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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They’re ‘Doing Something’ to Our Kids

What happens when you can no longer trust the people responsible for keeping your kids safe? What happens when the “Do Something” crowd only does the wrong thing?

In news that probably sounds familiar to you wherever you live, Salem-Keizer (OR) Public Schools has approved a resolution that further prohibits firearms on school grounds – at all times. Passing in a 4-3 vote, which seems like a very small decision-making group for a district of 65 schools and over 42,000 students.

As reported by the Statesman Journal:

“Salem-Keizer school board members Tuesday approved a resolution further prohibiting weapons on campus, including concealed guns. The vote directs Superintendent Christy Perry to develop and enact administrative policy to implement this…

Staff and students were already not allowed to have concealed weapons in Salem-Keizer schools. The new resolution expands restrictions to include all concealed firearms carried by campus visitors, including parents, guardians, volunteers, guest speakers, organizations renting facilities and other community members.”

But school resource officers? Gone.

But private armed security? Unarmed.

But armed teachers? Nope.

What about local law enforcement? In one of those, do-you-really-need-to-say-this moments, Perry clarified that law enforcement will still be ALLOWED to open carry their firearms onto campus in the event of an emergency. Wow. Thanks.

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A bridge too far for legal gun owners

The whole gun debate can be annoyingly shrill, absolutist and selfrighteous. Both sides are known to generate some eye rolls from the general public, many of whom just want the violence to stop but would rather not trample on the rights of legal, law-abiding gun owners.

Maybe a way forward would be to put county sheriffs in charge of all firearms laws. Sheriffs are elected, so they’re accountable to the people. They understand guns, both their potential to protect and their capability to generate great harm. They know that training and responsibility are

essential. Across the state, sheriff’s offices effectively handle the application and permitting of conceal carry permits for eligible Missourians. Local law enforcement seems to have a certain practicality with guns that the chattering class sometimes lacks. They know that training is good and the filing of paperwork is necessary, but they also seem to know when enough is enough.

Recently, FBI Director Christopher Wray has expressed a desire to conduct audits of concealed weapons records in Missouri. Nothing major, just a little looksie to make sure there is no “misuse of the system.”

Yeah, right. Why don’t you take a look in people’s houses and medicine cabinets while you’re at it? It doesn’t sound like an abuse of the Fourth Amendment.

Actually, the sharing of conceal carry records is a violation of Missouri law, which specifies that conceal carry endorsements or permits are considered personal protected information. It’s probably also a violation of Missouri’s Second Amendment Protection Act, a law that puts limits on sharing firearms information with federal authorities or databases.

SAPA, as its known, contains some overreach that hinders the ability of law enforcement at the local level, but bear in mind it’s requests like this from the FBI or Justice Department that sparks overreach as a response to the overreach. Local sheriffs are right to balk at this unreasonable and unnecessary request. It’s absurd to think that violent felons, traffickers and drug kingpins, the kinds of people the FBI ought to worry about, will mosey over to your local sheriff’s office to fill out a CCW application.

— St. Joseph News Press

ONCE AGAIN FOR THE GUN CONTROLLERS IN THE BACK:
IT’S THE CRIMINALS

New York’s gun laws are a mess. Antigun politicians passing them don’t have a clue. Worse yet, the people facing consequences are law-abiding New Yorkers.

They’re also the ones facing danger. Case in point – New York City’s Democratic Mayor Eric Adams recent reveal. The mayor told media, “When it comes to guns, this year, 2,386 people were arrested with a gun. Of those, approximately 1,921 are out on the street.

“This year, 165 people were arrested with a second gun charge,” Mayor Adams added. “Of those, 82 — out on the street. Not one arrest but two gun arrests — back out on the street.”

Does He Listen?

Mayor Adams won election on a “tough on crime” message. He said he would carry his own firearm and forego using the mayor’s personal security detail. “We cannot have a city where people are afraid to walk the streets,” he proclaimed early in his tenure.

He’s now singing a different tune. “How do you take a gun law seriously when the overwhelming numbers are back on the streets after carrying a gun?” he unironically asked media.

