Category: Bureaucraps

Americans Increasingly Worried About Uncle Sam Being Big Brother

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

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

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

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

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

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Wisconsin Rule Banning Guns While Fishing is Reeled In

Anglers in Wisconsin can now legally carry firearms while fishing, following a recent decision by the state’s Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules. The Republican-controlled committee voted 8-2 on Dec. 17 to temporarily repeal a long-standing Department of Natural Resources (DNR) rule that prohibited guns “that might be used for the purpose of fishing.” The DNR has indicated it will permanently repeal the rule as part of a lawsuit settlement, mostly because it just stupid.

Legal Challenge Spurs Change

The rule’s repeal stems from a lawsuit filed by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on behalf of Sheboygan Falls resident Travis Kobs. The lawsuit argued the regulation was unconstitutional, effectively creating a blanket firearm ban on state waterways.

DNR attorney Chandra Harvey explained to the committee that the rule, dating back to at least the 1950s, was originally designed to prevent the illegal shooting of fish. However, the passage of Wisconsin’s concealed carry law in 2011 brought the rule into conflict with state statutes protecting the right to carry firearms.

“The regulation no longer aligns with current state law,” Harvey told the committee.

Divided Opinions on Gun Access

The committee’s decision was not without controversy. Democratic Senators Kelda Roys of Madison and Chris Larson of Milwaukee voted against the repeal, citing concerns over increased gun access, a seemingly blanket argument by Democrats on any committee.

“I think there are still good reasons why we should not have more guns in more places, especially given recent events in my district,” Roys said.

Larson questioned whether the DNR had issued any citations under the rule. Harvey confirmed that no citations had been issued for carrying guns while fishing, prompting Republican Senator Steve Nass of Whitewater to remark, “Nobody’s pulling their pistol out to shoot fish. So, hallelujah.”

Looking Ahead

The DNR will likely permanently repeal the firearm restriction for anglers, marking a significant shift away from a law that effectively served no purpose and never even needed to be enforced. On a side note for those looking how to properly carry while fishing GunfightersINC, which makes holsters, even has an article on how to fish while carrying and what holsters are best.

Take That! Court Tells Biden Admin to Quit Selling Border Wall Materials

Joe Biden is thankfully on his way out, but as he prepares to evacuate the Oval Office and head back to the Delaware beach, he keeps throwing out obstacles for incoming President-elect Donald Trump.

In one of the Biden administration’s more craven moves, they’ve been busy selling off equipment and supplies for the border wall that Trump promised during his first term, which Joe ended when he took office.

Well, take this Christmas present, Joe and Co:

The Biden administration on Friday said it would stop selling off materials slated to be used to build a border wall ahead of the incoming Trump administration, which has promised to bring back tougher efforts to combat illegal immigration.

The Biden administration confirmed to a court that it will agree to a court order preventing it from disposing of any further border wall materials over the next 30 days, allowing President-elect Trump to use those materials, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said.

Trump hailed the victory on Saturday:

Meanwhile, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton let his feelings be known on Friday:

This follows our major victory forcing Biden to build the wall, and we will hold his Administration accountable for illegally subverting our Nation’s border security until their very last day in power, especially where their actions are clearly motivated by a desire to thwart President-elect Trump’s immigration agenda.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 20th can’t get here soon enough.

The day after Patel is confirmed as FBI Director should be ‘epic’.

BLUF
He fears Patel will trample over civil liberties? That’s rich, Patel points out, as it was “gangster” McCabe who signed one of the illegal FISA warrants to spy on Page.

Report reveals that FBI spied on its likely new director, Kash Patel.

It’s going to be awkward at FBI headquarters next month when President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the bureau likely takes over.

According to a new government watchdog report, the FBI spied on its prospective new boss, Kash Patel.

Patel has promised to “clean house” at the Hoover Building, and hold all those who “abused their power” during the Russiagate “witch hunt” accountable.

