Bureaucraps – Page 20

FDA Sued for Withholding Safety Data on COVID Shots

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is being sued in federal court for withholding data on the safety analysis of Covid shots.

The new lawsuit was filed in a Washington D.C. federal court by the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense (CHD).

CHD contends that the FDA’s actions violate federal law.

“Numerous scientists, physicians, public health experts, and other concerned individuals have questioned the safety of COVID-19 injections, and many thousands of post-injection adverse events have been reported to the federal government,” the lawsuit argues.

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FPC Files New Lawsuit Challenging ATF Pistol Brace Rulemaking

DALLAS, TX (January 31, 2023) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the filing of litigation challenging the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Final Rulemaking on firearms equipped with stabilizing or pistol braces. The Petition in FPC’s Mock v. Garland, along with other case documents, can be viewed at FPCLaw.org.

“This lawsuit challenges, inter alia, the Factoring Criteria for Firearms with Attached Stabilizing Braces, promulgated by the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to regulate ‘braced pistols’ as ‘short-barreled rifles.’ In so doing, for the reasons set forth herein, the Agencies violate the Administrative Procedure Act and the United States Constitution,” the Petition states.

The Petition continues: “Even if the Final Rule does not violate the APA and is allowed to stand, the Agencies’ National Firearms Act (“NFA”), laws, regulations, policies, and enforcement practices with respect to ‘braced pistols’ that the Agencies’ have classified as “short-barreled rifles” violate the Second Amendment. Plaintiffs thus further seek declaratory and injunctive relief to secure their constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms in the absence of vacatur of the Final Rule.”

“Federal agencies do not have the power to write new laws, and yet the ATF continues to attempt to expand its authority using the federal rulemaking process,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPC’s Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation. “This ‘rule’ is, in effect, a federal law that will transform millions of peaceable people into felons overnight simply for owning a firearm that has been lawful to own for decades. We won’t stand idly by while the ATF tramples the rights of millions of peaceable individuals.”

“At its most basic level, this rulemaking represents a massive and unlawful bait-and-switch on peaceable gun owners,” said FPC Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack. “For nearly a decade the ATF’s position on pistol braces has been relied on by millions of gun owners. Now, with the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen, those same people are told they are felons unless and until they submit themselves to invasive regulation, registration, dispossession of their property, or worse.”

Dangerous and Unusual: How an Expanding National Firearms Act Will Spell Its Own Demise

Abstract

The National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) is the strictest federal gun control law currently in effect. It criminalizes the mere possession and transfer of specifically enumerated categories of firearms deemed to be especially dangerous and unusual, such as machine guns and silencers.

Commensurate with this viewpoint, the NFA imposes on violators harsh felony penalties, from lengthy prison sentences to six-figure fines. However, the NFA permits lawful civilian ownership of these firearms under a taxation and registration scheme administered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

In its 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller decision, the United States Supreme Court clarified what “arms” the Second Amendment protects—those that are “in common use” and those “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” but not those that are “dangerous and unusual.”

Under this formulation, NFA restrictions received an incidental presumption of constitutionality. That was then, this is now.

In the intervening years since Heller, NFA firearms have exploded in popularity, amounting to millions of lawfully registered examples in civilian hands. As the NFA registry grows year after year, the federal government enjoys ever-increasing tax revenues. Consequently, registry expansion offers a lucrative and effective means of implementing gun control measures—ATF reclassification of existing non-NFA firearms and accessories as falling under the NFA can compel registrations or preclude ownership of controversial items altogether.

This Comment argues that the NFA’s modern expansionary trend is on a collision course with the Heller mandate. After Heller, the only constitutional NFA registry is a small one, reserved for the truly dangerous and unusual. By focusing on modern developments in three NFA categories—short-barreled rifles, silencers, and machine guns—this Comment contends that some NFA prohibitions are already constitutionally unsound and absent judicial intervention, Congress should remove them from the NFA altogether.

Dangerous and Unusual_ How an Expanding National Firearms Act Wil

Well, to put it bluntly, all federal and the vast majority of state gun laws are unconstitutional not just under the Heller & McDonald decisions, but also simply don’t meet the Bruen test. The game is actually over, but it’s like a snake with its head chopped off. The opposing side is going to flop around awhile until it gets the message that it’s dead.

Why the ATF’s Pistol Brace Ban Is Unconstitutional
The nearly 90-year-old federal law restricting short-barreled rifles has been superseded by time and technology. It’s past time the Supreme Court took notice.

The recent rule change regulating stabilizer braces for AR-15 pistols by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) is unconstitutional. But not for the reasons you may think or the ones that have been widely argued. The National Firearms Act (NFA), which the ATF claims allows for the rule, has been overcome by events and no longer applies to these weapons.

First, some background.

A stabilizing brace is an accessory for AR-15 pistols that was ostensibly designed to help fire a short-barreled weapon more accurately. The controversy arose due to the NFA, which bans rifles with a barrel shorter than 16 inches. These are known collectively as short-barreled rifles (SBR). AR-15-style pistols definitely have barrels shorter than 16 inches, but since they do not have a stock allowing them to be fired from the shoulder, they are classified as pistols.

No problem so far. But the stabilizing braces began to obscure this distinction. At first they simply extended a short distance from the rear of the pistol and had straps that wrapped around the forearm of the shooter, thus stabilizing the weapon. But they eventually extended further to become essentially a collapsible stock which when extended made the AR-15 pistol for all intents and purposes an SBR.

