Category: Bureaucraps

Rep. Lauren Boebert Introduces Act to Require DOJ to Report All Social Media Company Payments

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) introduced the Exposing Lewd Outlays for Social Networking Companies (ELON) Act, which would require the Department of Justice (DOJ) to report the money sent to social media companies.

ELON Act would require the DOJ to submit to Congress all payments made to social media companies since January 1, 2015. She added that the bill would also require “a report from all agencies on federal dollars sent to big tech companies” and place a one-year hold on additional spending.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

Boebert’s bill follows recent revelations that the FBI was paying Twitter the administration costs of processing its requests and for other matters.

“Big Tech is in bed with the FBI and other agencies to the point where Congress can’t tell where one ends and the other begins,” Boebert said, speaking to Fox News. “The millions of dollars sent to  that we know of during an election year when they were at the same time censoring the Hunter Biden laptop from hell, is incredibly concerning.”

“We must expose the incestuous relationship between Big Tech and the federal government,” Boebert said. “My bill does exactly that.”

The bill already has several Republican co-sponsors, including ’s Anna Paulina Luna and Matt Gaetz, Arizona’s Paul Gosar, Troy Nehls from , Eric Burlison from Missouri, and Indiana’s Mary Miller.

Republican states sue Biden administration over new pistol brace rules

More than 20 Republican-led states, along with gun rights groups and a disabled Army veteran, on Thursday sued the Biden administration over a new rule restricting sales of gun accessories known as pistol braces.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in North Dakota, the states said that the rule finalized earlier this year by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) was “arbitrary and capricious” and violated the right to bear arms under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.

Pistol braces were first marketed in 2012 as a way of attaching a pistol to the shooter’s forearm, stabilizing it and making it easier to use for disabled people. However, many users found that the braces could also be placed against the shoulder, like the stock on a rifle.

The new rule, finalized on Jan. 31, classifies guns with braces that are designed to allow shooting from the shoulder as short-barrel rifles. Such rifles are subject to special registration, longer waiting periods for purchase, and higher taxes because they are potentially more dangerous than handguns.

The agency, in announcing the rule, said it did not apply to braces “objectively designed and intended … for use by individuals with disabilities.”

The states said in their lawsuit, however, that the rule in practice could affect anyone who uses a brace.

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Fauci: now he tells us.

What if I told you that Anthony Fauci knew all along that the COVID vaccine could not possibly prevent either infection with or transmission of COVID?

Not surprised? Neither am I.

Now that is a bit of a surprise and exactly the opposite of what he told everybody during the push to get everybody vaccinated.

Fauci lied, and now he is admitting it. In writing. In a peer-reviewed journal.

To be clear, Fauci is not claiming that the vaccines were utterly worthless. He still maintains that in certain specific cases–atypical, but the ones that generally kill you–the vaccines serve as a sort of pre-treatment. Not a great one, but a somewhat effective one. But he flat out admits that the claims about the vaccine possibly preventing infection and transmission are simply bogus and always were.

No, I am not exaggerating. He even admits that flu vaccines would never meet the standard to pass muster for use if they were for any other virus. Fascinating. And hardly how they are advertised.

Here’s the abstract of the piece published in Cell, a highly prestigious journal.

Viruses that replicate in the human respiratory mucosa without infecting systemically, including influenza A, SARS-CoV-2, endemic coronaviruses, RSV, and many other “common cold” viruses, cause significant mortality and morbidity and are important public health concerns.

Because these viruses generally do not elicit complete and durable protective immunity by themselves, they have not to date been effectively controlled by licensed or experimental vaccines.

In this review, we examine challenges that have impeded development of effective mucosal respiratory vaccines, emphasizing that all of these viruses replicate extremely rapidly in the surface epithelium and are quickly transmitted to other hosts, within a narrow window of time before adaptive immune responses are fully marshaled.

We discuss possible approaches to developing next-generation vaccines against these viruses, in consideration of several variables such as vaccine antigen configuration, dose and adjuventation, route and timing of vaccination, vaccine boosting, adjunctive therapies, and options for public health vaccination polices.

We haven’t gotten to the (not so) good part yet, but the bolded sentences tell you why these vaccines don’t work as advertised: the vaccines are delivered intramuscularly (you get a shot), which is intended to stimulate a systemic immunological response. You develop antibodies that circulate in the bloodstream.

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Congress is set to expose what may be the largest censorship system in U.S. history.

This coming week a new House select subcommittee will hold its first hearing on the FBI and the possible “weaponization” of government agencies. A variety of such controversies have contributed to plunging public trust in government and the FBI in particular.

The role of the FBI in prior scandals will remain a point of heated debate in Congress. However, members of both parties should be able to agree on the need to investigate one of the most serious allegations: Censorship by surrogate.

Many of the allegations of FBI bias are worthy of investigation. Some of those allegations are problems of personnel who can be removed. But a far more menacing problem has emerged in recent months with the release of information from Twitter.

The “Twitter files” revealed an FBI operation to monitor and censor social media content — an effort so overwhelming and intrusive that Twitter staff at one point complained internally that “they are probing & pushing everywhere.” The reports have indicated that dozens of FBI employees worked on the identification and removal of material on a wide range of subjects and that Twitter largely carried out their requests.

