Category: Bureaucraps

Biden’s DOJ Asks SCOTUS to Gut the 2nd Amendment in 67-Page Brief

In a notable development, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has submitted a significant brief (67+ pages, embedded below) to the United States Supreme Court in the case of United States of America vs. Zaki Rahimi. The focus of this case is the constitutionality of 18 USC 922 G8, which pertains to domestic violence restraining orders and their alignment with the Second Amendment.

Mark Smith, a constitutional attorney, suggests that the DOJ, representing the Biden Administration, is arguing for extensive interpretation measures. The contention seems to be that the Second Amendment allows Congress and other legislative bodies the power to disarm individuals [aka “infringe”] deemed not “Law Abiding” or “responsible.” The criteria for such judgments, as outlined in the brief, could range from minor infractions like jaywalking to more serious criminal activities.

The broad implications of such an interpretation might leave a vast number of citizens without the right to keep and bear arms.

Central to the case is Zaki Rahimi’s incident from December 2019, where he allegedly assaulted his girlfriend and threatened a witness with a firearm. The event resulted in a restraining order against Rahimi in February 2020 after he ostensibly admitted to the accusations.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals previously held that the federal law in question in Zaki Rahimi’s case was in violation of the Second Amendment. Still, the DOJ’s arguments seem to lean heavily on connecting firearms with domestic violence, potentially setting a precedent for justifying ‘red flag’ laws. Their position leans on the Heller case from 2008, which identified the rights of “law-abiding and responsible” individuals to bear arms.

The DOJ attempts to spin its argument based on three main talking points, all taken out of legal and historical context:

  1. Previous court precedents distinguished between law-abiding citizens and those deemed otherwise.
  2. Historical precedents allowed for disarmament during the founding era, citing laws that existed during the period.
  3. Arguing that the majority of American states having similar domestic restraining orders suggests a national consensus.

Critics rightfully argue that simply because many states have implemented certain rules doesn’t automatically affirm their constitutionality.

This shocking 67-page brief from the DOJ would be a significant shift in interpreting the Second Amendment. Whether this unconstitutional human rights grab prevails will be determined by the Supreme Court in its upcoming deliberations.

Biden DOJ Legal Brief to SCOTUS in U.S. v. Rahimi

Someone with a verified disability could take New Joisey to the cleaners.

Deep Dive: New Jersey’s New ‘John Wick’ CCW Qualification Test

After the U.S. Supreme Court issued its historic Bruen Decision, which obliterated most state restrictions on the public carrying of arms and changed forever how lower courts should decide Second Amendment-related challenges to anti-gun regulations, many blue states seemingly tried to outdo each other with the number of unconstitutional post-Bruen tantrum laws they could pass. At this, New Jersey certainly lead the way, especially for its residents seeking to carry a defensive firearm.

Obtaining a New Jersey permit to carry was never easy. It is not easy now. Instead, it remains an expensive multi-step nightmare specifically designed to make the process as difficult as possible for the applicant.

Now, not only must New Jersians bend a knee, pay a fee and beg permission from the Crown to buy back their constitutional rights, they must also pass a difficult shooting test that was designed for police, not civilians, to prove they’re capable of exercising their constitutional rights to the government’s satisfaction.

Last month, the Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police in conjunction with the state’s Attorney General, issued new requirements titled “Use of Force Interim Training for Private Citizen Concealed Carry.” The document contains written material for in-person classroom training as well as the requirements for an arduous 50-round qualification course that every concealed-carry applicant must pass.

It is easy to get lost in the minutia of the qualification standards and lose sight of the big picture: New Jersey’s concealed-carry requirements are a massive infringement of the Second Amendment, which clearly violate Bruen. Does New Jersey test other constitutional rights? Do journalists there need to demonstrate competency before writing news stories? Do clergy in the Garden State need to pass state testing before delivering a sermon? Must voters prove proficiency before they’re allowed into a booth?

Clearly, New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin and his state police sycophants want to hold gun owners to a higher standard than those who exercising other constitutional rights.

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So a guy pushing the Trump Russian collusion story was actually colluding with the Russians. You literally can’t make this up.

Former F.B.I. Spy Hunter Pleads Guilty to Aiding Russian Oligarch

The plea by the former agent, Charles F. McGonigal, represented a remarkable turn for a man who once occupied one of the most sensitive and trusted positions in the American intelligence community, placing him among the highest-ranking F.B.I. officials ever to be convicted of a crime.

