Category: Goobermint

Printer Panic: Everytown 3D Gun Summit Targets Technological Advancement

Recently, Everytown for Gun Safety hosted a 3D Printed Firearms Summit in New York City with the goal being to “build cross-sector collaboration and chart actionable strategies to stem the tide of 3D-printed firearm (3DPF) related violence.”  The gathering of gloom is seemingly a leftover from the Biden-Harris administration, which convened similar confabs of gun control absolutists. One positive note is that these kinds of anti-gun “summits” must now be funded with Everytown’s own money rather than by taxpayers through Biden’s defunct White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

Media hype ahead of the summit warned, “We’re at the start of a new public safety crisis and there is no time to waste,” and “3D-printed firearms are the new frontier in the fight against gun violence.” Everytown is apparently measuring this crisis by “recovery data from twenty U.S. cities submitted exclusively to Everytown” according to their Facebook post. Exclusive crime-related data given just to Everytown may raise its own kinds of red-flags to consider.

While 3D printing is a newer and developing technology, homemade firearms, or PMFs — privately made firearms — are not. Since the birth of our nation, citizens have enjoyed the right to create their own privately made firearms. A review of the basic facts on PMFs would have made for a helpful presentation at the summit.

As far as federal law is concerned, individuals can legally make firearms for personal use without a license as long as the person isn’t prohibited from possession of firearms, the firearm is detectable, and the firearm isn’t made or sold for profit. Firearms and related items that are illegal under federal and/or state law, however, are still illegal. Items that are already regulated by federal and/or state law are still regulated.

Firearms continue to be heavily regulated regardless of how they are manufactured. Articles referring to 3D printed firearms are a mishmash of terms interchanging 3D printed firearms with “ghost guns” and undetectable firearms. The National Firearms Act of 1934, the Gun Control Act of 1968, the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988, to name just a few, continue to govern firearms produced by 3D printing.

The mere absence of a serial number does not make a gun undetectable and if 3D printers were capable of producing undetectable firearms, such guns would already be illegal to manufacture and possess anywhere in the country.

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TPTB in Massachusetts need their faces rubbed in McDonald v Chicago where the Supreme Court ruled that the 2nd amendment was incorporated to also be a restriction on State’s powers via the 14th amendment.

Massachusetts Says Its ‘Assault Weapon’ Ban Immune to Federal Challenge

Back in August, the National Rifle Association and the Gun Owners Action League filed a lawsuit challenging the new “Assault Style Firearms” law adopted as part of the broader gun control package known as Chapter 135. Though the state has banned so-called assault weapons for several decades now, the new law offers a new opportunity to challenge the ban of commonly-owned arms.

Now the state of Masschusetts has responded to the complaint filed in Hanlon v. Campbell, and as GOAL reports, the state is making the audacious argument that its gun laws are essentially immune to challenge in federal court.

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Do tell…..

Sharyl Attkisson: Mexican government bought US guns used in cartel crimes

For years, escalating violence and bloodshed in Mexico was blamed on U.S. gun smuggling and lax firearm laws. American-made weapons litter Mexican crime scenes.

But what if the truth is far different? A former federal agent is flipping the script with a jaw-dropping twist: Many of the U.S. guns used in cartel crimes were bought by Mexico’s own government.

Deadly shootouts and clashes with police are a daily reality among Mexico’s killer cartels. As a result, Mexico’s gun homicide rate is two to three times worse than the U.S., with over 21,700 gun murders in 2022. It’s a flashpoint in the debate over firearms and crime and who’s to blame. Mexico and gun control advocates have long blamed smuggling and America’s loose gun laws.

That’s the story John Dodson says he was told throughout his 15 years as a special agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The narrative was, “We are to blame. Our civilian firearms market, our right to bear arms, is to blame for the violence in Mexico and along the southwest border,” Dodson said.

But that narrative, he says, has been upended by the surprising truth: “The vast majority of crime guns recovered in Mexico are purchased directly by the Mexican government,” he said.

Tracing data confirms it. Most of the U.S. firearms recovered from Mexican crime scenes weren’t trafficked or smuggled. The Mexican government legally purchased them.  Exact numbers are hard to come by, but a 2023 State Department report confirms the U.S. approved $147.7 million in small– arms sales to Mexico from companies like Sig Sauer and Glock. Still more weapons are supplied through U.S. Foreign Military Sales.

“When we first started telling the Mexicans, ‘You have to do something to stop the drug trafficking coming north of the border,’ the Mexican authorities needed resources and funds to do that,” Dodson said. “So we started funding these operations … providing them with hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase equipment — much of that firearms.”

He says he queried ATF’s gun-tracing network. And he saw that most of the U.S. guns turning up at cartel crime scenes were originally sold to the Mexican government. Dodson said he was “flabbergasted.”

