions Dr. Anthony Fauci during a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing about the federal response to monkeypox, on Capitol Hill, Sept. 14, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

“This directly contradicts everything he said in committee hearing to me, denying absolutely that they funded any gain of function, and it’s absolutely a lie. That’s why I sent an official criminal referral to the DOJ,” Paul wrote on “X,” formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday.

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New Jersey Association seeks to sue Garden State over Mr. & Mrs. Smith-style training mandate

If you’re interested in participating in a challenging marksmanship program that’ll tax your tactical abilities, then we’ve got something for you. While you could go to one of the many top-of-the-line and state-of-the-art training destinations to challenge yourself and get in some time behind the trigger, don’t bother. The New Jersey State Police has chartered a program that’s for those seeking a real challenge.

Unfortunately, this challenge is not a joke, but it’s what the state has decided to implement as a training requirement to get a permit to carry. The Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs just asked to have their federal challenge to the law that put this training into effect reopened in the New Jersey Federal District Court because of the onerous mandate.

The newly rolled out training requirements in order to get a permit to carry seem like exactly what’s described above. An authoritative and challenging course of fire that an expert would be looking to use to cut their teeth further, is not what Mr. and Mrs. New Jersey should have to do in order to exercise a constitutional right. Rather than New Jersey be lock-step with the rest of the country that has reasonable training mandates, they’d prefer to force everyday people to be able to rise to a training standard that Mr. and Mrs. Smith would have to.

Sounds hyperbolic, but consider attorney Evan Nappen’s explanation of what the training requirement is for nearly all current and future permit to carry holders. Nappen refers to the training as “New Jersey’s ‘John Wick’ Carry Training Mandate.”

A new and much more difficult level of shooting proficiency is now required for citizens in New Jersey who wish a obtain a Permit to Carry a Handgun or continue to keep their Permit to Carry a Handgun.

The new requirements demand timed firing from concealed holsters. Kneeling position shooting and accurately shooting at 25 yards are also incorporated into the course. It is hard to envision citizen self-defense scenarios justifying the use of deadly force at 25 yards!

There are no exceptions for physically handicapped people. The new requirements are basically the same requirements utilized for retired police officers to get their New Jersey RPO handgun carry card. This means that any citizen who wishes to exercise their Second Amendment rights must now have the same skill level of proficiency as a veteran law enforcement officer who has trained and qualified with firearms for years!

If a person wants a Drivers License, should they be required to qualify as a NASCAR Racer before receiving it? Yet, driving is not a Constitutional right, but carrying a gun is one. Harsh requirements are not permitted for the exercise of Constitutional rights.

New Jersey is using a variation out of the racist playbook of Southern Democrats who tried to stop Blacks from voting by demanding poll taxes and literacy tests.

The anti-Constitutional rights NJ Democrats have done the same thing here for the exercise of Second Amendment rights by all citizens with the passage of the Murphy “Carry Killer” Anti-Civil Rights law.

Nappen points out something we’ve all been saying since last year, and that’s Governor Phil Murphy – as well as many other executives, lawmakers, and judges all over the blue states of the U.S.- have been approaching the NYSRPA v. Bruen decision in the same manner southern leaders treated Blacks during the antebellum Jim Crow period of our country and a post-Brown v. Board of Education United States.

The anti-civil liberty pinkos have jumped the shark when it comes to regulation, and the new training standard is a bridge too far. Consider footnote #9 from NYSRPA:

That said, because any permitting scheme can be put toward abusive ends, we do not rule out constitutional challenges to shall-issue regimes where, for example, lengthy wait times in processing license applications or exorbitant fees deny ordinary citizens their right to public carry.

The training would constitute an abusive end according to the opinion. Not only are the training requirements beyond what would be considered “designed to ensure only that those bearing arms in the jurisdiction are, in fact, ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens,’” not consistent with the footnote, as a sidebar, the newly instituted fees fit that bill as well.

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Chevron Deference Violates the Constitution, Argues FPC and FPCAF in Supreme Court Brief

Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) and FPC Action Foundation (FPCAF) announced the filing of an important brief with the United States Supreme Court in the case of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, in which FPC and FPCAF ask the Supreme Court to overrule the deference doctrine the Court established in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. The brief can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.