Appearing before Judge Jennifer H. Rearden of Federal District Court on Tuesday, an emotional Mr. McGonigal stood up and said that he had broken the law after his retirement in 2018 from the bureau, where he had been an expert in Russian counterintelligence, by aiding an effort by Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian billionaire under U.S. sanctions, to investigate a rival.

“I have understood what my actions have resulted in, and I’m deeply remorseful,” Mr. McGonigal said, his voice breaking. “My actions were never intended to hurt the United States, the F.B.I. and my family and friends.”

The conspiracy charge he pleaded guilty to was newly filed by prosecutors on Tuesday, replacing the original indictment handed up by a grand jury in January that had included more serious charges of violating U.S. sanctions and laundering money. Under the plea deal, the maximum prison term Mr. McGonigal could serve is five years, instead of the sentence of up to 20 years he might otherwise have faced.

In court, Mr. McGonigal, 55, told the judge that he had known he could not legally perform services for Mr. Deripaska, who was placed on a U.S. sanctions list in 2018. He said he had understood that his work in the second half of 2021 to collect “open source” negative information on Vladimir Potanin, an oligarch who was a business competitor of Mr. Deripaska, was likely to be used in an effort to get Mr. Potanin placed on the sanctions list as well.

He admitted knowingly arranging for payments to be routed from a Russian bank through a company in Cyprus, and then to a corporation in New Jersey, to conceal that the source of the money was Mr. Deripaska.

Judge Rearden scheduled Mr. McGonigal’s sentencing for Dec. 4.

In the initial charging document, prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York said that Mr. McGonigal and an associate had received payments totaling more than $200,000 for their work investigating Mr. Potanin under a contract with an aide to Mr. Deripaska. They also hired subcontractors for the investigation, the indictment said.

But on Tuesday, Mr. McGonigal told the judge that in the end he had netted only $17,500, and he agreed to forfeit that amount.

The plea brings the prosecution of Mr. McGonigal in New York to a relatively speedy conclusion after fewer than seven months. He had been arrested by F.B.I. agents in January at John F. Kennedy Airport upon his return from an overseas business trip.

Mr. McGonigal still faces a second indictment brought by federal prosecutors in Washington on charges that accuse him of concealing his acceptance of $225,000 from a businessman and of hiding dealings in Eastern Europe while working for the bureau. Mr. McGonigal has pleaded not guilty to those charges but is in talks to resolve them; his lawyer, Seth D. DuCharme, told the judge overseeing the Washington case that he expected to provide an update on the talks after Labor Day.

Although Mr. McGonigal was privy to highly classified information, a three-year investigation found no evidence that he had passed secrets to foreign adversaries, according to people with knowledge of the case who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing matter. The F.B.I. concluded that Mr. McGonigal’s misconduct was limited to corruption, the people said.

Mr. Deripaska, who has been called “Putin’s oligarch” because of his close relationship with the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, is among the best known of the businessmen who became rich as Russian state resources were doled out to friends of the Kremlin after the fall of the Soviet Union. Mr. Deripaska and others were also accused last year by federal prosecutors in New York of violating U.S. sanctions through real-estate deals and other actions, including trying to arrange for the oligarch’s girlfriend to give birth to their two children in the United States. Mr. Deripaska, a Russian citizen, is unlikely to be extradited to face the charges in the near future.

The prosecutors in Mr. McGonigal’s New York case have said that before the U.S. government expanded sanctions in 2018, following Russia’s interference in the 2016 American presidential election, Mr. McGonigal had reviewed a preliminary sanctions list with Mr. Deripaska’s name on it. Around the same time, they suggested, Mr. McGonigal was seeking a connection with Mr. Deripaska by arranging a New York Police Department internship for the daughter of one of the oligarch’s aides. (A senior police official has said it was actually a “V.I.P.-type tour.”)

After Mr. McGonigal retired, he and his co-defendant in the New York case, a court interpreter and former Russian diplomat named Sergey Shestakov, referred the same Deripaska aide to a law firm for help getting sanctions removed, according to the original charges in New York.

While negotiating the law firm agreement, Mr. McGonigal met with Mr. Deripaska in Vienna and London, referring to him in electronic communications as “the Vienna client,” prosecutors have said. Mr. Deripaska paid the law firm $175,000 a month; the firm passed $25,000 on to Mr. McGonigal as a consultant and investigator, the prosecutors said.