Nor was it just the FBI, apparently. Emails reveal FBI figures like a San Francisco assistant special agent in charge asking Twitter executives to “invite an OGA” (or “Other Government Organization”) to an upcoming meeting. A week later, Stacia Cardille, a senior Twitter legal executive, indicated the OGA was the CIA, an agency under strict limits regarding domestic activities.

Twitter’s own ranks included dozens of ex-FBI agents and executives, including James Baker, who featured greatly in prior FBI instances of alleged bias.

The Twitter files also show various FBI offices monitoring social media and flagging “misleading” information on various subjects.

The dozens of disclosed emails are only a fraction of Twitter’s files and do not include still-undisclosed but apparent government coordination with Facebook and other social media companies. Much of that work apparently was done through the multi-agency Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), which operated secretly it seems to censor citizens.

Ironically, during the outcry over establishing a Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security, Biden administration officials had to have known they already were employing an extensive censorship system. When the administration finally relented and disbanded the disinformation board, that censorship work appears to have continued unimpeded through the FITF and agency censors.

According to reports, one email in August 2022 sent “long lists of newspapers, tweets or YouTube videos” deemed to be voicing “anti-Ukraine narratives.” Even satirical and comedy sites reportedly were pegged by the social media police.

What is most striking is that the FBI was not responding to false claims about its operations. Instead, these censorship demands were the result of policing “misinformation” and “disinformation” on subjects ranging from political corruption to elections.

Some apologists continue to defend this process, saying the FBI was only objecting to disinformation the way that citizens did on Twitter. That is not true; the government reportedly used back channels and regular meetings to flag unacceptable statements. Indeed, even if it were true, many things are more dangerous when done by government. When your neighbor attacks your opinion, it is just the crank next door. But when it is your government on the attack, it is far more threatening and stigmatizing.

Even if this operation did not cross the constitutional line, there are ample reasons why a democracy does not want the government in the business of targeting those whom it views as misleading or misinforming the public. While the FBI has every reason to pursue criminal fraud, this operation appears to have targeted speech it deemed harmful to political or social discourse.

For years, many politicians and pundits have dismissed free-speech concerns by noting that the First Amendment only applies to the government. So long as corporations do the censoring, they contend, it is not a free-speech problem.

This obviously is wrong on several fronts.

The First Amendment is not the exclusive measure of free speech. Corporate censorship of political commentaries or news stories are denials of free speech that harm our democratic system.

Second, this is a First Amendment violation. The Twitter files have substantiated long-standing concerns over “censorship by surrogate” or proxy. As with other amendments like the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches or seizures, the government cannot use private agents to do indirectly what it cannot do directly. Just as a police officer cannot direct a security guard to break into an apartment and conduct a search, the FBI cannot use Twitter to censor Americans.

To be fair, there were occasions when Twitter reportedly balked at government demands for raw political censorship — in one case, a demand by Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Cal.) led a frustrated Twitter censor to object that “We don’t do this.”

Nevertheless, Twitter’s management certainly now seems to admit that the company worked as an agent of the FBI and carried out most demands for social media suspensions, removals or blocks of individuals. At the same time, the FBI pushed for closer collaboration on content removal.

We do not know the full extent of this operation or its impact, but Congress should want to know if the FBI and other agencies created a system of censorship-by-surrogate. The only reason we now have Twitter’s previously secret communications is because an eccentric billionaire bought the company.

The broader effort with other companies could well constitute the largest censorship program ever run by the government — a system designed to escape both public and judicial scrutiny. It also shows how it is no longer necessary to have a “Ministry of Information” to maintain a state media: You can have an effective state media by consent rather than by coercion or control.

The FBI’s response to disclosure of these long-secret communications is particularly chilling. When some critics denounced it as raw censorship, the FBI accused them of being “conspiracy theorists … feeding the American public misinformation.” So, criticism of the FBI’s work to censor citizens resulted in an official statement denouncing those citizens.

None of these denials or attacks succeed, however. The public understands the threat and strongly supports an investigation into the FBI’s role in censoring social media. Despite the push for censorship by some politicians and pundits, most Americans still want free-speech protections. It is in our DNA.

This country was founded on deep commitments to free speech and limited government — and that constitutional tradition is no conspiracy theory.

ATFs pistol brace rule used to challenge CT ban on “assault weapons”

The clock is ticking on the ATF’s mandate for owners of brace-equipped pistols to register their firearms as short-barreled rifles under the National Firearms Act, but while that edict is facing a legal challenge of its own it’s also spurred the Second Amendment Foundation and the Connecticut Citizens Defense League to file for an emergency restraining order and an injunction blocking enforcement of the state’s ban on so-called assault weapons.

As the CCDL explains:

ATF’s new rule impacts tens of thousands of Connecticut residents who are otherwise law-abiding, but who have now found themselves facing possible felony prosecution through no fault of their own. While residents of other states are able to register these firearms with the ATF, or change the short barrels for longer ones to make them  legal, the ATF has stated that it will not permit any such registrations from Connecticut residents due to  Connecticut’s “assault weapon” ban.

Nor will changing out the barrels avoid redesignation as banned “assault  weapons” under Connecticut law. As such, many thousands of Connecticut residents who were previously authorized by the Connecticut State Police’s Special Licensing and Firearms Unit to purchase these firearms, find  themselves without the legal options had by residents of most other states.

The “assault weapons” ban was first challenged by CCDL, SAF, and several individual gun owners last fall, but the ATF’s new rule has given the case new urgency given the effect that it could have on thousands of law-abiding gun owners across the state.

