Category: Bureaucraps

Rogue DOJ Lawyers Rebel Against Trump, Still Fighting GOA in Court Over Biden’s Gun Control

Washington, D.C. – Rogue lawyers inside the Department of Justice (DOJ) are actively resisting the Trump administration’s pro-Second Amendment agenda, continuing to fight against Gun Owners of America (GOA) and Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) in federal court over Biden-era gun control policies.

A Policy Repealed—But Not Forgotten

The controversy centers on the Biden administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, a rule that allowed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to strip federal firearms licenses from dealers for minor paperwork errors. The policy was repealed in April, with Attorney General Pam Bondi declaring it had “unfairly targeted law-abiding gun owners.” ATF Acting Director Daniel Driscoll admitted in May that dealers were punished for “simple mistakes such as forgetting to put their license number on forms.”

Yet despite those public reversals, DOJ lawyers have refused to drop their defense of the old policy. According to court filings, they informed GOA that the government has “no plans to abandon its previous arguments” in the ongoing lawsuit.

Gun Owners Foundation Sounds the Alarm

Gun Owners Foundation highlighted the stakes in a statement on X, warning that without a permanent ruling in court, nothing prevents the policy from coming back.

“BREAKING – DOJ is trying to moot GOF’s & GOA’s lawsuit against the Biden ATF’s Zero Tolerance Policy. Without a permanent fix in court, the next President could EASILY re-instate this gun control. DOJ is ‘evading review’ & we will continue to fight!” — Gun Owners Foundation, via X

GOA: The Fight Isn’t Moot

 

GOA leaders say the case is about more than just one rule—it’s about stopping the ATF from using executive “policies” to bypass Congress.

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ATF says concealed carry ‘puts everyone involved at risk’
When will the ATF’s civil rights violations end?

by Lee Williams

The millions of law-abiding Americans who have chosen to carry a concealed firearm are putting “everyone involved at risk,” the ATF announced this week in a post on X.

“Take a look into our world. This is a scenario @ATFWashington frequently faces when combatting violent crime and maintaining public safety. Many people attempt to conceal firearms on their person or belongings which puts everyone involved at risk. #MakeDCSafeAgain #ATF,” the ATF posted.

As you can imagine, ATF’s message received hundreds of overwhelmingly negative responses including many that are not fit to reprint.

“Concealed carry is not the issue—you are. Millions of law-abiding citizens carry concealed every single day without incident. Concealed carry saves lives. Disarming people and vilifying them on social media doesn’t,” Ammoland News posted.

Noted Second Amendment scholar and attorney Mark W. Smith asked a prominent Justice Department civil rights attorney in a post on X to “speak with the Washington ATF field office about the Second Amendment and the Bruen decision. I suspect their social media person lacks the relevant knowledge.”

Aiden Johnston, director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America, tweeted “Try reading Heller, McDonald, Bruen, and the Second Amendment again, tyrants.” In his tweet, he added a picture of the Bruen decision.

The Firearms Policy Coalition tweeted simply: “Your existence puts everyone at risk. AMIRITE?”

“Times have changed. This isn’t 1934,” firearms trainer and author Ranjit Singh posted.

The ATF posted their tweet at 9:05 a.m., Thursday.

Twenty-seven hours and thirty-seven minutes later, the ATF “corrected” their post.

“EDIT-Take a look into our world. This is a scenario @ATF Washington frequently faces when combatting violent crime and maintaining public safety. Many CRIMINALS attempt to conceal firearms on their person or belongings which puts everyone involved at risk. #MakeDCSafeAgain,” the ATF posted.

Takeaways

Most gun owners will not buy ATF’s response, changing “Many people …” to “Many CRIMINALS …”

The reasons for this is simple: We all know too well that the ATF has never understood the massive difference between law-abiding gun owners and criminals.

To the ATF, everyone who owns a firearm is a criminal. This has become their modus operandi. They treat every single gun owner as a criminal.

If you need proof, look at the ATF’s recent history. Look at how they treated Patrick “Tate” Adamiak, Mark “Choppa” Manley, Russell Fincher or Brian Malinowski.

The ATF sent their SWAT teams to raid the homes of all four men, but not a single illegal item was found, even though Adamiak is serving a 20-year sentence for made-up crimes, and Malinowski was shot and killed in his home by ATF Agent Tyler Cowart.

That the ATF actually views concealed-carry as a crime is not a surprise. What is surprising is that no one has done anything about it, at least not yet.

It is definitely time for President Donald J. Trump to end the ATF.

DOJ Officially Publishes Proposed Rule on Firearm Rights Restoration

The Department of Justice has officially published its proposed rule re-establishing a process for those prohibited from possessing a firearm to regain their Second Amendment rights; a program that exists on paper but has been defunded by Congress for the past several decades.

The rule can be found here, and folks can comment on the proposal until mid-October. The DOJ estimates as many as 1 million people could apply for relief in the first year the rule is in place, at a cost of about $20 million. DOJ wants to offset that expense by charging a $20 application fee; a substantial savings compared to hiring an attorney and suing to have rights restored.

DOJ isn’t making a secret of the desire to cut down on the number of prohibited persons cases in the federal courts.