Mr. Shestakov has pleaded not guilty to violating U.S. sanctions, money laundering, conspiracy and making false statements to the F.B.I. His lawyer, Rita M. Glavin, did not respond to a request for comment.

The deal to investigate Mr. Potanin was made with an aide to Mr. Deripaska in the spring of 2021, prosecutors said.

In November of that year, Mr. McGonigal and Mr. Shestakov were trying to obtain “dark web” files, purportedly about $500 million in hidden assets held by Mr. Potanin, in exchange for a payment of up to $3 million, Rebecca Talia Dell, an assistant U.S. attorney, said in court Tuesday. Before that transaction could be completed, F.B.I. agents seized Mr. McGonigal and Mr. Shestakov’s electronic devices, bringing their work for Mr. Deripaska to an end, prosecutors have said.

Conservation Orgs File Intent to Sue Education Dept. Over Archery & Hunter Education Policies

On Friday, August 11, 2023, Safari Club International, along with the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation, sent a notice of intent to sue the Department of Education over the Department’s misinterpretation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), which would prohibit the use of federal funds for shooting sports, hunter education, and outdoor education programs in schools.

Co-sponsors and authors of the BSCA have repeatedly confirmed that it was not intended to restrict funding for these programs. Rather, these programs are vital to helping students find safe and healthy outlets—and to develop a love of the outdoors.

SCI and SAF’s notice of intent to sue warns the Department that its interpretation of the BSCA is arbitrary and capricious, in violation of federal law. It requests a response within ten days, or the organizations will have no choice but to file suit. These shooting sports and hunter education programs are far too important to allow this funding uncertainty to continue.

“SCI is disheartened by the Administration’s lack of urgency in correcting their misinterpretation of the BSCA,” said Ben Cassidy, SCI EVP of International Government and Public Affairs. “Congress has repeatedly confirmed that this was not the BSCA’s intent. The Department mustunderstand there are consequences for ignoring the crucial role these programs play in helping kids learn new skills, enjoy the outdoors, and understand the importance of conservation.”

“SCI Foundation has been dedicated to providing shooting sports and outdoor education programs since 1976,” said SCI and SCI Foundation CEO W. Laird Hamberlin. “Nearly 7,000 educators have been trained in conservation/outdoor education and shooting sports, reaching over 1 million children nationwide. In addition, the Foundation, as well as SCI chapters, have invested millions of dollars in funding archery, hunter education, and outdoor education in schools. The Department’s incorrect interpretation of this the BSCA has put all those programs in jeopardy.”

In addition to a suit, SCI is working with members of Congress to amend the law, to ensure misinterpretations like this cannot happen again. SCI’s Hunter Advocacy Action Center alert provides a direct link to contact Members of Congress, to demand urgent change.

More Background:

The increasing futility of gun control in a 3D printing world
“You can’t stop the signal”

Inexpensive Add-on Spawns a New Era of Machine Guns

Caison Robinson, 14, had just met up with a younger neighbor on their quiet street after finishing his chores when a gunman in a white car rolled up and fired a torrent of bullets in an instant.

“Mom, I’ve been shot!” he recalled crying, as his mother bolted barefoot out of their house in northwest Las Vegas. “I didn’t think I was going to make it, for how much blood was under me,” Caison said.

The Las Vegas police say the shooting in May was carried out with a pistol rigged with a small and illegal device known as a switch. Switches can transform semiautomatic handguns, which typically require a trigger pull for each shot, into fully automatic machine guns that fire dozens of bullets with one tug.

By the time the assailant in Las Vegas sped away, Caison, a soft-spoken teenager who loves video games, lay on the pavement with five gunshot wounds. His friend, a 12-year-old girl, was struck once in the leg.

These makeshift machine guns — able to inflict indiscriminate carnage in seconds — are helping fuel the national epidemic of gun violence, making shootings increasingly lethal, creating added risks for bystanders and leaving survivors more grievously wounded, according to law enforcement authorities and medical workers.

The growing use of switches, which are also known as auto sears, is evident in real-time audio tracking of gunshots around the country, data shows. Audio sensors monitored by a public safety technology company, Sound Thinking, recorded 75,544 rounds of suspected automatic gunfire in 2022 in portions of 127 cities covered by its microphones, according to data compiled at the request of The New York Times. That was a 49 percent increase from the year before.