“These three plaintiffs, along with tens of thousands of other good, law-abiding Connecticut residents, suddenly  find themselves facing possible felony charges, all of which could have disastrous implications for them, their  families, their careers, and their standing in the community.

Until Tuesday, the firearms at issue were entirely lawful,  owned by people who may now face detrimental personal damage due to state laws that are not only unclear and  virtually impossible to comply with, but also in blatant and direct violation of the Connecticut and U.S.  Constitutions,” says Holly Sullivan, President of the CCDL.

“As such, we are imploring the federal court to step in to  protect these otherwise lawful gunowners from being arrested under the new application of Connecticut’s  egregious ban on so-called ‘assault weapons’ which are simply commonly owned modern sporting arms.”

The ATF rule isn’t the only threat that’s looming for those who lawfully purchased modern sporting rifles and other arms designated as “assault weapons” by the state.

As we’ve been reporting, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont had been calling on lawmakers to revise the existing ban and remove the grandfather clause that allowed existing owners to maintain possession of their guns when the state’s ban first took effect back in 1993.

That grandfather clause was kept in place when the state modified the ban, first in 2001 and again in 2013, but Lamont was adamant that the clause should be removed… at least until a couple of weeks ago, when he tweaked his proposal to instead add a number of new firearms to the current list of prohibited arms and to demand owners of “assault weapons” manufactured before 1994 register them with the state.

Lamont also wants to make possession of a “large capacity” magazine a felony offense under Connecticut law, and given the Democratic majorities in Hartford gun owners are facing an uphill fight defending their Second Amendment rights in the state legislature. The federal court system will hopefully provide more protection for these gun owners than their own lawmakers, who are intent on nullifying the right to keep and bear arms as much as possible. Even with the request for an emergency hearing, it could be a few weeks before a federal judge hears the pleas of Connecticut gun owners, but we’ll keep our eyes on this case and let you know of any updates when they happen.

Analysis: How Will SCOTUS Handle the Domestic Violence Restraining Order Gun Ban?

A federal appeals court has found disarming people under domestic violence restraining orders unconstitutional, setting up a showdown at the Supreme Court. How will the justices react?
A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit unanimously vacated a Texas man’s conviction for possessing a gun while under a restraining order. They applied the standard the High Court handed down in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen and determined there was no historical analogue that matched the modern law’s purpose or methods.
“The Government fails to demonstrate that § 922(g)(8) ‘s restriction of the Second Amendment right fits within our Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The Government’s proffered analogues falter under one or both of the metrics the Supreme Court articulated in Bruen as the baseline for measuring ‘relevantly similar’ analogues: ‘how and why the regulations burden a law-abiding citizen’s right to armed self-defense,’” Judge Cory T. Wilson wrote for the panel in United States v. Rahimi. “As a result, § 922(g)(8) falls outside the class of firearm regulations countenanced by the Second Amendment.”
The ruling sets up a situation where a federal gun law is no longer in effect for Texas and Louisiana. The Department of Justice is unlikely to let that stand for long without asking the Supreme Court to intervene. And the Court tends to take the government’s appeals over everyone else.
I can see only two mitigating factors that might slow the case’s assent. The first is that there is still one more level of review available in the Fifth Circuit, specifically an en banc hearing in front of the entire court. The second is that a circuit split now exists on this issue, but the Fifth Circuit is the only appeals court to have heard a case on this issue in the wake of the Bruen decision.

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White House Misled Public About FBI Search of Penn Biden Center.

The ongoing scandal involving Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents continues to get worse. Despite repeated claims of cooperation and transparency, sources close to the investigation reveal that the FBI conducted a search of the Penn Biden Center back in November.

This is a detail that neither the White House nor the Department of Justice had revealed before.

“The FBI searched the Penn Biden Center offices in mid-November, according to two sources familiar with the investigation, after lawyers for President Biden had found about 10 documents marked classified there on Nov. 2. The material originated from Mr. Biden’s time as vice president,” CBS News reports. “It is not clear whether FBI personnel found any additional classified or presidential material during the mid-November sweep.”

“The FBI search of the think tank was not previously disclosed by the White House, Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys, or the Department of Justice,” the report notes. “A Jan. 14 statement from the president’s personal attorney Bob Bauer referred to the government conducting ‘its inquiry, including taking possession of any documents and reviewing any surrounding material for further review and context.’”

The White House previously misled the public when White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that the search of Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home had been completed when the search was still underway.

“We are being fully cooperative with the Department of Justice throughout this process, as part of the President’s lawyers look through the places where documents could have been stored and the Counsel’s Office released, as you said, a statement explaining that,” Jean-Pierre said during the January 12 press briefing. “But that search was completed last night. And now, this is in the hands of the Justice Department.”

But, in reality, the search continued the following day, during which more documents were found.

So why not reveal the FBI search of the Penn Biden Center? It’s a good question, just like the question of why it took more than two months for the public even to learn that classified documents had been found there in the first place. The obvious answer to both of these questions is that the White House was not expecting this situation to be made public at all. It doesn’t take a genius to deduce that the leak of the story blindsided the White House, that they’ve been struggling to contain it ever since, and that they’ve been doing everything possible to cover up whatever they can.

Just me, but I’d think cutting off funding if the DOJ didn’t reverse themselves would be quicker.

