Category: You Can’t Make This Up

ATF DIRECTOR LAMENTS CONGRESSIONAL, AMERICANS’ DISTRUST TO UPEND SECOND AMENDMENT

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Director Steven Dettelbach joined CBS’s Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan to talk about violent crime committed with firearms and the tools he wants from Congress. The problem is those requests have already been rejected by Congress for good reason. Those tools would violate federal law and would chip away at the rights of those who obey the law without actually addressing the problem of crime.

“I was in Baltimore a few weeks ago with the law enforcement there, and it’s like, almost a 20 percent drop in homicides, but looks to me the caveat is that for many years in this country, we’ve had a very serious gun crime problem,” Director Dettelbach explained. “And we are the outlier among almost all Western modern nations, and not the outlier in a good way.”

He added later, “Well, I look at- look, I mean, data doesn’t lie.”

Juxtapose that with Director Dettelbach repeating the verifiably false claim that firearms are the leading cause of death among children. That’s just not true.

False Narrative

“The leading cause of death of children in the United States is firearms violence, right,” Director Dettelbach said. “Not cancer, not cars. Guns.”

That’s patently false. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris like to trot out the line in their gun control speeches even though it’s been proven to be false. The Washington Post, hardly a firearm-friendly news agency, admitted the narrative is false. To make the claim, The White House and now Director Dettelbach include people age 18 and 19. The problem is, 18 and 19-year-olds are adults, not children.

“When you focus only on children — 17 and younger — motor vehicle deaths (broadly defined) still rank No. 1, as they have for six decades,” The Washington Post reported. “In the interest of accuracy, it would be better for White House officials to refer to children and teens when citing these reports. When all motor vehicle accidents are counted, then motor vehicle deaths continue to exceed firearm deaths for children — defined as people under age 18 — whether or not infants are included.”

NSSF has blasted this twisting of data to arrive at the heated talking point. The claim in question came about as a result of a faulty study published by the University of Michigan Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention in April 2022. That study included Americans aged 18 and 19 years old – adults – in the data set as well as manipulated motor vehicle crash data to assert firearms became the “leading cause of death among children and adolescents” in 2020. NSSF debunked the study when it was published in April 2022.

Like Director Dettelbach said in his Face the Nation interview: data doesn’t lie.

Differing Ideas

Director Dettelbach lamented that the debate over firearms has become too heated. He recalled a meeting he had with residents of Lewiston, Maine, following the tragic criminal attack on innocent Americans there. He admitted that some in attendance, who were families of victims and victims themselves, were deeply suspicious of heavy-handed government intrusion on their rights.

“Those people were able to sit in that room with all that grief and have a discussion,” Director Dettelbach explained. “Tell me what they – what they – their feelings, differing feelings about how we should approach this problem. And they all had ideas.”

There are differing ideas. That’s why NSSF partners with the ATF to prevent the illegal straw purchasing of firearms in the “Don’t Lie for the Other GuyTM” campaign, of which he spoke. NSSF also partners with ATF for Operation Secure Store® to help firearm retailers improve security at their stores. However, there are some ideas that are just unacceptable.

Director Dettelbach bemoaned that Congress refuses to give him the authority to implement universal background checks. In fact, Congress has roundly rejected that idea because the Department of Justice (DoJ) admitted that for universal background checks to work, every law-abiding gun owner would need to be placed on a national firearm registry. That’s forbidden by federal law.

“So again, really, you know, people ask me, what’s my top priority? What’s my- what’s my wish list? I think the reality is it’s going to be a lot of things that we have to do to get out of this situation to make things better,” Director Dettelbach said. “… if Congress wants to consider more on universal background checks…”

Here’s why Congress isn’t giving in on surrendering the rights of law-abiding citizens to the government. It’s a false sense of security that would trade the rights of those who obey the law for an unkept promise to go after those who break the law. Congress is the representative government of “We, the People…” The “People” have been given every reason to distrust the government when it comes to protecting their Second Amendment rights.

Untrustworthy Track Record

Just weeks ago, the U.S. Treasury Department admitted that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) violated the private banking and financial records of Americans to create a government watchlist that included anyone who bought a gun, ammunition – even a Bible – or shopped at one of several big box sporting goods stores.