Chevron deference, as it has come to be known, requires a court to defer to an executive branch agency’s interpretation of federal law, even if that interpretation is not the best interpretation of the law. This doctrine has allowed federal executive branch agencies, such as the ATF, to run wild, unchecked by either Congress or the courts. Ending Chevron deference will help ensure that courts can better check federal executive branch power.

“Chevron violates Article III by transferring from the judiciary to the executive the ultimate interpretative authority to say what the law is,” argues the brief. “It violates Article I by incentivizing Congress to abdicate its legislative duties and delegate legislative authority to the executive. As a result, Chevron accumulates legislative, executive, and judicial powers in a single branch of government—which the Founders considered the very definition of tyranny.”

“The Framers of our Constitution learned from thousands of years of human experience that governments with power concentrated in one body are unsustainable and often tyrannical,” said FPCAF’s Director of Constitutional Studies, Joseph Greenlee. “The Framers, therefore, separated the legislative, executive, and judicial functions in our Constitution to prevent tyranny and safeguard our liberties. Chevron deference undoes this deliberate design, paving the way for abusive governance. We’re hopeful that the Court will use this opportunity to overrule Chevron and restore the Founders’ design.”…

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.

Biden investigation: Grassley releases FBI document accusing Joe and Hunter Biden of bribery scheme.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on Thursday released the now-infamous FBI form that contains a witness’s account of President Joe Biden allegedly partaking in a bribery scheme when he was vice president.

Grassley published in full the lightly redacted FD-1023 form, which several congressional Republicans have already seen but that the public did not have access to until Thursday.

The Iowa Republican accused the FBI in an accompanying statement of seeking to “obfuscate and redact” the form before the bureau ultimately cooperated with congressional Republicans to show it to them.

“The American people can now read this document for themselves, without the filter of politicians or bureaucrats, thanks to brave and heroic whistleblowers,” Grassley, who acquired the document via legally protected disclosures by Justice Department whistleblowers, said.

Read a copy of the form below.

The FBI uses FD-1023 forms to record “raw, unverified” information from confidential human sources.

Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) announced the existence of the form in question in May and subpoenaed the FBI for a copy of it. The FBI at first resisted cooperating with the committee, expressing concern about the “sensitive” nature of the document.

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Not the only judge to get Bruen wrong. They hate it.

Wyoming Judge Dismisses Wapiti Man’s Lawsuit To Make His Own Machine Gun

Wyoming’s chief federal judge has dismissed a Wapiti man’s lawsuit against the U.S. Attorney General challenging whether people have a Second Amendment right to make machine guns.

Jake DeWilde sued both U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in January.

DeWilde alleged that the ATF’s decision to deny his permit request to make his own M16 machine gun is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.

The M16, DeWilde argued, is in common military use and therefore may be manufactured by citizens to possess to uphold their militia right.

‘Tanks, Bombs, Nuclear Weapons?’ 

Wyoming Chief U.S. District Court Judge Scott Skavdahl said he couldn’t permit DeWilde’s argument because it’s contrary to U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

“Plaintiff’s argument logically would demand that the entire law-abiding citizenry is permitted to possess the same weapons our armed forces utilize,” wrote Skavdahl in a Monday order dismissing DeWilde’s lawsuit from the federal court. “Where is the limit? Tanks, bombs, nuclear weapons?

“This is beyond outlandish, yet it is the logical result of Plaintiff’s argument that provides no limit. The Court declines to permit such an astonishing result.”

Courts throughout U.S. history have held that weapons normally in use by law-abiding citizens are allowed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but “dangerous and unusual” weapons are not allowed without limit.

The M16 manufacture isn’t necessarily allowed by the Second Amendment, wrote Skavdahl.

DeWilde had based much of his argument on the 2022 Supreme Court case New York State Rifle and Pistol Association vs. Bruen.

In it, the high court said governments can’t outlaw weapons that are in the “common use.” DeWilde argued that the M16 is in “common use” by the military, so potential militia people or citizens should be allowed to make them.