Since the Bruen decision, there have been many challenges to section 922(g)’s constitutionality under the Second Amendment, with a particularly large volume focusing on section 922(g)(1)’s prohibition on firearm possession by felons. Some of those challenges are declaratory judgment actions brought by felons who have not themselves violated section 922(g)(1) and who maintain that their prior convictions for non-violent offenses do not indicate that they pose an ongoing danger to others. Some of these plaintiffs have had success in challenging section 922(g)(1), as courts have found that the statute is unconstitutional as applied to them. At the same time, some courts have expressly recognized that section 925(c) would alleviate any such constitutional concerns, absent the proviso prohibiting ATF from carrying it out.

As recognized by courts, a functional section 925(c) process would render much of this litigation unnecessary and ensure that individuals meeting the relevant criteria may possess firearms under federal law in a manner consistent with the Second Amendment, while still protecting public safety.

Even more broadly, the Supreme Court has been clear that the rights of ordinary, law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms is foundational. This rulemaking reflects the Department’s commitment to the Second Amendment as an indispensable safeguard of security and liberty and a policy decision that the Department must find a way to both advance public safety and ensure that the rights of the people enshrined in the Constitution are not infringed.

Even before the rule was formally published today, the Department of Justice has been arguing that section 925(c) precludes at least some legal challenges to 922(g)(1), including a case heard by the Third Circuit on Monday.

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Cynical Publius

Dear Democrats:

Hey. How’ve you been?

It’s been a rough 25 years. It feels like ever since that hanging chad election in 2000, we have been at each others’ throats. Mostly this is because we’ve let the hyperbole and the wild conspiracy theories control us on both sides. Now I say that is 80% you and 20% us (because you control the media), and we’ve done our fair share with Birthers and Big Mikers, but the bottom line is that neither side trusts what the other side says.

That’s a shame.

I get why you may not trust us. But you are going to have to on what we are about to tell you. Sometimes objective truths need to be said, and we’re about to say them.

Buckle up Buttercups. What you are about to read is 100%, verifiably true:

1. In the 2016 presidential election, the Hillary Clinton campaign fabricated out of the ether a wholly fictional “dossier” alleging that Donald Trump was an agent of the Russian Federation.

2. This “dossier” was shared with intelligence and law enforcement agencies in the friendly Obama Administration, and treated as reliable intelligence even though those agencies knew it was highly suspect.

3. This wholly-fabricated “dossier” was then used as a legal basis for surveillance and wiretaps on members of the Trump Team before and after the election, and the communications equipment in the Trump Transition Team HQ in New York was in fact wiretapped by the Obama Administration.

4. After the election was over and Trump had won, the intelligence community determined that there was no material Russian interference in the election. Barack Obama directed them to reverse that finding.

5. This new, false finding, coupled with the ongoing concerns regarding the dossier became the bases for a concerted effort by the Obama Administration to prevent Donald Trump from ever taking office, even though the American people had just elected him. The ongoing Potemkin Villages of the dossier and the IC report were the bases for numerous unlawful warrants on the Trump team, the creation of interview traps where Trump members might incriminate themselves by making a false statement to the FBI, and generally encircling the entire Trump transition team via subterfuge and placing them in a public aura of an illegal enterprise and not a validly-elected administration.

6. With the Obama plan unable to prevent Trump from taking office, his loyalists who remained in the new Trump Administration did their very best to work towards removing Trump via scandal, with James Comey being the chief bagman via the bogus dossier.

7. While everything described above was happening, it was all being leaked to the media in an effort to discredit and cripple the Trump Administration. Often bogus information would be fed to a media source, the source would report it, and then the fact that the media reported the bogus information was used by Democrat operatives as a basis for legitimizing it, i.e. “the wrap up smear.”

8. All of the above became such a burden on the new Trump Administration that a special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, was appointed to cut through to the truth. Unfortunately Mueller was relying on the same fake dossier and bogus IC reports, so bogus data led to a bogus investigation that served no other purpose than to cripple the Trump Administration for two years.

9. To summarize points #1 through #8 above, the Obama/Hillary plan had three steps: (i) spread Russia lies so Trump loses the election; (ii) if Trump wins the election, spread Russia lies so he is never inaugurated; and (iii) if he is inaugurated, spread Russia lies to cripple his ability to govern.

10. After Trump lost in 2020 and he started indicating that he would run again, the Obama team, now with Biden installed in the White House as a puppet, knew they could not let him win as he would unravel what they had done, make it public, and potentially cause a bunch of them to end up in prison. So they coordinated lawfare attacks on Trump across the nation using Democrat operatives, thinking that Trump would end up in prison or his reputation would be in such tatters that he could never be elected. That backfired.

11. Trump got elected in 2024.

12. On July 18, 2025, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released a treasure trove of heretofore hidden information which, alongside already-public information about the fake dossier, shows that everything we say above is 100%, inarguably, reliably, factually, objectively accurate.

We repeat, everything written above is VERIFIABLY, OBJECTIVELY TRUE.

We know you love to say how much you “love democracy.”

Do you? Do you REALLY “love democracy”?

What is described above is the most undemocratic thing imaginable.

Forget any arguments about whether something was criminal or the statute of limitations or whatever other technicality distractor gets thrown out there, we have a very simple question for you:

HOW CAN YOU TOLERATE THIS?

Please consider this letter a peace offering. If you are willing to acknowledge what transpired and offer an apology, we might be able to begin to trust each just a teeny bit. We are all Americans, after all.

Sincerely,

The American Coalition of Non-Smoothbrained Conservatives

ATF Pistol Brace Rule Tossed After DOJ Drops Appeal

The Biden-era ATF rule restricting pistol braces was vacated Thursday after President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice agreed to drop its appeal in a federal lawsuit, delivering a major victory to gun-rights advocates, Breitbart reported.

