Biden’s new “ghost gun” rule faces a new legal challenge

In less than two weeks the ATF”s new rules on unfinished frames and receivers are set to take effect, but the Firearms Policy Coalition is hoping to put a halt to the agency’s attempt to redefine what a firearm is under federal law before the new regulations kick in on August 24th.

On Thursday, the Second Amendment organization filed a federal lawsuit challenging the legality of the new rules, arguing that the Biden administration overstepped its executive branch authority by imposing the new rules, which FPC says is the proper purview of Congress, not DOJ or ATF.

“The Final Rule defies the plain language of the [Gun Control Act] and longstanding agency interpretation suggesting that the items at issue here, sometimes colloquially referred to as receiver blanks, unfinished frames or receivers, or 80% frames or receivers, are not firearms,” says the complaint. “Through this rulemaking, however, the Agencies are attempting to create a broad, sweeping definition by including items that are not yet the ‘frames or receivers’ of such weapons and by including ‘frame or receiver kits.’”

“Neither the president nor any federal agency has the power to make law,” said FPC’s Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation Cody J. Wisniewski. “The Constitution is clear–Congress has the power to make law, and the Executive Branch is limited to enforcing that law. But here, President Biden openly admitted that he would circumvent Congress and have the DOJ and ATF issue new regulations that go well beyond congressionally-established law and seek to greatly expand the ATF’s reach. FPC will not stand idly by while the federal government tramples the rights of peaceable individuals through agency rulemaking.”

As bad as the new rules are, my bigger concern is that they’re being used as a sort of test case for the Biden administration to see just how much they can get away with. If the courts allow for these rules to be enforced (as well as the pending rule on pistol stabilizing braces set to take effect next month), it will be a green light for Biden and officials like ATF Director Steve Dettelbach to use the regulatory power of the agency to go after semi-automatic firearms by claiming they’re “readily convertible” to fully-automatic machine guns, and therefore must be regulated under the National Firearms Act.

Gun control activists are already pushing for this interpretation in multiple lawsuits that have been filed against gun makers, and the Michael Bloomberg-funded anti-gun outlet The Trace recently offered up a history lesson that they say proves the agency already has the power to act.

In the late 1970s and early ‘80s, law enforcement agencies started recovering huge numbers of converted RPB Industries SM10 pistols. The popular semiautomatic pistol was a near-perfect replica of the Mac-10 submachine gun, and by shaving down a small internal component with a steel file, it could be modified to fire on fully automatic. At nearly a quarter of the price, it became a hot commodity among drug traffickers.

Law enforcement recovered at least a thousand of the machine guns in crimes across the nation by 1980. That same year, the ATF linked 60 of the guns to drug related murders in Florida alone.

To curb the proliferation of these military-grade weapons, the ATF took an unprecedented step. It reclassified a handful of easily converted semiautomatic pistols and rifles as machine guns.  The ruling legally grandfathered the weapons already in circulation, but forced an ultimatum on their makers: Redesign future iterations to be less susceptible to automatic conversion or face selling them under the strict regulations of the National Firearms Act.

… Norm Bergeron, another former ATF agent, said it’s true that the agency is reluctant to regulate large companies. “You have to have clout to go up against the U.S. government,” he said. “It really comes down to money. Money buys you lobbyists, it buys you attorneys.”

Democrats believe that reluctance is in part due to the ATF’s perpetual leaderlessness over the last 16 years and its historically lean budget.
Any regulatory agency without permanent leadership is vulnerable to not fully fulfilling its mission,” said Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey, a Democrat who also signed the congressional letter to the ATF in April. Watson Coleman said she believes a regulatory path like the one tried during the 1980s could curtail automatic conversions of particular firearms.

Well, the ATF is no longer “leaderless” now that Steve Dettelbach has been confirmed as permanent director of the ATF, and we may very well see the Biden administration move in this direction, especially if the sweeping new rules dealing with unfinished frames/receivers and pistol stabilizing braces are upheld by the courts. Of course even if they are struck down the ATF may still try to take the “unprecedented step” of declaring that many of the most popular semi-automatic pistols and rifles should be considered machine guns under federal law, but defeating these new rules in court would do a lot to undermine the gun control lobby’s argument that the ATF possesses the power to reclassify the most commonly-sold firearms in the country as machine guns.

Biden’s War on Guns: A Multi-Generation Florida Family Gun Business is the Latest Casualty.

Master gunsmith James Morrison founded JM Gun Repair 46 years ago, after doing gun repairs in his garage.

The gun shop has been a local institution ever since, offering firearms, black powder and reloading gear, ammunition including hard-to-find calibers and James’ incredible skills as a master gunsmith with 50 years of experience.

The business is perfectly located, straddling the county line between Sarasota and Bradenton, Florida. “This has been a family legacy for 46 years,” said James’ grandson, Noah Morrison. His father and uncle work at the shop too.

Noah, who just turned 21, dreamed of becoming the third generation of Morrisons to operate this family business. However, his dreams were dashed when George Hancock, an ATF Industry Operations Investigator, known as an IOI, walked into the shop, at around the same time Joe Biden announced his war on “rogue” gun dealers.