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BLUF
As for all the chefs out there, be warned. Once the CPSC, or those who would use the CPSC for their political agenda, get the idea to ban a useful product, it can be hard to get them to stop.

If the CPSC Would Ban Gas Stoves, Imagine How it Would Treat Guns

The Consumer Product Safety Commission, the federal agency dedicated to saving the world from lawn darts and toy magnets, has been in the headlines recently. This time the busybodies at the CPSC are out to protect Americans from well-prepared meals, by banning the ubiquitous gas stove.

On January 9, Bloomberg News reported that the CPSC “says a ban on gas stoves is on the table amid rising concern about harmful indoor air pollutants emitted by the appliances.” Speaking with the outlet, CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. stated, “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”

Public backlash to the agency’s effort was swift and harsh. Further, more than one commentator noted how the proposed ban appeared to be a way to advance a climate change agenda under the guise of consumer protection.

The response prompted the CPSC to deny any plans to ban gas stoves, with CPSC Chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric claiming, “I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so.”

With timing that should raise some eyebrows, three days after the initial Bloomberg article, the Washington Post ran an opinion piece from former CPSC Chair Ann Brown arguing that the agency should have the authority to regulate firearms. Titled “Guns are consumer products. They should be regulated as such,” the article argued for a CPSC-led gun control campaign, along with the enactment of waiting periods and bans on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms.

So, three days after the CPSC made headlines for a move that led to credible allegations of using consumer protection as a front to advance a broader political agenda, a former chair of the commission essentially signaled her desire for the agency to operate in just such a manner.

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Charles McGonigal, Indicted Ex-FBI Head, Helped Trigger ‘Russiagate’ Probe

The former FBI official busted Monday for allegedly taking illegal foreign payments played a key role in the bureau’s controversial “Russiagate” probe of former President Donald Trump — and a “defensive briefing” of ex-rival Hillary Clinton’s lawyers.

Charles “Charlie” McGonigal, 54, was among the first FBI officials to learn that Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat that Russia had “political dirt” on Clinton.

FBI Deputy Assistant Director Jonathan Moffa told Senate Judiciary Committee staffers in 2020 that he got a July 2016 email from McGonigal which “contained essentially that reporting, which then served as the basis for the opening of the case.”

The FBI investigation, dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane,” led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller and a 22-month, $32 million probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and potential ties to associates of Trump, now 76.

Shortly before Mueller was appointed, McGonigal also sent a message to an FBI colleague that discussed how agents were interviewing another Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page.

“Our Team is currently talking to CP re Russia,” McGonigal wrote on March 16, 2017, according to Justice Department records released by Senate Republicans.

SHOT Show: FBI NICS Update

At SHOT Show University, the FBI provided an update on the Nation Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). What they shared was staggering and sure to make the anti-gunners throw up their hands in frustration.

For those unfamiliar with NICS, it is a system used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to conduct background checks on individuals who want to purchase firearms from a licensed firearms dealer in the United States.

The NICS system was created in response to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993, which required background checks for all firearms sales made through licensed dealers. The NICS check is done by a firearms dealer when a customer wants to purchase a firearm. The dealer will contact the FBI or a state point of contact through a toll-free telephone number or an online system and provide the customer’s information. The FBI or the state point of contact will then check the provided information against records in the NICS database and inform the dealer whether the sale can proceed or not. If the check is delayed for more than three business days, the dealer can proceed with the sale but is required to keep records of the transaction.

While many of these numbers were released previously, it’s helpful to look at the growth in background checks and firearms purchases over the past 20 years. For example, in 2020 and 2021, the FBI conducted almost 39 million NICS background checks each year. The most checks were conducted in 2020, with over 39.7 million, a record high, which the FBI attributed to pandemic buying, but we all remember the social unrest during the Summer of Love – a more likely explanation for the record number of firearms purchases.

As you can see from the chart shared by the FBI, the number of checks has been increasing since the implementation of the background check system in 1998 (chart shows 2003-2022) and has seen a marked increase in recent years. Although 2022 numbers are down from 2020 and 2021, it’s following the trend line and is up from 2019.

Can you guess which months of the year are the most popular for NICS checks – at least over the past couple of years? Well, if you guessed March and November, you’re right. The FBI shared the top 10 days for NICS checks between 1998 and 2022. The volume of NICS checks in March 2021 is staggering. Six of the top 10 days over the past 24 years occurred in March 2021.

Overall, the NICS system has processed over 443 million (443,172,700) requests since its inception. Almost 74 million of those NICS checks were done via the NICS E-Check system. And that number will only grow as the online system is much faster than making a call to the NICS contact center.

Not every state participates in the FBI NICS system. A Point of Contact (POC) state is a state that has agreed to conduct background checks for firearms purchases on behalf of the FBI through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). POC states can access the NICS database and have additional state-specific information available to them, allowing them to conduct more comprehensive background checks. In a POC state, when a firearms dealer initiates a NICS check, the dealer contacts the state point of contact (POC) instead of the FBI. The POC conducts the check using the NICS database as well as any additional state-specific databases and records that the state has access to and informs the dealer whether the sale can proceed or not.

Some states, like California, Colorado, and Oregon, are designated as POC states and are responsible for conducting background checks for firearms purchases within their state. They use the NICS system to perform the check but also have additional state-specific laws, regulations and databases that they check against before allowing a sale to proceed.

