The Constitution is a written instrument. As such, its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when it was adopted, it means now.
— The Supreme Court in  South Carolina v. US, (1905)

Well, we just plastered three Iranian nuclear sites, including the one – FORDOW – built under a mountain.

I’ve lived almost all my life in ‘interesting times’, and I’ve really prefer the opposite.

Donald J. Trump

We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! Thank you for your attention to this matter.

 

ATF very worried about merging with DEA

The ATF and the DEA were told just last month that the Justice Department plans to merge both agencies, which sources say could occur by October 1.

Officially, no one is talking about the merger, which would likely require congressional approval.

Unofficially, the ATF is going a bit nuts.

“ATF leadership is trying to fight this and convince everyone it’s not a good idea to merge the two organizations,” said John “JC” Clark of FFL Consultants.

Clark is former law enforcement and a former corporate compliance officer. The firm he cofounded, FFL Consultants, trains hundreds of gun dealers each month and thousands annually, virtually and in person. Few understand ATF’s innerworkings better than Clark and his team.

The proposed ATF/DEA merger is something few want to discuss. Both agencies seem difficult to combine, since each has different missions and rules. Both have an industry and a criminal enforcement side, although the DEA relies heavily on the pharmaceutical industry to regulate itself.

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We are becoming a nation of thieves by trying to live at everyone else’s expense. We have lost our moral mooring and the Church is partially responsible by failing to uphold its beliefs. One of the 10 Commandments says, “Thou shall not steal.” Now I am fairly confident that God did not mean, “Thou shall not steal–unless you get a majority vote.
– Walter Williams

Gun Business: Indicators of Industry Unease Moving Toward Full-Blown

Earlier this week, I wrote that there was a climate of unease through the industry. Since then, that unease has become full-blown concern. That concern is reflected in Ruger’s quiet announcement of a reduction in headcount sent to employees last week from recently-appointed CEO and President Todd Seyfert (it was also disclosed in a filing with the SEC which is how we learned of it). Seyfert’s letter indicated a coming “organizational realignment” that would come with “severance and separation-related costs.”

Those costs were estimated at about three million dollars this year, but would produce “about $4 million in annual savings when fully implemented.” Translation: more to come.

“In support of our new structure— which is designed to improve alignment, efficiency and effectiveness — we made difficult but necessary personnel changes,” Seyfert wrote, “These moves were necessary for us to move forward with clarity and momentum.”

Included in the changes: “a leadership transition,” “inventory rationalization,” and “product repositioning.” Writing about the leadership changes, Seyfert referred to “right-sizing” Ruger’s Connecticut operations. In any business climate, especially today’s slowing one, “right-sizing” is generally considered a corporate euphemism for either layoffs of workers or termination of managers…or both.

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‘Girls Just Wanna Have Guns’ coming to Coeur d’Alene

COEUR d’ALENE — It’s not uncommon for North Idaho women to have guns in their home — but many lack the skills needed to use one effectively in a self-defense situation.

Adelina Mae is looking to change that.

Mae began “Girls Just Wanna Have Guns,” a woman-owned and operated business, after realizing her own mother didn’t know how to use the guns her father kept in the home.

“My mom of all people, who has had guns in her house for a long time, did not know how to use the gun in her own nightstand,” Mae said.

Based in Arizona, “Girls Just Wanna Have Guns” holds events for women in cities across the country to teach them just about everything there is to know about owning and operating a gun, from holding it correctly to aiming, shooting and reloading.

“We go through everything as though you haven’t seen a gun in your life,” Mae said.

Mae said it’s common for women to have limited experience with shooting because they often receive help from their husbands, fathers or other men in their life out on the range.

“Most women, when they go to the range, their husband will load the gun and everything and they’ll just pull the trigger,” Mae said, “but it’s the same gun they would grab and need to operate if something happens at home.”

