Category: Goobermint

Our utility company (city owned and operated) has already changed out all meters to ‘smart’ ones that can show usage of whatever commodity down to the hour. I suspect in home devices are next on the agenda, but as our utilities are very locally controlled, I think if such shenanigans are attempted, the populace will have a definite say about it.

BLUF
Environmentalists don’t believe there is such a thing as clean or green energy either. Their goal is to reduce energy usage by replacing reliable energy systems with unreliable ones, and inexpensive ones with expensive ones, as a way of ‘Cloward-Pivening’ the energy grid to force energy rationing and the eventual reduction of the human population

The Government is Coming for Your Thermostat

It’s the middle of a summer heat wave and temperatures are rising. Suddenly your air conditioning turns off. It’s not a blackout or a brownout: it’s the new government plan.

Mass government subsidies for inefficient and expensive ‘green energy’ wind turbines and solar panels combined with bans on efficient and cheap oil, coal and gas, have made energy grids unreliable and costly. States that have aimed for widespread use of green energy like California and Texas are suffering blackouts and brownouts at growing rates.

Instead of building reliable energy resources, federal and state governments, along with monopolistic energy companies, are making up for green energy with energy rationing.

Or ‘smart rationing’.

Virtual power plants were a green energy buzzword that promised to harness local battery capacity to distribute energy to the grid, but the diminishing promise of solar panels and the power hunger of electric cars has poured cold water on the idea that the ‘green’ battery devices and useless solar panels will ever reliably give more to the grid than they take from it.

Virtual power plants, like all things virtual, have come to mean power that isn’t really there. Instead virtual power plants have become another euphemism for rationing power.

Unable to get meaningful savings from so-called battery ‘distributed energy resources’, virtual power plants now mean using smart thermostats to seize control over homeowner power usage with bureaucrats or AI software deciding how much power people should be using and turning off their heat or air conditioning. Government agencies and monopolistic utilities insist on calling this ‘efficiency’ rather than what it actually is which is rationing customer power usage.

State utilities have taken to bribing consumers with discounts on skyrocket energy rates and ‘free’ smart thermostats like Google Nest in order to induce them to turn over control of their thermostats. Once they give up control, they may be allowed only limited manual overrides a month to be able to turn on the heat or air in even the most miserable weather.

Families facing summer heat and winter cold find that they’re not just wrestling with each other for control of the thermostat but with their utility company, its software and the government mandates that are out to force them to use less energy even as energy prices climb higher.

A recent Department of Energy report revealed the ambitious scope of the ‘virtual power plant’ strategy while emphasizing the rationing aspect of ‘smart thermostats’ and ‘smart water heaters’ which “can be controlled remotely” in ways that are “typically imperceptible to the owner.”

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Florida officials who banned guns prior to hurricane may soon pay for their ‘error’
Okeechobee city council, police chief, face fines of $5,000 each.

The five-member Okeechobee, Florida city council and Police Chief Donald Hagan may each be forced to pay $5,000 personally — without using taxpayer dollars — for violating Florida’s powerful preemption statute, which only allows the state legislature to regulate firearms.

As previously reported, the city adopted an illegal ordinance shortly before Hurricane Helene made landfall, which banned the sale of guns and ammunition and prohibited firearm possession in public by anyone other than law enforcement or members of the military.

After learning of the civil rights violation, Florida Carry, Inc. sent a demand letter titled Written Notice of Preemption Violation and Offer of Settlement, to the city council and Chief Hagan, warning the recipients they have violated Florida’s preemption statute.

The letter, which was written by Florida Carry, Inc. General Counsel Eric J. Friday, spelled out that the pro-gun group has sufficient standing to bring a lawsuit if the ordinance is not repealed within 30 days, and demanded the payment of $30,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees to “resolve this matter prior to initiation of litigation.”

Okeechobee City Attorney John J. Fumero, in a response sent Wednesday, claimed that the city’s Second Amendment violation was merely an “inadvertent mistake in using an outdated emergency ordinance form that, legally and factually, did not apply to the circumstances at hand regarding Hurricane Helene.”

Besides. Fumero wrote, no one ever enforced the illegal ordinance.