It’s worth noting that all states participate in the NICS, but not all states are POC states. Some states have chosen to use the FBI to conduct their background checks and not have a state-specific point of contact. In 13 states (in red), state law enforcement is the “point of contact” for background checks. In four states (in blue), FFLs contact the state for handguns and the FBI for long guns. Two states (in yellow), Nebraska and North Carolina, use state-issued permits in lieu of NICS for handguns.

All in all, it was a fascinating look at how the FBI conducts NICS checks and a decent reminder that just many Americans are exercising their Second Amendment rights by purchasing a firearm at retail every month.

To be frank, there is nothing in the Constitution that gives goobermint the power to form such an bureau. In fact, from the Bruen ruling, no federal firearm law, or bureau can be Constitutional, as nothing of the sort existed at the founding, or even later when the 14th amendment was ratified. That Gaetz has to submit such a bill is an indictment of the whole goobermint.

Gaetz introduces ‘Abolish the ATF Act’ after ruling against stabilizing braces.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., introduced a bill to eliminate the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) following a controversial ruling that tightens regulations on pistol-stabilizing braces.

The ATF issued its final rule Friday that will treat guns with stabilizing accessories like short-barreled rifles, which require a federal license to own under the National Firearms Act.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said the ruling enhances public safety, but Gaetz said it unfairly punishes disabled gun owners and veterans who rely on stabilizing braces to be able to fire with one hand.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., walks to a closed-door GOP caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 10, 2023. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

“I have a lot of disabled veterans in my district who enjoy pistol shooting and rely on stabilizing braces to be able to engage in the activity,” he said in a phone interview Wednesday morning. “The recent actions from the ATF essentially allow them to make case-by-case determinations on whether a pistol with a stabilizing brace is legal or an unlawful, sawed-off shotgun.”

“The continued existence of the ATF is increasingly unwarranted based on the actions they’re taking to convert otherwise law-abiding people into felons,” he said. “My bill would abolish the ATF. If that doesn’t work, we’re going to try defunding the ATF. If that doesn’t work, we’re going to target the individual bureaucrats at the top of the ATF who have exceeded their authority in rulemaking. And if that doesn’t work, we’re going to take a meat cleaver to the statutes that the ATF believes broadly authorize their actions.”

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Thank God this hack never made it to the Supreme Court.

Try Not to Laugh at DOJ’s Excuse for Not Sending FBI to Raid Biden’s Homes for Classified Docs.

Attorney General Merrick Garland is feeling the heat over the obvious double standard between the Mar-a-Lago FBI raid on Donald Trump’s home to retrieve classified documents and Joe Biden’s Car-a-Lago scandal. As a result, Biden’s hit man, who “can’t comment on an ongoing investigation,” has clearly green-lighted his patented leaks to friendly media to make excuses for his duplicity. If this weren’t such a tell for how corrupt the Justice Department is, the excuses would be funny. But since America’s system of jurisprudence in the DOJ and the FBI is clearly so irretrievably fallen, and could take civil society sliding down the hill with it, we should consider Garland’s excuses in the seriousness with which they’re offered.

Now you can laugh.

It’s going to take more than one of Garland’s no-comment-comments to convince anyone paying attention to this ridiculous charade that there’s no gambling at Rick’s. Yet, Garland’s excuse-making is amazing to behold for his audacity in believing anyone is dumb enough to believe this claptrap.

Allow me to distill the nonsense that Garland’s Justice Department, characterized as “people familiar with the matter,” told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday afternoon.

First up, the Merrick Garland approved leak wants us to believe that gosh, we considered having the FBI SWAT team oversee the raid to get the illegal documents, but the Justice Department “decided against it, both to avoid complicating later stages of the investigation and because Mr. Biden’s attorneys had quickly turned over a first batch and were cooperating, according to people familiar with the matter.”

Just like Donald Trump. Just kidding.

President Trump had the authority to declassify documents and, as a president of the United States, was allowed to take them as his personal documents, according to Mike Davis of the Article III Project. Not so with the vice president, which Biden was when he purloined the documents with the highest security classifications. We’re told, but we don’t have proof since we have only the say-so of Biden’s lawyer Richard Sauber, that some of the documents pertained to Ukraine and China. Of course, those are the countries from which Hunter Biden was extracting millions for access to the Veep.

Garland’s lackeys leaked that President Biden’s own attorneys were allowed to search the documents without FBI presence (read: raid) because he trusted Biden’s attorneys to do the search for them. On his word as a Biden. “Not a joke, not a joke.”

Indeed, the two sides, presumably the DOJ and Biden, though it’s not clear, “agreed that Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys would inspect the homes, notify the Justice Department as soon as they identified any other potentially classified records, and arrange for law-enforcement authorities to take them.” Did Biden get a back rub too? A day at the spa? Cognition lessons? Anything’s possible after telling Team Biden that hey, no problem you can go through the documents and then turn over the documents that Biden’s lawyers wanted to hand over.

WSJ postulates that by allowing Joe’s attorneys to curate and collect the illegally obtained classified documents he was not authorized to have, it laughably signals that “federal investigators are girding for a months-long inquiry that could stretch well into Mr. Biden’s third year in office.” What does that even mean?

“Instead, the two sides agreed that Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys would inspect the homes, notify the Justice Department as soon as they identified any other potentially classified records, and arrange for law-enforcement authorities to take them, ” WSJ straightfacedly reported.

Apparently, the discussions with the DOJ were very serious and deliberative, and “those deliberations, which haven’t previously been reported, shed new light on how the Biden team’s efforts to cooperate with investigators have thus far helped it avoid more aggressive actions by law enforcement.”