The Biden administration’s Commerce Department has been working to throttle firearm exports in an attempt to kneecap U.S. firearm manufacturers. The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security issued a “90-day pause” that’s well beyond the initial 90 days to halt nearly all firearm exports while the administration re-examines policy. That’s despite the strongest safeguards that have been in place ever. The United States sets the leading standard in the world for firearm exports. All firearm and ammunition exports are – and always were – subject to both Defense and State Department review, and either can halt the export if there are security or human rights concerns. Firearm and ammunition license applications undergo a 100 percent end-user check by the BIS Office of Export Enforcement (OEE), regardless of how long an exporting company has been doing business with that customer, regardless of how many times the buyer was subjected to an end-user check and regardless of whether BIS has no derogatory information on that customer, even if the end-user was recently approved. At present, no other commodity is subject to the same 100 percent check.

There are more reasons why Congress is suspect of handing the reins over to the Biden administration when it comes to Americans’ Second Amendment rights. ATF itself has shown a willingness to infringe on Second Amendment rights through the rule-making process. ATF wrote a proposed “engaged-in-the-business” rule that would require nearly all private firearm sellers to obtain a federal firearms license and run background checks. Congress made a one-word change to the definition of “engaged-in-the-business” in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA). ATF used that to launch 108 pages to require an estimated 328,000 additional licensees. It’s not just unconstitutional. It’s unfeasible.

The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan is demanding answers from Director Dettelbach, noting that the BSCA said the revised “engaged-in-the-business” definition “shall not include a person who makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms.”

ATF also published a Final Rule redefining “frames or receivers” in an effort to outlaw the ability for law-abiding private citizens to make their own firearms in their own home for private use. That was legal even before the founding of the nation. That rule is being challenged in courts for exceeding the authority of ATF to set criminal code, which is the sole authority of Congress. It is likely to be petitioned to the U.S. Supreme Court.

There’s also the recently-challenged Final Rule banning bump stocks, which was just heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. That challenge also questioned ATF’s authority to write criminal law. A decision is expected later this year.

There are more examples of why Congress – and the American public – distrust the federal government when it comes to their Second Amendment rights, including the Obama-Biden administration’s abusive Operation Choke Point, the ill-fated ATF Fast and Furious, California’s “accidental” release of concealed carry permit holders’ information to the general public and the same instance of New York City releasing concealed carry permit holders’ information to the media.

Data – and history – don’t lie.

Observation O’ The Day
The gratitude of the people of Gaza for the United States Armed Forces’ humanitarian efforts on their behalf will express itself just as did the gratitude of the people of Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Lebanon when we we made comparable efforts on their behalf: they will take the aid and make strenuous efforts to slaughter as many Americans as they possibly can.

Desperate Biden Signs off on U.S. Military Building Infrastructure for Hamas.

Think of this story as you watch the State of the Union address. President Biden has given his ok for the U.S. military to build a port on the Gaza coast to bring relief to the population there.

This is how desperate Joe Biden is to win the state of Michigan in November. The Uncommitted movement has taken him by surprise and a victory in Michigan is not certain for Biden. It is hard for Biden to win in November without winning Michigan.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib and her sister have organized the Uncommitted movement in Michigan to oppose Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Muslim Arab American voters make up an important bloc and Joe Biden is nervous. The voters in places like Dearborn are telling Team Biden they will not vote for Biden in November. They aren’t going to vote for Trump, either. They will probably skip the top of the ballot. Or they will stay home.

During his State of the Union address, Biden will announce his decision to send the U.S. military on an emergency mission for Hamas. The White House said this mission will not include putting American military boots on the ground.

‘The President will announce that he’s directing the US military to lead an emergency mission to establish a port in the Mediterranean on the Gaza coast that can receive large ships carrying food, water medicine, and temporary shelters,’ a senior administration official said on a briefing call with reporters on Thursday.

‘The planning involves the presence of US military personnel on military vessels offshore but does not require US military personnel to go ashore to install the pier or causeway facility that will allow to the transportation of humanitarian assistance,’ a senior defense official said.

‘We’re not planning for this to be an operation that would require U.S. boots on the ground,’ an official noted.

Pardon my skepticism but do we trust this administration on any “planning” going on by this incompetent lot? Remember the withdrawal from Afghanistan? Since then American bases in the Middle East have been attacked by Iran and its proxies while Joe Biden twiddles his thumbs and goes for ice cream cones.

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SCOTUS heard oral arguments today in the ATF bump stock ban case

SCOTUS Justice Jackson Just Said the Dumbest Thing About Guns and I Can’t Stop Laughing.