New Yorkers know criminals don’t take laws seriously. That’s why law-abiding New Yorkers have been screaming for years as gun control politicians in Albany impose stricter gun control laws on them, not criminals.

New Yorkers rejected restrictions and legally purchased firearms in record numbers, despite the state’s restrictive and burdensome process to obtain a handgun permit. Since 2020, nearly 1 million New Yorker’s have passed an FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verification to buy a firearm. Industry research continues to show “self-defense” is the number one reason buyers walk out of a retailer with a new purchase. That’s especially true of African American women, in New York City and across the country.

Soft on Criminals, Hard on Industry

New York’s backwards gun control laws are only half the problem. Soft-on-criminal prosecutors refusing to hold criminals accountable allow the cycle to continue. Notorious criminal sympathizer Chesa Boudin was given the boot and recalled as San Francisco’s District Attorney. Nearby Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon possibly faces a similar fate.

Manhattan’s District Attorney Alvin Bragg is cut of the same cloth. His office refuses to bring charges against repeat criminals, allowing them to walk back out on the streets and terrorize victims.

In New York, it’s not just about Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Adams and DA Bragg’s collective failure to address crime and keep New Yorkers safe. Democratic Attorney General Leticia James joined to do her part to crush New Yorkers’ Second Amendment rights by suing gun companies for the crimes unrelated to the lawful sale of the firearm.

“There should be no more immunity for gun distributors bringing harm and havoc to New York,” AG James said.

Her premise is a lie, of course, exactly like those repeated ad nauseum by President Joe Biden and gun control pundits. They prefer deflecting blame on a lawful and Constitutionally-protected industry from those actually responsible for gun crimes. It’s the reason for the bipartisan Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). President Biden and others have repeatedly been fact-checked about their false claims.

New Yorkers wanting safer communities must feel like they’re in a madhouse. Their state’s highest elected officeholders dismiss criminals as the root of the problem. They then pass more flawed and unconstitutional laws, while refusing to hold criminals to account. The result is a circular blame game.

One thing New Yorkers can do to change the game in their favor is #GUNVOTE® this November. They can send a clear message to the antigun politicians in New York their rights – and their safety – aren’t a game.

The Post-Bruen New York and California Punitive Gun Control Laws are Clearly Unconstitutional

After Bruen, a notable noncomplier is New York Governor Kathy Hochul. She also follows in the footsteps of her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo. Both passed their big gun control bills by sending a “message of necessity”—a maneuver to prevent legislative hearings and to deprive legislators of time to read a bill before they vote on it. As the New York State Sheriffs’ Association explained:

The new firearms law language first saw the light of day on a Friday morning and was signed into law Friday afternoon. A parliamentary ruse was used to circumvent the requirement in our State Constitution that Legislators—and the public—must have three days to study and discuss proposed legislation before it can be taken up for a vote. The Legislature’s leadership claimed, and the Governor agreed, that it was a “necessity” to pass the Bill immediately, without waiting the Constitutionally required three days, even though the law would not take effect for two full months.

The Sheriffs’ Association criticized “thoughtless, reactionary action, just to make a political statement,” and “the burdensome, costly, and unworkable nature of many of the new laws’ provisions.” “We do not support punitive licensing requirements that aim only to restrain and punish law-abiding citizens who wish to exercise their Second Amendment rights.”

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Home Invasion Suspect Killed After Bouncing From House To House

ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO — A series of home invasions in the area of Morningside Drive NE and Mescalero Road NE left one suspect dead and police investigating the shooting.

The suspect attempted to break into one home and the homeowners caught him trying to steal their car keys.  After unsuccessfully attempting to steal their car, the suspect ran to a second home.

When the suspect broke into the second home, he was confronted by the homeowner and an altercation ensued.  One gunshot was fired, killing the suspect.

Police report that no one besides the suspect was injured.  Detectives have completed their investigation and forwarded their report to the prosecutor without making any arrests.  It is up to the prosecutor to determine if the shooting was self-defense.