Oh please. Biden had the documents since January 2017. How is that cooperative, again?

Biden says he has no idea what those documents were in the box next to his vintage Corvette. We didn’t get a sexy staged photo of documents splayed out at the Car-a-Lago crime scene. Biden says he doesn’t remember having the documents in the three different properties (some of which had been moved multiple times). We have no trouble believing this. He likely doesn’t remember what he had for breakfast this morning.

Trump’s people were in negotiations with the National Archives, which apparently has somehow morphed into a law enforcement entity with gunned-up FBI SWAT-like officers at their disposal to go grab documents they didn’t want him to have. But not so for Biden.

The DOJ raided Trump’s house because they didn’t like him.

We don’t know who’s going after Joe Biden for what, but we won’t find out because there are only two ways this special counsel probe will go: As a Mueller-like CYA cover-up operation or as a wrist slap that will be spun as a well., we investigated him and all we got was his lousy 5th Amendment, a crack pipe, and the numbers of a couple of hookers. This will be a Hunter Biden/Joe Biden proxy “investigation,” and it will end there.

GOP lawmakers, NRA slam ATF rule to regulate pistol braces: ‘Unconstitutional overreach’

Republican lawmakers and gun rights groups blasted the Biden administration over a new rule that tightens regulations on pistol stabilizing braces.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives (ATF) finalized a new regulation Friday that will treat guns with stabilizing accessories like short-barreled rifles, which require a federal license to own under the National Firearms Act.

The move is part of a comprehensive gun crime strategy President Biden announced in April 2021, in response to the massacre at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, where a gunman using a stabilizing brace killed 10 people. A stabilizing brace was also used in a shooting in Dayton, Ohio, that left nine people dead in 2019.

Announcing the rule, Attorney General Merrick Garland said that stabilizing brace accessories, which were designed to help disabled combat veterans enjoy recreational shooting, transform pistols into short-barreled rifles.

“Keeping our communities safe from gun violence is among the Department’s highest priorities,” Garland said. “Almost a century ago, Congress determined that short-barreled rifles must be subject to heightened requirements. Today’s rule makes clear that firearm manufacturers, dealers, and individuals cannot evade these important public safety protections simply by adding accessories to pistols that transform them into short-barreled rifles.”

“Certain so-called stabilizing braces are designed to just attach to pistols, essentially converting them into short-barreled rifles to be fired from the shoulder,” said ATF Director Steven Dettelbach. “Therefore, they must be treated in the same way under the statute.”

Second Amendment advocates were apoplectic over new requirements for gun owners to register existing pistols equipped with stabilizing braces with the government within 120 days, else they must remove the brace or surrender the firearm to ATF.

“The Biden administration chose to shred the Constitution today,” the National Rifle Association said.

“Joe Biden is an enemy of our Second Amendment,” the group added.

Gun Owners of America, which bills itself as the only “no-compromise” gun lobby in Washington, D.C., vowed to file a lawsuit challenging Biden’s new ATF regulation.

“This admin continues to find ways to attack gun owners. We will continue to work with our industry partners to amplify the disapproving voices in the firearms industry and [Gun Owners Foundation], our sister legal arm, will be filing suit in the near future,” said Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America.

“Pres. Biden just initiated the largest federal gun registration scheme in our nation’s history w/o even the passage of a new law. GOA is actively working with Congress to pass a resolution blocking this rule under the Congressional Review Act,” added the organization’s director of federal affairs, Aidan Johnston.

Their cause was taken up by Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., who in June 2021 wrote a letter signed by 140 lawmakers expressing opposition to the proposed rule on stabilizing braces.

“This rule jeopardizes the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners and disabled combat veterans, which is why I led Members of Congress in opposition,” Hudson said. “I will continue to fight against the ATF’s unconstitutional overreach that could turn millions of citizens into felons.”

ATF, however, says that its new rule does not affect stabilizing braces intended for disabled persons.

Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo also condemned the ATF rule. “The ATF’s announced rule on pistol braces today is nothing short of a massive executive branch-imposed gun registration and confiscation scheme,” Crapo tweeted. “This is an unacceptable attack on the Second Amendment and law-abiding Americans.”

Gun control advocates praised the new regulation. Everytown for Gun Safety cheered the ATF’s move, saying gunmakers had exploited loopholes in the law to make firearms more deadly.

The rule will go into effect next week, at which point gun owners who own a pistol stabilizing brace will need to register the weapon with ATF or remove the accessory.

Officials estimated about 3 million stabilizing braces are currently in circulation in the U.S.

SAF Rips ATF’s Byzantine Pistol Brace Rule, Vows to Continue Its Lawsuit

From the Second Amendment Foundation . . .

The Second Amendment Foundation today accused the Biden administration of “once again trying to trample the rights of gun owners” by allowing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to adopt a “final rule” on arm braces for modern semiautomatic pistols.

While the definition of a rifle in federal law should be clear, noted attorney Chad Flores, who is representing SAF in a federal lawsuit filed two years ago that was stayed by the court in anticipation of this new rule, it is clear the Biden administration’s new definition of a rifle ignores tradition. SAF sued ATF and the U.S. Attorney General in 2021 in a case known as SAF et. al. v. BATFE, et. al.

SAF is joined in that case by Rainier Arms, LLC and two private citizens, Samuel Walley and William Green. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division.