“This is almost like the gun version of the fentanyl crisis,” Mayor Quinton Lucas of Kansas City, Mo., said in an interview.

Mr. Lucas, a Democrat, said he believes that the rising popularity of switches, especially among young people, is a major reason fewer gun violence victims are surviving in his city.

Homicides in Kansas City are approaching record highs this year, even as the number of nonfatal shootings in the city has decreased.

Switches come in various forms, but most are small Lego-like plastic blocks, about an inch square, that can be easily manufactured on a 3-D printer and go for around $200.

Law enforcement officials say the devices are turning up with greater frequency at crime scenes, often wielded by teens who have come to see them as a status symbol that provides a competitive advantage. The proliferation of switches also has coincided with broader accessibility of so-called ghost guns, untraceable firearms that can be made with components purchased online or made with 3-D printers.

“The gang wars and street fighting that used to be with knives, and then pistols, is now to a great extent being waged with automatic weapons,” said Andrew M. Luger, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota.

Switches have become a major priority for federal law enforcement officials. But investigators say they face formidable obstacles, including the sheer number in circulation and the ease with which they can be produced and installed at home, using readily available instruction videos on the internet. Many are sold and owned by people younger than 18, who generally face more lenient treatment in the courts.

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GOP Senators Condemn Biden Admin’s Misapplication of Gun Control Law

A group of 19 Republican Senators led by Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) sent a letter to President Biden Friday criticizing the attempt to use the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to justify withholding funds from schools that have hunting and/or archery programs.

Breitbart News reported on July 28 that Biden was blocking funds for elementary schools that had hunting and/or archery programs.

FOX News noted there are certain funds earmarked for archery and hunting programs via the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. But the Biden Administration had allegedly begun claiming that the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, secured in the summer of 2022, “[precluded] school hunting and archery classes…from receiving federal funding.”

Sen Barrasso and his colleagues explain that they opposed the gun control when it was passed and signed into law, and they oppose its use to deny funding to schools now.

Barrasso wrote: “The Biden Administration’s purposeful misinterpretation of the gun control bill is attempting to take away valuable programs from students across the country. Hunter education and archery programs are beneficial to students both in rural and urban areas.”

He and his colleagues also noted that the attack against programs for elementary school children is part of a larger animosity against hunters and archers in general: “It is now clearer than ever that the Biden Administration will use the [gun control] bill to attack the constitutional right of Americans. Hunting and archery are strongly connected to the traditions and heritage of America. This outrageous overreach is an attack on hunters and outdoor recreation that must be addressed.”

Barasso and his colleagues called on the Biden Administration to do an about-face on blockage of funding: “We call on the Biden Administration to immediately withdraw the guidance and support these essential programs.”

On Friday Breitbart News noted Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R) fired back at the Biden Administration for withholding money from elementary schools in his state, noting that the woke leftists who defunded the police are now defunding school hunting and archery programs.

California bill would make questioning school board members a crime

California is poised to codify at the state level what the feds were once requested to do — that is, turn inquisitive parents into criminals for daring to question their school board representatives.

Senate Bill 596, introduced by Democratic State Senator Anthony Portantino in February and dubbed the “School Employees: Protection” act, expands an existing law “which makes it a misdemeanor for any ‘person’ to threaten or harass a school employee during the ‘course of [their] duties,’” according to the California Globe.

This expansion adds a penalty for creating a “substantial disorder” at any meeting of a public school board, charter school board, county board of education, and the California State Board of Education.

Although “substantial disorder” is not precisely defined, the bill notes that “course of conduct” is “a pattern of conduct composed of two or more acts over a period of time, however short … evidencing a continuity of purpose.”

Gone from the definition of “harassment” is “unlawful violence” and “credible threat of violence,” and in its place is “torments, or terrorizes.”

It’s not difficult to figure out what’s happening here. A concerned parent at a school board meeting asks a board member a question and reiterates it (thereby establishing a “course of conduct”) … and if the board member feels “tormented” the parent can be arrested and charged with a fine between $500 and $1,000 and face up to a year in jail.

Or, as the Globe’s Kenny Snell (a retired longtime teacher) put it, “In California-speak, that means school boards get to decide what is substantial and what is not; what is harassment and what is not. In Totalitarian-speak that means don’t dare even think about going to a school board meeting and question their narrative or policies.”

