Kamala Harris’s Long-Running Disinformation Campaign on Guns.

Kamala Harris is the most anti-gun candidate who has ever been as close as she is to becoming president. And she has been less than forthcoming on her specific views on firearms and the Second Amendment. It doesn’t help that she has avoided any meaningful interaction from the media where she can be pressed to explain her positions. What few appearances she has made have been absolute disasters, even though they have all been with compliant Harris supporters who have handled the candidate with kid gloves.

Without any clearly explained positions coming from Harris for her current campaign, we can only rely on her history of firearm-related statements and the few vague comments she or her campaign surrogates have made as she seeks to usurp the job currently held by Joe Biden.

To be perfectly honest, when it comes to firearms and the Second Amendment, Kamala Harris is running a campaign of disinformation, obfuscation, and lies; a campaign supported by compliant “journalists” and sham organizations manufactured to help obliterate our rights as gun owners.

While Harris has tried to claim she supports the Second Amendment, she has yet to demonstrate that with either words or deeds over a career where she has drawn paychecks from only one employer: Taxpayers.

We’ve noted several times that, as a candidate for president during the 2020 election cycle, Harris stated that she didn’t want to just ban semi-automatic firearms, but also wanted to confiscate those firearms already owned by law-abiding citizens. She is now trying to hide from that past. She wants gun owners to now believe confiscation is no longer part of her plan, but we simply do not believe her.

Sadly, although not surprisingly, many members of the media are more than happy to give Harris cover on her new claim that she does not want to confiscate firearms. The ironically misnamed website FactCheck.org tried to give her cover, claiming NRA “misleadingly claims that Harris will ‘ban law-abiding citizens from owning’ guns and ‘seize your legally owned guns.’ Her proposal would not ban all guns or seize any guns.”

But NRA has not said Harris wants to “ban all guns.” She very well may, but what we have said, and what Harris has said, is she wants to ban what she calls “assault weapons.” These are guns—and some of the most popular guns sold in America—so, yes, she wants to ban law-abiding citizens from owning these guns, as well as others.

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Biden’s agency bosses say Americans have ‘too much freedom’
The ‘swamp’ thinks you have it too good.

In an unusual look at federal agency managers, most believe Americans have too much freedom, and they back President Joe Biden‘s efforts to impose 

The bosses of federal agencies were asked in a new Napolitan Institute survey about the “individual freedom” Americans have, and 51% said they have “somewhat” to “far too much freedom.”

But just 16% of voters agreed and 57% believe the government has too much control over their lives.

Democratic “swamp” managers felt the country has too much freedom at the highest levels in the survey, at 68%. Among Republican federal agency chiefs, just 33% agreed.

But the partisan bureaucrats were more in agreement when it came to choosing who is best at deciding if new regulations are needed, found the polling outfit headed by Scott Rasmussen.

Said the analysis shared with Secrets on Friday, “Fifty-four percent (54%) of government managers say that if, after carefully researching an important issue, they determine that a regulation is needed, yet voters overwhelmingly oppose it, they should follow their research and issue the regulation anyway. This includes 49% of Republican government managers and 60% of Democrats,” it said.

Unlike Democrats and Republicans in America, and even on Capitol Hill, partisans that work in the swamp generally think like the other, according to Napolitan’s latest poll of America’s 1% elitists.

“On many topics, there is a disturbing level of bi-partisan agreement among federal government managers. Fifty-three percent (53%) of Republican government managers and 48% of Democrats believe the federal government should be allowed to censor speech that is posted on social media platforms. Forty-three percent (43%) of ‘Elites’ and just 16% of voters share this view. Seventy-four percent of Republican government managers and 79% of Democrats favor banning private ownership of guns. This view is shared by 77% of ‘Elites,’ but just 36% of voters,” said the analysis.

In his polling of elites, Rasmussen has found a stunning gap with Middle Americans, which could be a danger sign considering the outsize effect of elites, especially in the media.

Rasmussen said, “The ‘Elite’ 1% wield a tremendous amount of institutional power but are wildly out of touch with the nation they want to rule. Over the years they have built institutions and mechanisms of regulatory power that are immune to the checks and balances of elections. Worse still, these same ‘Elites’ own, operate, and control a large majority of media outlets, blocking out the true voice of the American people and broadcasting their own out of touch viewpoints.”