“At no time did the City, or the Police Chief, contemplate, nor take any action, to prohibit, confiscate or otherwise regulate firearms or ammunition in any fashion or manner. This was never the intention of the City. This was never implemented by the City. Moreover, to ensure this never happens again, the City has developed and implemented a new emergency ordinance form and process,” the city attorney wrote.

Fumero’s boss, Okeechobee Mayor Dowling R. Watford, Jr. and police spokesman Detective Jarret Romanello, gave numerous interviews to local media claiming city officials were reviewing the entire incident to determine how the “mistake” occurred. Romanello also claimed he looked forward to “providing more answers as soon as the review is complete.”

In his response, Fumero also balked at Florida Carry’s monetary demand.

“We see no legal, factual or public policy basis for your organization demanding payment of taxpayer dollars to satisfy your assertion of ‘damages and attorneys’ fees. The City is a rural small town that fundamentally believes in gun rights and the Second Amendment. From any standpoint, for Florida Carry, Inc. to take legal action against the City, under the circumstances described herein, is patently inappropriate and unjustified,” he wrote.

In an email reply to Fumero, Friday advised the city attorney to re-read Florida statute Sec. 790.33, which does not require actual enforcement of a preemption violation, since enactment itself is enough to prove liability.

“Inadvertence and ignorance of the law by government is no more of an excuse for violating civil rights than when a citizen ‘inadvertently’ violates the law and is arrested and prosecuted,” Friday wrote.

“I will begin drafting my Complaint seeking relief, including personal fines against the city officials under whose jurisdiction this knowing and willful enactment occurred.

You may want to inform the relevant officials that they are not allowed to use tax dollars to defend themselves from such liability, and that any fine assessed will be personally payable by them, to alleviate your concerns about tax dollars.”

Opening Arguments Begin in ‘Ghost Gun’ Challenge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is not a coincidence

The Number of Illegal Aliens Dumped Into Swing States Is Jaw-Dropping.

As the 2024 presidential election continues to get closer, new data showing how many illegal aliens have been purposely dumped into crucial swing states by the Biden-Harris administration is raising red flags.

Keen political observers note how the tactic will benefit Democrats.

The numbers come after Democrats on Capitol Hill refused to vote for legislation that would make it against the law for non-citizens to vote in federal elections.

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Study: COVID-Vaxxed Kids SIX TIMES Likelier to Die Than Unvaxxed Peers

The ostensible takeaway, per the authors, of a poorly-publicized study from June of this year was that children vaccinated for COVID had much higher rates of asthma — almost double, in fact — post-COVID infection than their unvaccinated peers.

That’s compelling enough of a headline, but what should really have been the lede in any sane world got buried deep in the weeds.

Via Infection (medical journal) (emphasis added):

Two cohorts of children aged 5 to 18 who underwent SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR testing were analyzed: unvaccinated children with and without COVID-19 infection, and vaccinated children with and without infection. Propensity score matching was used to mitigate selection bias, and hazard ratio (HR) and 95% CI were calculated to assess the risk of new-onset asthma.

Our study found a significantly higher incidence of new-onset asthma in COVID-19 infected children compared to uninfected children, regardless of vaccination status.

In Cohort 1, 4.7% of COVID-19 infected children without vaccination developed new-onset asthma, versus 2.0% in their non-COVID-19 counterparts within a year (HR = 2.26; 95% CI = 2.158–2.367).

For Cohort 2,COVID-19 infected children with vaccination showed an 8.3% incidence of new-onset asthma, higher than the 3.1% in those not infected (HR = 2.745; 95% CI = 2.521–2.99). Subgroup analyses further identified higher risks in males, children aged 5–12 years, and Black or African American children. Sensitivity analyses confirmed the reliability of these findings.

The study highlights a strong link between COVID-19 infection and an increased risk of new-onset asthma in children, which is even more marked in those vaccinated. This emphasizes the critical need for ongoing monitoring and customized healthcare strategies to mitigate the long-term respiratory impacts of COVID-19 in children, advocating for thorough strategies to manage and prevent asthma amidst the pandemic.