“During the audit, he found faults in our paperwork,” Noah said. “In in the past, for these types of minor faults, an auditor would have just handed us a pen and told us to fix them.”

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Petition demands Uvalde gun store stop selling AR-15s

Uvalde was such a horrible tragedy that the English language lacks the ability to describe it. It was absolutely awful and no one is going to deny that.

However, as is normal after any such tragedy, some people are trying to capitalize on that tragedy to force others to do things. They expect the world to stop and then fold around them.

But worse than that, though, they’re trying to tell a gun store in Uvalde what kind of guns it can sell.

A new petition online has 1,140 signatures demanding the Uvalde gun store where the Robb Elementary School shooter bought an assault-style rifle to stop selling the guns used to kill 19 students and two teachers on May 24. The petition was started by pediatrician Dr. Roy Guerrero, whose testimony on Capitol Hill revealed the damage those guns cause.

The petition on Change.org is directed toward Randy Kline, owner of Oasis Outback. It asks the gun store to “cease the sale of assault rifles and the ammunition paired with them.” It also asks Oasis Outback to discontinue gun transfers of assault-style rifles.

“Doing so will ensure that children across Uvalde County will never have to worry about a new purchase of this type of weapon,” the petition states.

OK, that’s it. I’m done for the day.

That last bit is, without a doubt, the dumbest thing I’m likely to read today. I know, I know, it’s the internet and there’s likely to be a new challenger, but look at the unmitigated stupidity on display.

Look, first of all, if Oasis Outback complied, people who wanted AR-15s or similar rifles would just find another store. All that will happen is Oasis Outback will lose not just that business, but likely a lot of additional business as well.

After all, these kinds of rifles are among the most popular firearms in the country. Not selling or transferring any of them is going to hurt.

Further, some who like that style of rifle will simply move all their business to a nearby competitor.

The petition has a goal of 1,500 signatures and supposedly gives Kline 30 days to respond. Of course, my response to that bit of information is, “Or what?” It’s a petition. It doesn’t have the force of law, nor should it.

Look, I get that people are still hurting. What happened in Uvalde was, as I said, beyond awful. What these jackwagons need to understand, though, is that it wasn’t the gun’s fault. It was the fault of a maniac who went on a rampage and a police department that didn’t have the cajones to act.

Why should Kline sacrifice his business to appease people who can’t place the blame squarely where it belongs?

The truth of the matter is that while the petition claims the signers support the Second Amendment, it’s pretty clear that they don’t even understand it. They genuinely want to do what they can to deny people the ability to buy a firearm they don’t approve of. That’s not how it works.

Now, granted, what they’re doing isn’t a call for gun control–not yet, anyway–and, as I already pointed out, people will still be able to get those particular weapons, but they’re still trying to blame the gun for the actions of someone biologically classified as a human.

So you’ll forgive me if I don’t take them at their word about being supportive of the Second Amendment. I get Uvalde folks are upset, but this isn’t how you do things.

Ruger Reports Huge Drop in Second Quarter Sales Compared to 2021

The rising tide of gun sales has begun to recede.

That’s the indication from the latest sales figures for one of the country’s largest gun makers. Ruger reported sales dropped nearly $60 million in the second quarter compared to 2021. The company said the drop was the result of lower demand for guns.

“Consumer demand for firearms has subsided from the unprecedented levels of the surge that began early in 2020 and remained for most of 2021, resulting in a 30% reduction in our sales from the second quarter of 2021, which was the highest quarter in sales and profitability in our history,” Christopher J. Killoy, Ruger CEO, said in a statement.

The numbers are in line with the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s analysis of gun background checks for July, which found 2022 saw the third most ever but also amounted to a substantial decline from the two previous years. The signs point to a market still searching for a new bottom. The rate of decline has slowed significantly, though, and sales remain well above historical norms.

The past two years have produced the strongest sales on record across the industry. March 2020 saw more gun-sales background checks than any month on record, and 2020 saw the most of any year. Major brands rode the increased sales to record profits in 2021. Smith & Wesson also achieved the first billion-dollar sales year of any gun company on record.

Ruger’s sales fell from over $200 million in Q2 of 2021 to $140 million in 2022. Diluted earnings fell from $2.50 per share to $1.17 per share.

The first six months of the year saw a similar decline. Sales dropped from over $384 million in 2021 to $307 million in 2022. Diluted earnings fell from $4.66 per share to $2.87 per share.

Killoy said the brand also saw a decline in its profit margins as well.

“Our profitability declined in the second quarter of 2022 from the second quarter of 2021 as our gross margin decreased from 39% to 31%,” he said. “In addition to unfavorable deleveraging of fixed costs resulting from decreased production and sales, inflationary cost increases in materials, commodities, services, energy, fuel and transportation, partially offset by increased pricing, resulted in the lower margin.”

Still, Killoy said the decline does not threaten Ruger’s business, and the company remains low on some stock.