But Bruen didn’t disturb key Second Amendment cases before it, the judge wrote, which allowed for some restrictions on the kinds of weapons people may possess.

“The Second Amendment is not a second-class right, but it also is not without limits,” wrote Skavdahl.

No Standing 

Skavdahl also dismissed DeWilde’s suit for another reason: It was DeWilde’s trust that applied for and did not win the permit to build an M16, but DeWilde sued the federal government as an individual.

Originally, DeWilde included his trust in the lawsuit, but re-filed without the trust after the federal government noted that DeWilde could not represent the trust since he’s not an attorney — though he can represent himself pro se.

With the ATF’s denial of DeWilde’s trust’s machine gun application no longer a factor in the suit, Skavdahl concluded that the remaining claim – that DeWilde wanted a machine gun and believes he has a right to make one – was not enough to give him standing in a federal case.

With Mfume, you don’t know whether he’s arrogantly stupid, or stupidly arrogant. In either case, he and his ilk are the reason some of the framers of the Constitution demanded a Bill of Rights that specifically included a protection of RKBA.

Democrat Kweisi Mfume Claims the Role of the FBI and IRS Are to ‘Keep Democracy in Check’

Wednesday, Maryland Representative Kweisi Mfume used his time at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability featuring IRS whistleblowers (WATCH LIVE: IRS Whistleblowers Testify Before House Oversight Committee Regarding Biden Criminal Investigation) testifying about the efforts of the Justice Department to stymie the criminal investigation of the Biden Crime family to provide a revealing insight into how the Democrats view our republican system of government; see IRS Whistleblower Joseph Ziegler Details DOJ Protection of the Bidens in CBS News Interview.

In a seamless segue from the subject of the hearing to complaining about Donald Trump, who, unlike Hunter, James, and Joe Biden, is in legal jeopardy for his real and imagined shenanigans, Mfume, who resigned his position as president of the NAACP due to sexual harassment, let loose with this broadside.

Here’s what galls me. I don’t like these attacks on the Department of Justice, the FBI, the IRS, as if they are somehow anti-US agencies. Those agencies keep this democracy in check and keep moving forward [he lapses into gibberish for a moment, so my transcript might be wrong about “forward’}. They provide the checks and they provide the balances.

 

Once you get past the point of being shocked and appalled that a member of the House of Representatives, the part of the federal government closest to the people, could claim that the DOJ, FBI, and IRS are part of our system of checks and balances and their role is to “keep this democracy in check;” you can actually be thankful to the guy.

On Tuesday, I posted on the confusion and disarray at the New York Times because of Trump’s public plan to bring the federal bureaucracy to heel; see Trump’s Plan to Destroy the Deep State Causes Panic at the New York Times. As my friend and RedState OG “Thomas Crown” noted on Twitter, “Our administrative state, at the federal level, is premised on two weirdly unconstitutional but broadly-accepted (and therefore sort of constitutional?) premises: That the Legislature can cede its power to the President’s branch, which he cannot and must not fully control.”

Granting any federal agency, much less those agencies who can take your possessions and kill you if you rile them up (just ask Vicki Weaver…oh, that’s right, you can’t ask her), status as our checks and balances looks, smells, and tastes very much like the Soviet Union referring to the KGB as the “sword and shield of the Communist Party.” Placing any federal agency, particularly those with the power to deprive you of life, liberty, and property, above criticism is something we sort of suspected the Democrats believed but never expected to hear them say out loud.

Almost like it’s a feature, not a bug

DHS admits that 40% of catch-and-release migrants disappeared.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement failed to deliver immigration court summonses to more than 80% of illegal immigrants caught and released under the Biden administration’s “parole” program just before the end of the Title 42 pandemic border policy, according to statistics that the government submitted to a federal judge.

The migrants were released on “parole” and given 60 days to check in with ICE.

More than 40% of the migrants never checked in at all. Of the rest, ICE failed to issue a notice to appear — the immigration summons — in more than two-thirds of the cases.

That works out to a success rate of just 18% for the test population.