However, as Alex Berenson — vindicated “conspiracy theorist” who turned out to be right about all of the things he was censored for since the start of the pandemic — explains, the truly shocking statistical finding, which somehow never made it into the conclusion, is a six-fold increase in death among vaxxed kids in the study as compared to the unvaxxed.

Via Alex Berenson (emphasis added):

The study about Covid and asthma in American kids and teens has gone mostly unnoticed. It hasn’t been cited once since it was published in June.

Which may be why no one has raised an alarm over the stunning figures buried in its appendix about deaths among mRNA Covid-vaccinated kids.

They show that 354 of the 64,000 children and teenagers who received a Covid mRNA shot died within a year after vaccination – a death rate of almost six kids per 1,000.

In contrast, only 309 out of 320,000 unvaccinated kids died, fewer than one per 1,000.

One might assume, again, that finding a drug is implicated in a six-fold increase in childhood mortality might be the headline — but, if it were, these researchers might not get another grant their whole careers. In fact, they might be working at McDonald’s or collecting unemployment within a week.

Why the researchers refused to focus on this statistic, or even mention it in passing in the summary of their work, is obviously a matter of speculation.

But speculate I will.

Scientists rely on grant money, either directly from the pharmaceutical industry or indirectly from the pharmaceutical industry by way of the government, which is often in bed with said industry.

There are, as such, clear financial interests at play, which is why you will notice that, virtually universally, scientists will downplay even the mildest negative effects of pharmaceutical products they study— especially blockbuster ones like the COVID-19 shots — or else rig the research design to produce rosier results, or else never publish any negative research findings in the first place.

Indeed, it’s mildly surprising that the data Alex Berenson unearthed ever made it to publication at all, when it would have been so easy just to scrub it out of existence.

wretchardthecat

The key to renewal is repentance, the acknowledgement of error. Yet that acceptance is almost impossible to those who grew up on the belief they are better than everyone else, who have justified their power over others upon that undoubted superiority.

The normal person learns more from failure than success. But the already perfect man lacks the capacity to learn anything from defeat other than to conclude that someone failed him.

Usually it is we the public who have failed them. Taxes will increase and regulations redoubled until everyone is doing his fair share. Notice that the concept that they actually work for us has completely disappeared in the shuffle.

The trope that Communists make subordinates report while standing on a trap door over a shark tank is a joke, but only just.

“You know the penalty for failure. Comrade”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BLUF
Source
Many are pointing out that the regime seems to care a lot more about providing aid to the Ukraine than it does about providing aid to Appalachia.

Hurricane Helene and the Lost Mandate of Heaven
“We’re from the government, and we’re here to make sure no one helps.”

As of the time of this writing, over two hundred people are confirmed to have been killed by Hurricane Helene. No one knows the true death toll yet. There are rumours of over 900 unidentified bodies, with some saying that a couple of zeroes need to be added to the death toll. Who knows what the real number is. We may never know. A lot of the bodies may simply never be found.

This is the last image of a husband and wife trying to escape from the flood by climbing onto the roof of the their home in Asheville, NC. The roof collapsed, killing them and their six-year-old grandchild; the child’s mother took the photograph.

Source

There are multiple reports of bodies stuck up in trees (link has video). There don’t seem to be any pictures confirming this yet, but one can understand why people would be reluctant to take such pictures, or to share them.

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That’s because the Chief was in violation of State Law.

Florida police chief learns hard lesson, un-bans guns and ammo
Okeechobee police chief receiving criticism from across the country.

by Lee Williams

Donald C. Hagan, the Chief of the Okeechobee, Florida Police Department, doesn’t appear to be enjoying his time on the national stage.

Hagan had to take some time off, his spokesman said Monday, because he is receiving personal attacks from across the country. As reported Monday, Hagan rocketed to infamy for signing an illegal city ordinance that banned firearm and ammunition sales as well as firearm possession just days before Hurricane Helene made landfall.

“The chief is not in,” a police receptionist said Tuesday morning. She directed calls to Okeechobee Police Major Bettye Taylor, who issued a statement Monday trying to clarify and explain her boss’ actions. Instead, it only muddied the waters.