“Yet our broad and diverse product family helps us weather fluctuations in demand as we adjust production accordingly,” he said. “While channel inventory of some of our product families, including certain polymer pistols and modern sporting rifles, have been largely replenished, inventories of other product families remain below desired levels.”

Killoy said the company’s new products were a bright spot, though. Sales of the PC Charger, MAX-9 pistol, LCP MAX pistol, and Marlin 1895 lever-action rifles made up 11 percent of Ruger’s total sales.

Using gun database to target negligent firearm makers not so easy, ATF tells NYC Mayor Adams

When New York City Mayor Eric Adams met with Steven Dettelbach, the newly confirmed Director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on July 28, he asked Dettelbach to do something that ATF has never done before — revoke the firearms license of a leading gun manufacturer, Polymer80.

Polymer80 has been called the nation’s largest supplier of untraceable ghost guns. At a news conference in May, NYPD officials said nine out of 10 ghost guns the NYPD seizes are made from Polymer80 kits.

Adams had additional requests: he asked that Dettelbach double the number of ATF agents stationed in New York City, and increase data sharing between NYPD and ATF. In a video provided after their meeting, Adams said Dettelbach “was receptive to these requests, and we will be continuing the conversation in the weeks ahead.”

But Adams’ request to use the ATF database to go after the license of a gun manufacturer would be a major change from the established practice of ATF, an agency that has a dual mandate: It is both a law enforcement agency and the agency responsible for inspecting and licensing gun dealers.

To accomplish their mission, ATF must work cooperatively with not only law enforcement partners, but also gun manufacturers and federal firearms licensees.

Panel members at the Protecting New York Summit, “Keeping New York Safe” panel, from left: Anil Chitkara, Evolv Technology; Kieran Carroll, ZeroEyes; Michael Joy, Cellebrite; John DeVito, SAC ATF; Ben Max, Gotham Gazette, moderator. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

Using gun data to go after manufacturers? Probably not

On July 20, Adams met with other big city mayors to discuss the possibility of sharing database information to go after negligent gun makers, saying that five manufacturers — Glock, Taurus, Smith & Wesson, Ruger and Polymer80 — produced more than half of the guns used for crimes in major U.S. cities last year.

The notion of targeting gun manufacturers was also the subject of a hearing held on July 27 by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, chaired by Carolyn Maloney. The committee focused on negligence by manufacturers of AR-15 style rifles.

The five major gun manufacturers collected a total of more than $1 billion dollars from the sale of assault rifles alone over the last decade, Maloney said. Their marketing tactics include “marketing to children, preying on young men’s insecurities, and even appealing to violent white supremacists,” along with arranging easy credit, she said.

But the difficulties of going after the gun makers was made clear at a recent security conference held in New York City, where the special agent in charge of New York’s ATF shot down Adams’ hopes to target gun manufacturers using the shared database.

“It’s unfortunate he made that statement before he was educated by me,” SAC John DeVito told the crowd at the Protecting New York Summit, sponsored by City & State New York on July 21.

“Everybody wants to vilify the gun manufactures,” DeVito said, adding that one of his biggest jobs is “to educate officials, law enforcement partners and prosecutors exactly what this information means and how they can utilize it — and  how they shouldn’t utilize it. And I do that on a daily basis.

“Everybody thinks there’s some holy grail with all this data … So Glock’s your number one gun — it could be this year. But it could change next year, it could be Smith & Wesson,” DeVito said. “We do track that information, but at the end of the day, manufacturers are operators in a free market economy. They’re selling an item that is not contraband, it’s not dope. It’s a firearm. Whatever your views are on the Second Amendment, we live in a pro-Second Amendment world in this country.”

Going after the manufactures and dealers because their firearms are being used in crimes “is a fruitless battle … They’re adequately protected in Congress,” DeVito said.

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Again, more confirmation that 20/21 is going to be the anomaly , like a basketball through the python, of NICS checks and that means we’re not in a real ‘decline’ of gun sales, but back to the historical near steady yearly increase.

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17-State AGs Join Lawsuit Over ATF Rulemaking Against Gun Builds

A coalition of 17 state attorneys general has joined a federal lawsuit challenging Biden administration rules that allegedly violate the Second Amendment by regulating unfinished, non-functional firearm components the same as finished firearms.

The legal action was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota. The case is known as Morehouse Enterprises, et.al. v. ATF.

Plaintiffs in the legal action are Morehouse Enterprises,LLC, Gun Owners of America, and Gun Owners Foundation. Attorneys general now participating in the lawsuit are those in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

According to the complaint, plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary injunction “to preserve the status quo,” followed by a declaratory judgment and permanent injunction restraining ATF from enforcing various parts of an omnibus rule scheduled to take effect Aug. 24.

The complaint also alleges the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives would have firearms retailers retain their sales records beyond the current 20-year limit, essentially leading to a de facto gun registry.

According to Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, one of the AG’s  joined in the lawsuit, “This rule infringes on every American’s right to assemble firearms for their own use – a long-held tradition dating back to the founding of our nation. Criminals will ignore this rule and it will not make Montanans safer. It will, however, shut down firearm companies, allow the government to end online sales of parts, and expand federal access to gun owner data – all without congressional approval.”