The move marks a significant reversal in federal firearms regulation and concludes a lengthy legal battle over the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ 2023 rule that reclassified AR-pistols with braces as short-barreled rifles under the National Firearms Act.

“This afternoon, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) and the federal government agreed to a joint dismissal of the government’s appeal in our Mock v. Bondi lawsuit, a case that successfully challenged the Biden ATF’s ‘pistol brace’ ban and secured injunctive relief for gun owners while the case was being litigated to final judgment, which completely vacated the rule,” the Firearms Policy Coalition said in a statement.

The pistol brace rule was published in the Federal Register on Jan. 31, 2023, and was met with immediate legal opposition. It sought to bring AR-style pistols equipped with stabilizing braces under the purview of the National Firearms Act, subjecting owners to the same requirements as those purchasing fully automatic firearms. That included mandatory registration and additional federal scrutiny.

Gun-rights groups hailed the dismissal as a pivotal legal win. The company Daniel Defense, a prominent manufacturer of AR-15 rifles, also praised the outcome on social media, proclaiming the ban “terminated.”

Firearms Policy Coalition CEO Brandon Combs emphasized that the regulation contradicted Second Amendment protections.

“As we explained in the case filings, braced pistols are not short-barreled rifles. But either way, they are unquestionably arms protected under the Second Amendment,” he said. “We are thrilled to have secured this important win for liberty and excited to take on even more unconstitutional laws so you can exercise your rights when, where, and how you choose.”

The legal resolution comes as broader gun policy debates continue to unfold nationwide.

In June, the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to Maryland’s ban on assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines, letting a lower court’s decision stand.

That state law, enacted in 2013 following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut, specifically bans the AR-15 and similar firearms. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law, ruling that Maryland may constitutionally prohibit the sale and possession of such weapons. The Supreme Court’s decision not to take the case was seen as a significant victory for gun-control advocates.

Although the AR-15 is banned in Maryland and eight other states, it remains legal in 41 states. The rifle is estimated to be in circulation in numbers ranging from 20 million to 30 million units, making it the most popular gun in America.

 

The Bombshell Tulsi Gabbard Just Dropped on the Russian Collusion Hoax Should Terrify Every American

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Friday released an earth-shattering report detailing how federal agencies under the Obama administration manipulated intelligence findings to concoct and promote the Russiagate hoax.

This, along with earlier revelations about how intelligence agencies pushed the false narrative about President Donald Trump and Russia, shows just how deep the scheme ran.

In the lead-up to the 2016 election, multiple internal assessments concluded that the Russian government was not trying to influence the outcome of the race, according to a memo that Gabbard released. Multiple intelligence agencies came to the same conclusion.

On August 31, 2016, “a DHS official tells former DNI James Clapper that there was ‘no indication of a Russian threat to directly manipulate the actual vote count.’”

Nevertheless, the FBI allegedly asked the agencies to water down their assessments to avoid coming to solid conclusions. On September 2, the Bureau asked that a whistleblower’s report be “softened” and acknowledged that they were “uncomfortable” with implying “definitive information that Russia does intend to disrupt our elections.”

Later, an official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) insisted that the next Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) should affirm that the Kremlin “probably is not trying…to influence the elction by using cyber means.” Several IC officials concurred.

These assessments resulted in the September 12 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) which noted that “foreign adversaries do not have and will probably not obtain the capabilities to successfully execute widespread and undetected cyber attacks on election infrastructure.”

After Trump won the 2016 election, intelligence officials reaffirmed that Russian cyber operations had not influenced the outcome. However, the assessment was abruptly suppressed. In December, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s office started compiling a new Presidential Daily Briefing that also confirmed that Russia did not sway the results of the race.

However, Gabbard’s memo notes that the FBI “inexplicably withdraws from coordinating on the product” and expressed plans to draft a dissent. Later in the day, a senior PDB official kills the PDB ‘based on some new guidance.’” The original briefing, noting that Russia did not affect the election, was never published.

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One year after Chevron’s demise, gun regulation is unraveling

Just over a year ago, the Supreme Court struck down one of the main pillars of how modern federal regulation works — the Chevron doctrine.

This rule, whose name was taken from a 1980s Supreme Court case, had required federal judges to defer to federal agency interpretations of their own authority in cases where the underlying laws were vague.

The Loper Bright ruling that ended so-called “Chevron deference” last June was described as a “return to judicial balance” — a technical correction. But its consequences are now impossible to ignore.

This decision gas hit gun regulation especially hard, stripping the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms of one of its key tools for enforcing gun control. Between Loper Bright and the Supreme Court’s striking down of the ban on bump stocks in Garland v. Cargill, courts across the South have begun systematically overturning rules.

Before Loper Bright, the ATF claimed the authority to decide what counts as a firearm — including whether modifications or added parts fell under regulation. The agency used that flexibility to slow the spread of dangerous modifications.

After the demise of Chevron, however, courts are no longer required to defer to agency interpretations, meaning that agencies like the ATF can no longer count on winning if they “fill in the blanks” where Congress was vague. That means every new restriction must be clearly written into law, and older rules are now being challenged in court. The ATF is left watching from the sidelines as Loper Bright has become a standard reference in gun-related cases.

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Why Are Authorities STILL Hiding Social Media Profiles After High-Profile Crimes?

It happens every time there’s a high-profile crime. Law enforcement officials, in collusion with social media companies, surreptitiously disable the social media profiles of suspects, leaving Americans in the dark about their motives and political leanings.