Keep in mind that last year the National School Boards Association — in collaboration with the Biden administration — wanted the U.S. Department of Justice to label outspoken parents “domestic terrorists” and the National Guard to monitor school board meetings.

The NSBA had complained of “acts of malice” and “aggression” by parents — eerily similar to the California bill’s “torments.”

Two other pieces of concerning legislation in the Golden State noted by the California Policy Center include Corey Jackson’s (D) Assembly Bill 1078 and Mia Bonta’s Assembly Bill 1352.

The former would give local school boards’ power to make curriculum decisions to education bureaucrats in the state capital, while the latter “would allow a duly elected school board member to be removed from office if he or she disagrees with the votes of teachers union-backed board members.”

NC officials want more oversight on concealed-carry training. Gun-rights advocates are suspicious
The state has recently found itself unable to take action against firearms training instructors who allegedly showed up to teach classes drunk, or allowed people to get a concealed carry permit without proving they knew how to use their handgun.

Dozens of Second Amendment advocates drove into Raleigh from across the state Wednesday, voicing their objections to proposed rules that would create more oversight of those who train people to carry concealed handguns in the state.

State law enforcement officials say they’ve recently found themselves unable to take action against firearms training instructors who allegedly showed up to teach classes drunk, or allowed people to get a concealed-carry permit without proving they actually knew how to use a gun.

“We have had lots of recent allegations against instructors,” Leslie Dismukes, who leads the state Department of Justice’s criminal bureau, said as she kicked off Wednesday’s public hearing at a Wake Tech public safety training center. She added: “It can be dangerous for all citizens if instructors are not following the rules.”

For that reason the state commission in charge of setting rules for concealed-carry permits now wants instructors to keep more paperwork that will make it easier for state investigators to audit concealed-carry classes, or track down class attendees if needed as witnesses.

Many of the concealed-carry instructors and other pro-gun activists who showed up Wednesday were clear that they opposed giving the government more ability to investigate them — especially if it meant they’d have to keep a list of the people who take their classes, which one of the new rules proposes.

“We are against state and federal regulations as much as possible,” said David McFarling, president of the North Carolina Rifle and Pistol Association. “We have to oppose most of these things just on general principle.”

Politics at play
Like any debate on guns, the opposition was firmly rooted in politics — especially with North Carolina’s 2024 race for governor fast approaching.

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The squish Roberts does it again

Supreme Court allows continued regulation of so-called ‘ghost guns’
The Biden administration may temporarily continue its crackdown on ‘ghost guns’

The U.S. Supreme Court has sided with the Biden administration, temporarily allowing enforcement of regulations over so-called “ghost guns” that can be made from kits at home.

The administration appealed a federal judge’s earlier ruling tossing out the regulations. In a 5-4 vote, the high court put that ruling from Texas on hold while the case is appealed further on the merits. The regulation will be enforced while the case is appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and possibly further to the Supreme Court.

Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh would have allowed the lower court ruling to go into effect.

The federal regulation was put into place a year ago, and would put ghost guns under the same control as other fully assembled firearms, making it easier to trace serial numbers, background checks, and sales. The rule requires unfinished parts of a firearm like the frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun to be treated like a completed firearm. These parts need to be licensed and must have serial numbers.

The rule also requires manufacturers to run background checks before selling these parts, as they are required to do for whole commercial firearms.

The Biden administration argued the rule is necessary to respond to rising numbers of untraceable guns.

The Justice Department had told the court that local law enforcement agencies seized more than 19,000 ghost guns at crime scenes in 2021, a more than tenfold increase in just five years.

“The public-safety interests in reversing the flow of ghost guns to dangerous and otherwise prohibited persons easily outweighs the minor costs that respondents will incur,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, wrote in a court filing.

Gun rights groups and a firearms parts manufacturer challenging the regulation argue the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) lacks the authority to change the definition of a firearm in federal law without an act of Congress. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, in Fort Worth, Texas, sided with plaintiffs challenging the rule last June, finding that the definition of a firearm in federal law does not cover the individual parts of a gun.

Lawyers for the Firearms Policy Coalition told the Supreme Court that O’Connor was right and that ATF had abandoned more than half a century of regulatory practice by expanding the definition of a firearm.