The Albuquerque Police Department stated that it would have been apparent to the suspect that both houses were occupied when he broke into them.  The APD reports that as the summer has warmed up, crime in the city has gone up.

At the time of this report, no ruling or decision has been made by the prosecutor.

When a government controls both the economic power of individuals and the coercive power of the state…this violates a fundamental rule of happy living: Never let the people with all the money and the people with all the guns be the same people. –P. J. O’Rourke

FBI, R.I.P.?

The FBI is dissolving before our eyes into a rogue security service akin to those in Eastern Europe during the Cold War.

Take the FBI’s deliberately asymmetrical application of the law. This week the bureau surprise-raided the home of former President Donald Trump — an historical first.

A massive phalanx of FBI agents swooped into the Trump residence while he was not home, to confiscate his personal property, safe, and records. All of this was over an archival dispute of presidential papers common to many former presidents. Agents swarmed the entire house, including the wardrobe closet of the former first lady.

Note we are less than 90 days out from a midterm election, and this was not just a raid, but a political act.

The Democratic Party is anticipated to suffer historical losses. Trump was on the verge of announcing his 2024 presidential candidacy. In many polls, he remains the Republican front-runner for the nomination — and well ahead of incumbent President Joe Biden in a putative 2024 rematch.

In 2016 then FBI Director James Comey announced that candidate Hillary Clinton was guilty of destroying subpoenaed emails — a likely felony pertaining to her tenure as secretary of state. Yet he all but pledged that she would not be prosecuted given her status as a presidential candidate.

As far as targeting presidential candidates, Trump was impeached in 2020 ostensibly for delaying military aid to Ukraine by asking Ukrainian officials to investigate more fully the clearly corrupt Biden family — given Joe Biden at the time was a likely possible presidential opponent in 2020.

The FBI has devolved into a personal retrieval service for the incorrigible Biden family. It suppressed, for political purposes, information surrounding Hunter Biden’s missing laptop on the eve of the 2020 election.

Previously, the FBI never pursued Hunter’s fraudulently registered firearm, his mysterious foreign income, his felonious crack cocaine use, or his regular employment of foreign prostitutes.

Yet in a pre-dawn raid just before the 2020 election, the FBI targeted the home of journalist James O’Keefe on grounds that someone had passed to him the lost and lurid diary of Ashley Biden, Biden’s wayward daughter.

At various times, in Stasi-style the FBI has publicly shackled Trump economic advisor Peter Navarro, swarmed the office of Trump’s legal counsel Rudy Giuliani, and sent a SWAT team to surround the house of Trump ally Roger Stone. Meanwhile, terrorists and cartels walk with impunity across an open border.

FBI Director Christopher Wray last week cut short his evasive testimony before Congress. He claimed he had to leave for a critical appointment — only to use his FBI Gulfstream luxury jet to fly to his favorite vacation spot in the Adirondacks.

Wray took over from disgraced interim FBI Director Andrew McCabe. The latter admitted lying repeatedly to federal investigators and signed off on a fraudulent FBI FISA application. He faced zero legal consequences.

McCabe, remember, was also the point man in the softball Hillary Clinton email investigation — while his wife was a political candidate and recipient of thousands of dollars from a political action committee with close ties to the Clinton family.

McCabe took over from disgraced FBI Director James Comey. On 245 occasions, Comey claimed under oath before the House Intelligence Committee that he had no memory or knowledge of key questions concerning his tenure. With impunity, he leaked confidential FBI memos to the media.

Comey took over from Director Robert Mueller. Implausibly, Mueller swore under oath that he had no knowledge, either of the Steele dossier or of Fusion GPS, the firm that commissioned Christopher Steele to compile the dossier. But those were the very twin catalysts that had prompted his entire special investigation into the Russian collusion hoax.

FBI legal counsel Kevin Clinesmith was convicted of a felony for altering an FBI warrant request to spy on an innocent Carter Page.

The FBI, by Comey’s own public boasts, bragged how it caught National Security Advisor designate General Michael Flynn in its Crossfire Hurricane Russian collusion hoax.

