This is now. When you’re a federal bureaucrat, consistency doesn’t matter if you want to screw people over.

On September 27, 2022, the ATF issued an open letter explaining the unfinished frame/receiver rule:

As stated in Final Rule 2021-05F and the regulatory text, a partially complete AR-type receiver with no indexing or machining of any kind performed in the area of the fire control cavity is not classified as a “frame or receiver” or “firearm” provided that it is not sold, distributed, or marketed with any associated templates, jigs, molds, equipment, tools, instructions, or guides, such as within a receiver parts kit.

And people rejoiced, because it appeared that the jackbooted thugs might be making intermittent radio contact with reality.

Nope. A mere three months later, we have their new open letter explaining the unfinished frame/receiver rule:

Applying the regulatory text of Final Rule 2021-05F, partially complete Polymer80, Lone Wolf, and similar striker-fired semiautomatic pistol frames, including, but not limited to, those sold within parts kits, have reached a stage of manufacture where they “may readily be completed, assembled, restored, or otherwise converted” to a functional frame. This definition of “readily” applies to each and every classification of a partially complete frame or receiver under this Rule, whether sold alone or as part of a kit. Therefore, even without any associated templates, jigs, molds, equipment, tools, instructions, guides, or marketing materials, these partially complete pistol frames are “frames” and also “firearms” as defined in the GCA and its implementing regulations,

It’s official: inanimate blocks of metal or plastic, still incapable of accepting components that could make them functional firearms — much less capable of actual firing — are magically firearms in the eyes of blithering , bumbling bureaucrats who’ve usurped the power of Congress to legislate.

In light of BRUEN,the lawsuits over this should be alternatingly infuriating and amusing.

So the Colorado “Club Q” shooter used evil “ghost guns.” Sure.

Club Q suspect carried ‘ghost guns’ with no serial numbers, sources say
The suspect in Saturday’s shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs was armed with a rifle and a handgun that both lacked serial numbers and appeared to be so-called “ghost guns,” 9Wants to Know has learned.
[…]
It is not yet clear whether the suspect may have manufactured those weapons or whether they could have been purchased or assembled from parts available on the internet.

And yet… we have multiple reports the shooter lawfully purchased his rifle.

Not “built.”

See, the thing is that Colorado has a universal background check law. It requires even private buys to go through a licensed dealer, who has to log the firearm “as if he or she were transferring the firearm from his or her inventory to the prospective transferee.”

To do that, the firearm(s) has to have a serial number.

Someone is spewing bull byproducts. I don’t know if its this “ghost gun” claim, or the “lawfully purchased” reports. I think I’ll drop a reporter a note.

Every family has “that one uncle.” You know the one: they guy who stupidly thinks the Constitution means what it says, and if it needs reinterpretation/changing, there’s an amendment process for that. The guy who stubbornly insists on arguing on the basis of objective fact.

Yeah, in my family everyone knows that’s me. Even though I think I show incredible restraint at Thanksgiving. For example, the time they say me next to the guy claiming to “work with” the ATF — -eyeroll- — who had to “correct” me on facts about the Boston Bombing… by contradicting evidence the feds presented at trial.

You won’t have to deal with me, but I’m sure you have your own uncle. Not to fear, though; the White House graciously provided some talking points you can use to keep us in line.

One last item for your Thanksgiving dinner: some talking points when “that Uncle” comes “at you” about @POTUS.

TZP is primarily focused on 2A rights, so I’ll mostly skip over the majority of those talking points…

…other than mentioning that the gas and insulin prices are just down somewhat from the high peaks that they first caused, or that infrastructure rebuilding includes shutting down reliable fossil-fueled power generation and replacing it with intermittent “renewable” wind and solar power. Let’s look at Gropin’ Joe’s “first meaningful gun safety legislation in nearly thirty years.”

Removing firearms from dangerous individuals

I’ve discussed this before. They’d do it by violating people’s constitutional due process rights.

Since the very point of “red flag” laws is to eliminate the pre-seizure hearing for the accused, and go straight confiscation — ending the rights-recognizing process already in place in every single state — I’m going to assume that “pre-deprivation due process” is going to becomes the police serving the accused with a hearing notice before collecting the guns. The notice — of a hearing that actually occurs after the seizure — would be the due process.