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Source
Many are pointing out that the regime seems to care a lot more about providing aid to the Ukraine than it does about providing aid to Appalachia.

Hurricane Helene and the Lost Mandate of Heaven
“We’re from the government, and we’re here to make sure no one helps.”

As of the time of this writing, over two hundred people are confirmed to have been killed by Hurricane Helene. No one knows the true death toll yet. There are rumours of over 900 unidentified bodies, with some saying that a couple of zeroes need to be added to the death toll. Who knows what the real number is. We may never know. A lot of the bodies may simply never be found.

This is the last image of a husband and wife trying to escape from the flood by climbing onto the roof of the their home in Asheville, NC. The roof collapsed, killing them and their six-year-old grandchild; the child’s mother took the photograph.

Source

There are multiple reports of bodies stuck up in trees (link has video). There don’t seem to be any pictures confirming this yet, but one can understand why people would be reluctant to take such pictures, or to share them.

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Judge Refuses to Block Concealed Carry on Public Transportation

A United States District Court judge refused to stay an injunction against an Illinois law blocking the carrying of firearms on public transportation.

Last month, in a case brought by the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled that the Illinois law banning firearms from being carried on public transportation by concealed carry holders was unconstitutional. The judge granted an injunction to the plaintiffs, blocking the enforcement of the law. Illinois vowed to appeal the judge’s ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Illinois would then ask U.S. District Court Judge Iain D. Johnston to stay his ruling pending an appeal by the defendants to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The state tried to appeal to the judge’s emotions by citing a recent shooting on public transportation, but this move would backfire. Only days after the judge’s decision, a person shot and killed someone on local public transit. The state tried to exploit the situation to prove how dangerous public transportation is without its restrictive laws against carrying concealed firearms.

The judges asked the defendants if the person who did the shooting was a concealed permit holder. The state could not answer the judge’s simple question. The judge was unhappy with the state’s lack of knowledge and read them the riot act. If the shooter didn’t have a concealed carry permit, he would have been in violation of the law, no matter if the judge sided with the state and never issued an injunction. The shooter turned out not to be a concealed firearms permit holder. Instead of the judge being swayed by the state’s argument to issue a stay, it seemed to make the Trump appointee even more determined not to give into the state’s demands.

Illinois tried to argue about interest balancing and why it should get a stay. Interest balancing weighs the rights of the people against the wishes of the state. Illinois tried to argue that “public safety” outweighed an individual right to bear arms. In the past, states would use this defense to push back against lawsuits filed by pro-gun organizations. States stopped using the tactic after the Supreme Court’s Bruen opinion. In that case, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas said that the “Second Amendment is not a second-class right.” SCOTUS stated that courts could not use interest balancing in determining if a law was constitutional. Only the history, tradition, and original text of the Second Amendment from the founding era can be used by the courts to decide if a gun law is constitutional.

The Illinois law was a response to the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision. It seemed like the state, through its argument for a stay, was once again thumbing its nose at the high court and its conservative majority. Even if a district judge is a liberal who disagrees with the opinion of SCOTUS, they are still bound by its ruling because the District Court is inferior to the Supreme Court.

For now, Illinois will remain enjoined from enforcing its concealed carry ban on public transportation. The state is expected to go to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the judge’s ruling. This case taught lawyers everywhere that emotions cannot persuade some judges and that those judges will stand firmly behind the Constitutional rights of Americans.

To trust arms in the hands of the people at large has, in Europe, been believed…to be an experiment fraught only with danger. Here by a long trial it has been proved to be perfectly harmless…If the government be equitable; if it be reasonable in its exactions; if proper attention be paid to the education of children in knowledge and religion, few men will be disposed to use arms, unless for their amusement, and for the defence of themselves and their country. — Timothy Dwight, Travels in New England and New York, 1823

That’s because the Chief was in violation of State Law.

Florida police chief learns hard lesson, un-bans guns and ammo
Okeechobee police chief receiving criticism from across the country.

by Lee Williams

Donald C. Hagan, the Chief of the Okeechobee, Florida Police Department, doesn’t appear to be enjoying his time on the national stage.

Hagan had to take some time off, his spokesman said Monday, because he is receiving personal attacks from across the country. As reported Monday, Hagan rocketed to infamy for signing an illegal city ordinance that banned firearm and ammunition sales as well as firearm possession just days before Hurricane Helene made landfall.