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson must have fallen asleep last night watching a vintage ’80s Chuck Norris movie as part of her preparation to hear oral arguments today in the Garland v. Cargill bumpstock ban lawsuit because her understanding of firearms is even less realistic than your typical Cannon Films production.

While I don’t have the transcript yet for you — arguments are going on as I write this column — the Firearms Policy Coalition has been doing the good work of posting highlights to Twitter/X.

(Don’t miss the update below from the official transcript)

When it was time for the Biden Department of Justice to present its side to the Court, Justice Clarence Thomas asked what happens, according to the FPC, “with the trigger in a bump stocked rifle vs a full-auto rifle.”

Please don’t wet yourself laughing when you read the government’s response.

My 14-year-old self, forever trapped in 1983, would have just one thing to say to a rifle that would let me fire 600 rounds a second: “BITCHIN’!”

Justice Jackson, with images of Chuck Norris killing an entire battalion of Vietnamese soldiers with a single magazine in “Missing in Action 2: The Beginning” still fresh in her mind must have thought, “600 rounds? I raise you 200 rounds to 800 — each and every second.”

ASIDE: Every time I read the words “Justice Jackson” I can’t help but think that’s what Action Jackson went into after he retired from the force.

Anyway, this was Jackson’s contribution to the discussion.

I dunno, maybe she wasn’t paying full attention and misheard the government’s ridiculous claim.

I’m not singling out Justice Jackson for any special mocking here — just the regular amount. Jackson was speaking off the cuff, and everybody makes mistakes doing that. While it’s extra unbecoming for a Justice of the Supreme Court to demonstrate such laughable ignorance about a case she’s supposed to be hearing with her own ears, the government took its time to prepare its case — they wrote stuff down and everything — and still managed to come up with 600 rounds per second.

Some days I wish firearms could do all the things that gun-grabbers claim they can do.

Do I really want an AR-15 that can fire 800 rounds per second? I mean, assuming I could find a magazine with that kind of capacity? No, obviously. The barrel would melt, the bullets would spray all over the place, and I’m having trouble imagining what would happen when 800 brass cartridges go flying out all over the range in a single second.

That one second would also put a serious dent in my .223 stash.

Still… what a glorious second that would be.

UPDATE: SCOTUS did a great job of getting the transcript posted, so I found the relevant bits for you.

MR. FLETCHER: [speaking to Chief Justice Roberts] What you are doing is just pushing forward. Now, if you look at the videos that we cite in Footnote 1 of our reply brief, some of them are in slow motion, and they show that when the shooter is doing this, the hand is moving back and forth very fast, 600 times a second. That’s not happening because the shooter is able to move their hand back and forth 600 — or, I’m sorry, 600 times a minute.

So the Firearms Policy Coalition got the first part right but then missed the correction. Easy to do while essentially liveblogging — I should know. Still, 600 rounds per minute is only slightly less impossible than 600 rounds per second. Even if under some extreme circumstances a bumpstock-enhanced cyborg were able to fire that quickly, a semi-automatic rifle wouldn’t stand up to the strain — and where would the rounds come from?

And here’s Justice Jackson: “And when, you know, ‘function’ is defined, it’s really not about the operation of the thing. It’s about what it can achieve, what it’s being used for. So I see Congress as putting function in this. The function of this trigger is to cause this kind of damage, 800 rounds a second or whatever.”

I think “or whatever” pretty well sums up Jackson’s interest in learning about firearms.

 

WATCH: Biden Says ‘I Wanna Get This Quote Exactly Right’ Before Hilariously Failing

“What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is,” said Vice President Dan Quayle more than 30 years ago, mangling the United Negro College Fund’s classic slogan, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

Quayle’s mistake was all over the news, the late-night talk shows, and whatever stupid place people used to go to before we had Twitter/X.

With that in mind, assuming we haven’t all lost ours, let us dig into the latest word salad from Presidentish Joe Biden, lovingly tossed and dressed with generous portions of Hidden Memory Ranch Dressing.

“Standing here in front of this portrait [Abraham Lincoln] of the man behind me,” because that’s how being in front of things works, “he, uh, he said — and I want to make sure I get the quote exactly right…”

If you aren’t already thinking that this is when Biden completely mangled the quote he was trying so hard to get exactly right, then I don’t think we can be friends any longer.