We reviewed data from 2016 to 2023. It confirms the Mexican government was the top buyer of U.S. guns later traced to crime scenes in Mexico. One document shows the Mexican military, listed as “dealer,” purchased more than 2,000 from 2016 through 2021.

A 2023 document sources a year’s worth of U.S. guns from Mexican crime scenes, with 779 of them originally bought by the Mexican government. No other source is anywhere close.

The State Department, which oversees foreign weapons sales, declined our interview request and wouldn’t answer any of our questions. We also couldn’t get any information from the Justice Department or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The State Department has told Congress that its priority is national security.

“From what I know,” Dodson said, “the amount of those firearms that are ending up being diverted to the black market — I would cease and desist all transactions with the Mexican government when it comes to firearms.”

Bondi DOJ Alleged to Back Warrantless ‘Home Invasion’ of Gun Owners

Attorney General Pam Bondi and the rest of the Trump Administration appear to be the most pro-Second Amendment administration in recent history, if not ever. That would be a fantastic thing all on its own were it not for the fact that the DOJ still keeps doing some anti-Second Amendment things.

Yeah, the title is still applicable in my book, but that’s because the bar is so low single-sell organisms can’t limbo under it.

However, the latest issue is a bit more complicated than it might look on the outside. It seems a man was shot by police in Montana after they entered his house without a warrant. The DOJ is apparently backing up the state in this case.

But the devil is in the details.

“The Department of Justice under Attorney General Pam Bondi is advancing an argument that threatens to hollow out the Fourth Amendment’s core protection: that Americans may be secure in their homes against warrantless searches.

The lawsuit is Case v. Montana. After a difficult breakup, William Trevor Case was at home alone when police arrived for a so-called “welfare check.” They spent nearly an hour outside his house. Officers walked around the property, shined flashlights through windows, and even discussed calling his relatives or reaching him directly. They never did. Instead, they retrieved rifles and a ballistic shield, broke down his door without a warrant, and shot him.

Case survived, but his rights did not.

The Montana Supreme Court upheld the police’s warrantless entry. Apparently, the government’s “reasonable suspicion” that Treavor Case might need “help” was sufficient to justify an armed warrantless intrusion into his home. That standard is alarmingly low. The Fourth Amendment requires probable cause and judicial approval before government agents may enter a home. It does not permit entry based on a hunch.

The U.S. Supreme Court addressed a similar issue in Caniglia v. Strom in 2021. In that case, officers entered a man’s home without a warrant after a domestic dispute, claiming they were acting as “community caretakers.” The Court unanimously rejected that argument. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the Fourth Amendment’s protections do not vanish just because police say they are trying to help. The Court allowed for true emergencies—cases of imminent harm or death—but drew a clear line against open-ended “caretaking” exceptions.”

The welfare check is something that’s been around for years, and most people don’t seem to think much of it. Case was someone dealing with a difficult time in his life, one that could spark depression or suicidal ideation, and someone got worried about it. So, they called the police to check on him.

It happens all the time, and it’s saved lives. People who were injured or sick were found and rushed to the hospital where they could be treated.

However, this highlights the potential dark side of welfare checks.

It doesn’t help that police didn’t think Case was in need of immediate aid, yet they claimed he’d said he would “shoot it out” with law enforcement. They suspected he might try to ambush them and die via suicide by cop. Of course, the person who claimed that was one of the officers on the raid, and so I don’t know how valid that claim actually was, especially as he wasn’t arrested over making a threat, apparently.

So, they armed up, got ballistic shield, and never bothered to just knock on the door and see if he’d answer.

I don’t know how Case was unaware that someone was outside, shining a flashlight into the window, or if he did and that was why he was hiding in a closet with a handgun.

Honestly, the whole thing is wonky as all get out to me, and it would have been best of the DOJ had just stayed out of it or at least defend the Fourth Amendment for gun owners.

What makes this worse is the fact that it’s not hard to get the police to conduct a welfare check. Anyone can do it and justify it for almost any reason. The police will just respond, and if they respond like they did with Case, it’s not difficult to see how something could go sideways and an innocent person be killed.

Glocks, Guns, & Government Overreach: How California Keeps Missing the 2nd Amendment Express

California’s recent surge in gun control legislation, especially Assembly Bill 1127, which effectively bans Glock and Glock-style handguns, reveals a troubling pattern of the state enacting laws that conflict with the Second Amendment, the intent of the Founding Fathers, and established Supreme Court rulings. This relentless legislative push threatens the constitutional rights of California citizens and demands urgent corrective action.

The Second Amendment and Supreme Court Guidance

The Second Amendment protects the individual right to keep and bear arms. Landmark Supreme Court cases like District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) confirmed that this right includes possessing firearms for lawful self-defense. The Court emphasized that the right to self-defense is central to the Amendment and that restrictions cannot apply to weapons “in common use.” California ignores this legal precedent.