According to Flores’ analysis of the 291-page Final Rule, the definition of a “rifle” now turns on a bewildering six-factor test. This new definition can be controlled not by the firearm’s objective characteristics, but instead by what ATF agents in D.C. think of a manufacturer’s marketing materials or the firearm’s “likely use.” The new rule itself is forced to admit its dramatic result: Under this new definitional regime, “a majority of the existing firearms equipped with a ‘stabilizing brace’ are likely to be classified as ‘rifles.’”

“The Biden administration’s new rifle definition overrides the true wish of Congress, to upend the reasonable expectations of stabilizing brace users and makers nationwide,” Flores said.

SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb noted the foundation’s 2021 lawsuit raised critical points about what has now been adopted by ATF.

“When we started this process,” Gottlieb said, “we anticipated where the agency’s efforts would lead. With our co-plaintiffs, we will continue to challenge this new arm brace rule.”

Just like what happened back in the 90s when some shotguns were redefined as ‘destructive devices’. A tax free amnesty.
This will have suits filed against it, and what with the Bruen ruling’s “Text-History-Tradition” standard (find me any law, state, or federal that required tax, or registration of a firearm from 1869 and earlier, on back to the founding ) could see the downfall of the National Firearms Act.

This has not been published in the Federal Register yet

Justice Department Announces New Rule to Address Stabilizing Braces, Accessories Used to Convert Pistols into Short-Barreled Rifles

Today, the Department of Justice announced it has submitted to the Federal Register the “Stabilizing Braces” Final Rule, which makes clear that when manufacturers, dealers, and individuals use stabilizing braces to convert pistols into rifles with a barrel of less than 16 inches, commonly referred to as a short-barreled rifles, they must comply with the laws that regulate those rifles, including the National Firearms Act (NFA). In April 2021, at an event with President Biden, the Attorney General directed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to address the issue of stabilizing braces.

“Keeping our communities safe from gun violence is among the Department’s highest priorities,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “Almost a century ago, Congress determined that short-barreled rifles must be subject to heightened requirements. Today’s rule makes clear that firearm manufacturers, dealers, and individuals cannot evade these important public safety protections simply by adding accessories to pistols that transform them into short-barreled rifles.”

“This rule enhances public safety and prevents people from circumventing the laws Congress passed almost a century ago. In the days of Al Capone, Congress said back then that short-barreled rifles and sawed-off shotguns should be subjected to greater legal requirements than most other guns. The reason for that is that short-barreled rifles have the greater capability of long guns, yet are easier to conceal, like a pistol,” said ATF Director Steven Dettelbach. “But certain so-called stabilizing braces are designed to just attach to pistols, essentially converting them into short-barreled rifles to be fired from the shoulder. Therefore, they must be treated in the same way under the statute.”

Since the 1930s, the NFA has imposed requirements on short-barreled rifles because they are more easily concealable than long-barreled rifles but have more destructive power than traditional handguns. Beyond background checks and serial numbers, those heightened requirements include taxation and registration requirements that include background checks for all transfers including private transfers. Often, when pistols are converted to rifles by the use of a stabilizing brace covered by the rule, they have barrels less than 16 inches in length and must comply with the same heightened requirements that apply to short-barreled rifles under the NFA.

The rule goes into effect on the date of publication in the Federal Register. The rule allows for a 120-day period for manufacturers, dealers, and individuals to register tax-free any existing NFA short-barreled rifles covered by the rule. Other options including removing the stabilizing brace to return the firearm to a pistol or surrendering covered short-barreled rifles to ATF. Nothing in this rule bans stabilizing braces or the use of stabilizing braces on pistols.

On June 7, 2021, the Department of Justice issued a notice of proposed rulemaking, and during the 90-day open comment period, the ATF received more than 237,000 comments.

The final rule, as submitted to the Federal Register, can be viewed here: https://www.atf.gov/rules-and-regulations/factoring-criteria-firearms-attached-stabilizing-braces

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and the chief bureaucrap finds himself between a rock and a hard place.

AG Garland Announces Special Counsel to Probe Biden’s Classified Document Scandal

In an awkward turn of events, President Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Thursday afternoon that the Biden DOJ was appointing a special counsel to investigate President Biden and his apparent mishandling of classified government documents that were found in Biden’s Delaware garage and a University of Pennsylvania office he used in D.C.

Garland announced that Robert Hur — a veteran of the Justice Department and the former U.S. Attorney in the District of Maryland under Trump who handled high-profile national security matters — would conduct an investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents following his service as vice president in the Obama administration to determine whether any illegal activity took place.

The appointment of a special counsel follows an initial investigation of the mishandled documents by a U.S. attorney in Illinois, and an FBI assessment to discern if classified information was mishandled by Biden in accordance with federal law, the result of which led Garland to appoint Hur as special counsel to carry out a full investigation of President Biden’s actions.

After being named by Garland, Special Counsel Hur released a statement saying “I will conduct the assigned investigation with fair, impartial, and dispassionate judgment” and he intends “to follow the facts swiftly and thoroughly, without fear or favor, and will honor the trust placed in me to perform this service.”

Garland explained the timeline that led to Thursday’s special counsel announcement:

On November 4, 2022, the National Archives Office of Inspector General contacted a Department of Justice prosecutor to tell DOJ that the Biden White House notified the Archives that classified documents were found at the Penn Biden Center, which was not authorized for storage of classified documents.

On November 9, 2022, the FBI commenced an assessment to discern if classified information had been mishandled in violation of federal law.