SHORT Act introduced to counter ATF pistol brace ban

Short-barrel rifles and shotguns don’t really serve any function on the list of NFA devices. It’s far too easy to circumvent the law–sawed-off shotguns, anyone?–and it does nothing but drive the cost up for shorter weapons that might benefit smaller shooters or those looking for a better home-defense firearm.

That’s where the recently introduced SHORT Act comes into play.

Introduced on Tuesday, the bill seeks to remove these shorter long guns from the NFA registry.

WASHINGTON – Sens. John Kennedy (R-La.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) today introduced the Stop Harassing Owners of Rifles Today (SHORT) Act to undo the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) federal registry for firearms with stabilizing braces by clarifying that short-barreled rifles cannot be further regulated.

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) introduced the bill in the House of Representatives.

“The Biden administration is going to keep looking for ways to penalize law-abiding gunowners unless Congress makes their rights clear. A brace that countless disabled Americans use to exercise their Second Amendment rights should not be regulated by unelected anti-gun bureaucrats, and this bill would force the Biden ATF to stop devising new restrictions for legal firearms,” said Kennedy.

“Finalization of this pistol brace rule represents the worst fears of gun owners across the country. The SHORT Act will protect Americans from the anti-2nd Amendment gun registry that the ATF is abusing the National Firearms Act to create. This Congress, I challenge my colleagues in both chambers to make protecting Americans’ 2nd Amendment Rights a priority and sign onto this legislation that will stop the ATF’s pistol brace rule in its tracks,” said Marshall.

“Congress cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the Biden Administration’s weaponization of the NFA and ongoing assault on Americans’ Second Amendment freedoms. In the face of President Biden’s unconstitutional tactics and backdoor gun control, the SHORT Act provides a permanent solution to combat the unlawful Pistol Brace Rule and protect Americans’ constitutional right to keep and bear arms. I’m proud to reintroduce this legislation with Senator Marshall and lead the fight on behalf of all law-abiding gun owners across our great nation against the Biden Administration’s latest gun-grabbing measure,” said Clyde.

Kennedy is also introducing a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to prevent the Biden administration’s ATF from enforcing a new pistol brace rule that would turn law-abiding gun owners into felons.

Under this rule, gun owners could face up to 10 years in jail and thousands of dollars in fines if they fail to register pistols with stabilizing braces with the ATF. If gun owners do not register their firearms, they would have to destroy the firearm, surrender their firearm to the ATF, or remove the brace in such a way that it cannot be reattached.

“The Stop Harassing Owners of Rifles Today (SHORT) Act will repeal elements of the archaic National Firearms Act, which the Biden ATF is using to justify their pistol ban and “amnesty registration” plan—a policy change that affects millions of law-abiding gun owners and does nothing to curb rising crime. GOA is proud to support the Stop Harassing Owners of Rifles Act, which will protect millions of gun owners, halt these anti-gun infringements, and restore liberty,” said Gun Owners of America’s Director of Federal Affairs Aidan Johnston.

“The NRA is proud to stand with Sen. Marshall and support the Stop Harassing Owners of Rifles Today (SHORT) Act. Given the ATF’s most recent assault on the Second Amendment, this important legislation will protect the right of law-abiding Americans to choose the firearm that best suits their needs while eliminating an outdated and onerous taxing and registration scheme. If passed, American gun owners will no longer have to fear the unconstitutional and arbitrary reinterpretations of the law by unelected, anti-gun bureaucrats,” said Jason Ouimet, Executive Director for NRA Institute for Federal Affairs.

Sens. John Boozman (R-Ark.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Mike Risch (R-Idaho), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), John Thune (R-S.D.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) are also original cosponsors of this bill.

Basically, the SHORT Act removes the ability for the ATF to regulate pistol braces because these would no longer be NFA items in the first place.

After all, even under the ATF’s ruling, you can still put a pistol brace on a full-size AR-15 or similar rifle. It’s just about the fact that they decided putting one on a pistol made it a short-barreled rifle.

So, the SHORT Act removes that for good.

Gun Owners of America wasted no time in supporting this measure, either.

Aidan Johnston, GOA’s Director of Federal Affairs said in a statement, “The Stop Harassing Owners of Rifles Today (SHORT) Act will repeal elements of the archaic National Firearms Act, which the Biden ATF is using to justify their pistol ban and ‘amnesty registration’ plan — a policy change that affects millions of law-abiding gun owners and does nothing to curb rising crime. GOA is proud to support the SHORT Act, which will protect millions of gun owners, halt these anti-gun infringements, and restore liberty. GOA is grateful to Rep. Clyde and Senator Marshall for leading this No Compromise legislation to restore long-lost Second Amendment rights.”

Look, I get that some people will freak out over the idea of short-barrel rifles and shotguns being sold over the counter, but we have to remember that this law actually does nothing. The vast majority of criminals who wants a firearm that’s shorter than the law allows will just make one. Shotguns are inexpensive and easy to modify, as just one example.

But on the same token, as I mentioned earlier, they’re incredibly useful for anyone who is looking for something a little easier to wield inside the confines of their home. You can do it with a full-size rifle, but you shouldn’t have to.

So the SHORT Act is a good thing.

Realistically, though, don’t get your hopes up. While Republicans control the House, they don’t control either the Senate or the White House. As a result, it’s highly unlikely we’ll see this go much of anywhere.

FDA Sued for Withholding Safety Data on COVID Shots

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is being sued in federal court for withholding data on the safety analysis of Covid shots.