In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), the Court reaffirmed this position, ruling that gun regulations must reflect the historical understanding of the right at the time the Amendment was adopted. States must justify any restrictions based on this historical framework, especially when banning firearms like Glocks, which are essential tools for lawful self-defense.

Again, California ignores this legal precedent.

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4chan to British Censors: Get Stuffed.

A funny thing happened on the way to once-Great Britain’s transformation into George Orwell’s dystopian Airstrip One: The renegade users of the anonymous 4chan forum got themselves legal representation and told British busybodies to sod off.

A little background.

4chan’s exploits are legendary, if not always savory.

Ever wanted to know how lefties came to believe that the perfectly innocent “OK” hand gesture is some kind of secret code for white supremacy?

That was 4chan.

When Pepsi held an online contest in 2012 to name a new Mountain Dew flavor, 4chan users hijacked it, flooding the rankings with names like “Hitler Did Nothing Wrong” and “Diabeetus.” That same year, they rigged a contest where fans could vote for Taylor Swift to perform at their school. I hesitate to tell you this part, but they rigged it so that the winning school was the Horace Mann School for the Deaf.

So I’m not saying that 4chan is a bunch of world-saving good guys. They aren’t. What I am saying is that it is unwise to mess with the DGAF anonymous users of a forum dedicated to cultural and political pranks, and who often describe themselves as “weaponized autists.”

They will come for you if you do.

And Another Thing: “Weaponized autists” is their term, not mine.

Even the Trump administration tried to warn off the U.K.’s censors. Last week, Marco Rubio’s State Department warned that the “human rights situation worsened” in Britain in 2024 and criticized the country’s so-called Online Safety Act, which is used and abused by British authorities to stifle speech around the world.

Including 4chan.

Big mistake — but not for the reason I would have guessed.

Instead of going after the U.K.’s censorship board — aka the Office of Communications — in ways only they could dream up, 4chan hired Byrne & Storm, P.C. and Coleman Law, P.C. to represent them against His Majesty’s Craptaculent Government.

Coleman Law is headed up by Ron Coleman. I’ve known Ron (virtually) for probably 20 years, and can tell you that you don’t want to be opposite him in court.

“According to press reports,” 4chan’s new lawyers said in a statement, “The U.K. Office of Communications (‘Ofcom’) has issued a provisional notice under the Online Safety Act alleging a contravention by 4chan and indicating an intention to impose a penalty of £20,000, plus daily penalties thereafter.”

However, “4chan is a United States company, incorporated in Delaware, with no establishment, assets, or operations in the United Kingdom. Any attempt to impose or enforce a penalty against 4chan will be resisted in U.S. federal court.”

And: “American businesses do not surrender their First Amendment rights because a foreign bureaucrat sends them an e-mail. Under settled principles of U.S. law, American courts will not enforce foreign penal fines or censorship codes.”

Finally, they warned that if needed, “we will seek appropriate relief in U.S. federal court to confirm these principles,” and that “United States federal authorities have been briefed on this matter.”

The same U.S. authorities at State, I’d wager, that just ripped the U.K.’s censors a new one last week.

So color me shocked that 4chan pursued a legal remedy against Britain’s notorious nannies, instead of doing what they do best, and waging an attritional war of embarrassment and manipulation.

At least for now.

NRA Puts Gavin Newsom on Notice: Lawsuit Coming over ‘Glock Ban’

The NRA put California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on notice that a lawsuit is coming over AB 1127, the bill Newsom signed to enact a ban on new sales of Glock handguns.

AB 1127, the “Glock ban” bill, takes effect July 1, 2026.

Breitbart News reported that the “Glock ban” bill accomplishes its prohibition by labeling Glocks a “machinegun-convertible pistol.”

Such a definition sets the stage for other language in the bill, which says, “This bill would expand the above definition of ‘machinegun’ to include any machinegun-convertible pistol equipped with a pistol converter and, thus, prohibit the manufacture, sale, possession, or transportation of a machinegun-convertible pistol equipped with a pistol converter.”

The NRA pounced on the new ban, with NRA-ILA executive director John Commerford saying, “Gavin Newsom and his gang of progressive politicians in California are continuing their crusade against constitutional rights.”

He continued, “Once again, they are attempting to violate landmark Supreme Court decisions and disarm law-abiding citizens by banning some of the most commonly owned handguns in America.”

Commerford concluded, “This flagrant violation of rights cannot, and will not, go unchecked.”

Newsom Signs Glock Ban Bill Into Law

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been calling himself a Second Amendment supporter for several months now, but if anyone had any doubts about his lack of sincerity those can now be put to rest. On Friday afternoon the governor signed AB 1127 into law, which will outlaw the sale of Glock handguns in the state starting in January.