“The chief is not in,” a police receptionist said Tuesday morning. She directed calls to Okeechobee Police Major Bettye Taylor, who issued a statement Monday trying to clarify and explain her boss’ actions. Instead, it only muddied the waters.

“The Emergency Ordinance commenced immediately upon the declaration by the Police Chief and was thereafter terminated by the Police Chief on or about 9:51 pm on the same date it was issued.

The Emergency Ordinance was terminated for two primary reasons. One is that, fortunately, Hurricane Helene did not have a substantial impact on the City and its residents.

Secondly, a provision prohibiting the sale of firearms and ammunition was inadvertently included in the Emergency Ordinance. Upon discovering this, the City and Police Chief acted expeditiously to terminate the Emergency Ordinance,” Major Taylor wrote.

In other words, the part of the ordinance that banned the sale of guns and ammunition and prohibited firearm possession in public by anyone other than law enforcement or members of the military, was “inadvertently included” in the ordinance.

As you can imagine, neither Major Taylor nor her boss returned calls or emails Tuesday seeking to clarify how or why they banned guns and ammo sales inadvertently.

In her statement, Taylor also sought to reassure the town’s residents — as well as the legions of law-abiding gun owners who are following the story across the country — that the ban caused no harm.

“At no time did the City, or the Police Chief, contemplate, nor take any action, to prohibit, confiscate or otherwise regulate firearms or ammunition,” she wrote.

This, however, is not exactly true. The ordinance the chief signed clearly prohibited the “sale of, or offer to sell, with or without compensation, any ammunition or gun or other firearm of any size or description. The intentional display, by or in any store or shop, of any ammunition or gun or other firearm of any size or description. The intentional possession in a public place of a firearm by any person, except a duly authorized law enforcement official or any person in military service acing in the official performance of their duty.”

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The States’ Brief ends with the truism that policy concerns can’t trump statutory text. “Left with little in the way of textual support, many of ATF’s amici argue that this Court should depart from the statute’s plain meaning because excluding ‘ghost guns’ from the GCA’s scope would purportedly have dire consequences.” But that’s a matter for Congress, not the agency or the Court.

Second Amendment Roundup: Follow ATF into a Political Briar Patch?

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments next week, on October 8, in Garland v. VanDerStok, the challenge to the radical expansion of the regulatory definition of “firearm” in the Gun Control Act (GCA). Neither Congress nor the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) ever touched that statutory definition passed by Congress in 1968. And both left the non-controversial regulatory definition of “firearm frame or receiver” undisturbed since 1968. But suddenly in 2022 ATF promulgated a Final Rule redefining those terms to include materials, tools, and information that a person with knowledge and skill can use to fabricate a firearm or a frame or receiver.

One of the most hard-hitting amici briefs filed in support of the challengers to the regulation is the brief of the States of West Virginia and 26 other States. ATF, the brief argues, “is a political briar patch because of its rulemaking authority.” That characterization is from a law review article with the parodistic title “Almost Heaven, West Virginia?: The Country Road to Take Firearm Regulation Back Home to Congress and the States.” That play on words brings together John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” with the major question doctrine set forth in West Virginia v. EPA, 142 S. Ct. 2587 (2022). If that rule of law applies to anything, it applies to ATF’s recent the regulatory rampage.

Given the political volatility of the “gun control” issue, Congress has historically been torn between constituents who support the Second Amendment and those who wish to criminalize various forms of acquisition and possession of firearms. Because that the issue is a “major question,” Congress writes gun statutes carefully and narrowly in a manner that leaves nothing to chance. As the States’ Brief says:

Given the sensitivity of this work, one might at least expect ATF to tread carefully before purporting to regulate in unexpected and aggressive new ways. But recently, it hasn’t. ATF has instead seemed determined to stretch the words found in statutes like the GCA and NFA [National Firearm Act] to reach conduct never anticipated by the lawmakers who passed them. This case, concerning ATF’s efforts to regulate gun kits and other forms of private firearms assembly under the guise of calling them “frames or receivers” subject to the GCA, is just the latest example of that effort.

This is not the first, and it won’t be the last, overreach by ATF. As the States’ Brief continues, “many of the Amici States here have been compelled to step in and sue ATF multiple times over the past few years just to return the agency to its actual area of authority.” Thus, “when the Court encounters another ATF regulation offering a purportedly creative solution to a long-standing problem, it should be wary.”