Not that they had the balls to actually pass a federal red flag law. They’re just offering bribes to the states to do it for them… conveniently putting the cost of defending unconstitutional laws in court on the states.

Expanding mental health services in schools

Nope.

The other Titles in this bill are largely pork masquerading as grants and studies of how to “improve” healthcare access and school “security,”

Pork for studies on how to address mental health in schools. Perhaps I should apply for one to show best how to repair. the mental health damage schools public indoctrination centers are doing with CRT, wokeness, “gender affirmation” and more.

Supporting school safety and narrows the “boyfriend loophole” to keep guns out of the hands of convicted dating partners

They do that by redefining boyfriend so vaguely encompassing that anyone who ever dated someone once, sometime, is subject to losing their rights forever.

They did exactly what I expected. They are adding “dating partner” to the list of qualifying relationships for domestic violence convictions. They include some qualifiers such as “have or have recently had,” serious, length, type, and frequency of the relationship; but they do not define any of them.

What is recent? Serious? You won’t know until you discover that you’ve been added to the NICS human/civil rights deprivation list.

While I do try to keep my cool at family gatherings, little talking point lists like this tend to make me hope some suicidal loon brings them up.

I have this one niece, who at last update, may or may not attend tomorrow’s dinner. I’d have nothing to lose, familially speaking, since she already wants me dead.

Happy Thanksgiving/Communism Failed Day. May yours go smoother than mine might.

You probably heard about the Kentucky Fried Chicken marketing fiasco in Germany. The company pushed an… unfortunate promotional message with its app.

“It’s memorial day for Kristallnacht! Treat yourself with more tender cheese on your crispy chicken. Now at KFCheese!”

Oh, yeah. Let’s celebrate Krisallnacht. /sarc

On the on hand, I was sorta-semi willing to consider that this was dreamed up by an historically ignorant American English speaker. Sadly, I can all too easily imagine a recent public school victim thinking, KRIST-allnacht. CHRIST-mas, and deciding they must be related and something to observe happily.

On the other hand, this was sent in German, and what German speaker doesn’t know better?

To add possibly antisemitic insult to injury, look at the special they pushed: cheese, a dairy product, on a meat. My knowledge of Kosher dietary restrictions isn’t what it could be, but I seem to recall that one does not mix dairy and meat in one dish.

My sister also noted that cheese/chicken issue. Because of that, she thinks this really was a deliberate swipe at Jews.

KFC assures us otherwise.

“Because of a system error, we sent an incorrect and inappropriate alert on our app,” the message said. “We are very sorry, we will check our internal processes immediately so that this does not happen again. Please excuse this error.”

System error? As in systemic antisemiticism?

Owned by Yum Brands, KFC told CBS MoneyWatch in an emailed statement that an automated push notification had been accidentally issued, containing an “unplanned, insensitive and unacceptable message.”

The company said it uses a semi-automated content creation process linked to calendars that include national observances, and in this case, its “internal review process was not properly followed.”

Not that the review process wasn’t followed, to catch an automation error; but that it was followed properly. Meaning, I think, that someone let it go deliberately.

Just some random scumbag, employee, or someone with an agenda testing the waters to see how far they could go?

On the bright side, German reaction seems to indicate that it pissed off a lot of people.

If this be extremism, make the most of it!

Earlier this week, I commented on the peculiar columns of one Terrence Cummings, victim-disarmer extraordinaire. In doing so, I finally achieved a long dreamed of status.

I have, at long last, been tagged as an “extremist.” It only took the better part of three decades to get there. I need a badge, or something.

I appreciate your diligence in defending gun rights. It clearly aligns with the usual argument of extremists. It is expected and not surprising.

Cummings “clearly” needs to acquaint himself with the First Law of Holes.

Or invest in a power shovel. And possibly a jackhammer, to deal with those bothersome rhetorical boulders.

Just what does Cummings consider the arguments of extremists? You could read the original column again. But I’ll give you the synopsis.