The question is why. And who benefits?

The most recent example is Wess Roley, 20, who is accused of starting a fire in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on Sunday so he could ambush first responders. Two firefighters died in the attack, and a third was critically wounded. Roley was later found dead on Canfield Mountain. It’s not clear whether his gunshot wound was self-inflicted or the result of a firefight with police. The Kootenai Sheriff’s office, as per usual when these things happen, has not released a motive in the shooting.

Also, as per usual, his social media profiles have been scrubbed. The gatekeepers have decided that the public will not see his posts unless and until they decide to release them. Most likely, that won’t happen until they are forced to release the files as the result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. That could take months, or even years.

The standard arguments for removing content created by suspects in major crimes are that leaving the accounts intact would encourage copycat crimes or incite violence. I asked Grok, X’s AI, about this and learned that the platform has a “general practice of not publicly detailing individual content moderation actions unless legally compelled or highly publicized.” I asked the same questions of Meta AI and was given the runaround rather than a straight answer. (My previous requests for information on how these policies work went unanswered by Facebook and X representatives.)

Instead of transparency, what now happens in the wake of a major crime is that, after social media profiles are scrubbed, the internet immediately goes to work creating fake profiles that circulate and are viewed by thousands or sometimes millions of users, as happened after Matthew Crooks tried to murder Donald Trump. There are also multiple fake profiles for Roley floating around social media today.

How does that help anything?

Investigative journalist and self-described “FOIA Queen” Sarah Fields described what she discovered about Roley in an X post:

Roley’s social media activity, particularly on X, revealed disturbing content. He posted about his disdain for authority figures, including police and firefighters, and expressed radical views. His posts included threats and general hostility toward society, which raised concerns among those who followed him. Additionally, he was known to have made threats against his family, leading to a no-contact order being issued against him.

Fields told PJ Media. “I believe that the public has the right to know. I think we all have a right to know all of the factors that lead to someone committing these heinous acts.” She added that scrubbing the profiles “gives the FBI, media, etc., the opportunity to create a narrative about the situation. Which they are already doing.”

Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if something like this happened in the wake of a major crime event?

  1. Law enforcement identifies a suspect.
  2. Law enforcement tracks down the suspect’s social media profiles and requests that the platforms preserve the content and ensure that it cannot be manipulated.
  3. Law enforcement verifies which social media profiles belong to the suspect, allowing fake profiles to be immediately debunked.
  4. End of story. Instead, we have to play hide-and-seek and hope that we eventually uncover the truth by FOIA or by lawsuit.

And it’s not just social media. Remember how authorities fought tooth and nail to avoid releasing the manifesto of Nashville Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale? After a flurry of lawsuits from media organizations and public transparency advocates, we finally got to see what was in it.

One of the plaintiffs who sued the FBI was the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which reported:

On March 27, 2023, a transgender shooter entered The Covenant School in Nashville and tragically killed three nine-year-old students and three adults—an administrator, substitute teacher, and a custodian. Law enforcement officers bravely entered the building and killed the shooter.

Our client requested a copy of the manifesto from the FBI through a formal FOIA request, which was denied by the Biden-era FBI. WILL sued, and after FBI Director Kash Patel was confirmed, settlement negotiations began to resolve the matter. The FBI then released 120 pages of the manifesto and settled the case with WILL.

Whom did the delays benefit? It arguably benefited the trans lobby, which had an interest in covering up the story, and Joe Biden’s flailing re-election campaign. But the public? Not so much.

Now that Kash Patel is in charge of the FBI, it’s time to stop scrubbing the records and hiding the backgrounds of these sickos. Full transparency. Now.

Bondi Not Backing Down From Merging ATF With DEA

The proposal to merge the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives with the Drug Enforcement Agency has been almost universally panned by both Second Amendment organizations and gun control, groups, as well as the firearms industry. Attorney General Pam Bondi, though, gave her full support to the idea on Monday during an appearance before a House Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations subcommittee hearing.

While gun control groups worry that the move would hollow out the ATF, Second Amendment organizations like Gun Owners of America are concerned that the opposite would happen; a supercharged federal agency that would treat the firearms industry and gun owners with suspicion.

Bondi told lawmakers that “guns and drugs go together” and the merger would be a “great marriage between those two agencies.”

“They’re working hand-in-hand on task forces already. Now, they will be working under one umbrella, and it’s going to be great for our country,” Bondi said.

That comment is a prime example of why 2A groups are so alarmed by the proposal. Guns and drugs do not go together, in either recreational and regulatory functions. Lumping “guns and drugs” together makes guns seem taboo and shady, instead of the constitutionally protected items that are lawfully possessed and used by tens of millions of Americans that they are.

“Bureaucracy has been around for a very long time, and just because things have been done one way for decades and decades doesn’t mean that is the most efficient way to do them in the future,” she said.

The House and Senate have not released their fiscal 2026 spending bills that includes DOJ funding, although the House is expected to do so in early July.

The proposed language was part of a broader budget proposal from the Trump administration that would cut salaries and expenses funding for key law enforcement agencies and make overhaul changes to the department.

It’s not efficiency that has groups like the National Shooting Sports Foundation so worried about the effects of a merger. As NSSF senior vice president and general counsel Lawrence Keane recently told Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co, the DEA doesn’t have a great working relationship with the drug companies and pharmacies that they police.