On November 14, 2022, Garland assigned U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch to conduct the initial investigation to inform Garland’s decision on whether to appoint a special counsel.

On December 20, President Biden’s personal counsel informed U.S. Attorney Lausch that additional classified documents were found in Biden’s private Wilmington, Delaware, residence.

While it’s too soon to say for sure, the fact that the initial investigation necessitated Biden’s attorney general appointing a special counsel to investigate his own boss suggests that there was some “there,” there worthy of further scrutiny.

Some shared healthy skepticism that the special counsel investigation will lead to any concrete legal issues, but the political impact of this significant development could bring sweeping political implications.

This is a developing story and may be updated.

IRS Audits Targeted Poor at Higher Rate Than Millionaires in ’22

New House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in his acceptance speech repealing the funding for “funding for 87,000 new IRS agents” will be “our first bill” – and that came amid a recent report finding a far-higher audit rate for lower-income taxpayers than millionaires.

Still, the report spins that data to suggest more agents are needed to go after millionaires more, rather than reduce the effort to scrape from the poor to fund the Democrats’ big-spending agenda.

“The taxpayer class with unbelievably high audit rates — five and a half times virtually everyone else — were low-income wage-earners taking the earned income tax credit,” Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) reported this week.
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TRAC called the poorer taxpayers “easy marks,” but President Joe Biden is an alumnus of Syracuse, and the report does argue the IRS “doesn’t have the resources.”

Regardless, the data showed a bias to audit the poor over millionaires if you throw out “correspondence audits” that merely send a letter in the mail.

“If one ignores the fiction of auditing a millionaire through simply sending a letter through the mail, the odds that millionaires received a regular audit by a revenue agent (1.1%) was actually less than the audit rate of the targeted lowest income wage-earners whose audit rate was 1.27%!” the report read.

“While these small differences may sound trivial, the difference represented tens of thousands of low -income families. And the question remains, should these low-income families be the ones targeted when millionaires are responsible dollarwise for most tax underreporting?”

With inflation raging and recession talk still a potential drag on the economy in 2023, McCarthy’s speech vowed to try to repeal the funding of 87,000 new IRS agents in the new Congress – even with Democrats’ control the Senate and Biden is in the White House.

“There is nothing more important than making it possible for American families to live and enjoy the lives they deserve,” McCarthy said in his speech early Saturday morning. “That is why we commit to stop wasteful Washington spending to lower the price of groceries, gas, cars, and housing and stop the rising national debt.

“We pledge to cut the regulatory burden, lower energy costs for families, and create good-paying jobs for workers by unleashing reliable, abundant American-made energy.

“Our first bill will repeal funding for 87,000 new IRS agents. Because the government should be here to help you, not go after you.”

Buttigieg Gives the Most Ridiculous Excuse Ever for Using Private Jets.

Embattled Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has come under fire recently for basically being terrible at his job, has also been criticized for his regular use of private government jets, a practice he tried to defend during an appearance on Fox News.

It did not go well.

“You’ve been a big advocate for the environment—the administration’s climate change policy. What do you say to people who ask, is it environmentally responsible to fly on private government jets when commercial options are available?” host Bret Baier asked.

“Well, when we’re making a decision about what kind of aircraft to use, we weigh a lot of things. That’s one of the things we consider. So is saving taxpayers money. Now, I fly the majority of the time in economy class on an airliner, just like everybody else,” Buttigieg claimed. “But there are cases where we use an FAA jet, a jet that’s assigned to my department. I’ll give you an example. I went to Wisconsin recently. This was last year, I think. […] We saved taxpayers $2,000 by using the FAA jet instead of buying those airline tickets.”

After Baier pointed out several other private jet flights Buttigieg has taken, the secretary claimed, “taxpayers are usually saving money when we do that.”

The FAA reportedly charges federal agencies $5,000 per hour for the use of a private jet. According to a recent analysis of his flight records by the New York Post, Buttigieg has used private jets 18 times since taking office. His predecessor, Elaine Chao, was criticized for using private jets seven times in 2017.

Baier noted that former HHS Secretary Tom Price was essentially forced to resign from Donald Trump’s cabinet for his use of private jets. Of course, according to Buttigieg, that was different because, allegedly, when Price did it, it wasn’t saving taxpayers money, but when he does it, it is. For Buttigieg’s explanation to be true, we’d have to believe that the FAA offers a ridiculously huge discount for anyone working in a Democrat administration.

BLUF
It is essential for the perseveration of a free society for citizens to have greater control over their government than that government has over citizens. The balance of power has in recent decades been tilting in favor of government, and this move by the Biden administration would undoubtedly continue that disturbing trend. It must be stopped immediately.

Biden wants your next airport visit to include a face scan. That’s a huge threat to your freedom
Face-scanning technology already abused by authoritarian states like China and Russia

In December, the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA), an agency within Biden’s Department of Homeland Security, acknowledged it has significantly expanded facial recognition technology at security checkpoints in airports across the United States.

Under the expanded program, 16 of the nation’s largest airports are now using face scans as a way to verify the identities of travelers, including in Atlanta, Boston, Denver, and Los Angeles. The TSA’s initial test facial recognition program started under the Trump administration in 2017.

The system asks passengers to insert a photo identification into a security kiosk and then look at a camera. After a few seconds pass, the machine uses artificial intelligence to compare the face scan with the photo ID. If the system says the two match, the passenger can move forward to his or her gate. If a potential mismatch is identified, a human TSA agent will determine whether to deny access to the traveler. Eventually, humans will be removed from the verification process altogether.