In a prepared statement, Knudsen’s office asserted, “If allowed to go into effect, the rule could force firearm manufactures to reduce their workforces or even close their doors. The ATF itself estimated its regulation would shutdown 35 businesses at a cost of $1.1 million. However, the economic costs and burden will likely be much greater: hundreds of millions of dollars of sales could be lost and thousands may lose their jobs if the final rule takes effect.”

A news release from South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, quoted by WDPE, said the rulemaking “threatens the privacy of every gun owner in the country.”

Well, that’s her ‘schtick’ and she’s ‘schticking’ to it.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Saw White Supremacy Everywhere During Unhinged House Oversight Hearing

The Democrats got nothing done in two years due to bad policy ideas and being unfocused. The social agenda undid whatever spending provisions the traditional and far-left wings agreed upon. It was a vicious cycle. The social policy of the Democratic Party is too extreme, gross, and all-over bizarre for the average American voter. Whatever the word is for beyond outside the mainstream, that’s where the Democratic Party sits comfortably at its peril.

We now have a party that would rather be right than lead. That snobby attitude has led to an avalanche of voters bolting from the Democratic Party. Today’s Democrats are progressive, college-educated, and upper-income. They’re the definition of privilege, and they’re not the majority either. The agenda Democrats have put forward is recognizable and beneficial to those barely making up a quarter of the electorate. You see that with the pervasive antics from the Left about political correctness, being woke, and proper pronouns. These people see white supremacists everywhere, bringing us to Wednesday’s House Oversight hearing. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) grilled gun manufacturers for using racist symbols in their marketing (via Daily Caller):

Members of “The Squad,” a group of left-wing members of the House of Representatives, accused firearms manufacturers of using white supremacy in the marketing of firearms Wednesday.

Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts made the claims during a hearing of the House Oversight and Reform Committee targeting the marketing of firearms, claiming that the advertisements used symbols of white supremacy. The representatives referenced advertisements while questioning the CEOs of two firearms manufacturers in a hearing held in the wake of mass shootings in UvaldeHighland Park, and Buffalo.

“I’d like to draw your attention to that red tattoo featured in your company’s advertisement,” Ocasio-Cortez said to Daniel Defense CEO Marty Daniel. “Do you know what that tattoo is, Mr. Daniel?”

After Daniel said he didn’t, Ocasio-Cortez turned to Kelly Sampson, Senior Counsel and Director of Racial Justice of Brady United, who said the tattoo was a white supremacist symbol.

“So, Mr. Daniel, you may or may not know, but your company’s advertisement prominently displays iconography associated with white supremacist movements,” Ocasio-Cortez said, before pulling up a photo from the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol….

Pressley questioned Daniel and Ruger CEO Christopher Killoy over a poster during the hearing after an adviser from the Giffords Law Center called it “dangerous,” asking if they would use their positions on the board of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) to halt such advertisements. Daniel and Killoy told Pressley that the NSSF didn’t advertise firearms.

“As long as gun manufacturers have immunity to sell their weapons of war using harmful marketing tactics, black and brown communities will continue to be targeted, and that has got to change,” Pressley claimed. “In the face of white supremacy, my neighbors and I are undeterred in the pursuit of healing and the true justice, and we will not let gunmakers incite violence against us with impunity.”

I know this is a typical day in the life of AOC and her squad. We’re playing the Da Vinci Code on phantom white supremacist signs in the firearm industry.

No one cares.

First, there is no white supremacy marketing strategy with gun makers. This whole hearing is predicated on left-wing psycho-babble.
Second, we’re in a recession. Baby formula scarcity is still a crisis, the supply chain remains a mess, and we’re getting killed at the gas pump.
Oh, and of course, you all know about inflation, right? That’s what the country cares about, not symbols of white supremacy that aren’t real.
Joe Biden doesn’t think a recession is happening because he chooses to splash around in his pool of delusions. The economy matters to Americans, but AOC and the Democrats are all about global warming, woke action items, and canceling student debt. There are others, but you can see why we’re in a recession.
Nothing Democrats are passionate about has any tangibles. They wasted so much time on stuff, like arguing that men can get pregnant, that they have no economic agenda other than spending more money which will exacerbate our inflation crisis.

I think AOC does know about the economy. Her Leninist crew knows it too, but they don’t care. These antics are the perks of representing super-safe Democratic seats where everyone is just as mentally ill as they are. Solve inflation by just printing more money, right? AOC’s agenda is not the mother lode of inflation; it’s the country’s economic death. That’s why, thus far, it is nowhere near becoming law. Until then, we’ll have more useless hearings like this where we can “grassy knoll” white supremacy out of existence and whatnot.

Kel-Tec Announces New Wyoming Plant
The facility is Kel-Tec’s first outside of Florida and will offer increased production capacity.

Kel-Tec CNC Industries has acquired a 33,000-square-foot facility in Rock Springs, WY, to augment its 125,000-square-foot industrial space in Cocoa, FL. The expansion will increase the company’s production capacity and allow it to address increasing demand for its firearms and accessories.