• I pointed out that Kyle Rittenhouse used an Smith & Wesson M&P, not a Colt AR-15, as Cummings claimed.
• I cruelly noted that Rittenhouse did not take his rifle across state lines as Cummings mistakenly believes.
• I cited Wisconsin v. Rittenhouse.
• I cleverly observed that a PBS interview with a retired judge differs somewhat from a Supreme Court of the United States ruling.
• I quoted the US Constitution. (OK; in Biden’s Amerika, that probably does make me an extremist.)
• I cited seven separate SCOTUS cases dating back over 165 years.
• I specifically cited Bruen, in which SCOTUS rejected Cummings claim that the 2A only applies to muskets.
• I specifically cited Caetano, in which an earlier SCOTUS had already said the same damned thing.

I’m afraid that I am slipping a bit in one respect. I’ve never once erected a single idolatrous shrine for worshiping guns.

If “extremists” use objective facts, state and federal law, lower court rulings, the Constitution, and Supreme Court decisions; what is a good, succinct term for folks like Terrence Cummings who actively reject all that, and prefer falsehoods and feelz?

Keep it clean in comments, please.

Bruen strikes again.

Texas judge rules gun-buying ban for people under felony indictment is unconstitutional
U.S. District Judge David Counts, whom then-President Donald Trump appointed to the federal bench, dismissed a federal indictment against Jose Gomez Quiroz that had charged him under the federal ban.
[…]
“Although not exhaustive, the Court’s historical survey finds little evidence that … (the federal ban) – which prohibits those under felony indictment from obtaining a firearm – aligns with this Nation’s historical tradition.”

Hence, he ruled the ban unconstitutional as the “Second Amendment is not a ‘second class right,” as noted in a 2008 Supreme Court ruling. “No longer can courts balance away a constitutional right,” Counts wrote. After the New York case, “the Government must prove that laws regulating conduct covered by the Second Amendment’s plain text align with this Nation’s historical tradition. The Government does not meet that burden.”

Hardly surprising, assuming honest courts (a big assumption). Bruen threw out New York’s Sullivan Act of 1911 “good case” licensing requirement for lack of general, historical tradition. If a century+ infringement couldn’t make the grade, what chance — again, in an honest court — did an infringement, dating back no more than 54 years, have: Gun Control Act of 1968.

Much of the GCA ’68 is on very thin ice.

California v. Diaz
Diaz was busted for carrying an unregistered handgun without a license. The court cited Bruen and tossed the charges.

California’s under-21 semiauto sales ban
The appeals court’s 2-1 majority on May 11 had said the judge erred in upholding an “almost total ban” on semiautomatic rifles for young adults. It upheld a requirement that young adults obtain hunting licenses before buying “long guns.”

Wednesday’s order is a temporary victory for California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who defended the ban.

It’s only a temporary victory in that it’s a stalling action against the inevitable state loss: the lower court — already hostile to the state’s violation of rights for those under 21 — is directed to further examine the ban in light of Bruen.

Unconstitutional GCA restrictions are beginning to drop like flies, now that the Supreme Court has put the lower courts on notice that the intermediate scrutiny game doesn’t play anymore.

Strict scrutiny allows unconstitutional infringements if a judge decides it’s “close enough for government work.”

And that’s strict scrutiny, applied comparatively rarely. Intermediate and rational basis review can allow laws that aren’t needed, don’t address the problem, and punish those who aren’t responsible, which is why people-controlling victim disarmers hate strict scrutiny. Bottaro appears to prefer intermediate scrutiny, in which restrictions on rights are merely “related” to the supposed need.

Strict scrutiny supposedly required that an infringement at least do something to aid in the government’s alleged compelling interest. It’s not as good as the much tougher Bruen general, historical tradition test, but I wonder why courts wouldn’t use even strict scrutiny…

That’s rhetorical, of course. I’ll show you why.

Note that post GCA of 1968, violent crime continued to rise.

FOPA of 1986 (ban on new machine guns): crime still rising.

Strict scrutiny would have required the law to work. The GCA doesn’t; never did.

Brady background checks? NICS? Lautenberg’s retroactive “domestic violence” prohibited persons? All of those came after the 1991 violent crime peak, when crimes rate were already on the way down. Check the trend; no discernible difference.

Until you get to 2001, when the drop in crimes rates slowed. Despite that the GCA, FOPA, Brady, NICS, and Lautenberg are all still ineffectively on the books. The misnamed “assault weapon ban” of 1994 did expire, but for some reason — ineffectiveness comes to mind again — the crime, with a slight bump, continued to drop.