The new lawsuit was filed in a Washington D.C. federal court by the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense (CHD).

CHD contends that the FDA’s actions violate federal law.

“Numerous scientists, physicians, public health experts, and other concerned individuals have questioned the safety of COVID-19 injections, and many thousands of post-injection adverse events have been reported to the federal government,” the lawsuit argues.

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FPC Files New Lawsuit Challenging ATF Pistol Brace Rulemaking

DALLAS, TX (January 31, 2023) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the filing of litigation challenging the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Final Rulemaking on firearms equipped with stabilizing or pistol braces. The Petition in FPC’s Mock v. Garland, along with other case documents, can be viewed at FPCLaw.org.

“This lawsuit challenges, inter alia, the Factoring Criteria for Firearms with Attached Stabilizing Braces, promulgated by the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to regulate ‘braced pistols’ as ‘short-barreled rifles.’ In so doing, for the reasons set forth herein, the Agencies violate the Administrative Procedure Act and the United States Constitution,” the Petition states.

The Petition continues: “Even if the Final Rule does not violate the APA and is allowed to stand, the Agencies’ National Firearms Act (“NFA”), laws, regulations, policies, and enforcement practices with respect to ‘braced pistols’ that the Agencies’ have classified as “short-barreled rifles” violate the Second Amendment. Plaintiffs thus further seek declaratory and injunctive relief to secure their constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms in the absence of vacatur of the Final Rule.”

“Federal agencies do not have the power to write new laws, and yet the ATF continues to attempt to expand its authority using the federal rulemaking process,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPC’s Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation. “This ‘rule’ is, in effect, a federal law that will transform millions of peaceable people into felons overnight simply for owning a firearm that has been lawful to own for decades. We won’t stand idly by while the ATF tramples the rights of millions of peaceable individuals.”

“At its most basic level, this rulemaking represents a massive and unlawful bait-and-switch on peaceable gun owners,” said FPC Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack. “For nearly a decade the ATF’s position on pistol braces has been relied on by millions of gun owners.  Now, with the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen, those same people are told they are felons unless and until they submit themselves to invasive regulation, registration, dispossession of their property, or worse.”

 

Dangerous and Unusual: How an Expanding National Firearms Act Will Spell Its Own Demise

Abstract

The National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) is the strictest federal gun control law currently in effect. It criminalizes the mere possession and transfer of specifically enumerated categories of firearms deemed to be especially dangerous and unusual, such as machine guns and silencers.

Commensurate with this viewpoint, the NFA imposes on violators harsh felony penalties, from lengthy prison sentences to six-figure fines. However, the NFA permits lawful civilian ownership of these firearms under a taxation and registration scheme administered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

In its 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller decision, the United States Supreme Court clarified what “arms” the Second Amendment protects—those that are “in common use” and those “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” but not those that are “dangerous and unusual.”

Under this formulation, NFA restrictions received an incidental presumption of constitutionality. That was then, this is now.

In the intervening years since Heller, NFA firearms have exploded in popularity, amounting to millions of lawfully registered examples in civilian hands. As the NFA registry grows year after year, the federal government enjoys ever-increasing tax revenues. Consequently, registry expansion offers a lucrative and effective means of implementing gun control measures—ATF reclassification of existing non-NFA firearms and accessories as falling under the NFA can compel registrations or preclude ownership of controversial items altogether.

This Comment argues that the NFA’s modern expansionary trend is on a collision course with the Heller mandate. After Heller, the only constitutional NFA registry is a small one, reserved for the truly dangerous and unusual. By focusing on modern developments in three NFA categories—short-barreled rifles, silencers, and machine guns—this Comment contends that some NFA prohibitions are already constitutionally unsound and absent judicial intervention, Congress should remove them from the NFA altogether.

Dangerous and Unusual_ How an Expanding National Firearms Act Wil

Well, to put it bluntly,  all federal and the vast majority of state gun laws are unconstitutional not just under the Heller & McDonald decisions, but also simply don’t meet the Bruen test. The game is actually over, but it’s like a snake with its head chopped off. The opposing side is going to flop around awhile until it gets the message that it’s dead.

Why the ATF’s Pistol Brace Ban Is Unconstitutional
The nearly 90-year-old federal law restricting short-barreled rifles has been superseded by time and technology. It’s past time the Supreme Court took notice.

The recent rule change regulating stabilizer braces for AR-15 pistols by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) is unconstitutional. But not for the reasons you may think or the ones that have been widely argued. The National Firearms Act (NFA), which the ATF claims allows for the rule, has been overcome by events and no longer applies to these weapons.

First, some background.

A stabilizing brace is an accessory for AR-15 pistols that was ostensibly designed to help fire a short-barreled weapon more accurately. The controversy arose due to the NFA, which bans rifles with a barrel shorter than 16 inches. These are known collectively as short-barreled rifles (SBR). AR-15-style pistols definitely have barrels shorter than 16 inches, but since they do not have a stock allowing them to be fired from the shoulder, they are classified as pistols.

No problem so far. But the stabilizing braces began to obscure this distinction. At first they simply extended a short distance from the rear of the pistol and had straps that wrapped around the forearm of the shooter, thus stabilizing the weapon. But they eventually extended further to become essentially a collapsible stock which when extended made the AR-15 pistol for all intents and purposes an SBR.