“I am thrilled to be a part of this new adventure in our story,” said Adrian Kellgren, Director of Industrial Production. “Wyoming has a rich history as part of the American frontier and it’s fitting for our brand, being that we constantly explore the limits of performance and design, to expand out here.”

Swedish-born George Kellgren—a former designer for Husqvarna, Swedish Interdynamics AB and Intratec—established Kel-Tec in 1991. Kel-Tec initially specialized in producing CNC parts for other gun companies, but in 1995 the firm’s first pistol hit the market. That polymer-framed, semi-auto P-11 chambered in 9 mm was the first in a long line of innovative and extremely popular models that now includes the KSG shotgun family. The P-15, seen above, is the firm’s latest introduction.

“This is a milestone for Kel-Tec CNC Industries,” said company Director of Sales and Marketing Derek Kellgren. “While steady expansion isn’t anything new to us, this is our first expansion into another state and we couldn’t be more excited about advancing our innovative designs and production processes in Wyoming.”

The company currently employs roughly 300 at its Florida location. The launch in Wyoming will be gradual, but it’s designed to host more than 250 team members across multiple industrial disciplines.

“In Wyoming, we value our open spaces, recreation and hunting and proudly defend our Second Amendment rights,” stated Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon. “Because of those values and our business-friendly environment I am pleased to welcome Kel-Tec firearms to Wyoming.”

“The future of our company is tied to the future of the American free spirit,” stated George Kellgren, Kel-Tec founder, chairman and CEO. “Wyoming has been a leading example of liberty and freedom for America, and it is right that we become part of it.”

As the article points out, it’s not just drought. We’ve had weather this hot and dry before, many times. It’s the higher cost of feed, and fuel, that is driving the problem, which is that raising cattle before economically impossible……
For this you can thank SloJoe and all his econuts friends and allies.
I’d stock up your freezers while the getting is still good.

Ranchers Are Selling Off Their Cattle in Unprecedented Numbers Due to the Drought, and That Has Enormous Implications for 2023

Thanks to the horrific drought which is absolutely devastating ranching in the Southwest, ranchers are now in “panic mode” and are selling off their cattle at an unprecedented rate.  In fact, some are choosing to sell off their entire herds because they feel like they don’t have any other options.  In recent days, seemingly endless lines of trailers waiting to drop off cattle for auction have gone viral all over social media.  Everybody is talking about how they have never seen anything like this before, and if the drought in the Southwest persists the lines could soon get even longer.  In the short-term, this is going to help to stabilize meat prices.  But in the long-term the size of the U.S. cattle herd will steadily become much smaller, and that has very serious implications for our ability to feed ourselves in 2023 and beyond.

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Biden Continues To Lie About Firearms Liability Law

Last week the White House publicly issued a “Readout” describing a July 22 meeting between “senior advisors” to President Joe Biden and several state legislators from New York, Delaware, California and Illinois; all so-called “blue states” whose political leaders are firmly committed to restricting law-abiding citizens’ ability to exercise their rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment.

The news release was the latest example of this administration’s pattern of deliberately mischaracterizing federal laws regarding the liability of firearms retailers and manufacturers for subsequent criminal use of products they sell or manufacture. In other words, a lie designed to further its gun-control agenda.

The federal law at issue is the “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act” or “PLCAA,” legislation passed by the Congress and signed by President George W. Bush in 2005.

PLCAA was deemed necessary by a majority of both houses of the Congress and the president of the United States, in the wake of a series of civil lawsuits against lawful manufacturers and retailers of firearms for the subsequent use of those products by individuals for criminal purposes.

The law does not and was never intended to provide absolute protection for manufacturers or retailers of firearms. Rather, the PLCAA was designed simply to provide a legal framework according to which neither manufacturers nor retailers of lawful firearms would be treated differently from other lawful businesses, such as automobile manufacturers and dealers that never had been held liable for the subsequent use of their products (cars) by negligent or unlawful drivers.

In fact, the clear language of the PLCAA provides that so long as the firearms businesses follow the many laws governing their operations, and so long as neither the manufacturer nor the retailer knew or had reason to believe its product would be used by criminals or in an unlawful way, neither business could be sued if an individual later used the gun in such manner.

If, however, there was or is evidence to the contrary — that is that either the manufacturer or the retailer knew or had reason to believe the subsequent owner or user of the firearm would use it in an unlawful manner — they can in fact be sued civilly for damages, just like any other business.

Notwithstanding this clear language and publicly available reporting on the PLCAA at the time of its passage, the Biden administration continues to deliberately mischaracterize the statute.

For example, in last week’s news release, which noted that “President Biden has repeatedly called on Congress to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act,” the White House claimed that the law provides “more protection from liability” than is afforded other products, and that it completely “denies” victims of “gun violence” any civil remedy in the courts — statements that are categorically untrue.

In fact, the same as before the PLCAA was enacted, a victim of gun violence has full opportunity to sue the individual who used the firearm unlawfully, as well as any other individual or business that transferred or manufactured the gun that was used to commit a criminal offense, if that business did not itself abide by the law or sold or transferred the firearm negligently or with reason to believe it would be used unlawfully.