As special counsel, Mueller then fired two of his top investigators — Lisa Page and Peter Strzok — for improper personal and professional behavior. He then staggered their releases to mask their collaborative wrongdoing.

Mueller’s team deleted critical cell phone evidence under subpoena that might well have revealed systemic FBI-related bias.

The FBI interferes with and warps national elections. It hires complete frauds as informants who are far worse than its targets. It humiliates or exempts government and elected officials based on their politics. It violates the civil liberties of individual American citizens.

The FBI’s highest officials now routinely mislead Congress. They have erased or altered court and subpoenaed evidence. They illegally leak confidential material to the media. And they have lied under oath to federal investigators.

The agency has become dangerous to Americans and an existential threat to their democracy and rule of law. The FBI should be dispersing its investigatory responsibilities to other government investigative agencies that have not yet lost the public’s trust.

We cannot compromise or negotiate the Second Amendment

In the more than two decades I’ve been involved in the Second Amendment community one thing has been constant. The public conversation around guns has always focused on the unkindest stereotypes of gun owners and the left’s self-serving caricature of those of us who defend the basic human right to security.

Because of the overall trajectory of the culture war, the debate surrounding guns and gun rights is now at a critical impasse and it’s no longer productive or genuine to approach the issue as if in a vacuum with no larger context.

Many people seem to struggle with objective facts and absolute reality. Postmodern thinking prevents some from accepting the fact that reality is something independent of the individual, and instead choose to believe reality is mercurial and optional. This fundamental fallacy is largely responsible for the widespread belief that there is actually a debate on the validity and scope of gun rights.

Regardless of our personal feelings or historical contempt for the law by elected officials, in the United States an individual’s right to be armed as they see fit is not actually in question. The issue was settled when the constitution was ratified, all subsequent federal restrictions are illegal and well outside the scope of legitimate political authority.

What we’re actually debating when discussing the gun issue is whether or not we should follow the constitution, ignore it, or manipulate it to meet the political needs of a given moment. The reason the founders included the Bill of Rights in the constitution was so that we wouldn’t be controlled by the beliefs and opinions of other people. They understood human nature and its flaws, and they knew basic human rights would suffer at the hands of neurotic people with a warped view of their own enlightenment and judgment.

Ignorant or sociopaths

The necessary pivot point in the public discourse on guns and gun rights is a sober recognition of the people involved. Gun control advocates vary from well-meaning people who are simply ignorant, to sociopaths with an unhealthy drive to make choices for other people and control the behavior of those around them.

The well-meaning but ignorant person may be swayed by well-crafted arguments, but sociopaths only incorporate outside information at their convenience and facts don’t intrude on their personal desires.

Individuals from any walk of life who led the proverbial charge on gun control are very problematic. They take the form of legislators introducing gun control bills, advocates who apply social pressure to manipulate government officials, or media and entertainment personalities who use their public influence to promote the restriction of personal freedom. In recent years we’ve seen these phenomena spread beyond controlling other’s guns to controlling speech, associations and even their personal health preferences.

An often-overlooked fact about social-control sociopaths is how progressively unsatisfied they are with compromise. People have falsely believed working and compromising with them would create peace, but feeding their negative impulses only strengthens their drive for more control.

The pro-gun culture needs to evolve to recognize supporters and authors of gun control for who they really are, the unstable element of humanity our society was constructed to contain and protect us from.

Collective controls

The belief that basic rights inherent to your humanity should be subject to collective or authoritarian controls is the nucleus all human evil is built around. The unabridged freedom to justly acquire sustenance, shelter and security is the primary criteria of a civilized society.

Controlling guns is not the path to peace and civility, a commitment to freedom and refusing to entertain the darkest impulses of human nature is. There is a direct relationship between the amount of contempt someone has for you and their perceived need to control you.

All gun control is always wrong under all circumstances, and the people working to implement it don’t simply represent different opinions. They’re bad faith actors with the objective of grooming our society for even greater levels of authoritarianism.

The people who advocate for your disarmament are your enemies, not your negotiating partners.