“Girls Just Wanna Have Guns” hosts events by women, for women, Mae added, because some women may have their reasons to not want to learn about guns from a man, such as survivors of domestic violence.

“It gives them a big sense of confidence and independence,” Mae said. “They know they are doing everything they can to protect themselves.”

Later this month, Mae is bringing “Girls Just Wanna Have Guns” to Coeur d’Alene — a homecoming of sorts, as Mae’s parents that inspired the business live in Athol.

The June 28 event will include about three hours of dry fire, hands-on learning at the Fernan Rod and Gun Club. Attendees also receive goody bags with essentials for a day on the range — all in pink and black.

Tickets to the event are $175 and can be purchased at girlsjustwannahavegunsevents.com. Info: @girlsjustwannahavegunss on Instagram.

End to Taxes, Registration on Most NFA Items Faces a Weekend Byrd Bath

Donald Trump has said he wants to see his One Big Beautiful Bill hit the Resolute desk in the Oval Office by July 4th, and though it remains to be seen whether Republicans in the House and Senate will be able to meet that deadline, Senate Majority Leader John Thune has set an aggressive schedule in the upper chamber, with a goal of having the full Senate cast its first procedural vote on the bill by the middle of next week.

For gun owners, the biggest question is whether the language removing the tax and registration requirement on suppressors, short-barreled firearms, and “any other weapons” will survive the Senate parliamentarian’s scrutiny of the bill. Politico reports the Byrd bath, as it’s colloquially known, will begin in earnest this weekend.

Senate rule-keeper Elizabeth MacDonough is scrubbing the final draft of the megabill in a “big beautiful” Byrd bath. Her rulings on which provisions will fly under the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process are expected to roll in through the middle of next week, when Thune wants to schedule the first procedural vote related to the package.

Republicans are bracing for an answer to one consequential question they punted on earlier this year: whether they can use an accounting maneuver known as “current policy baseline” to make it appear that extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts would cost nothing.

Senate Finance Republicans and Democrats will make a joint presentation to MacDonough this weekend about which provisions to keep or scrap. And there’s no shortage of GOP priorities under Byrd scrutiny — from tax cuts on certain gun silencers to a plan to raise taxes on foreign companies known as the “revenge tax.”

Other outstanding issues before the parliamentarian: whether Commerce has to tweak language to prohibit states from regulating AI over the next decade; whether Judiciary can block judges’ ability to issue preliminary injunctions; and whether Agriculture can use the megabill to pay for pieces of the stalled farm bill.

Punchbowl News reports that Democrats are planning on challenging about 60 provisions in the text offered by the Senate Finance Committee, and the language that would remove the taxation and registration requirements for most NFA items is among their their targets. Supporters of the language have expressed confidence that the measures will survive the Byrd Bath, with Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia telling Fox News that the “taxation and registration of firearms under the draconian NFA are inseparably linked,” and therefore should easily fit within the reconciliation guidelines.

Over at The Reload, Stephen Gutowski isn’t quite as confident. Gutowski notes that while the Senate language is more expansive than what was approved by the House, which only dealt with suppressors, it’s likely more “vulnerable to an adverse ruling from the parliamentarian” because the language from the Finance Committee doesn’t separate the elimination of the tax requirement from the provisions delisting the NFA items.

On Friday morning, Politico reported that MacDonough has given the thumbs down to several pieces of the Senate Banking Committee’s OBBB language, including measures meant to “zero out funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, slash some Federal Reserve employees’ pay, cut Treasury’s Office of Financial Research and dissolve the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.” Hopefully that’s not a sign of things to come when the parliamentarian takes her red pen to the Finance Committee’s language this weekend.

In his piece, Gutowski also brings up a long-term issue with using reconciliation to remove items from the NFA. If the parliamentarian gives the green light to changing the NFA through a budget bill, there would be nothing to stop Democrats from using the same maneuver to put items onto the NFA list of restricted items, and even jack up the taxes beyond the $200 currently required. Imagine a budget bill that raises the NFA tax to $400, $600, or even $1,000, while also placing AR-15s and other semi-automatic long guns on the list of restricted firearms.