In addition to AB 1127, Newsom also signed legislation that will require sales of gun barrels to go through an FFL and a background check, as well as AB 1078, which replaces California’s “1-in-30” handgun rationing law (which is already on hold thanks to a lawsuit) with a “3-in-30” law. The bill, however, states that California will return to its previous one-gun-a-month scheme if it’s ultimately upheld by the courts.

As you can imagine, gun control activists are thrilled to see California become the first state in the nation to outlaw the sale of some of the most popular pistols in the country, and they’ll be making a major push for other blue states to adopt similar bans in the months ahead. From Everytown for Gun Safety:

“We applaud Governor Newsom and state lawmakers for putting California at the forefront of the fight against DIY machine guns, which are just as scary as they sound,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “It speaks volumes about the gun industry’s fixation on profits that only a new law can force it to take the most basic steps to prevent mass carnage.”

“Governor Newsom, state lawmakers, and California volunteers continue to prove that the days of putting gun industry profits over our lives are long gone,” said Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action. “DIY machine guns should never have had a pathway onto our streets, and today, we’re taking a big step to get them out of our communities. Our movement will keep fighting to hold reckless gun manufacturers accountable — because they shouldn’t get to profit off our tragedies.”

AB 1127 theoretically allows for Glock to change the design of its Gen 3 model to block the installation of illegal switches, but even if the company could take that step CalDOJ would view the redesigned pistol as a new firearm subject to the state’s handgun roster, and it would be rejected due to a lack of a magazine disconnect feature. That’s the reason why newer Glock models haven’t been approved for sale in California, though the Gen 3 was previously grandfathered in to the roster.

The NRA is already vowing to sue Newsom over the ban.

My guess is most of the other national Second Amendment groups will soon be filing suit as well, and we’ll probably see a coalition or two combining forces to take on the new laws.

So far there’s been no word from Glock on the new legislation, which is part of a broader effort to prohibit the sale of the popular handguns. The cities of Chicago, Baltimore, and Seattle are also suing the company, claiming the gunmaker is willfully allowing the illegal conversion of their pistols into full-auto machine guns through the installation of illegal switches. New York also has a similar Glock ban bill pending in the legislature, and now that Newsom has signed AB 1127 into law that could start moving as well.

The gun control lobby can’t ban handguns outright, so their new strategy is to go after the most popular pistols on a piecemeal basis. In the short term, Glock sales will likely skyrocket in California, but unless AB 1127 is stayed via an injunction those sales will come to a screeching halt once the new law takes full effect.

The Second Amendment Holds More Weight Than ‘Uncle Dick’s Deer Stand’

In a Senate Judiciary Committee Oversight Hearing this week, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi faced questions regarding her leadership of the Justice Department.

But at the hearing, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) used her time questioning the nation’s top law enforcement official to repeat her canned comment about her ‘Uncle Dick’s deer stand’ when reiterating her support for legislation that would infringe upon citizens’ Second Amendment rights by banning popularly-owned firearms.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.

Illogical Reasoning, Rinsed and Repeated

Opening her time on the microphone, Sen. Klobuchar set the scene for an attack on our right to keep and bear arms. Addressing AG Bondi, Sen. Klobuchar got to her point.

“In 2018, after the Parkland shooting, you were attorney general and there was a bill called the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act and the bill banned bump stocks and enacted red flag laws and raised the minimum age to purchase a firearm in Florida from 18 to 21 and you actually defended the law in court from a challenge from the NRA and we know that I’m in favor of an assault weapon ban. Period,” she said.

“I look at these bills, and I think ‘Does this hurt my Uncle Dick and the deer stand?’ – we have a proud tradition of hunting in Minnesota – I don’t think they do,” Sen. Klobuchar suggested.

Sen. Klobuchar has referenced her Uncle Dick numerous times when discussing her belief that Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs) can and should be banned.

Since she brought it up, though, NSSF views gun control bills through the lens and with the knowledge that our Founding Fathers didn’t add the Second Amendment to the Constitution in response to a rogue deer herd. They added it as a guarantee that law-abiding Americans had the Constitutional right and means to keep and bear arms to keep a new government in check.

Mislabels and Misinformation

Another key point to address is the term ‘assault rifle,’ which has been attributed to Adolf Hitler after he referred to the MP 43 (Maschinenpistole) by the German word Sturmgewehr – “assault rifle” in English. That the firearm, which became known as the Sturmgewehr 44, features an intermediate cartridge, controllable automatic fire, and a higher rate of fire, is not an accurate comparison to the MSRs of today.