Continuing to assert that the PLCAA provides absolute immunity from lawsuits against a firearms manufacturer or retailer is utterly disingenuous. Still, this administration and as its gun-control cohorts in the Congress, along with its enablers in the media, continue perpetrating such a deliberate lie to the American people for the sole purpose of furthering the left’s long-held goal of limiting to the greatest extent possible the manufacture, retail and individual possession of lawful firearms.

However, for an administration claiming that our country’s southern border is secure and that an economy experiencing a record level of inflation is in good shape, lying about the scope of a federal law is considered but a minor fib.

It seems to me that they’re grasping at any straw they believe might have the barest chance of accomplishing anything.
Well, as long as it’s Bloombutt’s money they’re wasting…..

BLUF
The good news is that none of these prior complaints appear to have gone anywhere, and based on the weak sauce Everytown presents as evidence in its complaint against Daniel Defense my guess is that the same will be true here as well.

Everytown files Federal Trade Commission complaint against Daniel Defense

When you’ve got your own in-house law firm funded by your billionaire backer, its easy to waste time and effort on unserious efforts, which helps explain Everytown’s new complaint against Georgia gunmaker Daniel Defense accusing it of “deceptively marketing” firearms to teenagers through its advertising and brand placement in video games and movies. More fundamentally, however, the gun control group’s filing with the Federal Trade Commission is part of a broader strategy aimed at shutting down gun companies, and the complaint against Daniel Defense is only the latest in a string of similar filings against members of the firearms industry in recent months

We’ll get to those prior complaints in a few paragraphs, but first let’s delve into Everytown’s ridiculous assertions.

Daniel Defense has leaned on social media, especially Instagram, which has a young user-base, to promote its weapons, the complaint says, and the company does not restrict access to its accounts to users who are old enough to buy its products.

In one Instagram post, for example, the company featured a picture of Post Malone holding one of its rifles with the caption: “MK18 got me feeling like a rockstar.”

Another post, from the same day as the Uvalde shooting, promoted the DDM4 V7 model rifle — the same one the gunman would later use — with the hashtag “loadout,” a term for the gear a soldier carries into battle that the complaint says is a reference to “Call of Duty,” a game the shooter reportedly played. The company also often uses hashtags such as #callofduty and #cod to make its “Call of Duty” references on social media, the complaint says.

That’s it? Post Malone and Call of Duty?

I’m a soon-to-be 48-year old who listens to Post Malone (ironically after my wife, who’s nine years my senior, turned me on to his music) and played Call of Duty and other first-person shooters for years until fairly recently, and I’m far from alone. In fact, according to data on Call of Duty demographics, only about 1/4 of all players are younger than 25, which makes sense given the game’s “M” rating. Everytown has absolutely no evidence that Daniel Defense is intentionally marketing its firearms to younger teenagers, which frankly would be a terrible business strategy given that you can’t even purchase a rifle until you’re 18-years old. And if Daniel Defense is marketing its products to adults under the age of 21 there shouldn’t be an actionable issue since that age group is able to lawfully purchase and possess a long gun under federal law.

This complaint has less to do with Daniel Defense specifically and much more to do with the gun control lobby’s attack on the firearms industry as a whole.

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BLUF
While the supply chain crisis and the placation of the California protestors continue, for now, remember the Democratic Party ultimately intends to take AB5 national, so be on the lookout for more freedom-damaging bills just like it coming soon near you.

Truckers Say California Law Likely to Make U.S. Supply Chain Crisis Even Worse.

Since last fall, PJ Media has been chronicling the U.S. supply chain crisis at our nation’s portsrailroadshighwaysairports, and supermarket shelves. Over the intervening months, no amount of presidential or gubernatorial bloviating, photo-op visits, or misguided fines has truly fixed the congested conditions to get the supply chain back on track. And this month, a 2019 Democratic law is set to go into effect which will add even more stress to the already broken system.Yes, in their oh-so-vast wisdom, California Democrats passed Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) to force perfectly content freelancers and independent contractors (also known as “gig workers”) to be reclassified as employees. Like most leftist regulations, AB5’s initial intentions were one thing (“to protect all the poor mistreated gig workers” who didn’t  actually need or want protection) while its real-world outcomes are something thoroughly different (forcing employers to replace gig workers and decimating the industries that rely on them).

Touted as the leftist cure to save gig workers from exploitation, in reality, AB5 is simply a job- and freedom-killing monstrosity. AB5 limits the freedom of California’s workers to be independent contractors. Instead, it forces them to be considered salaried employees, which means the employers are also forced to place them under the existing laws for health insurance, retirement, and a myriad of other regulations concerning full-time employees. While AB5 does exempt some specific occupations from its onerous regulations, the state’s over 70,000 independent truckers were not explicitly among those exemptions in the original bill.

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‘America Has Become Unsafe:’ Starbucks CEO Rips Politicians In Decaying Cities After Closing 16 Urban Stores.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz blasted the leadership of Democrat-run cities for abdicating their duty to address crime and homelessness after the chain shut down several stores due to safety concerns.