Biden continued, reading from his prepared notes, “He said, the better angel, he said, we must address the council and adjust the better angels of our nature. ”

When the better angel of your nature is in need of an adjustment, please take it to see a licensed chiropractor. I’m not sure what Biden meant about addressing the council in this context, but since he graduated ahead of the valedictorian in his top-tier Super Brain Law School class at Syracuse University, I’ll defer to his greater knowledge about such legal matters.

I would like to reiterate before we get to this next part that Biden was reading from note cards.

“And we do, and we do well to remember what else he said,” the alleged current president continued. “He said we’re not enemies but we’re friends. It’s in the middle, in the, in the middle part of the Civil War.”

Lincoln’s words — not Biden’s 40-grit sandpaper approximation of them — were delivered at his first inaugural in March of 1861, about five weeks before the first battle of the Civil War was fought at Fort Sumter. But whatever. Biden means well, except when he’s calling half of the country election-denying white supremacists bent on destroying our democracy.

“He said,” Biden repeating himself and still not mentioning Lincoln by name, “we’re not enemies, we’re friend [sic]. We must not be enemies.”

“We’ve gotten, politics has gotten too bitter,” he concluded for the benefit of you knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing, MAGA extremists.

What Biden had meant to say, of course, was this — or at least the first and last parts:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.
Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Lincoln, unlike our current Super Mind Brain POTUS, was an actual genius — and even a poet.

If you think I’ve exaggerated anything Biden said, watch the clip for yourself. Watching it is worse than reading it because, except for a well-delivered flash of humor at the end, my transcript doesn’t show you how weak and confused Biden sounded.

For the record, I’m not laughing at an old man’s misfortune — I’m laughing at ours.

You have to figure that these are the best takes they could get out of him. And they even added captions to cover for his slurring words.

Gun Control and Government Corruption Collide in Chicago Suburb

Police in Dolton, Illinois could soon be walking their beat instead of cruising the streets of the Chicago suburb after a bank moved to repossess much of the police department’s fleet of vehicles for non-payment. According to KS StateBank, the village is behind on its payments to the tune of $76,000, and the bank has been unable to reach anyone at City Hall who could rectify the problem.

Burt Odelson, the legislative counsel for the Village of Dolton Board of Trustees, says the board authorized the payments last May, and he and others are pinning the blame for the snafu on Dolton’s anti-gun mayor Tiffany Henyard.

As questions over unpaid bills have come to light in recent months, WGN Investigates previously uncovered exorbitant spending on lavish trips and experiences by Henyard, which included a trip to Las Vegas that cost more than $12,000 and fell in the same month the loan payment on the village vehicles was due.

… Village of Dolton trustees have gone head-to-head with Henyard at village meetings, calling for transparency, so residents know where taxpayer dollars are going.

“The residents of Dolton deserve to know how the money is being spent,” trustee Brittney Norwood told WGN-TV Thursday.

The board of trustees is in charge of overseeing finances, but some said Henyard has restricted them from access to village financial records, leaving them mostly in the dark. On top of that, several trustees told WGN News Thursday they recently heard from several vendors who claimed they were hired by the mayor for work and never paid for their services. The village is in millions in debt, and did not approve of those expenses, Norwood told WGN.

There’ve been questions about Henyard’s spending for years now. Back in 2021, Second Amendment advocate John Boch detailed that the mayor of the village was doling out hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for a team of officers to serve as her personal security detail, even as she was calling on lawmakers to pass more gun control laws that would make it harder for Dolton residents to protect themselves. The three officers, which accounted for almost 1/10th of the entire police force, cost taxpayers about $100,000 a year each, even though they were tasked almost exclusively with shadowing the small-town mayor.

To put that into perspective, that’s the same number of bodyguards that protect Birmingham, Alabama’s mayor but that city has almost ten times the population of Dolton.

At the same time, Mayor Henyard’s armed personal security detail affords her far more protection than the residents of her city enjoy. One of her first acts after taking office involved organizing an “anti-violence” march. She was joined at that march by anti-gun activist and accused pedophile Father Michael Pfleger.

Henyard was actually recalled by residents in 2022, but the recall election was ruled invalid by state courts and she’s remained in office ever since. With the next mayoral election not scheduled until 2025, there’s no telling how much of a financial hole the village will find itself between now and next November, but it sounds like it’s a distinct possibility that the Dolton Police Department is going to be crippled by the repossession of much of its fleet. I’m guessing that Henyard will ensure that there’s still money to pay for her team of bodyguards or hire convicted child sex offenders for positions that require them to enter residents’ homes, but everyone else who lives in the village is going to be impacted by the financial mismanagement at City Hall.