Here in the United States, the term ‘assault weapon’ didn’t even exist in the lexicon of firearms before 1989. In 1988, anti-gun activist Josh Sugarmann, who was the communications director for the National Coalition to Ban Handguns, recommended that gun-control groups use public ignorance and fear to ban everything they can stuff into the phrase “assault weapon.”

Sugarman wrote, “Assault weapons … are a new topic. The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons…. Efforts to restrict assault weapons are more likely to succeed than those to restrict handguns.”

In the past several years, though, Americans have purchased Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs) by the millions and are becoming more aware of the firearm’s functionality and operation. They aren’t buying the lies repeated by gun control groups and their elected allies who seek to ban the popular firearm.

In fact, firearm industry data has shown over the past few years while law-abiding Americans purchased firearms at a blistering pace, the MSR was a popular choice, including among first-time gun owners. Since 1990, there are more than 30 million MSRs in circulation today. That includes more than 4.5 million in the last three years alone. That makes the MSR more popular and commonly-owned today than there are Ford F-150 pickup trucks on the road.

I wonder if Uncle Dick drives an F-150?

The Cold Hard Truth

Unfortunately for Sen. Klobuchar and her gun control allies, America has already experimented with a ban, and facts overwhelmingly prove the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban did not reduce crime.

“These are just incredibly popular firearms… they are commonly owned, commonly used,” said political economist and assistant professor William English of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. “At the end of the day, it is a rifle that I think is very easy to shoot, it’s very easy to control, not a lot of recoil.”

“So, it’s a good gun,” English added, when speaking with Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard. “And to see it become widely owned, I suppose, makes sense in that context.”

Clearly, We the People agree. Sen. Klobuchar should take note.

In my opinion, those in the California justice system who had anything to do even tangentially with this should all be prosecuted as accessories and charged under the felony murder rule. I will be generous though, and just for them, allow them to be sentenced to life without parole. The killer though better get the death penalty.

California Ignores Detainer and Releases Serial Criminal Illegal Alien; He Kills 6

A serial criminal removed from the United States multiple times for being an illegal alien and arrested for multiple offenses, including drunk driving, was released last year by the state of California despite a federal detainer. He subsequently murdered six people.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) finally caught up with Beto Cerillo-Bialva in September, but the illegal alien had had numerous encounters with law enforcement before. Unfortunately, however, the legal apparatus simply did not insist on holding him for his crimes, at least in sanctuary-state California.

“This serial criminal killed six innocent souls. Governor Newsom has blood on his hands. This serial criminal should have never been released by California authorities,” mourned Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin in a DHS press release. “Sanctuary policies protect the WORST OF THE WORST criminal illegal aliens. ICE will do everything in our power to remove this serial drunk driver, abuser, and drug user from our country.”

In 2024, Cerillo-Bialva was arrested for the third time for driving under the influence, but Gavin Newsom‘s California released him. As noted above, he subsequently killed half a dozen people in a drunk driving incident.

Cerillo-Bialva has been removed from the United States seven times—a felony—and maintains an extensive criminal history including possession of cocaine, three DUIs, driving without a license, and violating a court ordered restraining order for domestic abuse.

This news about Cerillo-Bialva comes just after the announcement that the illegal alien who killed University of South Carolina Student Nate Baker this year in a hit-and-run drunk driving accident was sentenced to only a year in jail.

McLaughlin emphasized how outrageous is the miscarriage of justice: “21-year-old USC student Nathaniel ‘Nate’ Baker was driving a motorcycle when he was hit by a truck driver who fled the scene. The hit-and-run driver, Rosali Isaac Fernandez-Cruz, was in our country illegally and received just 1 year in prison for taking Nate’s precious life. ICE lodged a detainer to ensure as soon as this killer completes his one-year prison sentence that ICE is notified to arrest him and get him OUT of our country.”

 

Too much of our so-called justice system is now rigged in favor of the worst criminals and against the victims. McLaughlin deplored the series of terrible decisions by authorities that led up to the deadly crash: “Nate was a 21-year-old college student with his whole life in front of him. This monster should never have been in our country and has had a final order of removal since 2018.”

But in all those years, the illegal alien Rosali I. Fernandez-Cruz was not removed, so he was still present in the United States to kill a wonderful young American man. How many Americans have been robbed, raped, assaulted, or killed by illegal aliens who should never have been allowed here in the first place, and many of whom were even previously ordered deported?

The Democrat Party has left a trail of corpses in its wake.

Original Intent: What the Founders Had to Say About Guns
The very idea of American freedom hinges on the right to keep and bear arms.

The US Constitution took effect March 4, 1789 – and the Bill of Rights a while later on December 15, 1791. Among other freedoms, this included the Second Amendment, which protects the right to keep and bear arms. But now it’s 2025, more than 230 years removed from that great work of America’s Founding Fathers. So where do our gun rights stand – and what would those men think if they could see us today?