The coffee chain said in a Monday memo that it would shutter 16 stores in major metropolitan areas, including SeattleLos AngelesPortland, Oregon, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.

In videos of an alleged internal company meeting obtained by The Post Millennial editor Ari Hoffman, Schultz argued that “America has become unsafe” and noted that the stores facing closures are nevertheless “not unprofitable.”

“It has shocked me that one of the primary concerns that our retail partners have is their own personal safety,” Schultz said of conversations with employees. “And then we heard the stories that go along with it about what happens in our bathrooms, the issue of mental illness, the issue of homelessness, and the issue of crime.”

 

The cities of Seattle, Los Angeles, Portland, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., have witnessed surging crime over the past two years. As of last month, Los Angeles and Washington were on pace to surpass their homicide totals seen in 2021, according to crime data reviewed by Fox News.

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As Ranchers Sell Their Calf Producing Cows, Major Cattle Deficit Predicted in 2024

The drought hit a turning point in Texas last weekend as ranchers made a mad dash to the sale barns, liquidating unprecedented amounts of beef cattle. Cattle industry leader Corbitt Wall, host of the FEEDER FLASH at NationalBeefWire.com gives an update on drought conditions across Texas. In his words, the effects of this drought combined with economic factors (fuel and fertilizer prices) are “unbelievable” with 3 mile line of trailers for the dropoff line at Emory Texas sale barn. The sale barn received such a surplus that they were auctioning off cattle through 5am the next morning.

This sale barn was 30 miles south of me and I was an eyewitness to these unbelievable lines. My local sale barn was packed. It is real.

As far as I am finding, hay bales are at minimum $85 for 4×5’ rounds (if you can find them). $100-125 per bale by fall will not be out of the question. For reference, 2021 prices in my area were $50/bale for 5×6’ rounds.

This drought-induced cattle liquidation is going to disrupt our meat supply chain in previously unforeseen ways… which says a lot given everything it has been through in the past two years. The cows being sold at these sale barns are ones that would, in normal circumstances, be producing calves for 4-5 more years. Instead, they are going to feed lots.

With so many productive cows heading to slaughter and not producing calves, the US is going to face a major beef cattle deficit in 2024.

  1. Live Cattle prices will explode.  Ranchers will be attempting to restock their ranch and that 3 mile line to sell will be replaced (at least in part), by a line to buy.  That line to buy will be shorter, however, because with the exorbitant cost of inputs, many ranchers will go out of business permanently.
  2. Foreign beef imports will drastically increase.  To cover for the deficit stateside meat packers will increase beef imports from South America.   Meatpacking giant JBS is actually a Brazilian owned company.  JBS has an Argentine slaughter facility that has a capacity of 500,000 head of beef cattle per year. They are already in the practice of  importing foreign beef carcasses.  This increased reliance on imports is going to further destroy American food infrastructure.

And this is where I am looking straight at you right now:  If you have 3-5 acres, one of the best things you can do for both personal and national security is to go buy one of these cows.  The book: Salad Bar Beef will be your roadmap will give you step by step instructions on how to raise your own grass fed beef as an absolute beginner. Please bypass Amazon and purchase at shopshepherdess.com, it would really support my work!

It’s exactly what I did (with no previous farming experience) and I outline the whole process of raising 1000 lb of beef as a beginner in this video: Raising 1000lb of Beef as an absolute beginner.

-the Shepherdess

“Pistols made up the bulk of this surge, rising from 962,900 handguns being produced in 2000, up to 5.5 million by 2020. Where long guns used for hunting were once the gun of choice, handguns, which are primarily used for personal protection, took the lead in 2009.”

Infographic: U.S. Gun Production Has Tripled Since 2000 | Statista

SCOTUS ruling on right to carry invoked in challenge to machine gun ban

A Wisconsin firearms retailer and popular YouTube influencer is asking a federal court to throw out charges that he was illegally selling devices to convert semi-automatic firearms into fully automatic firearms, arguing that the National Firearms Act of 1934, which tightly regulated the sale of machine guns, is unconstitutional based on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in  NYSRPA v. Bruen.

Matthew Hoover was indicted back in January alongside Kristopher Ervin of Florida for selling auto sears under the name Auto Key Card, which was marketed as a bottle opener. The feds contend, however, that the marketing of the card was simply intended to mask its real purpose; c

The cards came laser engraved showing the parts of an AR-15 automatic connector, commonly known as a “lightning link.”

The lightning link, when assembled from its separate components and installed in an AR-15, could convert it to full-auto without any additional modifications to the firearm.

Because of this, the ATF decided the cards were close enough to auto sears to fall under the machine gun restrictions under the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act amendment of the National Firearms Act.

Under the original NFA, machine guns could still be purchased, although additional paperwork and the payment of a $200 tax was required. When the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act was signed into law in 1986, however, all new machine guns were banned for purchase by civilians, and building your own is a federal no-no as well.