“We’re deeply disappointed that the Court pressed pause on our defeat of ATF’s rule effectively redefining ‘firearm’ and ‘frame or receiver’ under federal law,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPCAF’s General Counsel and Vice President of Legal, and FPC’s counsel in this case. “Regardless of today’s decision, we’re still confident that we will yet again defeat ATF and its unlawful rule at the Fifth Circuit when that Court has the opportunity to review the full merits of our case.”

BLUF
This rule shows the gun community that any “compromise” will be used against gun rights, and the ATF claiming authority through the BSCA shows that the recent losses have the ATF scrambling to prevent future losses by pointing to legislation even if the law has to be taken out of context.

New Leak Shows ATF Will Pass Rule to Eliminate Private Sales

The Biden administration will use executive orders and the weaponized ATF to issue a rule limiting the private sales of firearms. According to the New York Times and verified by AmmoLand News sources, the new rule is expected to be unveiled by the end of the year.

Biden will call on the ATF to develop a new rule requiring anyone who makes any profit by selling firearms to possess an FFL. Guns tend to increase in value over time. A gun purchased in 1980 will likely sell for more money today than its original value.

The so-called “digital loophole” includes marketplaces like Armslist Firearms Classified, where private individuals can list their firearms for sale. The Biden administration wants to see these marketplaces shut down, but it is unclear exactly how that unconstitutional goal will be accomplished. Websites like Armslist do not sell firearms directly.

AmmoLand News spoke to Armslist Founder Jonathan Gibbon about the attacks his company faces and the upcoming ATF rule. Armslist has been battling anti-gun groups for years, fending off several lawsuits. Armslist has a perfect track record at defeating these attacks, but the cases are costly.

“Private-party transactions are not a ‘loophole,’” Gibbon told AmmoLand News. “Buying and selling firearms is a guaranteed right under the Second Amendment. Interfering with state laws allowing citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights should concern everyone. Americans have a First Amendment Constitutional right to use the internet, to communicate about their other Constitutional rights.”

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Biden facing more pressure from Dems over crackdown on school hunting, archery classes

Fox News Digital reported last week that federal guidance highlighting the Education Department’s funding decision and interpretation of the BSCA was circulated among hunting education groups earlier this year, sparking concerns about the future of hunting and archery programs in schools.

In the guidance, obtained first by Fox News Digital, senior agency official Sarah Martinez wrote that archery, hunter education and wilderness safety courses utilize weapons that are “technically dangerous weapons” and therefore “may not be funded under ESEA programs.”

The BSCA — which was criticized as a “gun control” bill, but touted by proponents as an effort to promote “safer, more inclusive and positive” schools — was passed overwhelmingly by Congress and signed into law by President Biden in June 2022 after mass shootings at a grocery market in Buffalo, New York, and a school in Uvalde, Texas.

The law, though, included an amendment to a subsection in the ESEA listing prohibited uses for federal school funding. That amendment prohibits ESEA funds from helping provide any person with a dangerous weapon or to provide “training in the use of a dangerous weapon,” but, according to the bill’s sponsors, was included to prevent ESEA funding for school resource officer training.

“By misinterpreting which activities are now supported by ESEA, the Department of Education is limiting learning opportunities critical to student safety,” Tester continued in his letter to Cardona. “I urge the Department of Education to reconsider the interpretation of BSCA in a way that does not limit learning opportunities for students and does not present barriers to critical hunter safety courses.”

Three of the four BSCA sponsors — Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz.; John Cornyn, R-Texas; and Thom Tillis, R-N.C. — have expressed concern about the Department of Education’s interpretation of the BSCA provision. The lawmakers are working with the administration and other legislators to fix the error, they said.

Senators Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., have both spoken out against the Department of Education’s interpretation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.
In addition, West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin criticized the administration.

“Any defunding of schools who offer critical programs like archery and hunting clubs would be a gross misinterpretation of the legislation and yet another example of this administration trying to advance their radical agenda with blatant disregard for the law,” Manchin told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.

Several Republicans and hunting and pro-Second Amendment organizations have also joined the chorus of voices calling on the administration to reverse course.

“The Biden administration is withholding funding from elementary and secondary schools that offer hunting or archery classes,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., tweeted Wednesday. “This administration is punishing Americans solely because they disagree with their values.”

“This is outrageous. Hunting and archery programs benefit youth across the country,” Rep. Erin Houchin, R-Ind., added. “At best – the administration is misinterpreting the law. At worst – they simply think they can ignore Congress.