Kash Patel, U.S. President-elect Donald Trumpâs nominee for director of the FBI, speaks to reporters before a meeting with U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., December 12, 2024.
Kash Patel, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for director of the FBI, speaks to reporters before a meeting with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Capitol Hill in Washington, December 12, 2024.REUTERS

He might start with the officials and agents who secretly vacuumed up his phone records and emails starting in late 2017, when he led a House Intelligence Committee investigation into the FBI’s reliance on Hillary Clinton’s false opposition research to surveil a Trump campaign official as a supposed “Russian agent.”

According to a nearly 100-page report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, the FBI subpoenaed the records as part of an investigation it opened to find out whether congressional staffers leaked classified information about its Trump-Russia “collusion” case to the Washington Post and other media.

Working with career prosecutors at Justice, the FBI compelled Google and Apple to turn over the sensitive private information of subjects the FBI identified “between September 2017 and March 2018,” a period when Andrew McCabe was the acting FBI director. (Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions was out of the loop, the report said, having recused himself from the Russia probe.)

The court orders gagged the service providers from notifying Patel and other customers of the intrusion.

As chief counsel, Patel had no idea that the subject of his investigation — the FBI — was collecting his data and increasing the visibility of witnesses he was communicating with, including whistleblowers.

At the time, Patel was demanding to see FBI documents and depose FBI witnesses to find out if the bureau had abused its power in obtaining a FISA warrant to spy on Trump aide Carter Page.

But Patel remained in the dark until 2022, when Google finally was cleared to send him a copy of the subpoena. Outraged, he told me at the time: “The FBI and DOJ subpoenaed my personal records while I caught them doing this to Page back in 2017.”

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“Imagine filing lawsuit against Glock, getting five paragraphs in, and admitting you fundamentally don’t understand how the gun even works.”

Imagine filing lawsuit against Glock, getting five paragraphs in, and admitting you fundamentally don’t understand how the gun even works.

Holding down the trigger bar will cause a dead trigger – not fire the gun repeatedly. Embarrassing.

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Fundamental misunderstanding continues. The G18 achieves auto fire differently than a G17 with a switch does. The trigger bar isn’t “held down” in either case, though.

If holding down the trigger bar is all that was required, you wouldn’t need a switch at all.Image

The G46 has the same dastardly trigger bar that works in the same dastardly way. Making a switch for a G46 wouldn’t be fundamentally different than making one for a G17. But don’t worry, New Jersey says the G46 is cool.Image
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This is so unbelievably dumb. Mind numbingly so.Image
Me whenever I don’t know how springs work. Me when I’m the master of Glock knowing. Me when I’m a lawyer getting paid to lawsuit and I just make stuff up.Image
If “remaining lowered” is all that it took, why don’t Glocks go full auto if you assemble them without the trigger bar at all? Permanently lowered if it isn’t installed. Shutting the slide should rip the whole mag, right?Image

Trump Assassination Attempt Task Force Determines ‘Failures’ with Secret Service Leadership

On Tuesday, the Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump released its final official report, determining that there were “failures in the planning, execution, and leadership” of the United States Secret Service (USSS) leading up to both attempts on the President-elect’s life.

As reported by Breitbart, the task force’s five-month investigation focused on both the attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13th and the second attempt in West Palm Beach, Florida on September 15th. In the former attempt, President-elect Trump was wounded by gunfire in his right ear, while one rallygoer was killed and two others were critically injured, before the gunman was killed by the Secret Service. In the second attempt, the gunman was spotted by Secret Service and fled before firing a shot, and was arrested later the same day.

“The report text, unanimously approved by the Task Force on December 5, highlights significant failures in the planning, execution, and leadership of the Secret Service and its law enforcement partners,” the task force declared in a press release summarizing its findings. “The Task Force-approved report also proposes 37 actionable recommendations related both to the security failures on July 13 and to overarching structural changes that the Secret Service and Congress must consider to strengthen security measures and prevent similar security failures in the future.”