Now attorneys for Hoover are arguing that, based on the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen, the indictment should be thrown out because the constitutionality of the machine gun restrictions have been called into question

What makes Bruen particularly germane to the instant matter is the announcement of a clear legal standard for the evaluation of acts regulating the peaceable keeping and bearing of arms. Bruen identified the Court of Appeals “coalesce[ing] around a ‘two-step’ framework for analyzing Second Amendment challenges that combines history with means-ends scrutiny”, the Court correctly identified this as “one step too many[.]

Those previous decisions at the various Courts of Appeal manifested deference to the Government in a manner unlike any other fundamental right, and the inexplicable consideration of regulations clearly contemplating the keeping and bearing of arms as beyond the scope of the Second Amendment.
… Finally, though, we have a standard which clearly articulates the burdens in a case involving restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms. It is, as artfully penned by the Court, “when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. The Government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation. Only then may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s ‘unqualified command.’”

The Department of Justice will undoubtably argue that fully-automatic firearms are not in common use, and are therefore both unusual and dangerous and fall outside of the scope of the Second Amendment. They can even point to Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion in Heller, when he implied that “M-16 rifles and the like” because they are not and were not in common use by civilians at any point in time during our nation’s history. Hoover’s attorneys anticipate that argument and reject it in their new filing, arguing that “the court’s invocation of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons in Heller and subsequently Bruen was for the purpose of discussion of what might be a constitutionally acceptable law, rather than the endorsement of any particular extant policy.”

Rather, the only way a court may conclude Defendant’s conduct falls outside the scope of the Second Amendment’s unqualified command remains clear: the Government must prove the particular regime in question is consistent with the history and tradition of the United States.

Furthermore, the question of whether a weapon is “in common use at the time,” necessarily pins the analysis to the time before the prohibition. To consider otherwise would incentivize the Government to legislate wantonly and aggressively, seizing arms, then later evade constitutional scrutiny by suggesting that the arms cannot be in common use, because the Government prohibited them. Such circular logic would be inconsistent with any fundamental rights jurisprudence.

The request for dismissal goes on to argue that Hoover and his co-defendant aren’t accused of selling actual machine guns. Rather the ATF decided that the thin, credit card-sized piece of metal can become a machine gun if purchasers use a little elbow grease.

In addition to the previously raised Constitutional questions, nothing in the applicable history and tradition of the United States supports the categorical ban of machineguns, much less the item here at issue—a tchotchke the Government alleges might possibly, with transformative labor, one day become a machinegun. Further, the ATF’s decision that the tchotchke at issue—a stainless steel card with some lines lightly thereupon engraved—was a machinegun came completely by administrative fiat, absent even notice and comment. Our Nation’s history and tradition does not, and cannot, support a finding that an alleged drawing of a part is that part merely because an unelected bureaucrat unilaterally willed it to be. To hold otherwise would be to grant the Bureau more power than Congress could have ever granted it, and make innumerable items potentially illegal.

The attorneys for Hoover then cite testimony given by then-Attorney General Homer Cummings in 1934 during debate over the NFA.

MR. LEWIS: I hope the courts will find no doubt on a subject like this, General; but I was curious to know how we escaped that provision in the Constitution.

ATTORNEY GENERAL CUMMINGS: Oh, we do not attempt to escape it. We are dealing with another power, namely, the power of taxation, and of regulation under the interstate commerce clause. You see, if we made a statute absolutely forbidding any human being to have a machine gun, you might say there is some constitutional question involved. But when you say “We will tax the machine gun” and when you say that “the absence of a license showing payment of the tax has been made indicates that a crime has been perpetrated”, you are easily within the law.

MR. LEWIS: In other words, it does not amount to prohibition, but allows of regulation.

ATTORNEY GENERAL CUMMINGS: That is the idea. We have studied that very carefully.

In other words, the NFA was intentionally never designed to be an outright ban on the possession of machine guns, but the Hughes Amendment to FOPA changed all that by banning the possession or purchase of any automatic firearm manufactured after FOPA became law.

It’s a good argument, but whether or not the judge goes for it is a different story. My gut tells me that we’re going to get the same reliance on Scalia’s aside in Heller to keep the charges against Hoover in place for now, but I’m very interested to see what happens if and when this case goes to trial. It’s hard to argue that the NFA is “longstanding” when the Court just threw out a New York law that’s twenty years older, and I’m not aware of any historical analogues to the Hughes Amendment that could come into play, which makes this case one to watch going forward.

We end today with this. ‘Hat tip to Jim Taylor’.


What Happened To The Men Who Signed The Declaration of Independence?

As you may know, our office is conveniently located in the Bourse Building at 5th & Market Streets in Center City Philadelphia (see directions). What you may not know is that our office is across the street from both the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.

What follows is some interesting information on some of the individuals who signed the Declaration of Independence across the street from Clinton & McKain

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists.

Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that they penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr. noted that the British General Cornwalls had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.

Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.

Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged: “For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor”.

They gave you and me a free and independent America. The history books never told you a lot about what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn’t fight just the British. We were British subjects at that time and we fought our own government! Some of us take these liberties so much for granted, but we shouldn’t. So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It’s not much to ask for the price they paid. Remember: freedom is never free!