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BLUF
As for all the chefs out there, be warned. Once the CPSC, or those who would use the CPSC for their political agenda, get the idea to ban a useful product, it can be hard to get them to stop.

If the CPSC Would Ban Gas Stoves, Imagine How it Would Treat Guns

The Consumer Product Safety Commission, the federal agency dedicated to saving the world from lawn darts and toy magnets, has been in the headlines recently. This time the busybodies at the CPSC are out to protect Americans from well-prepared meals, by banning the ubiquitous gas stove.

On January 9, Bloomberg News reported that the CPSC “says a ban on gas stoves is on the table amid rising concern about harmful indoor air pollutants emitted by the appliances.” Speaking with the outlet, CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. stated, “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”

Public backlash to the agency’s effort was swift and harsh. Further, more than one commentator noted how the proposed ban appeared to be a way to advance a climate change agenda under the guise of consumer protection.

The response prompted the CPSC to deny any plans to ban gas stoves, with CPSC Chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric claiming, “I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so.”

With timing that should raise some eyebrows, three days after the initial Bloomberg article, the Washington Post ran an opinion piece from former CPSC Chair Ann Brown arguing that the agency should have the authority to regulate firearms. Titled “Guns are consumer products. They should be regulated as such,” the article argued for a CPSC-led gun control campaign, along with the enactment of waiting periods and bans on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms.

So, three days after the CPSC made headlines for a move that led to credible allegations of using consumer protection as a front to advance a broader political agenda, a former chair of the commission essentially signaled her desire for the agency to operate in just such a manner.

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Charles McGonigal, Indicted Ex-FBI Head, Helped Trigger ‘Russiagate’ Probe

The former FBI official busted Monday for allegedly taking illegal foreign payments played a key role in the bureau’s controversial “Russiagate” probe of former President Donald Trump — and a “defensive briefing” of ex-rival Hillary Clinton’s lawyers.

Charles “Charlie” McGonigal, 54, was among the first FBI officials to learn that Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat that Russia had “political dirt” on Clinton.

The former FBI official busted Monday for allegedly taking illegal foreign payments played a key role in the bureau’s controversial “Russiagate” probe of former President Donald Trump — and a “defensive briefing” of ex-rival Hillary Clinton’s lawyers.

Charles “Charlie” McGonigal, 54, was among the first FBI officials to learn that Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat that Russia had “political dirt” on Clinton.

FBI Deputy Assistant Director Jonathan Moffa told Senate Judiciary Committee staffers in 2020 that he got a July 2016 email from McGonigal which “contained essentially that reporting, which then served as the basis for the opening of the case.”

The FBI investigation, dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane,” led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller and a 22-month, $32 million probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and potential ties to associates of Trump, now 76.

Shortly before Mueller was appointed, McGonigal also sent a message to an FBI colleague that discussed how agents were interviewing another Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page.

“Our Team is currently talking to CP re Russia,” McGonigal wrote on March 16, 2017, according to Justice Department records released by Senate Republicans.

SHOT Show: FBI NICS Update

SHOT Show: FBI NICS Update

At SHOT Show University, the FBI provided an update on the Nation Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). What they shared was staggering and sure to make the anti-gunners throw up their hands in frustration.

For those unfamiliar with NICS, it is a system used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to conduct background checks on individuals who want to purchase firearms from a licensed firearms dealer in the United States.

The NICS system was created in response to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993, which required background checks for all firearms sales made through licensed dealers. The NICS check is done by a firearms dealer when a customer wants to purchase a firearm. The dealer will contact the FBI or a state point of contact through a toll-free telephone number or an online system and provide the customer’s information. The FBI or the state point of contact will then check the provided information against records in the NICS database and inform the dealer whether the sale can proceed or not. If the check is delayed for more than three business days, the dealer can proceed with the sale but is required to keep records of the transaction.

While many of these numbers were released previously, it’s helpful to look at the growth in background checks and firearms purchases over the past 20 years. For example, in 2020 and 2021, the FBI conducted almost 39 million NICS background checks each year. The most checks were conducted in 2020, with over 39.7 million, a record high, which the FBI attributed to pandemic buying, but we all remember the social unrest during the Summer of Love – a more likely explanation for the record number of firearms purchases.

As you can see from the chart shared by the FBI, the number of checks has been increasing since the implementation of the background check system in 1998 (chart shows 2003-2022) and has seen a marked increase in recent years. Although 2022 numbers are down from 2020 and 2021, it’s following the trend line and is up from 2019.

Can you guess which months of the year are the most popular for NICS checks – at least over the past couple of years? Well, if you guessed March and November, you’re right. The FBI shared the top 10 days for NICS checks between 1998 and 2022. The volume of NICS checks in March 2021 is staggering. Six of the top 10 days over the past 24 years occurred in March 2021.

Overall, the NICS system has processed over 443 million (443,172,700) requests since its inception. Almost 74 million of those NICS checks were done via the NICS E-Check system. And that number will only grow as the online system is much faster than making a call to the NICS contact center.

Not every state participates in the FBI NICS system. A Point of Contact (POC) state is a state that has agreed to conduct background checks for firearms purchases on behalf of the FBI through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). POC states can access the NICS database and have additional state-specific information available to them, allowing them to conduct more comprehensive background checks. In a POC state, when a firearms dealer initiates a NICS check, the dealer contacts the state point of contact (POC) instead of the FBI. The POC conducts the check using the NICS database as well as any additional state-specific databases and records that the state has access to and informs the dealer whether the sale can proceed or not.