The Birth of Gun Control Meant Death to Liberty

In 1934 – more than 140 years after the Bill of Rights and nearly a century after the last remaining Founding Father, James Madison, died in 1836 – the nation’s first successful gun control bill became law. Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, and he led a trifecta in the Swamp that included a supermajority in the Senate and a large majority in the House. The gun control that they passed regulated, for the first time, various types of firearms differently. Even with the majorities necessary to bulldoze the minority opposition, they knew an outright ban wouldn’t fly. So, instead, they passed a bill technically regulating the sale and taxation of certain types of arms – and, in practice, pricing out most Americans from owning them.

Three decades later, Democrats once again held both houses of Congress and the presidency. And, once again, they capitalized on a series of crises to justify further restricting the right to keep and bear arms. With the Gun Control Act of 1968, we got the establishment of prohibited persons – entire groups of people who would be stripped of the right to be armed. Guns could no longer be bought and sold commercially without going through a federally licensed dealer, in person.

In 1993, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act established the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) and the background check as a way to weed out prohibited persons. This was followed quickly by the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, which made certain semi-automatic firearms illegal for anyone, though it expired in 2004. Democrats have been trying ever since to pass another ban – this time, without a sunset clause.

Every gun control law passed in this nation’s history – and the time between them seems to shrink with each one – brings us farther from the Founders’ vision of liberty. Yes, in the last few years, Supreme Court rulings, executive actions, and the spread of the constitutional carry movement through the states all seemed to push back on this slow march to disarmament. But freedom today doesn’t mean what it did to the Founders. They envisioned something quite different, and nothing paints a better picture of that vision than their own words.

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NAILED IT! The FBI DID Send Hundreds of Undercover Assets Into the J6 Protest!

Yet another victory for the tinfoil hat, “conspiracy theory” crew: the FBI sent 274 “plainclothes” agents into the crowd of people protesting in and near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to Just the News.

And many of those agents are not happy about how it all went down, not to mention the bureau’s liberal bias.

FACT-O-RAMA! When the House Judiciary Committee asked him if the FBI had undercover assets involved in the January 6 protest, then-FBI director Christopher Wray testified that such an idea is “ludicrous.” Maybe he and James Comey can enjoy a little yard time together.

An FBI after-action report that Kash Patel’s office recently discovered not only reveals that the agency sent 274 agents and personnel into the January 6 fracas but also how poorly planned and executed the plan was. The report also reveals that many rank-and-file FBI agents complained that they felt as though they were “pawns in a political war.” Others suggested that the FBI was too “woke.”

After the January 6 melee, dozens of FBI agents and officials lodged anonymous complaints to the bureau, outlining how the bureau sent them into a dangerous situation without safety gear or a proper way to identify themselves as armed federal agents to other law enforcement officers.

The most common complaint from the agents was the left-leaning political bias of the bureau and how the BLM rioters of 2020 received far better treatment than the January 6 protestors.

Some of the complaints were scathing. One of the bureau’s damning complaints read:

The FBI should make clear to its personnel and the public that, despite its obvious political bias, it ultimately still takes its mission and priorities seriously. It should equally and aggressively investigate criminal activity regardless of the offenders’ perceived race, political affiliations, or motivations; and it should equally and aggressively protect all Americans regardless of perceived race, political affiliations, or motivations.

That same agent also asked the FBI “to identify viable exit options for FBI personnel who no longer feel it is legally or morally acceptable to support a federal law enforcement and intelligence agency motivated by political bias.”

Another agent pulled no punches and suggested that the problem of political bias wasn’t just an FBI problem but that it extended to the Office of the U.S. Attorney:

Currently, the US Attorney’s office is dictating what it is that gets investigated. This is a dangerous precedent because we can barely get them to prosecute investigations that clearly meet thresholds needed for Federal prosecutions,” the agent wrote. “However, their willingness to conduct a search warrant on someone’s life for a misdemeanor seems ridiculous. It is unreasonable for the FBI to conduct investigations involving misdemeanor violations at a federal level… it is not our role.

Many agents focused their ire on the “wokeness” of the Washington Field Office (WFO), with one writing, “WFO is a hopelessly broken office that’s more concerned about wearing masks and recruiting preferred racial/sexual groups than catching actual bad guys.”

Yet another agent lowered the boom and spoke directly about the FBI’s treatment of January 6 suspects:

However, their willingness to conduct a search warrant on someone’s life for a misdemeanor seems ridiculous. It is unreasonable for the FBI to conduct investigations involving misdemeanor violations at a federal level… it is not our role.

 

FACT-O-RAMA! A vast majority of J6 defendants were charged with four misdemeanors, one of which involved trespassing. Most were not sentenced to serve time in jail.