With regards to the July 13th attempt, the task force’s report noted that, rather than any one singular moment that allowed the gunman to nearly assassinate the then-former president, there had instead been “various failures in planning, execution, and leadership” which created “an environment in which the former President” and the audience at the rally were “exposed to grave danger.”

Almost immediately after the first attempt, the Secret Service faced widespread and bipartisan condemnation for the obvious security failures that allowed the 22-year-old gunman to gain access to a nearby rooftop with an entire rifle in hand. Multiple civilians spotted the armed and suspicious-looking man and tried to point him out to law enforcement, who apparently did nothing in response to these warnings. His motives remain unknown.

By contrast, the response to the second attempt in Florida was much swifter. An agent noticed the barrel of the gunman’s rifle protruding from the bushes at the Trump International Golf Course, where then-candidate Trump was playing a round of golf. The Secret Service opened fire, scaring the gunman away, before he was apprehended later by local law enforcement. The second would-be assassin, Ryan Wesley Routh, had become a fanatical supporter of Ukraine since the start of their war against Russia, and was apparently motivated by what he perceived as insufficient support for Ukraine by former President Trump.

Should We Get Ready For a NFA Amnesty?

For the past several weeks, President Trump has been very busy naming his cabinet appointments.  One that is still uncertain is his choice to become the new BATFE Director. The current director, Steven Dettelbach, is a clueless anti-gun buffoon who can’t give congressmen a straight answer.  Many American gun owners are hopeful that DJT will appoint 07/02 FFL holder, gun designer, and pro-gun pundit Brandon Herrera as the new Director.  If that happens, it will surely inspire some boisterous celebration. In addition to his vows to slash the ATF’s budget and operations, Herrera has also promised to begin a series of National Firearms Act (NFA) registration amnesty periods.  There was a provision for tax-free amnesty periods written into the Gun Control Act of 1968. But thusfar, just one 30-day amnesty was held, back in 1968.  That amnesty was very poorly publicized, and not many gun owners took advantage of it.

Today, there are probably hundreds of thousands of unregistered full autos in the country. And there are parts in civilian hands to quickly make a million or more. What can I say, but: Americans just love to tinker.

Under the Hughes Amendment to the Firearms Owners Protection Act (FOPA) of 1986, the number of Federally transferable machineguns was arbitrarily frozen.  As of November 2006, the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record (NFRTR) held registrations for 1,906,786 weapons. These included 1,186,138 destructive devices, 391,532 machine guns, 150,364 silencers, 95,699 short-barreled shotguns (SBSes), 33,518 short-barreled rifles (SBRs), and 48,443 weapons categorized as “any other weapons,” (AOWs.) Since then, the number of SBRs, SBSes, and suppressors has risen sharply, but the number of registered transferable machineguns has hardly changed at all.

Not only did the Hughes Amendment freeze cause the prices of full auto guns to inflate radically, it also left Americans with no opportunity to legally build and register any new $200 tax stamp machineguns. Many did so in defiance of the law, risking Federal felony prosecution. Most of those guns are kept very well hidden, mostly underground.

I am hopeful that Brandon Herrera will indeed become the new ATF Director.  And I am fully confident that he will keep his promise and consult with the new Attorney General to open at least one six-month-long amnesty period, with tax-free registration of machineguns, partly or fully-finished machinegun receivers, autosears, and other NFA-restricted items. Once that amnesty window opens, the clock will begin ticking.  So owners of semi-auto firearms who wish to become legal registered full-auto owners will have to get busy. They will need to either drill existing receivers or bring any unfinished receiver blanks or tubes up to a recognizable level of completion and apply serial numbers, so that they can be registered before the amnesty period expires.

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FOIA Shows the Extent of ATF Monitoring Americans Through FBI’s NICS System

In April of 2021, AmmoLand News learned from a source inside the FBI that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) was using the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to monitor Americans’ gun purchases.