Some states, like California, Colorado, and Oregon, are designated as POC states and are responsible for conducting background checks for firearms purchases within their state. They use the NICS system to perform the check but also have additional state-specific laws, regulations and databases that they check against before allowing a sale to proceed.

It’s worth noting that all states participate in the NICS, but not all states are POC states. Some states have chosen to use the FBI to conduct their background checks and not have a state-specific point of contact. In 13 states (in red), state law enforcement is the “point of contact” for background checks. In four states (in blue), FFLs contact the state for handguns and the FBI for long guns. Two states (in yellow), Nebraska and North Carolina, use state-issued permits in lieu of NICS for handguns.

All in all, it was a fascinating look at how the FBI conducts NICS checks and a decent reminder that just many Americans are exercising their Second Amendment rights by purchasing a firearm at retail every month.

To be frank, there is nothing in the Constitution that gives goobermint the power to form such an bureau. In fact, from the Bruen ruling, no federal firearm law, or bureau can be Constitutional, as nothing of the sort existed at the founding, or even later when the 14th amendment was ratified. That Gaetz has to submit such a bill is an indictment of the whole goobermint.

Gaetz introduces ‘Abolish the ATF Act’ after ruling against stabilizing braces.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., introduced a bill to eliminate the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) following a controversial ruling that tightens regulations on pistol-stabilizing braces.

The ATF issued its final rule Friday that will treat guns with stabilizing accessories like short-barreled rifles, which require a federal license to own under the National Firearms Act.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said the ruling enhances public safety, but Gaetz said it unfairly punishes disabled gun owners and veterans who rely on stabilizing braces to be able to fire with one hand.

placeholderGaetz introduced H.R.374, the “Abolish the ATF Act,” on Tuesday morning in response to the ruling, telling Fox News Digital it was the “final straw.”
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., walks to a closed-door GOP caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 10, 2023.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., walks to a closed-door GOP caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 10, 2023. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

“I have a lot of disabled veterans in my district who enjoy pistol shooting and rely on stabilizing braces to be able to engage in the activity,” he said in a phone interview Wednesday morning. “The recent actions from the ATF essentially allow them to make case-by-case determinations on whether a pistol with a stabilizing brace is legal or an unlawful, sawed-off shotgun.”

“The continued existence of the ATF is increasingly unwarranted based on the actions they’re taking to convert otherwise law-abiding people into felons,” he said. “My bill would abolish the ATF. If that doesn’t work, we’re going to try defunding the ATF. If that doesn’t work, we’re going to target the individual bureaucrats at the top of the ATF who have exceeded their authority in rulemaking. And if that doesn’t work, we’re going to take a meat cleaver to the statutes that the ATF believes broadly authorize their actions.”

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Thank God this hack never made it to the Supreme Court.

Try Not to Laugh at DOJ’s Excuse for Not Sending FBI to Raid Biden’s Homes for Classified Docs.

Attorney General Merrick Garland is feeling the heat over the obvious double standard between the Mar-a-Lago FBI raid on Donald Trump’s home to retrieve classified documents and Joe Biden’s Car-a-Lago scandal. As a result, Biden’s hit man, who “can’t comment on an ongoing investigation,” has clearly green-lighted his patented leaks to friendly media to make excuses for his duplicity. If this weren’t such a tell for how corrupt the Justice Department is, the excuses would be funny. But since America’s system of jurisprudence in the DOJ and the FBI is clearly so irretrievably fallen, and could take civil society sliding down the hill with it, we should consider Garland’s excuses in the seriousness with which they’re offered.

Now you can laugh.

It’s going to take more than one of Garland’s no-comment-comments to convince anyone paying attention to this ridiculous charade that there’s no gambling at Rick’s. Yet, Garland’s excuse-making is amazing to behold for his audacity in believing anyone is dumb enough to believe this claptrap.

Allow me to distill the nonsense that Garland’s Justice Department, characterized as “people familiar with the matter,” told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday afternoon.

First up, the Merrick Garland approved leak wants us to believe that gosh, we considered having the FBI SWAT team oversee the raid to get the illegal documents, but the Justice Department “decided against it, both to avoid complicating later stages of the investigation and because Mr. Biden’s attorneys had quickly turned over a first batch and were cooperating, according to people familiar with the matter.”

Just like Donald Trump. Just kidding.

President Trump had the authority to declassify documents and, as a president of the United States, was allowed to take them as his personal documents, according to Mike Davis of the Article III Project. Not so with the vice president, which Biden was when he purloined the documents with the highest security classifications. We’re told, but we don’t have proof since we have only the say-so of Biden’s lawyer Richard Sauber, that some of the documents pertained to Ukraine and China. Of course, those are the countries from which Hunter Biden was extracting millions for access to the Veep.

Garland’s lackeys leaked that President Biden’s own attorneys were allowed to search the documents without FBI presence (read: raid) because he trusted Biden’s attorneys to do the search for them. On his word as a Biden. “Not a joke, not a joke.”

Indeed, the two sides, presumably the DOJ and Biden, though it’s not clear, “agreed that Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys would inspect the homes, notify the Justice Department as soon as they identified any other potentially classified records, and arrange for law-enforcement authorities to take them.” Did Biden get a back rub too? A day at the spa? Cognition lessons? Anything’s possible after telling Team Biden that hey, no problem you can go through the documents and then turn over the documents that Biden’s lawyers wanted to hand over.