After living through the Biden administration’s weaponization of the ATF, the gun industry was looking forward to resetting its relationship with the agency, and have had mostly high praise for Acting ATF Director Dan Driscoll and Deputy ATF Director Robert Cekada over the previous months as the pair have sought to treat gun makers and sellers as partners, not adversaries, in the fight against illegal gun trafficking and violent crime.

Bondi said the department is reorganizing the ATF. “We will not be having ATF agents go to the doors of gun owners in the middle of the night, asking them about their guns — period. They will be out on the streets with [the] DEA,” Bondi said.

I’m all in favor of not having ATF agents show up at the homes of gun owners, either in the dark of night or broad daylight, but it’s possible to curb those abuses without creating a superagency that could be used to target us the next time a hostile administration is in power.

“We would rather deal with an ATF that we understand and have a working relationship with on the regulatory side to achieve compliance than to deal with a behemoth that has no culture of regulating the industry or working with the industry,” said Lawrence Keane, senior vice president for government and public affairs and general counsel at the NSSF.

“We don’t think it’s in the best interest of gun owners,” he said.
The Firearms Policy Coalition said in a statement it “strongly opposes any plan to merge the ATF with any other federal law enforcement agency.”

Luis Valdes, national spokesman for the Gun Owners of America, said merging the AFT with another agency would increase the available budget while providing reduced oversight and accountability.

In its current form, he said, the ATF is under a microscope.

“Everything they do is watched, and it’s far easier to control their budget and make sure that they don’t grow in scope, budget and manpower to violate [Americans’] Second Amendment rights,” Valdes said.

I don’t think the DOJ has any nefarious intent with the proposed merger, but even good intentions can result in bad policies and practices. I hope that Bondi, other DOJ officials, and House and Senate members will listen to the chorus of voices in the 2A community who are urging them to drop this idea and stick with reforming the agency instead of creating a monster that could easily be used to attack the firearms industry and gun owners alike.

ATF very worried about merging with DEA

The ATF and the DEA were told just last month that the Justice Department plans to merge both agencies, which sources say could occur by October 1.

Officially, no one is talking about the merger, which would likely require congressional approval.

Unofficially, the ATF is going a bit nuts.

“ATF leadership is trying to fight this and convince everyone it’s not a good idea to merge the two organizations,” said John “JC” Clark of FFL Consultants.

Clark is former law enforcement and a former corporate compliance officer. The firm he cofounded, FFL Consultants, trains hundreds of gun dealers each month and thousands annually, virtually and in person. Few understand ATF’s innerworkings better than Clark and his team.

The proposed ATF/DEA merger is something few want to discuss. Both agencies seem difficult to combine, since each has different missions and rules. Both have an industry and a criminal enforcement side, although the DEA relies heavily on the pharmaceutical industry to regulate itself.

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In the 22 years I had a dealer FFL, I was inspected only twice, and both were during the first 10 years.

Department of Justice Plans to Cut Two-Thirds of ATF’s IOI Firearm Inspectors.

The Justice Department plans to slash the number of inspectors who monitor federally licensed gun dealers by two-thirds, sharply limiting the government’s already crimped capacity to identify businesses that sell guns to criminals, according to budget documents.

The move, part of the Trump administration’s effort to defang and downsize the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, comes as the department considers merging the A.T.F. and the Drug Enforcement Administration. It follows a rollback of Biden-era regulations aimed at stemming the spread of deadly homemade firearms, along with other gun control measures.

The department plans to eliminate 541 of the estimated 800 investigators responsible for determining whether federal dealers are following federal law and regulations intended to keep guns away from traffickers, straw purchasers, criminals and those found to have severe mental illness, according to a budget summary quietly circulated last week.

Department officials estimated the reductions would reduce “A.T.F.’s capacity to regulate the firearms and explosives industries by approximately 40 percent” in the fiscal year starting in November — even though the staff cuts represent two-thirds of the inspection work force. The cuts are needed to meet the White House demand that A.T.F. cut nearly a third from its budget of $1.6 billion.

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ATF to Return Legal Gun Parts, Leaving 16 Blue State AGs to Suffer a Collective Meltdown

The whole “bump stock” hooraw has been settled, for the time being, following the Trump administration’s settling of a lawsuit brought by the National Association for Gun Rights. These devices, more properly called “forced-reset triggers,” allow for firing a semi-automatic rifle more quickly, at the cost of some accuracy. In the interests of complete reporting, we should note that the action of one of these devices can be duplicated with such readily available things as rubber bands or belt loops. Following the settlement, the ATD has been ordered to return some 100,000 seized devices to their rightful owners.

To summarize, 100,000 pieces of legally owned private property are being returned to their owners.

So, of course, 16 blue state attorneys general are screeching and soiling themselves in terror. They are demanding that these people not be given back their property, and as is typical, they don’t even know what they’re talking about. Consider this, from Colorado’s AG, Phil Weiser:

“The law is clear: Machine guns, and devices that turn a semiautomatic weapon into a machine gun, are illegal,” Weiser said in a statement. “We’re suing to stop the ATF and the administration from making our communities more dangerous by distributing thousands of devices that turn firearms into weapons of war.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. These are not machine guns, and they cannot turn a semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun. With or without a forced-reset trigger, the weapon functions the same: One shot for each trigger pull. The device makes it easier to fire more quickly, but so can a thumb thrust through a belt loop.

Furthermore, machine guns are not illegal. The supply is restricted, they are very expensive, and one has to go through a defined process to own one, including a background check and payment of a “transfer tax.” But they are not illegal. Given money and patience, any law-abiding citizen can legally own one. Like this guy does.