District Judge T. Kent Wetherell said the poor rate confirmed his earlier ruling that parole was an ineffective way to enforce immigration laws.

“These statistics are troubling to say the least,” the judge said in a new order Tuesday. “But even more troubling is the fact that DHS apparently does not have a plan in place to track down the aliens who are in violation of the conditions of their ‘parole’ — and, thus, unlawfully in the country.”

In the court filings, officials said some of the migrants may still check in late. Officials also explained ICE’s failure to issue summonses as the result of “limited agency resources.”

The officials said they aren’t sure whether they will try to punish the rule breakers, though they suggested some interest in the idea.

“DHS maintains its commitment that individuals have an obligation to comply with requirements imposed by DHS, and ICE is prepared to take such actions as may be required to ensure that individuals who were released pending the initiation of their immigration court proceedings comply with the terms of their release,” Sarah B. Fabian, a Justice Department lawyer, told the judge in Florida.

That could include arrests, detention or attempts to deport the migrants, said Daniel A. Bible, deputy executive associate director at ICE.

That, too, was little comfort to Judge Wetherell, who said he was “skeptical that DHS is serious” about tracking them down.

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Whistleblower X reveals identity as IRS special agent Joseph Ziegler

The anonymous IRS whistleblower alleging political misconduct throughout the Hunter Biden investigation has revealed his identity as Joseph Ziegler — a gay Democrat with more than a dozen years serving within the agency’s criminal investigative division.

Ziegler appeared for the first time publicly before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, alongside his IRS supervisor Gary Shapley, who also has blown the whistle on political influence surrounding prosecutorial decisions throughout the years-long federal probe into the president’s son.

He said he is a 13-year special agent within the IRS’ Criminal Investigation Division and described himself as a “gay Democrat married to a man.”

Ziegler is expected to testify that Hunter Biden “should have been charged with a tax felony, and not only the tax misdemeanor charge,” and that communications and text messages reviewed by investigators “may be a contradiction to what President Biden was saying about not being involved in Hunter’s oversea business dealings.”

He is expected to explain the “corrosion of ethical standards and the abuse of power that threaten our nation” that he has witnessed.

Ziegler is also expected to testify on several instances in which prosecutors “did not follow the ordinary process, slow-walked the investigation, and put in place unnecessary approvals and roadblocks from effectively and efficiently investigating the case,” including prosecutors blocking questioning and interviewing of Hunter Biden’s adult children.

Ziegler is also expected to ask Congress and the Biden administration to “consider a special counsel” for the Hunter Biden investigation and “all the related cases and spin-off investigations that have come forward from this investigation.”

He is expected to testify that Congress should consider “establishing an official channel for Federal investigators to pull the emergency cord and raise the issue of the appointment of a special counsel for consideration by your senior officials.”

Shapley, who has participated in multiple media interviews since the House Ways & Means Committee released his transcribed interview last month, is expected to testify that prosecutors “had decided to conceal some evidence from the investigators” that they found on Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Shapley is also expected to say that the Delaware’s U.S. Attorney’s Office “slow-walked steps like conducting interviews, serving document requests, and pursuing physical search warrants in California, Virginia and Delaware” until after the 2020 presidential election.

“The warrants were ready as early as April 2020, but the Delaware USAO pushed them off until after the November 2020 election and then never pursued them,” Shapley will say.

“After an electronic search warrant on Hunter Biden’s Apple iCloud account led us to WhatsApp messages with several CEFC China Energy executives where he claimed to be sitting and discussing business with his father Joe Biden, we sought permission to follow up on the information in the messages,” Shapley will say. “Prosecutors would not allow it.”

Shapley will again testify that a search warrant for the guest house at the Bidens’ Delaware residence was being planned, but, despite agreeing there was “probable cause,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf “cited the ‘optics’ of executing a search warrant at President Biden’s residence as the deciding factor for not allowing it to be completed.”

“This was the decision even though she admitted there would be evidence at that location that would further the investigation,” Shapley will say. “AUSA Wolf also told investigators they should not ask about President Biden during witness interviews even when the business communications of his son clearly referenced him.”