John Lott nails it again

How the FBI Undercounts Armed Citizen Responders to Mass Killers — and Media Play Along

The shooting that killed three people and injured another at a Greenwood, Indiana, mall on July 17 drew broad national attention because of how it ended – when 22-year-old Elisjsha Dicken, carrying a licensed handgun, fatally shot the attacker.

While Dicken was praised for his courage and skill – squeezing off his first shot 15 seconds after the attack began, from a distance of 40 yards – much of the news coverage drew from FBI-approved statistics to assert that armed citizens almost never stop such attackers: “Rare in US for an active shooter to be stopped by bystander” (Associated Press); “Rampage in Indiana a rare instance of armed civilian ending mass shooting” (Washington Post); and “After Indiana mall shooting, one hero but no lasting solution to gun violence” (New York Times).

Evidence compiled by the organization I run, the Crime Prevention Research Center, and others suggest that the FBI undercounts by an order of more than three the number of instances in which armed citizens have thwarted such attacks, saving untold numbers of lives. Although those many news stories about the Greenwood shooting also suggested that the defensive use of guns might endanger others, there is no evidence that these acts have harmed innocent victims.

“So much of our public understanding of this issue is malformed by this single agency,” notes Theo Wold, former acting assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice. “When the Bureau gets it so systematically – and persistently – wrong, the cascading effect is incredibly deleterious. The FBI exerts considerable influence over state and local law enforcement and policymakers at all levels of government.”

As many on the left seek more limits on gun ownership and use in response to mass shootings and the uptick in violent crime, and many on the right seek greater access to firearms for protection, the media’s reliance on incomplete statistics in covering incidents such as the one at the Greenwood Park Mall takes on new significance.   

Google
Greenwood Park Mall: When shooting started, Dicken reacted in 15 seconds, at a distance of 40 yards.
Google

The FBI defines active shooter incidents as those in which an individual actively engages in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated, public area. But it does not include those it deems related to other criminal activity, such as a robbery or fighting over drug turf.

The Bureau reports that only 11 of the 252 active shooter incidents it identified for the period 2014-2021 were stopped by an armed citizen. An analysis by my organization identified a total of 281 active shooter incidents during that same period and found that 41 of them were stopped by an armed citizen.

That is, the FBI reported that 4.4% of active shooter incidents were thwarted by armed citizens, while the CPRC found 14.6%.

Two factors explain this discrepancy – one, misclassified shootings; and two, overlooked incidents. Regarding the former, the CPRC determined that the FBI reports had misclassified five shootings: In two incidents the Bureau notes in its detailed write-up that citizens possessing valid firearms permits confronted the shooters and caused them to flee the scene. However, these cases were not listed as being stopped by armed citizens because the attackers were later apprehended by police. In two other incidents the FBI misidentified armed civilians as armed security personnel. In one incident, the FBI simply failed to mention the citizen engagement at all.

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Challenge to Biden’s new “ghost gun” rules heard in federal court

Two weeks from now the Biden administration’s new regulations on 80% completed frames and receivers are set to take effect, but one Texas company that produces the unfinished products argued in federal court this week that the new rules should be blocked from being enforced while the legality of the rules are being litigated.

Pressing for a preliminary injunction, Division 80’s attorney, Cory Liu of the Ashcroft Law Firm in Austin, said in a hearing Tuesday that the company’s owner, Brandon Padilla, has no other job and his livelihood depends on its current business model.

“Why doesn’t he just get the [federal firearm] license?” U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown asked.

“There’s a thriving market of people who want to make their own guns and don’t want to go through licensed dealers,” Liu explained. “Padilla’s entire product line would be wiped out; consumer demand wouldn’t be there.”

“It’s not just about a license,” the attorney added. “It’s about the ability to build a firearm, a right that’s existed since the nation’s founding.”

But Liu’s arguments were undercut by a disclaimer from Justice Department attorney Daniel Riess, after Liu showed Brown a receiver Division 80 sells for an AR-15 style rifle, the most popular firearm in America.

Riess gave the judge a paper with illustrations taken from the ATF’s final rule, outlining what it does and does not consider to be a receiver.