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House Oversight Committee Subpoenas White House, ATF Over Chicago’s Glock Lawsuit

House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-OH) has issued congressional subpoenas to White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention Director Stefanie Feldman and ATF Director Steve Dettelbach seeking information about any role the office and agency had in Chicago’s lawsuit against gunmaker Glock.

Comer initially requested Dettelbach and Feldman provide the committee with any pertinent communication between the White House/ATF and Glock back in June, but according to the congressman the Biden administration hasn’t turned over a single document. In fact, in his letter informing Feldman of the subpoena, Comer says Deputy Counsel to the President Rachel F. Cotton responded to the Oversight Committee in early July with a letter that “did not even reference the Committee’s request for documents.” Instead, Comer says Cotton “impugned the motives of the Committee,” stating “[t]he House Majority . . . [is] doing the gun lobby’s bidding by launching a baseless political attack on the Biden Administration under the guise of an ‘investigation.’”

If that were the case, it would be easy enough for the White House and ATF to disprove the claims of collusion by whistleblowers. So why is the White House stonewalling the inquiry into communications between the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, ATF, and Glock officials? As Comer reminded Dettelbach in his subpoena request:

The Committee has learned that on December 20, 2023, the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention met privately with representatives from Glock, during which the Administration requested that Glock change their pistol designs so that it would be harder to illegally modify Glock pistols to shoot continuously with a single trigger pull.

On March 19, 2024, the City of Chicago filed suit in state court against Glock. Everytown Law, the litigation arm of Everytown for Gun Safety, is listed as counsel for the plaintiff. The day the suit was filed, John Feinblatt, President of Everytown for Gun Safety, posted on his X account “Today Everytown Law + the City of Chicago announced a historic lawsuit against Glock Inc. to hold them accountable for the unconscionable decision to continue selling its easily modified pistols even though it could fix the problem.”

Later in the post, Mr. Feinblatt said “[f]ederal Officials recently contacted Glock to discuss implementing new ways to modify Glock pistols to make it harder for Glock switches to be installed. Rather than help, Glock falsely insisted there is nothing they can do.”

Because the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention’s meeting with Glock was private, Mr. Feinblatt appears to have had insider information regarding your office’s meeting with Glock, which raises questions about whether your office colluded with Everytown for Gun Safety to initiate their lawsuit against Glock.

Chicago is seeking a court-ordered ban on the sale of Glock pistols to city residents “and Illinois gun stores that serve the Chicago market”, while Joe Biden recently used an executive order to set up an Emerging Firearms Threats Task Force that’s supposed to issue a report and an interagency plan to deal with machine gun conversion devices, which are already illegal under federal law.

Retired ATF Deputy Assistant Director Pete Forcelli previously told Bearing Arms that the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention had pushed Dettelbach to have the ATF reclassify Glocks as machine guns under the NFA, but Dettelbach has so far resisted the move. Chicago’s lawsuit, along with the task force established by Biden, seem designed to give the ATF another push towards reclassifying some of the most popular handguns on the market as machine guns after the November elections have taken place.

My guess is that the White House and ATF will stonewall Comer’s subpoena just as they ignored his initial request for information. But if Kamala Harris wins election next month, don’t be surprised if the candidate who says she’s not taking anyone’s guns away suddenly decides that its time to make the sale of Glocks (and perhaps all other striker-fired pistols as well) off-limits to the civilian market; essentially imposing a ban on the sale of commonly-owned semi-automatic handguns through ATF regulation.

NICS Background Checks for Gun Sales Up in September 2024

Last month saw a measurable bump in the number of background checks for likely gun sales compared to the same month in 2023.

The figure of 2,072,550 checks conducted through the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System last month is a 1.8-percent increase from the FBI NICS figure of 2,035,410 in September 2023.

When adjusted by removing figures for gun permit checks and rechecks by states that use NICS for that purpose, the latest total stands at 1,156,223, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade group for the U.S. gun industry. This number remains 1.3 percent higher than the September 2023 NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 1,141,847.

Of note, last month continues the unbroken 62-month streak that NICS has logged over 1 million adjusted background checks in a single month.