These Americans were not prohibited people and were not guilty of any crime. Many of the subjects were not even suspected of a crime. The ATF monitored people for their associations and the feeling that the target might commit a crime in the future. The NICS monitoring program was open to all ATF agents and departments that wanted to monitor someone. The subjects of the surveillance were never notified by either the ATF or FBI.

After the story went public, the FBI admitted that the program did exist but spun it as a key tool for law enforcement to prevent straw purchases. Most privacy advocates pushed back and believed that it was an overreaching government hellbent on violating the gun buyers’ privacy. One unknown thing was the exact number of people the FBI was monitoring for the ATF.

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“I’m doing my part!”

Despite ATF Roadblocks, Nearly 5 Million Suppressors Legally Owned

The NSSF reported that the total number of legally owned suppressors was 4.86 million at the end of July 2024. img NSSF

The number of legal suppressors in the USA is almost certainly over five million. The National Shooting Sports Federation (NSSF) revealed a Freedom of Information Act request submitted to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which was finally answered this summer. The total number was 4.86 million at the end of July 2024. From the NSSF:

In a recent Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA), NSSF received from ATF the additional number of silencers from May 2021 to July 2024. An incredible 2,193,123 more suppressors are protecting the hearing of hunters and shooters. That means a whopping 4.86 million silencers and counting are in possession by law-abiding Americans.

The number of tax stamps issued for silencers, also commonly referred to as suppressors, had to be pried out of the ATF with a FOIA. The ATF has gained a reputation for long waits and poor responses to FOIA requests. Before the Biden administration took power, detailed information on all National Firearms Act items was publicly available in an annual report called Firearms Commerce in the United States.  Once the Biden administration took control of the ATF, the annual report was, without notice, discontinued. The ATF would not publish the information. They slowly responded to FOIA requests, which is how the NSSF finally obtained the numbers. The numbers show an accelerating demand for legal silencers, with an average of nearly 60,000 tax stamps being issued each month.

The average does not tell the whole story. Demand has been accelerating. Information shows there were 3.5 million silencers through January 2024. Thus, 1.4 million silencers were added in the six months from January 2024 to the end of July 2024. It is virtually certain there are over 5 million legal silencers in the USA today.

Much of the increase has come from the ATF streamlining the tax stamp approval process for commercially made silencers while complicating the process of making your own silencer. Another part of the increase comes from the major inflation created by the Biden administration in the last 3.5 years. While everything else has become more expensive, the tax stamp remains the same as it was when created in 1934: $200. In 1934, $200 was roughly four months wages for a common laborer. Today, it is one or two days wages. In 1934, a silencer might cost $5-10. Today, they can cost $200 – $2,000, so the tax stamp becomes a fraction of the total cost instead of 95% of the cost.

Sales of silencers/suppressors may slump with the election of President Trump. The possibility of something like the Hearing Protection Act is plausible. One of the giants in the silencer/suppressor industry is not worried. Brandon Maddox explained there is such a pent-up demand for silencers that his business will only increase if the regulatory hassles are eliminated.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are looking for programs to cut, to increase efficiency. Moving silencers out of the NFA would take legislation. President Trump could declare an amnesty, as is allowed under federal legislation. An amnesty might incentivize Congress to reform the NFA and pass the Hearing Protection Act.

More incentives to remove items from the NFA exist in the courts. The case in Illinois looks promising.

President Trump is moving much faster this term. He has put together an incredible team, well in advance of taking office. He now understands the treachery inherent in the bureaucracy. Top level bureaucrats have monetary and power incentives to oppose him. They may have significant crimes to hide which may be revealed.

He who cuts the first deal to reveal potential criminal actions usually gets the best deal. There are thousands of people in the bureaucracy who know where good information is to be found about criminal activity. They have jobs, pensions, and perks to protect. Some of them are already talking. Many of them know how practices can be streamlined and where positions can be cut.