This bombshell after-action report discovery comes hot on the heels of the arrest of former FBI Director Comey, who faces charges of lying and obstruction.

Had enough yet?

As almost always, the expense of the process was the punishment.

Second Amendment Foundation declares ‘vindication’ as Attorney General ends investigation

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) announced this week that it has reached an agreement with the Washington State Attorney General’s Office. This concludes a three-year investigation that found no misconduct by SAF or its personnel.

As part of the settlement, SAF will withdraw its federal civil rights lawsuit against the Attorney General’s Office, former Attorney General Bob Ferguson, and other named defendants. This agreement includes the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) canceling its request for public records from the Washington Attorney General’s Office.

In return, the AG’s Consumer Protection will end its investigation into SAF and the other parties involved.

Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb stated the agreement represents a “vindication of our position that SAF, its partners and personnel did nothing wrong.”

Gottlieb says Ferguson’s investigation was political retaliation, not justice.
Gottlieb expressed his dissatisfaction with the investigation initiated by Bob Ferguson, describing it as an effort to “discredit our work on behalf of gun owners and the Second Amendment.”

“Ferguson’s witch hunt wasted three years of our time and cost us thousands of man hours and more than $200,000. We’re convinced this happened because he is a devoted anti-gun rights politician and we are a national organization whose mission is to protect and defend the Second Amendment,” he added.

All of SAF’s sister companies were targeted as well, including the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Merril Mail Marketing, the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, the Service Bureau Association, and Liberty Park Press, where Gottlieb currently serves as publisher.

Gottlieb expressed relief that the ordeal is over, though he added, “we’re not happy that Ferguson is not held responsible for the damage he did. It is our sincere hope that no future attorney general in Washington state will conduct a politically motivated attack under color of law against any non-profit organization with which he or she has a fundamental philosophical disagreement.”

As parts of the agreement, the Washington State Attorney General has decided not to pursue any legal action stemming from the investigation.

This outcome comes as no surprise to Gottlieb, “since they couldn’t find any wrongdoing.”

The Federal Trade Commission Takes On the 2nd Amendment

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) recently sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Andrew Ferguson requesting the FTC investigate whether the Biden Administration’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention worked with anti-Second Amendment organizations to demand that the agency crack down on “deceptive and misleading claims” made by gun manufacturers. These efforts were supported by a group of anti-Second Amendment senators who wrote to then-FTC Chair Lina Khan asking her to investigate the gun industry’s advertising practices.

The senators’ letter accused the gun industry of marketing to children because their ads referenced popular “first person shooter video games” like Call of Duty. The problem with this claim is that the majority of gamers are over 18—making it perfectly legal for the firearms industry to market their products to them. The letter also suggests that the gun industry is engaging in “deceptive” advertising by focusing on how firearm ownership can help law-abiding citizens protect themselves, their families, and their property. Once again, the senators’ claims do not fit the facts.

Gun owners use firearms in self-defense between 60,000 and 2,500,000 times per year, and private citizens are 85% more likely to use a gun for self-defense than to be killed by a firearm. It is not misleading to say that firearms can be a useful tool for self-defense. Sadly, it is also true that there are around 526 accidental gun deaths per year, as well as over 40,000 people wounded due to the careless use of firearms. However, the solution is not to restrict firearm advertising—but to promote responsible gun ownership. The gun industry, along with other pro-Second Amendment organizations, does engage in plenty of work in this area.

As weak as the arguments for restricting firearms advertising are, the main argument against such restrictions is that they violate the First Amendment. Supreme Court precedent establishes that commercial speech like advertising is protected by the First Amendment, although at a lower level than political or religious speech. Even under this lower standard of review, banning or otherwise restricting advertisements for firearms would likely be struck down by the courts.

But while a future gun-grabbing FTC Chair may not be able to directly restrict gun advertising, they may try to ban gun ads through the back door. One way to do this would be to condition approval of mergers and acquisitions of media companies—including social media companies—on an agreement to not promote “dangerous” products such as firearms. If this sounds familiar it is because it is the approach of current FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson. Ferguson has conditioned approval of advertising firm Omnicom’s acquisition of fellow advertising company Interpublic on the firms agreeing not to restrict web ad placements based on the sites’ political content. Is it too hard to imagine a future progressive FTC conditioning a similar merger on a company’s agreement to not place ads on sites that promote products dangerous to public health, such as firearms?

Government agencies may not even have to directly threaten to deny approval of a merger or acquisition to get a company to disregard the Second Amendment rights of their consumers. For example, before winning approval of their purchase by Skydance, Paramount—who owns CBS—settled a lawsuit brought by President Trump alleging that 60 Minutes edited their interview with then-Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris to make her appear more knowledgable and coherent. President Trump claims this was done to make the Vice President more appealing to voters, and thus constituted election interference.