WSJ postulates that by allowing Joe’s attorneys to curate and collect the illegally obtained classified documents he was not authorized to have, it laughably signals that “federal investigators are girding for a months-long inquiry that could stretch well into Mr. Biden’s third year in office.” What does that even mean? 

“Instead, the two sides agreed that Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys would inspect the homes, notify the Justice Department as soon as they identified any other potentially classified records, and arrange for law-enforcement authorities to take them, ” WSJ straightfacedly reported.

Apparently, the discussions with the DOJ were very serious and deliberative, and “those deliberations, which haven’t previously been reported, shed new light on how the Biden team’s efforts to cooperate with investigators have thus far helped it avoid more aggressive actions by law enforcement.”

Oh please. Biden had the documents since January 2017. How is that cooperative, again?

Biden says he has no idea what those documents were in the box next to his vintage Corvette. We didn’t get a sexy staged photo of documents splayed out at the Car-a-Lago crime scene. Biden says he doesn’t remember having the documents in the three different properties (some of which had been moved multiple times). We have no trouble believing this. He likely doesn’t remember what he had for breakfast this morning.

Trump’s people were in negotiations with the National Archives, which apparently has somehow morphed into a law enforcement entity with gunned-up FBI SWAT-like officers at their disposal to go grab documents they didn’t want him to have. But not so for Biden.

The DOJ raided Trump’s house because they didn’t like him.

We don’t know who’s going after Joe Biden for what, but we won’t find out because there are only two ways this special counsel probe will go: As a Mueller-like CYA cover-up operation or as a wrist slap that will be spun as a well., we investigated him and all we got was his lousy 5th Amendment, a crack pipe, and the numbers of a couple of hookers. This will be a Hunter Biden/Joe Biden proxy “investigation,” and it will end there. 

GOP lawmakers, NRA slam ATF rule to regulate pistol braces: ‘Unconstitutional overreach’

Republican lawmakers and gun rights groups blasted the Biden administration over a new rule that tightens regulations on pistol stabilizing braces.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives (ATF) finalized a new regulation Friday that will treat guns with stabilizing accessories like short-barreled rifles, which require a federal license to own under the National Firearms Act.

The move is part of a comprehensive gun crime strategy President Biden announced in April 2021, in response to the massacre at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, where a gunman using a stabilizing brace killed 10 people. A stabilizing brace was also used in a shooting in Dayton, Ohio, that left nine people dead in 2019.

Announcing the rule, Attorney General Merrick Garland said that stabilizing brace accessories, which were designed to help disabled combat veterans enjoy recreational shooting, transform pistols into short-barreled rifles.

“Keeping our communities safe from gun violence is among the Department’s highest priorities,” Garland said. “Almost a century ago, Congress determined that short-barreled rifles must be subject to heightened requirements. Today’s rule makes clear that firearm manufacturers, dealers, and individuals cannot evade these important public safety protections simply by adding accessories to pistols that transform them into short-barreled rifles.”

“Certain so-called stabilizing braces are designed to just attach to pistols, essentially converting them into short-barreled rifles to be fired from the shoulder,” said ATF Director Steven Dettelbach. “Therefore, they must be treated in the same way under the statute.”

Second Amendment advocates were apoplectic over new requirements for gun owners to register existing pistols equipped with stabilizing braces with the government within 120 days, else they must remove the brace or surrender the firearm to ATF.

“The Biden administration chose to shred the Constitution today,” the National Rifle Association said.

“Joe Biden is an enemy of our Second Amendment,” the group added.

Gun Owners of America, which bills itself as the only “no-compromise” gun lobby in Washington, D.C., vowed to file a lawsuit challenging Biden’s new ATF regulation.

“This admin continues to find ways to attack gun owners. We will continue to work with our industry partners to amplify the disapproving voices in the firearms industry and [Gun Owners Foundation], our sister legal arm, will be filing suit in the near future,” said Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America.

“Pres. Biden just initiated the largest federal gun registration scheme in our nation’s history w/o even the passage of a new law. GOA is actively working with Congress to pass a resolution blocking this rule under the Congressional Review Act,” added the organization’s director of federal affairs, Aidan Johnston.

Their cause was taken up by Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., who in June 2021 wrote a letter signed by 140 lawmakers expressing opposition to the proposed rule on stabilizing braces.

“This rule jeopardizes the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners and disabled combat veterans, which is why I led Members of Congress in opposition,” Hudson said. “I will continue to fight against the ATF’s unconstitutional overreach that could turn millions of citizens into felons.”

ATF, however, says that its new rule does not affect stabilizing braces intended for disabled persons.

Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo also condemned the ATF rule. “The ATF’s announced rule on pistol braces today is nothing short of a massive executive branch-imposed gun registration and confiscation scheme,” Crapo tweeted. “This is an unacceptable attack on the Second Amendment and law-abiding Americans.”

Gun control advocates praised the new regulation. Everytown for Gun Safety cheered the ATF’s move, saying gunmakers had exploited loopholes in the law to make firearms more deadly.

The rule will go into effect next week, at which point gun owners who own a pistol stabilizing brace will need to register the weapon with ATF or remove the accessory.

Officials estimated about 3 million stabilizing braces are currently in circulation in the U.S.