Industry insiders see last month’s figures of over 1.1 million background checks for the sale of a firearm at retail as a strong indicator of a vibrant demand for lawful firearm ownership, especially speeding toward a presidential election.

“The Vice Presidential debate offered a substantive examination of why Americans – by the millions each month – continue to lawfully purchase firearms,” said Mark Oliva, NSSF’s director of public affairs. “Americans are concerned for their safety and the safety of their loved ones. They refused to be painted with the broad brush that gun control proponents use to paint them in the same patterns as criminals. The fact is, Americans face a stark difference in the two tickets when it comes to respecting their Constitutional rights to keep and bear arms. America is demonstrating, month after month, that lawful gun ownership matters.”

The true number of guns sold nationwide is likely far higher than the 1.1 million noted by NSSF. It should be noted that NICS numbers do not include private gun sales in most states or in cases where a carry permit is used as an alternative to the background check requirements of the 1994 Brady law, which allows the transfer of a firearm over the counter by a federal firearms license holder without first performing a NICS check. Further, it doesn’t capture personally made firearms.

NSSF Praises SCOTUS Decision to Review Mexico’s Baseless $10 Billion Lawsuit Against Firearm Manufacturers

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to grant Smith & Wesson’s petition to hear Estados Unidos Mexicanos v. Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc., et al., Mexico’s frivolous $10 billion lawsuit against American firearm manufacturers seeking to blame them for the harm caused by lawless narco-terrorist drug cartels in Mexico. Mexico’s lawsuit also seeks to dictate how firearms are made and sold throughout the United States through a federal court injunction, in effect usurping the role of Congress and 50 state legislatures.

NSSF filed an amicus brief earlier this year in support of the Supreme Court granting the case, arguing that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit’s flawed decision, “blows a gaping hole in the PLCAA and rolls out the red carpet for a foreign government intent on vitiating the Second Amendment.” The U.S. Supreme Court will now set a briefing schedule and hold argument, likely early in the new year.

“Today’s announcement by the U.S. Supreme Court that they are granting Smith & Wesson’s petition to hear Mexico’s frivolous $10 billion lawsuit against lawful American firearm manufacturers is welcomed news to the entire firearm industry. Mexico’s lawsuit seeks to blame lawful American firearm businesses for violence in Mexico perpetrated by Mexican narco-terrorist drug cartels and impacting innocent Mexican lives.

It is not the fault of American firearm businesses that follow strict laws and regulations to lawfully manufacture and sell legal products,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “This case represents exactly why Congress passed, and President George W. Bush enacted, the bipartisan Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).

The case was rightly dismissed by a federal judge before the First Circuit Court of Appeals’ erroneous ruling earlier this year that reversed the district court order and reinstated the case. Lawful American firearm manufacturers follow American laws to make and sell lawful and Constitutionally-protected products. The Mexican government should instead focus on bringing Mexican criminals to justice in Mexican courtrooms.”

Mexico alleges U.S. firearm manufacturers are liable for the criminal violence perpetuated by narco-terrorist drug cartels by refusing to adopt gun control restrictions that exceed what the law requires for the strictly-regulated production and sale of firearms. A U.S. District court in Massachusetts dismissed the case, finding the claims were barred by the PLCAA. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, however, revived the case on Mexico’s appeal earlier this year.

The First Circuit held that Mexico’s claims alleging that the defendants know their regular business practices contribute to illegal firearm trafficking fit within a narrow exception to the PLCAA. Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc., et al, the petitioners, argue the First Circuit erred when it reversed the lower court’s decision to dismiss the case.

The petitioners also noted the First Circuit’s decision to allow for an exception to PLCAA fails because there is no evidence U.S. firearm manufacturers violated federal laws against aiding and abetting firearm trafficking. The petitioners explained to the Supreme Court that Mexico’s complaint “fails to identify any product, policy, or action by the American firearms industry that is deliberately designed to facilitate the unlawful activities of Mexican drug cartels.”

NSSF’s amicus brief concluded by urging Supreme Court action and pointing out that the First Circuit’s decision to reinstate the case was incorrect because it is “… emblematic of a recent trend of anti-gun governments (and courts) mendaciously skirting the PLCAA and using the resulting threat of bankruptcy-inducing tort liability to destroy a lawful industry that is vital to the exercise of a fundamental constitutional right. This Court’s intervention is imperative.”