If the new program is deemed successful, TSA plans to expand facial recognition at airports nationwide, making it one of the largest efforts to collect advanced biometric data of law-abiding citizens in US history.

Continue reading “”

ATF Plans to Finalize Pistol Brace Rule in January

In a recent court filing, the Department of Justice claimed that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “expects to publish a final rule in January 2023.” That rule is the Factoring Criteria for Firearms with Attached “Stabilizing Braces” which was first proposed by the agency in June 2021. And, is the most recent in a long line of ATF guidance, rulings, and rules regarding firearms with attached stabilizing braces.

If finalized, the rule would likely subject most firearms with attached braces to the provisions of the National Firearms Act (NFA), which include additional taxation, long wait times, and registration.

Since 2012, when Biden was serving as then-President Barack Obama’s vice president, ATF has recognized that stabilizing braces serve a legitimate function, and the inclusion of a stabilizing brace on a pistol or other firearm does not automatically subject that firearm to the provisions of the NFA. That’s because stabilizing braces were first designed and intended to help disabled veterans fire large format pistols.

NRA has repeatedly pushed back on administration attempts to classify firearms with attached braces under the NFA. When the most recent rule was proposed NRA submitted comments, which you can find here.

More recently, on December 20, 2022, NRA-ILA staff met with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which was conducting its review of ATF’s final rule. OIRA review is generally the last step that an agency must cross in order to publish a final rule. At the meeting with OIRA, NRA staff voiced the many concerns that gun owners had with the proposed rule.

Now, it looks like ATF intends to move forward with the final rule despite the numerous problems that have been identified with the rule. While no definitive date has been set for the release in January, ATF has in the past released various rulings immediately before the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade Show (SHOT). SHOT Show 2023 is scheduled to begin on Tuesday January 17^th.

Please check nraila.org regularly for updates on this terrible rule and other regulations, legislation, and litigation that impact your Second Amendment rights

CDC Puts Anti-Gun Politics Over Science

As astute gun owners know, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been engaged in gun control politics for decades. In the 1990s, their gun control activism most often took the form of funding anti-gun social “science” aimed at convincing Americans and policymakers to forego and diminish the right to keep and bear arms. Now further evidence has come out showing that the agency not only promotes junk science, but suppresses legitimate research into the benefits of gun ownership.

In mid-December, internet publication The Reload published an article titled, “Emails Show CDC Removed Defensive Gun Use Stats After Gun-Control Advocates Pressured Officials in Private Meeting.” The item detailed email correspondence between the CDC and anti-gun activists in which gun control supporters sought to suppress research from Florida State University Criminology Professor Gary Kleck indicating that Americans use firearms to defend themselves millions of times per year on the agency’s website.

[NRA-ILA Grassroots Alert readers are encouraged to read this important article from The Reload in its entirety by clicking on the link in the article title above.]

Describing the anti-gun lobbying influence effort on the CDC, the article stated,

The lobbying campaign spanned months and culminated with a private meeting between CDC officials and three advocates last summer, a collection of emails obtained by The Reload show. Introductions from the White House and Senator Dick Durbin’s (D., Ill.) office helped the advocates reach top officials at the agency after their initial attempt to reach out went unanswered. The advocates focused their complaints on the CDC’s description of its review of studies that estimated defensive gun uses (DGU) happen between 60,000 and 2.5 million times per year in the United States–attacking criminologist Gary Kleck’s work establishing the top end of the range.

Explaining how the CDC cooperated with the anti-gun pressure campaign, the item noted,

Despite initially standing behind the description in the defensive gun use section of its “fast facts” website on gun violence, the CDC backtracked after a previously-undisclosed virtual meeting with the advocates on September 15th, 2021.

“We are planning to update the fact sheet in early 2022 after the release of some new data,” Beth Reimels, Associate Director for Policy, Partnerships, and Strategic Communication at the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention, said in one email to the three advocates on December 10th. “We will also make some edits to the content we discussed that I think will address the concerns you and other partners have raised.”

The research at issue is Professor Kleck’s findings in the 1993 National Self-Defense Survey, the results of which were published in a 1995 Journal of Law and Criminology article titled, “Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun.” The article stated that survey data indicated that “each year in the U.S. there are about 2.2 to 2.5 million DGUs of all types by civilians against humans.”

After Kleck’s findings were published, the CDC conducted its own surveys of DGUs in its Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey from 1996 to 1998. However, the agency didn’t make its research public at the time – perhaps because the results did not conform to the CDC’s institutional anti-gun bias.

The CDC survey data finally came to light in 2018. Analyzing the CDC survey along with his own survey, Kleck found that the CDC data indicated that there are likely more than 1 million DGUs per year.

A subsequent survey, conducted in 2021 by Georgetown University Political Economist William English, placed the number of DGUs somewhere in between what the CDC and Kleck’s survey data indicated. In a research paper summarizing his findings, English noted,

The survey further finds that approximately a third of gun owners (31.1%) have used a firearm to defend themselves or their property, often on more than one occasion, and it estimates that guns are used defensively by firearms owners in approximately 1.67 million incidents per year.

In speaking to The Reload, Kleck referred to the CDC’s most recent actions against science as “blatant censorship.” The professor went on to say “CDC is just aligning itself with the gun-control advocacy groups… It’s just saying: ‘we are their tool, and we will do their bidding.’ And that’s not what a government agency should do.”