Biden Admin Blasted As Nationwide Lightbulb Ban Begins: ‘Impossible For Democrats To Leave Us Alone.’

It seems like only yesterday that Democrats were openly mocking Americans for worrying that the Joe Biden administration was coming for their gas stoves.

“Nobody is taking away your gas stove,” Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) scoffed.

Since then, it’s been proven that the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) has said that a potential ban “is on the table amid rising concern about harmful indoor air pollutants emitted by the appliances.”

Like any conspiracy theory Democrats deny, it eventually came true.

And likewise, anything liberals can get their grubby little paws on, they will.

Enter a nationwide lightbulb ban set to begin Tuesday. The ban, which General Electric warned consumers about last year as being “inconvenient,” will prohibit manufacturers from making, and retailers from selling, incandescent and similar halogen light bulbs.

 

Lightbulb Ban Blasted

Several lawmakers lashed out at the Biden administration’s pending nationwide ban on lightbulbs, with Representative Bob Good (R-VA) leading the way by conveying a succinct yet important point.

“It’s impossible for Democrats to leave us alone,” he tweeted. “States must fight back.”

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Judge Willett concurs, saying that the pistol brace rule likely also violates the Second Amendment.

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Ending Chevron deference will protect the Second Amendment from abusive apparatchiks

The United States of America is an exceptional country with an exceptional Constitution and Bill of Rights. The principles enshrined in the founding documents have been copied by several countries over the past couple of centuries. Even the Soviet Union copied American concepts in its constitution. But, as everyone knew, all those Soviet guarantees were nothing but a joke.

So, what sets America apart from all the other attempted cheap knockoffs? For that, I would like to show you this video clip of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (C-Span backup link):

The basic principle that underpins American Liberty is the splintering and separation of powers both “vertically” into local/state/federal governments, and “horizontally” within each level into separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches.

That principle was violated rather egregiously in a 1984 Supreme Court case Chevron v. NRDC, in which the Court created a legal test now known as “Chevron Deference.” Justia summarizes it as follows:

A government agency must conform to any clear legislative statements when interpreting and applying a law, but courts will give the agency deference in ambiguous situations as long as its interpretation is reasonable.

In other words, the Judiciary forfeits its duty to interpret laws to the Executive branch when there’s ambiguity. This is on top of the legislative branch delegating its lawmaking duties to the Executive branch. This opening allowed Executive branch agencies, which are prone to aggrandizing their power, to run amok in abusive ways.

The Supreme Court recently granted a cert petition for a case that may end up overturning the Chevron Doctrine. Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo was brought by a herring fishing company and concerns monitoring costs fishermen must pay the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), even though the law in question doesn’t explicitly authorize it.

Why does Chevron Deference concern gun owners and Second Amendment advocates? Just yesterday, I wrote about how the Biden Department of Education took advantage of ambiguity in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) to cut off funding for schools that have archery and hunting programs.

The abuse of regulatory power can also be seen in the ATF’s arbitrary redefinition of bumpstocks as machine guns, the redefinition of unfinished frames/receivers as fully functional firearms, and the redefinition of AR pistols with braces as Short-Barreled Rifles (SBRs).

There’s also an attempt by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Administration to ban lead ammunition on federal lands.

Second Amendment groups have made note and are getting involved in the Loper case. The Supreme Court website shows almost 50 amicus briefs have been submitted, including those from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, and Gun Owners of America.

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Justice Alito Grants Temporary Stay for ATF’s “Ghost Gun” Rule

U.S.A. — On July 27, 2023, the Attorney General of the Biden Administration, Merrick B. Garland, applied for a stay to Justice Alito at the Supreme Court in the case of VanDerStok v. Garland. The request for an emergency stay had been refused by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on July 24, 2023, as reported on AmmoLand.  One of the possibilities mentioned was the Biden administration would appeal directly to the Supreme Court. The possibility of a request for an en banc decision existed but was unlikely because the Fifth Circuit has been following the Supreme Court guidance in the Bruen decision for enforcing Second Amendment rights and because an en banc panel would not have been emplaced for a period of time.

The district court’s universal vacatur is irreparably harming the public and the government by reopening the floodgates to the tide of untraceable ghost guns flowing into our Nation’s communities.

You are correct if this sounds like the familiar song and dance put forward by dictators and authoritarians worldwide.