To qualify as a regulated receiver, Riess explained, the part must come with a “jig” or template – typically a piece of plastic that snaps into place to guide the purchaser on where and how deep to drill holes – drill bits and instructions, making the receiver “readily convertible” within minutes to a fully functional firearm.

Liu was flabbergasted. “That’s news to me,” he said. “For months, we’ve been asking what role do instructions and tools play in this. You can sell a receiver blank without tools and jigs. That’s news to me. Had this handout been posted on ATF’s website that would have cleared up a lot of questions.”

Brown asked if that doomed Division 80’s injunction request: “What if the product can still be sold? Is that fatal to a preliminary injunction? Or are you still saying you want an injunction?”

But Liu said the revelation just proves Division 80’s contention the rule is unconstitutionally vague. He said it is so open-ended the public can’t understand it.

“They want the rule to be as ambiguous as possible. And they’ll just give handouts on a case-by-case basis to meet their need,” he griped.

Liu’s right about the vagueness of the ATF’s new interpretation (and I would argue, unconstitutional expansion) of the Gun Control Act’s definition of “firearm”, which now seems to be something along the lines of “a frame or receiver, even one that is not completed, though an incomplete frame or receiver may not be a firearm if it’s not able to be readily converted into a firearm… we’re not really sure.”

Rather than a sharp, clear line that’s easy for companies like Division 80 to follow, the agency is trying to give itself unchecked authority to determine on a case-by-case basis whether or not unfinished frames or receivers should be considered firearms under federal law; requiring them to both be serialized and sold at retail only after a background check is performed on the buyer.

Division 80’s attorneys contend that regardless of what DOJ attorneys said in court on Tuesday the ATF simply doesn’t have the authority to issue their new rules, and that Congress is the appropriate body to make these substantive changes to the GCA. Judge Jeffrey V. Brown, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court by Donald Trump in 2019, told both sides that he does expect to issue a decision on the request for an injunction before August 24th, so it shouldn’t be long before we know whether or not the new rules will actually be enforced in a couple of weeks.

BLUF
Wilkins sees eye to eye with the three-judge 5th Circuit panel that upheld the bump stock ban last December. Like the D.C. Circuit panel, it said “bump stocks qualify as machine guns under the best interpretation of the statute.” But the 5th Circuit vacated that panel decision in June, and it is now reconsidering the case. If the full court goes a different way, the circuit split could prompt the Supreme Court to weigh in.

D.C. Circuit Upholds the Bump Stock Ban, Saying It Is Consistent With the ‘Best Interpretation’ of the Law
It is hard to see how, given the contortions required to deliver the unilateral prohibition that Donald Trump demanded.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit yesterday upheld the federal bump stock ban that took effect in 2019, approving the legal contortions required to justify it. In blessing the Trump administration’s redefinition of machine guns to include bump stocks and firearms equipped with them, the appeals court did not merely defer to regulators’ interpretation of an ambiguous statute. It concluded that the new reading of the law—which contradicts the position that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) consistently took before then-President Donald Trump demanded that the agency ban bump stocks by administrative fiat—is “the best interpretation of the statute.”

That is hard to believe. The ATF’s justification for the ban is so implausible that it seems clear the agency rewrote the law to accommodate the president’s policy preferences, criminalizing previously legal conduct without bothering to seek new legislation from Congress.

Bump stocks, which became suddenly notorious after they were used in the 2017 Las Vegas massacre, facilitate a rapid-firing technique in which recoil energy pushes the weapon backward, resetting the trigger, while the shooter maintains forward pressure on the gun, causing the trigger to bump against his stationary finger. Crucially, the gun still fires just one round each time the trigger is activated, and it continues to fire only as long as the shooter deliberately and repeatedly engages the trigger by pushing the weapon forward.

Those points are crucial because federal law defines a machine gun as a weapon that “automatically” fires more than one round “by a single function of the trigger.” The definition also includes “any part” or “combination of parts” that is “designed and intended” to convert a firearm into a machine gun.

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