It’s pretty clear given her anti-gun activism that Henyard doesn’t want those folks to be able to protect themselves with a firearm, and based on the complaints from the trustees and their attorneys it might not be long before Dolton PD isn’t in a position to serve and protect the community at large either. What are they supposed to do to keep themselves and their families safe? I guess the obvious answer is “run for mayor”, since it sounds like Henyard is the one person in Dolton who’s guaranteed to be protected by armed individuals who are still legally allowed to purchase and possess so-called assault weapons and large capacity magazines for the mayor’s defense.

I don’t think that moron has the intellectual capacity to realize that his idea is a 2-Way street and The Purge was a movie franchise.

Black Activist Lawyer’s Idea to Stop Crime: Just Legalize Crime

 

Rantz: Seattle English students told it’s ‘white supremacy’ to love reading, writing

Students in a Seattle English class were told that their love of reading and writing is a characteristic of “white supremacy,” in the latest Seattle Public Schools high school controversy. The lesson plan has one local father speaking out, calling it “educational malpractice.”

As part of the Black Lives Matter at School Week, World Literature and Composition students at Lincoln High School were given a handout with definitions of the “9 characteristics of white supremacy,” according to the father of a student. Given the subject matter of the class, the father found it odd this particular lesson was brought up.

The Seattle high schoolers were told that “Worship of the Written Word” is white supremacy because it is “an erasure of the wide range of ways we communicate with each other.” By this definition, the very subject of World Literature and Composition is racist. It also chides the idea that we hyper-value written communication because it’s a form of “honoring only what is written and even then only what is written to a narrow standard, full of misinformation and lies.” The worksheet does not provide any context for what it actually means.

“I feel bad for any students who actually internalize stuff like this as it is setting them up for failure,” the father explained to the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH.

Everything is ‘white supremacy’ at Seattle Public Schools

The father asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution against his child by Seattle Public Schools. He said the other pieces of the worksheet were equally disturbing.

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How Biden Allowed Iran to Save Its Terror-Supporting Officers in Syria

Following the deadly Iran-backed attack on American troops in Jordan on January 28, President Biden and his Pentagon brass pledged a “multi-tier” response for the brazen assault that killed three U.S. service members.

The retributive strikes saw at least one senior leader of Kata’ib Hezbollah — one of the handful of Iran-backed terrorist organizations that have been coordinating scores of attacks on U.S. troops in the Middle East since October — in Baghdad, but there was a notable lack of punishment for the source of all the chaos in the region: the regime in Tehran. It appears that was by Biden’s design.

Instead of acting swiftly and decisively, however, the administration telegraphed its considerations and likely targets for days on end. Waiting until after the fallen heroes had returned to the United States for a dignified transfer in Dover, Delaware, the Biden administration finally began launching strikes in the region.

According to reporting from the Financial Times, “Iran pulled senior commanders of its Revolutionary Guard out of Syria days before the US launched strikes against Iranian-linked targets in the Arab state to prevent the elite force suffering further casualties.” Conveniently, the IRGC “officers had left Syria by the time Washington launched air strikes five days” after Biden promised to launch a response to the attack that killed U.S. troops.

Reminding that the Biden administration said it “directly targeted Revolutionary Guard facilities in Syria,” that means the agents of Tehran operating in support of Iran’s terror proxies were able to get away, thanks to Biden’s delays and ample warnings.

As Joe Truzman, senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), noted, Iran saving its officers’ hide was “exactly what the Biden administration intended” to happen.

Even worse — and proving that Biden’s strikes in response to the killing of U.S. Army Sgts. Kennedy Sanders, William Rivers, and Breonna Moffett won’t prevent future attacks on American troops — is this nugget, also reported by the Financial Times.

Iranian officials, calling the decision to withdraw IRGC commanders merely a “change in tactics,” received notice from the U.S. “through indirect channels that it did not seek a conflict with Iran.”

That is, after Iranian patronage to terrorist organizations saw more than 170 attacks launched at U.S. troops in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan and took the lives of three American service members, the U.S. told Tehran we didn’t seek a conflict.

That also means, as an “Iranian analyst affiliated to the Islamic regime” told the Financial Times, “[o]nce there is relative calm, these forces will return to Syria.” And Tehran’s support of terrorist proxies in the region will resume at full strength.