Moving on: We’ve seen, time and again and in fact quite recently, that if you want to make your community less safe, the easiest way to do that is to elect Democrats to run that community. But the simple fact is that rifles, modified are not, are very rarely used in crime; you are about as likely to be killed by a falling vending machine as by a mass shooter with an AR-15.

And, finally, these are not weapons of war. Nitwits like AG Weiser, who know less than nothing about guns, can’t explain why an AR-15 is a weapon of war, but a functionally identical but less scary-looking Winchester 100 is not; and yet, the legislation they propose almost always prohibits the former while ignoring the latter.

It’s just stupid all the way down.

ATF Seeks to Criminalize ‘Pinned and Welded’ Muzzle Devices
Are we honestly dealing with rogue agents or a duplicitous administration?

ATF Seeks to Criminalize ‘Pinned and Welded' Muzzle Devices
Pinned and welded muzzle device. (Photo Provided by Firearms News)

If you’ve been keeping score on gun rights for as long as I have, chances are you were thrilled to show Kamala the door last November, but your expectations for a pro-Second Amendment Trump administration were tempered at best, and increasingly dismal the deeper you looked into it. If that’s how you felt, I’d say you have a realistic perspective. Believe me, I wish I could survive on words and promises, but years spent on this earth have taught me that the most reliable model for predicting future behavior is past behavior.

Another relevant life lesson is to avoid getting sidetracked by distractions, positive or negative, while maintaining focus on the bigger picture. That’s why it comes as no surprise that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is once again targeting gun owners with its “now it’s legal, now it’s not” routine, an all too familiar infringement dance for the firearms community.

We’ve been through this together with bump stocks, pistol braces, FRT triggers, and countless others, but it’s once more into the breach, dear friends, once more, this time concerning the long-since approved practice of pining and welding a muzzle device to a barrel to achieve a “permanent” legal length of at least sixteen inches. (Muzzle devices used in pin-and-weld custom gunsmithing include flash hiders, muzzle brakes, barrel extensions, fake suppressors, etc.) Plans for this new wave of attacks on our Constitutionally protected liberties were uncovered recently due to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the Second Amendment advocacy group, Gun Owners of America (GOA).

What GOA has uncovered may seem like yet another rogue agent working against the promises of United States Attorney General Pam Bondi and her big, beautiful boss, the President, but as a subordinate who can easily be fired, something the Trump administration is known for being quite good at, can we really call these actions rogue if the agent still has a job? Ahhh, therein lies the conflict. Suppose our anti-American, anti-Constitution agent still wears an ATF badge. In that case, this person is acting at the behest of superiors, who start to seem either apathetic or straight-up two-faced at some point.

Well, surprise, surprise, she does continue to report for duty at the ATF, and the treasonous little snake is no stranger when it comes to attacking gun rights or being a complete imbecile. So, don’t bother getting up, and please, give a not-so-warm welcome to Eve E. Eisenbice, the subversive reptile behind such hits as claiming a water bottle could be considered a firearm, classifying a cheek rest as a stock in order to charge a gun owner under the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA), and testifying in court that possession of pillows and potatoes can potentially count as suppressors. I know my sarcasm and abrasive disposition towards these traitors might make you wonder if I’m simply attributing ridiculous hyperbole to Eisenbice’s “career,” but I’m not. She did those things, and really is that stupid and dishonest.

So, how did her latest mastery of the perfidious arts come about? Great question! The ATF’s Firearms Technology Industry Services Branch (FTISB) was involved in a case concerning a Beretta pistol imported by Amchar Wholesale. The firearm in question used the standard blind pin method to pin and weld the muzzle device to the barrel. This involves installing the device, drilling a small hole in it that penetrates slightly into the barrel’s threads, inserting a steel pin to prevent the device from being unscrewed, and then welding over the pin to secure it in place.

What the ATF did in this case was place the pistol in a bench vise, attach a breaker bar, and apply an obscene amount of torque. What this accomplishes causes permanent damage that will require the firearm to be rebarreled to function once again as it was meant to. That is precisely what the agency did. They broke the gun in order to say that the muzzle device did not meet the permanent requirement.

Unfortunately, this is the best and safest method to permanently affix a muzzle device, as welding its circumference directly to the barrel can damage the heat treatment, raising safety concerns due to the likelihood of a catastrophic failure. And let’s be clear, any monkey with a breaker bar can destroy a firearm the way the ATF did. It’s simple physics. But the fact remains that a pinned and welded muzzle device cannot be removed without modification or destruction of the barrel’s integrity.

You may be reading this, wondering if we haven’t yet found the right loophole to avoid having a barrel slightly shorter than sixteen inches not count as a short-barreled rifle (SBR) under the NFA, requiring an onerous paperwork and approval process along with an illegal tax stamp on a Constitutional right to the tune of $200. The problem is that this pin-and-weld method isn’t a loophole. It is a lawfully approved and widely used practice, as confirmed by a 2006 letter from the ATF.

If the ATF continues to be allowed to run roughshod over law-abiding gun owners like they have ad nauseam, the results could be quite terrifying. Legally compliant rifles could become illegally possessed NFA items overnight, a charge that carries a hefty prison sentence. This is a horrifying manner of destroying the lives of Americans and their families at the treacherous impulse of dishonest government employees and agencies, and it’s all happening under the noses of senior officials like Pam Bondi, Daniel P. Driscoll, acting director of the ATF, and President Trump himself.