Explaining how CDC’s suppression hurts public understanding of the firearms issue, Kleck added, “You can’t understand any significant aspects of the gun-control debate once you eliminate defensive gun use… It becomes inexplicable why so many Americans oppose otherwise perfectly reasonable gun-control measurements. It’s because they think it’s gonna lead to prohibition, and they won’t have a gun for self-defense.”

On December 22, Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) wrote to the CDC demanding answers about the removal of DGU data from the CDC’s website. The letter stated,

Lobbying groups should not be able to influence your research and reporting. This is a dereliction of duty by the CDC. The CDC must return to providing transparent and data-driven reporting on DGUs, and to provide Congress and the American people with an explanation of why the CDC allowed gun control advocates to censor valid research and reporting conducted on the subject of defensive gun use.

NRA-ILA looks forward to the agency’s response to the senators and will continue to monitor this unacceptable anti-gun activism at the CDC moving forward.

Once more; a ‘known wolf’ on the FBI’s radar.
“It’s not a bug, but a feature!”

Times Square machete wielding suspect was on terror watch list: report

The suspect being held in a machete attack of three police officers in New York City on New Year’s Eve was previously on the FBI’s radar and was interviewed by agents in the weeks before the attack, according to CNN.

Trevor Bickford, 19, had indicated he wanted to travel overseas to help fellow Muslims. His family reported him to the Wells, Maine police department in December after he said he wanted to join the Taliban. He was later interviewed by FBI agents and placed on the agency’s terrorist watch list.

New York City police said Bickford approached an officer late Saturday and, unprovoked, attempted to strike him over the head with the machete. He then struck two other officers on the head with the machete. One officer shot Bickford in the shoulder, the police department said.

The three injured officers were released from the hospital on Sunday. Bickford has not been charged in the attack, CNN reported.

Law enforcement sources also told CNN that investigators found a diary belonging to Bickford that included a last will and testament, including instructions for his burial.

The incident is being investigated as a possible terrorist attack, according to ABC News.

Everything in the Narrative, nothing outside the Narrative, nothing against the Narrative. (with no apologies to the deadhead fascist)

Total media blackout of the scariest Second Amendment story of 2022

Stephen Gutowski at The Reload, one of the rare honest voices in firearms-related journalism, published some bombshell revelations two weeks ago. What was uncovered, in my opinion, is the biggest Second Amendment story of 2022. The extent and depth of what happened at the CDC is flat-out alarming.

Gun control activists know that Defensive Gun Uses (DGUs) are a thorn on their side because they make selling gun control harder. Therefore, in what can be uncharitably described as a conspiracy against the civil rights of The People, they mounted a months-long pressure campaign, using influence from a Democrat Senator and the White House, to privately meet with CDC officials to get higher-end DGU statistics removed from the CDC website.

One CDC official called the gun control activists “partners” in an email.

Beth Reimels, Associate Director for Policy, Partnerships, and Strategic Communication at the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention, said in one email to the three advocates on December 10th. “We will also make some edits to the content we discussed that I think will address the concerns you and other partners have raised.”

While conspiring with gun control activists behind closed doors, the CDC at the same time did not bother reaching out to the researcher whose higher-end DGU estimates were yanked from the CDC website:

Kleck, Professor Emeritus at Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, stood by his research. He said the CDC did not reach out to him for his perspective before making the change. He argued the removal of the reference to his estimate was “blatant censorship” and said it was evidence of the politicization of the agency.

Not everything was recorded either:

The three advocates met with CDC Acting Principal Deputy Director Deb Houry, Associate Director of Science for the Division of Violence Prevention Tom Simon, and Associate Director for Policy, Partnerships, and Strategic Communication Beth Reimels. The half-hour meeting was conducted over Microsoft Teams, but a transcript of the call either wasn’t kept or wasn’t turned over as part of the FOIA request. The CDC did not respond to questions about what was said during the meeting.

[…]

Some of the FOIAd emails also show officials setting up plans to talk about potential changes “off-line.” Additionally, 18 of the 131 pages released by the CDC were completely redacted.

There was a failed attempt at redacting a comment about the connection between activists from different organizations:

The CDC attempted to redact Mercy’s comment about the tie between GVA and the gun-control group, but it only applied the redaction to one of the several copies of the exchange included in the release.

The CDC did not bother talking to the researcher whose work they yanked at the behest of the gun control activists.

Kleck, Professor Emeritus at Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, stood by his research. He said the CDC did not reach out to him for his perspective before making the change. He argued the removal of the reference to his estimate was “blatant censorship” and said it was evidence of the politicization of the agency.

What the CDC did was indeed censorship, but there’s more censorship at play here. And that’s the mainstream media’s complete and total blackout of this story. I have been following the news just about daily to see who does and doesn’t cover this story. So far, to the best of my knowledge, the only coverage from a large media organization has come from Fox News, who reported on the collusion between the CDC and gun control activists, and then followed up with another story on some Republicans in Congress demanding that the CDC reinstate the statistics. Other than these stories, there’s minor coverage at The Daily Caller, Real Clear Politics, and the New York Post which reports it as the “grumbling” of a researcher.

This is not the first time that the CDC has been up to no good, but that an agency that was founded to combat malaria has been repurposed to attack the very rights of the people who created it with their hard-earned money and vested it with its powers is infuriating to say the least.

The Fourth Estate is supposed to keep an eye on things like this. Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty, and when the mainstream media abdicates its duty, liberty is imperiled.