“The Emergency Ordinance commenced immediately upon the declaration by the Police Chief and was thereafter terminated by the Police Chief on or about 9:51 pm on the same date it was issued.

The Emergency Ordinance was terminated for two primary reasons. One is that, fortunately, Hurricane Helene did not have a substantial impact on the City and its residents.

Secondly, a provision prohibiting the sale of firearms and ammunition was inadvertently included in the Emergency Ordinance. Upon discovering this, the City and Police Chief acted expeditiously to terminate the Emergency Ordinance,” Major Taylor wrote.

In other words, the part of the ordinance that banned the sale of guns and ammunition and prohibited firearm possession in public by anyone other than law enforcement or members of the military, was “inadvertently included” in the ordinance.

As you can imagine, neither Major Taylor nor her boss returned calls or emails Tuesday seeking to clarify how or why they banned guns and ammo sales inadvertently.

In her statement, Taylor also sought to reassure the town’s residents — as well as the legions of law-abiding gun owners who are following the story across the country — that the ban caused no harm.

“At no time did the City, or the Police Chief, contemplate, nor take any action, to prohibit, confiscate or otherwise regulate firearms or ammunition,” she wrote.

This, however, is not exactly true. The ordinance the chief signed clearly prohibited the “sale of, or offer to sell, with or without compensation, any ammunition or gun or other firearm of any size or description. The intentional display, by or in any store or shop, of any ammunition or gun or other firearm of any size or description. The intentional possession in a public place of a firearm by any person, except a duly authorized law enforcement official or any person in military service acing in the official performance of their duty.”

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House Oversight Committee Subpoenas White House, ATF Over Chicago’s Glock Lawsuit

House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-OH) has issued congressional subpoenas to White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention Director Stefanie Feldman and ATF Director Steve Dettelbach seeking information about any role the office and agency had in Chicago’s lawsuit against gunmaker Glock.

Comer initially requested Dettelbach and Feldman provide the committee with any pertinent communication between the White House/ATF and Glock back in June, but according to the congressman the Biden administration hasn’t turned over a single document. In fact, in his letter informing Feldman of the subpoena, Comer says Deputy Counsel to the President Rachel F. Cotton responded to the Oversight Committee in early July with a letter that “did not even reference the Committee’s request for documents.” Instead, Comer says Cotton “impugned the motives of the Committee,” stating “[t]he House Majority . . . [is] doing the gun lobby’s bidding by launching a baseless political attack on the Biden Administration under the guise of an ‘investigation.’”

If that were the case, it would be easy enough for the White House and ATF to disprove the claims of collusion by whistleblowers. So why is the White House stonewalling the inquiry into communications between the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, ATF, and Glock officials? As Comer reminded Dettelbach in his subpoena request:

The Committee has learned that on December 20, 2023, the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention met privately with representatives from Glock, during which the Administration requested that Glock change their pistol designs so that it would be harder to illegally modify Glock pistols to shoot continuously with a single trigger pull.

On March 19, 2024, the City of Chicago filed suit in state court against Glock. Everytown Law, the litigation arm of Everytown for Gun Safety, is listed as counsel for the plaintiff. The day the suit was filed, John Feinblatt, President of Everytown for Gun Safety, posted on his X account “Today Everytown Law + the City of Chicago announced a historic lawsuit against Glock Inc. to hold them accountable for the unconscionable decision to continue selling its easily modified pistols even though it could fix the problem.”

Later in the post, Mr. Feinblatt said “[f]ederal Officials recently contacted Glock to discuss implementing new ways to modify Glock pistols to make it harder for Glock switches to be installed. Rather than help, Glock falsely insisted there is nothing they can do.”

Because the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention’s meeting with Glock was private, Mr. Feinblatt appears to have had insider information regarding your office’s meeting with Glock, which raises questions about whether your office colluded with Everytown for Gun Safety to initiate their lawsuit against Glock.

Chicago is seeking a court-ordered ban on the sale of Glock pistols to city residents “and Illinois gun stores that serve the Chicago market”, while Joe Biden recently used an executive order to set up an Emerging Firearms Threats Task Force that’s supposed to issue a report and an interagency plan to deal with machine gun conversion devices, which are already illegal under federal law.