What’s worse is that the solution is so simple. It involves little more than a flick of the pen and less than a minute of conversation. What is that solution? Fire this loser. And I mean 100% out on her ass. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. A fortuitous tax stamp reference, perhaps? No benefits, no pension, just a straight march to the unemployment line and a good riddance salute. So why the crickets from our supposed Second Amendment crusading leaders? That can only be answered one way if they don’t take swift action. They are complicit, by order or by turning a blind eye. It doesn’t matter which one, because either scenario is a death knell for any more fake talk from the administration and the Department of Justice (DOJ).

My final thoughts on the subject concern the fact that this conversation should never have reached the ears of any American. First of all, the Second Amendment is neither long, convoluted, nor complex. It requires no interpretation from the literate. Second, for a barrel to meet the arbitrary sixteen-inch legal rifle length with a pinned and welded muzzle device, it typically needs to be between 13.9 inches and 14.5 inches. Is 2.1 inches or any such measurement really what we’re spending millions to litigate and destroying lives over? The NFA itself is a significant stain on the integrity of the American government and the oaths taken by politicians and judges to preserve and defend the Constitution. As long as it exists, alongside all other gun laws on the books, including the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA) and the Hughes Amendment in 1986, these charlatans will continue to soil the sacrifices of so many brave Americans who paid the ultimate price for our freedom and liberty.

ATF Announces Firearms Regulatory Reforms and Renewed Partnership with Firearms Industry

On May 21, 2025, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) announced a series of policy changes initiated under the Trump Administration. The agency prefaced this announcement by stating the following:

[ATF] is ushering in a new chapter—marked by transparency, accountability, and partnership with the firearms industry. This is not the same ATF of the last four years. We are fundamentally changing course with a renewed focus on rebuilding trust with federal firearms licensees (FFLs), gun owners, and the public by prioritizing public safety and collaboration.

This marks the first – and most substantial – effort in history to roll back restrictions that have caused significant uncertainty and hardship for Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs).

ATF outlined eight ongoing policy efforts and 10 implemented measures in its announcement:

Policy Items in Progress:

  • Releasing an updated Firearms Commerce Report: ATF will be updating its annual data on firearms manufacturing, import/export, and tax revenue collected from the administration of the National Firearms Act (NFA).
  • Converting ATF Form 20 (Authorization to Transport Firearms) into a streamlined, notice-based process: ATF Form 20 is a required filing for individuals who wish to transport certain NFA firearms (e.g., machine guns, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns) across state lines. Replacing the form with a notice-based process will remove the current weeks-long waiting process for approval.
  • Revising ATF Form 4473 to be shorter and more accessible for both purchasers and federal firearms licensees: ATF Form 4473 is used by FFLs to record background check results and purchaser information during a firearm transfer. During the previous Administration, the form was commonly reviewed by ATF for errors as a way to initiate revocation proceedings. By simplifying and shortening the form, it will likely reduce the number of unintentional errors.
  • Issuing an open letter outlining revisions to the Brady Chart: The Permanent Brady Permit Chart is a tool for FFLs to determine whether a state-issued firearms permit can be used as an alternative to conducting a National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) background check at the point of sale. These “Revisions” will likely indicate that more states may be exempt from the Brady Act requirements.
  • Standardizing inspection and enforcement practices for dealers nationwide: ATF field divisions have been found to apply inconsistent inspection standards across regional offices. Standardization aims to ensure fair, consistent, and predictable application of the law to all FFLs.
  • Issuing an open letter to lift the existing restriction on importing dual-use barrels: Firearm barrels useable in both importable and non-importable firearms were previously restricted from importation based upon what firearm they were previously affixed to. The new policy would interpret the law as written to look at the traits of the barrel itself, not what it may have previously been affixed to overseas.
  • Finalizing a ruling to permit electronic signatures on National Firearms Act forms: Most NFA forms require physical signatures on paper. Allowing e-signatures would modernize and streamline the application process.
  • Conducting a comprehensive review of existing regulations to repeal those deemed outdated or unnecessary: Certain ATF regulations may be outdated, duplicative, or lack statutory support. The ongoing review is intended to identify these provisions and recommend either their modification or their removal. Previously, this Administration has indicated it is planning to review “the regulatory framework surrounding stabilizing braces (Final Rule 2021R-08F) and the definition of ‘engaged in the business’ of firearms dealing (Final Rule 2022R-17F).”

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When a state goobermint, even one supposedly as ‘gun friendly’ as Tennessee, is the point of contact for NICS, (when the system was designed for individual FFLs to query) it means that no matter how much they may disclaim, they are recording the transactions for their own state police registry.

‘We’ve lost quite a bit’: Gun shops across the state lose revenue as TBI troubleshoots firearm background check system outage

GOODLETTSVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Tennessee’s Instant Check System was down for days, causing sales losses for gun store owners across the state.

The firearm purchase login page for Tennessee FlexCheck, which is the system used across the Volunteer State, displayed an error message reading, “We are currently unable to run background checks.  We are working quickly to resolve it. Please check your emails for more information and updates.”

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which helps oversee the system, told News 2 that the agency had been troubleshooting an outage. The TBI said that the outage was related to a “planned system change” from the agency’s vendor, which was outside of the organization’s control.

The vendor told the TBI they were working as quickly as possible to resolve the issue. It was tentatively restored around midnight Friday.

Phillip Arrington, who owns Goodlettsville Gun Shop and has been in the business for about 30 years, told News 2 the store had experienced about five or six outages so far this year — each lasting more than 24 hours — with other shorter outages throughout the year as well.