Update: Justice Alito grants administrative stay for a week. Responses are due on August 2, 2023.

Alito Grants Temporary Stay for ATF’s “Ghost Gun” Rule by AmmoLand Shooting Sports News on Scribd

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Nipping gun ownership in the bud: Dept of Education’s outrageous moves

It is the job of the Congress to write airtight, unambiguous legislation that allows no opportunity for Executive or Judicial mischief. That’s a tough task to begin with, but an overambitious Executive or Judicial branch can stretch and mangle those words beyond ridicule to do whatever they want. It doesn’t help that the job keeps getting harder with time as long-agreed upon words are intentionally rejiggered to lose their meaning.

The latest example of Executive Overreach is the “reimagining” of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), a gun control law that was passed by government to compensate for the failure of government and placate the insatiable appetites of abusive gun controllers. Fox News reports (archived links):

Biden admin withholding key funding for schools with hunting, archery programs

EXCLUSIVE: The Biden administration is blocking key federal funding earmarked under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 for schools with hunting and archery programs.

According to federal guidance circulated among hunting education groups and shared with Fox News Digital, the Department of Education determined that, under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) passed last year, school hunting and archery classes are precluded from receiving federal funding. The interpretation could impact millions of American children enrolled in such programs.

“It’s a negative for children. As a former educator of 30-plus years, I was always trying to find a way to engage students,” Tommy Floyd, the president of the National Archery in the Schools Program, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “In many communities, it’s a shooting sport, and the skills from shooting sports, that help young people grow to be responsible adults. They also benefit from relationships with role models.”[…]

According to Floyd, his organization boasts 1.3 million students from nearly 9,000 schools across 49 states who are enrolled in archery courses. Some of those schools have already canceled plans to include archery or hunting education courses in their curriculum due to the Education Department guidance.

Why oh why would the Federal Department of Education target hunting and archery in schools? It’s perhaps a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a puzzle to some, but it’s obvious to me that the DoE is trying to nip gun ownership in the bud by choking off exposure and interest in the next generation. Gun controllers are playing a long game, and this is a move to advance their disarmament agenda.

The legislation included an amendment to an ESEA subsection listing prohibited uses for federal school funding. That amendment prohibits ESEA funds from helping provide any person with a dangerous weapon or to provide “training in the use of a dangerous weapon.”

I looked up the text of the law and this is what it says:

Subtitle D–Amendment on ESEA Funding

SEC. 13401. AMENDMENT ON ESEA FUNDING.
Section 8526 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965

(20 U.S.C. 7906) is amended–
(1) in paragraph (5), by striking “or” after the
semicolon;
(2) in paragraph (6), by striking the period at the end and</sp
inserting “; or”; and
(3) by adding at the end the following:
“(7) for the provision to any person of a dangerous weapon,
 as defined in section 930(g)(2) of title 18, United States Code, 
 or training in the use of a dangerous weapon.”.

I can see how this amendment could be stretched to construe the prohibition of funding for archery and hunting programs.

However, in a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona earlier this month, Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., expressed concern that the agency is misinterpreting the provision which they said was included in the BSCA last year to withhold education funds for programs training school resource officers, not for hunting and archery classes. School resource officer training was funded under a separate provision.

“We were alarmed to learn recently that the Department of Education has misinterpreted the BCSA to require the defending of certain longstanding educational and enrichment programs — specifically, archery and hunter education classes — for thousands of children, who rely on these programs to develop life skills, learn firearm safety and build self-esteem,” Cornyn and Tillis wrote to Cardona.

“The Department mistakenly believes that the BSCA precludes funding these enrichment programs,” they continued. “Such an interpretation contradicts congressional intent and the text of the BSCA.”

Senators Cornyn, Tillis, and every self-proclaimed Second Amendment supporting elected official have some serious explaining to do to their voters. This language slipped under the radar and is now rearing its head. Gun control-supporting apparatchiks at the DoE are taking advantage of it because the text did not explicitly state that such training programs are exempt.

Overall, the ESEA is the primary source of federal aid for elementary and secondary education across the country, according to the Congressional Research Service. The BSCA earmarked an additional $1 billion for educational activities under the ESEA.

Personally, I want to see a complete and permanent separation of School and State and the Department of Education eliminated. But that’s not happening anytime soon.

With so much money at stake, this was a legislative fumble to put it mildly. Let’s see what the Biden DoE does next.