A long time 60 Minutes producer resigned earlier this year, saying the network was interfering with the program’s editorial decisions to moderate criticisms of President Trump. While FCC Chair Brandon Carr did not explicitly demand these actions, his rhetoric about broadcasters being required to act in the “public interest”, and his threats to block the Paramount-Skydance deal, no doubt played a role in Paramount’s actions.

It is easy to imagine a progressive FTC or FCC Chair using this precedent to forbid a news program, podcast, or even entertainment program from including content considered pro-gun. Fortunately, the pro-Second Amendment movement is fighting any attempt to use spurious claims of “false and deceptive” advertising to infringe on the Second Amendment. According to Eric Pratt, Senior Vice President of Gun Owners of America, his group “is leading the charge to unravel many of Biden’s unconstitutional restrictions in the courts, and we applaud President Trump for working to roll back other abuses—because the Second Amendment isn’t a bargaining chip, it’s the cornerstone of every American’s freedom.”

DOJ Takes Troubling Position in Second Amendment Case

The case Reese v. ATF challenges the prohibition on 18-to-20-year-olds from purchasing handguns. Victorious at the Fifth Circuit, they’re now working towards a final judgment at the district court level, but the Department of Justice has taken a position that’s not sitting well with Second Amendment advocates.

After the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals delivered an opinion on Reese v. ATF, the case was remanded for final judgment to the District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. The circuit court concluded that “the Second Amendment includes eighteen-to-twenty-year-old individuals among ‘the people’ whose right to keep and bear arms is protected.” The plaintiffs filed an important brief on Friday in support of their proposed judgment.

The government ended up exhausting their timeline to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. When remanded back to district court, both the plaintiffs and the government filed proposed judgments because “a good faith attempt to reach agreement with Government” failed.

The plaintiffs are proposing the government be enjoined from enforcing prohibitions on the sale of handguns to all eighteen-to-twenty-year-old members. The government is requesting that the law be enjoined only “with respect to the identified and verified persons described” in the proposed judgment. In short, the government essentially wants the order to apply only to the individual plaintiffs, not every member of the associations who are part of the lawsuit, which include the Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, and Louisiana Shooting Association.

“The laws challenged in this case prevent 18-to-20-year-old adult Americans from acquiring handguns or handgun ammunition in the ordinary commercial market. The Fifth Circuit has held that those laws and their supporting regulations are unconstitutional under the Second Amendment,” the filing states. “And now the Government has taken the position that even so, Plaintiffs should be entitled only to illusory relief and the Government should be free to continue to enforce these unconstitutional restrictions against Plaintiffs’ affected members as though they never brought and won this suit.”

The 19-page brief goes on to explain why the final judgment should not give deference to the government by delivering what would amount to an as-applied opinion. Given the amount of time it takes to bring such cases to completion, many plaintiffs are mooted out by coming of age before there are any final judgments—something the government incorporated in their proposed order.

“What’s at stake now is the scope of the injunction–meaning, which young adults will be able to exercise their rights,” said Second Amendment Foundation’s Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack. “Although it chose not to appeal the Fifth Circuit’s ruling, it is now the ATF’s position that the scope of relief should be so narrow as to cover literally no one. That position is contrary to well-settled law. SAF sued on behalf of its members, and the relief SAF won in the Fifth Circuit flows to those very members. All SAF members should be covered by this injunction.”

“SAF’s victory in this case rightly applies to all of our members, and that is precisely what this brief makes clear,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The government cannot continue to trounce on the Second Amendment rights of young adults by trying to avoid the practical effectiveness of an injunction mandated by a federal circuit court.”

The Firearms Policy Coalition had some harsh words for the Department of Justice. FPC said the government’s brief was full of “brazen arguments” and that “the DOJ is working to push all effective, cause-driven organizations … out of court altogether, and force people to pursue their rights through slow, complex, and expensive class-action lawsuits.” FPC alleges that these moves are all part of a new government ploy.

“The DOJ’s cynical scheme to undermine associational standing and relief for our members is nothing but an attempt to put constitutional accountability out of the reach of ordinary Americans,” Firearms Policy Coalition President Brandon Combs said in a statement. “The federal government, having lost on the merits, is now trying to rig the process. But we will not be deterred. While the government has placed FPC and our members in its crosshairs, we are proud to expose and oppose this dangerous strategy as we pursue a world of maximal liberty for all peaceable people.”

We’re allegedly living at a time when the most pro-Second Amendment administration is in power. The government yielding by allowing the clock to run out on appealing to the High Court certainly was a win, but not if in the next breath they’re saying that the relief the plaintiffs are seeking should be grossly limited. The Fifth Circuit was clear when it said that 18-to-20-year-olds are part of “the people,” there should be no further argument—yet here we are.