Feds using banks to surveil Americans’ financial data without warrants, House Judiciary says
The committee reported that Feds asked banks to search private transactions for terms like ‘MAGA,’ ‘Trump,’ and ‘Biden’

FIRST ON FOX: Federal law enforcement has been manipulating the Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) system to gain access to Americans’ financial information without warrants or probable cause, the House Judiciary Committee said Friday.

The panel and its Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released its interim report, first obtained by Fox News Digital, which details its findings.

The committee said in the report that the FBI “has manipulated” the SAR’s filing process to treat financial institutions “as de facto arms of law enforcement, issuing ‘requests’ without legal process, that amount to demands for information related to certain persons or activities it considers ‘suspicious.'”

“With narrow exception, federal law does not permit law enforcement to inquire into financial institutions’ customer information without some form of legal process,” the report states. “The FBI circumvents this process by tipping off financial institutions to ‘suspicious’ individuals and encouraging these institutions to file a SAR — which does not require any legal process — and thereby provide federal law enforcement with access to confidential and highly sensitive information.”

The committee said that, in doing so, the FBI “gets around the requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act,” which specifies that it is a bank’s responsibility to file a SAR whenever it identifies a “suspicious transaction relevant to a possible violation of law or regulation.”

The committee acknowledged that “at least one financial institution requested legal process from the FBI for information it was seeking,” but noted that “all too often the FBI appeared to receive no pushback.”

“In sum, by providing financial institutions with lists of people that it views as generally ‘suspicious’ on the front end, the FBI has turned this framework on its head and contravened the Fourth Amendment’s requirements of particularity and probable cause,” the report states.

The committee added that their oversight of “financial surveillance” had shed “new light on the decaying state of Americans’ financial privacy and the federal government’s widespread, warrantless surveillance programs.”

The committee began their investigation into government-led financial surveillance earlier this year, after a whistleblower disclosed that following the events of Jan. 6, 2021, Bank of America “voluntarily and without legal process” provided the FBI with a list of names of all individuals who used a Bank of America credit or debit card in the Washington, D.C., region around that time.

Fox News Digital first reported in March that federal investigators had asked banks to search and filter customer transactions by using terms like “MAGA” and “Trump” as part of an investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, warning that purchases of “religious texts” could indicate “extremism.”

The committee also obtained documents that indicate officials suggested that banks query transactions with keywords like Dick’s Sporting Goods, Cabela’s, Bass Pro Shops and more.

A source familiar with the documents told Fox News Digital at the time that while Jan. 6 was the “impetus” for the queries and searches, none of the documents the committee had obtained revealed any specific time frames or limitations for banks searching for customer transactions with the terms. The source said the federal government used the information for investigations beyond Jan. 6.

“In the days and weeks after January 6, 2021, the FBI coordinated with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to encourage financial institutions across the country to scour their data and file SARs on hundreds of Americans, if not more, without any clear criminal nexus,” the report says.

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Biden’s FBI Reportedly Altering Murder Data to Suit Gun Violence Narrative.

In October, Dr. John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) broke the news that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had stealth-revised its reported violent crime data for 2022 to show a 4.5% increase, rather than the originally reported 2.1% decrease, for that year. Among other things, that adjustment added 1,699 more murders for 2022. Given that the vast majority of murder crimes are reported, Lott asks, “How do you miss 1,699 murders?”

Now, another source, Just Facts Daily (JFD), a “research institute dedicated to publishing facts about public policies,” has done a dive into homicide reporting and uncovered what appears to be an unusually large number of “homicides recorded on death certificates that are not reported as murders by Biden’s FBI.”

As context, the federal Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics explains that the United States relies on “two national data collection systems to track detailed information on homicides: the [FBI’s] Supplementary Homicide Reports and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Fatal Injury Reports.” The Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR) are part of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, while the Fatal Injury Reports are developed from the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), a public health-based resource maintained at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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