I don’t think that is reason enough for Republicans to back down and voluntarily strip these provisions from the OBBB, but it’s something to keep in mind, and it’s another reason why the various lawsuits challenging aspects of the NFA are still incredibly important. There aren’t enough votes in the Senate to fully repeal or even modify the NFA in a standalone bill, but if we can weaken the NFA through litigation it will be far more difficult, if not impossible, for Democrats to use future budget bills to raise NFA taxes or add to the list of restricted arms. If MacDonough rules the NFA language out of order, we won’t have to worry as much about Democrats using reconciliation to impose new gun controls, but the ongoing litigation will become an even more important tool for Second Amendment advocates to use against the NFA going forward.

9th Circuit Panel finds California’s 1 gun in 30 days limit, unconstitutional

Affirming the district court’s summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs, the panel held that California’s “one-guna-month” law, which prohibits most people from buying more than one firearm in a 30-day period, facially violates the Second Amendment.

Applying New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), the panel first asked whether the Second Amendment’s plain text covers the regulated conduct. If so, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct.

That presumption can be overcome only if historical precedent from before, during, and even after the founding evinces a comparable tradition of regulation.

The panel held that California’s law is facially unconstitutional because the plain text of the Second Amendment protects the possession of multiple firearms and protects against meaningful constraints on the acquisition of
firearms through purchase.

Next, the panel held that California’s law is not supported by this nation’s tradition of firearms regulation. Bruen requires a “historical analogue,” not a “historical twin,” for a modern firearm regulation to pass muster. Here, the historical record does not even establish a historical cousin for California’s one-gun-a-month law.

Concurring, Judge Owens wrote separately to note that the panel’s opinion only concerns California’s “one-gun-amonth” law. It does not address other means of restricting bulk and straw purchasing of firearms, which this nation’s tradition of firearm regulation may support.

Man shot, injured by North Portland homeowner after attempted break-in

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A man was hospitalized after police said he attempted to break into a North Portland home and was shot by the owner early Thursday morning.

Just before 1:30 a.m., officers responded to a home in the 700 block of North Baldwin Street on a report that a resident shot a man who was trying to break into his front door.

Arriving on the scene, officers found the man injured, applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding and he was taken the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Police said the resident stayed at the scene and cooperated with officers.

While officials said no charges were immediately filed, the incident is still under investigation.

Jeff Clark

Conservative constitutionalists believe the President is a *singular* official — the only branch of our three federal branches of government that consists of only one man.

In important ways, widespread use of the autopen— and certainly abuse without knowledge by the singular President — functionally creates a *multiplicity* of cloaked Presidents.

Thus, Biden Administration’s massive use of the autopen for the Presidential John Hancock, including multiple versions of the purported Biden signature is itself a microcosm of progressive theories of the Constitution: Reliance not on one man to be President — the system of government bequeathed to us by the Founders — but on a profuse coterie of advisors clustered around the actual sitting President who are all able to use the autopen to — let’s not sugarcoat it — impersonate the President as they might see fit.

Even in the small things, the inversion of the true Constitution in the minds of those that hate it in the progressive movement becomes ever more apparent.

Summarized: We do not have a *multiplicity* of Presidential impersonators, in the real Constitution, we have a *singular* President.

Obama pines for a social media Ministry of Truth:

“We want diversity of opinion. We don’t want diversity of facts…it will require some government regulatory constraints.”
“There is a difference between these platforms letting all voices be heard, versus a business model that elevates the most hateful voices, or the most polarizing voices or the most dangerous in the sense of inciting violence.”
“And I that I think is going to be a big challenge for all of us that we’re going to have to undertake.”

Obama-approved narratives must go unchallenged, according to Obama.