This outage lasted for about three days.

“It’s getting to a point where we can’t tell customers, ‘Yeah, we’ll get your background check! It’s an instant check!” Arrington told News 2. “It’s no longer an instant check because there is no pattern to when it’s going to be reliable.”

The TBI told News 2 that in 2024, TICS had been fully operational 99.46% of the time and is only closed on the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. The agency did not provide outage statistics for this year.

No firearms could be sold in the state of Tennessee due to the outage, Arrington said, nor could firearms be taken in on consignment or any pawned. Some customers have been unhappy and even angry as a result of the outage.

“We’ve lost quite a bit [of money], but nothing compared to what some of the bigger stores have lost,” Arrington added. “…We have nothing to tell our customers. It basically stops everything we’re doing. There’s no sense in advertising because we can’t sell anything.”

Additionally, the TBI confirmed that some agencies lost access to the National Crime Information Center as a result of the outage. Law enforcement agencies utilize the NCIC to input information about missing children as well as information about crimes and criminals — like apprehending fugitives.

We Were All ‘Domestic Violent Extremists’ According to the Biden Administration.

The COVID pandemic feels like a distant, bizarre dream now—but the remnants are still around if you look closely. A lone mask-wearing Karen at the grocery store… faded social distancing stickers no one bothered to peel off… reminders of just how absurd—and sometimes terrifying—that era really was. It’s almost laughable to recall some of the things that were forced on us. Other times, it’s downright chilling—as when Joe Biden tried to impose sweeping mask and vaccine mandates on the entire country.

At PJ Media, we pushed back hard against those mandates from the beginning. For that, we were likely branded “domestic violent extremists” by the Biden administration.

It’s true. Newly declassified intelligence documents reveal that the Biden administration categorized Americans who opposed COVID-19 mask and vaccine mandates as potential “Domestic Violent Extremists” (DVEs). This wasn’t mere rhetoric—the DVE designation grants federal agencies expanded surveillance and investigative powers against targeted individuals, according to intelligence records recently declassified and obtained by Public and Catherine Herridge Reports.

The report, which the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has declassified, claims that “anti government or anti authority violent extremists,” specifically militias, “characterize COVID-19 vaccination and mask mandates as evidence of government overreach.” A sweeping range of COVID narratives, the report states, “have resonated” with DVEs “motivated by QAnon.”

The FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) coauthored the December 13, 2021 intelligence product whose title reads, “DVEs and Foreign Analogues May React Violently to COVID-19 Mitigation Mandates.”

The report flags opposition to mandates as one of the so-called “prominent narratives” linked to violent extremism. Among the flagged beliefs: that COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe—particularly for children—that they’re tied to a government or global effort to strip away civil liberties and livelihoods, or that they’re part of a broader push to usher in a new political or social order.

I wrote articles including “Biden Can Shove His New Vaccine Mandate up His Donkey,” “The FDA Is on the Verge of Approving COVID Vaccines for Kids Under Six. Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Do It,” and “Screw the CDC — I Won’t Give My Child the COVID Vaccine.” At the time, we thought the biggest problem with publishing articles such as these at PJ Media was that they’d get demonetized. It turns out that the real issue was that the Biden administration probably flagged us as “Domestic Violent Extremists” as well. If you commented on articles like these and agreed with them, they may have flagged you, too.

By defending individual liberty and questioning government overreach during the pandemic, PJ Media and our readers apparently earned ourselves a spot on Biden’s domestic terrorist watchlist. The irony? We were right about the mandates all along—their ineffectiveness, their  unconstitutionality, and their use as tools of control rather than as public health measures.

This was a national security apparatus designed to target political opposition and further evidence that the United States was transitioning to a police state under Joe Biden. When questioning public health mandates gets you branded as a potential terrorist, we’ve crossed a line that should concern every American, regardless of his or her stance on COVID policies.

Yeah, until the next demoncrap administration is in office and the feckless bureaucraps change their tune…..again.

ATF Issues New Guidelines for FFL’s, Ending Biden’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ Policy

Though the end of the Biden administration’s “zero tolerance” approach to federal firearms licensees was announced a few weeks ago, it took some time for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to come up with a new national policy for compliance inspections of FFLs.

That policy was officially unveiled on Friday, with the agency declaring that the new guidelines for both FFLs and ATF agents will “promote fairness, consistency, and public safety.”

The policy replaces the 2021 Enhanced Regulatory Enforcement policy, also known as the “zero-tolerance” policy. It directs industry operations investigators to consider all circumstances of an inspection rather than applying automatic outcomes, ensuring ATF uses its regulatory authority fairly and effectively.

“This update is about getting it right and making sure we’re focused on public safety,” ATF Acting Director Daniel Driscoll said. “Under the previous policy, some licensees were being penalized for simple mistakes such as, forgetting to put their license number on forms.

This new guidance gives our investigators the discretion to tell the difference between an honest mistake and a real threat to public safety. Law-abiding dealers deserve a system that treats them fairly, not like suspects. They are our partners and the first line of defense in our efforts to combat firearms trafficking.”

I can’t imagine Driscoll’s comments coming out of the mouth of former ATF Director Steve Dettelbach, who was happy to serve as Biden’s attack dog on the industry. Biden himself declared the gun industry an “enemy” in his 2020 campaign, but as Driscoll says, the industry (including individual gun dealers) are an inherent part of combatting illegal gun sales and gun trafficking.

So what’s actually changed? The ATF points to several major revisions from the previous policy.

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