Retired ATF Deputy Assistant Director Pete Forcelli previously told Bearing Arms that the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention had pushed Dettelbach to have the ATF reclassify Glocks as machine guns under the NFA, but Dettelbach has so far resisted the move. Chicago’s lawsuit, along with the task force established by Biden, seem designed to give the ATF another push towards reclassifying some of the most popular handguns on the market as machine guns after the November elections have taken place.

My guess is that the White House and ATF will stonewall Comer’s subpoena just as they ignored his initial request for information. But if Kamala Harris wins election next month, don’t be surprised if the candidate who says she’s not taking anyone’s guns away suddenly decides that its time to make the sale of Glocks (and perhaps all other striker-fired pistols as well) off-limits to the civilian market; essentially imposing a ban on the sale of commonly-owned semi-automatic handguns through ATF regulation.

NSSF Praises SCOTUS Decision to Review Mexico’s Baseless $10 Billion Lawsuit Against Firearm Manufacturers

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to grant Smith & Wesson’s petition to hear Estados Unidos Mexicanos v. Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc., et al., Mexico’s frivolous $10 billion lawsuit against American firearm manufacturers seeking to blame them for the harm caused by lawless narco-terrorist drug cartels in Mexico. Mexico’s lawsuit also seeks to dictate how firearms are made and sold throughout the United States through a federal court injunction, in effect usurping the role of Congress and 50 state legislatures.

NSSF filed an amicus brief earlier this year in support of the Supreme Court granting the case, arguing that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit’s flawed decision, “blows a gaping hole in the PLCAA and rolls out the red carpet for a foreign government intent on vitiating the Second Amendment.” The U.S. Supreme Court will now set a briefing schedule and hold argument, likely early in the new year.

“Today’s announcement by the U.S. Supreme Court that they are granting Smith & Wesson’s petition to hear Mexico’s frivolous $10 billion lawsuit against lawful American firearm manufacturers is welcomed news to the entire firearm industry. Mexico’s lawsuit seeks to blame lawful American firearm businesses for violence in Mexico perpetrated by Mexican narco-terrorist drug cartels and impacting innocent Mexican lives.

It is not the fault of American firearm businesses that follow strict laws and regulations to lawfully manufacture and sell legal products,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “This case represents exactly why Congress passed, and President George W. Bush enacted, the bipartisan Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).

The case was rightly dismissed by a federal judge before the First Circuit Court of Appeals’ erroneous ruling earlier this year that reversed the district court order and reinstated the case. Lawful American firearm manufacturers follow American laws to make and sell lawful and Constitutionally-protected products. The Mexican government should instead focus on bringing Mexican criminals to justice in Mexican courtrooms.”

Mexico alleges U.S. firearm manufacturers are liable for the criminal violence perpetuated by narco-terrorist drug cartels by refusing to adopt gun control restrictions that exceed what the law requires for the strictly-regulated production and sale of firearms. A U.S. District court in Massachusetts dismissed the case, finding the claims were barred by the PLCAA. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, however, revived the case on Mexico’s appeal earlier this year.

The First Circuit held that Mexico’s claims alleging that the defendants know their regular business practices contribute to illegal firearm trafficking fit within a narrow exception to the PLCAA. Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc., et al, the petitioners, argue the First Circuit erred when it reversed the lower court’s decision to dismiss the case.

The petitioners also noted the First Circuit’s decision to allow for an exception to PLCAA fails because there is no evidence U.S. firearm manufacturers violated federal laws against aiding and abetting firearm trafficking. The petitioners explained to the Supreme Court that Mexico’s complaint “fails to identify any product, policy, or action by the American firearms industry that is deliberately designed to facilitate the unlawful activities of Mexican drug cartels.”

NSSF’s amicus brief concluded by urging Supreme Court action and pointing out that the First Circuit’s decision to reinstate the case was incorrect because it is “… emblematic of a recent trend of anti-gun governments (and courts) mendaciously skirting the PLCAA and using the resulting threat of bankruptcy-inducing tort liability to destroy a lawful industry that is vital to the exercise of a fundamental constitutional right. This Court’s intervention is imperative.”