The laws didn’t — and don’t — work as advertised (which begs the also rhetorical question of “What are they really for?”).

Aside from the recognition of constitutionally protected rights, Bruen may do something else good. Finally, Congress may be required to pass only laws that work as advertised.

Some, anyway. Even Bruen signaled that some restrictions — which never existed prior to 1968 are still peachy: felons, mentally deficient persons, and unlawful drug users. I chalk that up to cultural inertia on the part of all the SCOTUS justices (yes, Thomas, too). I would be very interested in seeing the SCOTUS — and Thomas’ — reaction to a well-funded challenge, on the basis of their own BRUEN decision, by a former felon drug abuser who has been clean and honest for years.

Hopefully, such a challenge will also mention automatic voting rights restoration upon completion of sentence, and ask, “What makes the Second Amendment right second class this time? Where’s the general historical tradition for that, since it never existed prior to 1968?”

Dimocrats keep warning us that “democracy is in danger” if they get voted out. Clearly they’ve confused the Democrat Party with democracy. Or, specifically in America, the version of democracy known as a constitutional representative republic.

But democracy is in danger, when “democracy” means the guy in charge threatens half the country with an attack with F-15 fighters. And it’s hardly the first time he did that.

Is it a functioning democracy — “constitutional representative republic” — when the guy in charge is clearly suffering from dementia and threatening Americans? Or is Biden in charge? Damned near every time they take a chance on letting him speak in public, the White House has to issues statements to the effect that “The president didn’t really mean what he said, and if he did he doesn’t speak for the administration.”

So who is in the charge? The senile guy who supposedly won with 81 million votes, yet somehow can’t fill a high school gym? Or it some unelected staffer or cabal?

That sure sounds democratic.

Back to Biden’s senile threats (and taking out voters with air strikes is an interesting take on “democracy”).

Those opposing his constitution-raping regime are doomed because we don’t have have F-15s like he does? I saw comments earlier today noting that neither did the Viet Cong, nor the Taliban. Gropin’ Joe is probably bummed that he didn’t get to leave any of those behind in Afghanistan along with the other military hardware.

“The rights granted by the Second Amendment are not unlimited. They’re not unlimited. Right now you can’t go out and buy an automatic weapon or buy a cannon,” said Biden.

1. The Second Amendment doesn’t grant any rights. It protects preexisting individual rights from government crazies like Biden (and his puppeteers).

2. Yes, you can buy automatic weapons; legally.

3. Yes, you can buy cannon, and all sorts of fun artillery.

4. Jet fighter aircraft? Yes; people can and do have those. Some are already armed. And if you need to equip your demilled fighter…

No problem. And all that is through lawful channels.

Speaking of lawful channels, does anyone else remember the time the mainstream media mistook an All-American day at the range for a full-scale attack by a NATO nation on a Syrian town? Makes you wonder what a real assault by Americans who don’t take to Biden’s “attack America with F-15s” version of “democracy” might look like.

Although I still think “hunting season” would be likely, and much harder for “DIM-ocracy through superior fire power” wanna-be tyrants to defend against.

You know, Joe; if you want “gun control,” you should probably stop bragging on what you’ll do to us once we’ve been disarmed.

And pass that tip along to your Kmer Rouge emulating buddies.

New Jersey Dimwit Andy Kim has entered a bill — actually H.R. 8534 — to require a federal license to “acquire or receive firearms.” As is almost always the case with these federal licensing bills, a license is impossible to lawfully acquire.

Except as provided in subsection (d), it shall be unlawful for any individual to purchase or receive a firearm unless the individual has a valid Federal firearm license.

So you have to have a license to get a gun. But…

The Attorney General shall establish a Federal system for issuing a Federal firearm license to eligible individuals for firearms transferred to such individual.

“(2) REQUIREMENTS.—The system established under paragraph (1) shall require that—

“(A) an individual shall be eligible to receive such a license if the individual—

“(i) has completed training in firearms safety, including—

“(I) a written test, to demonstrate knowledge of applicable firearms laws; and

“(II) hands-on testing, including firing testing, to demonstrate safe use and sufficient accuracy of a firearm; and

…to get a license you have to get a gun. Thus, the Catch-22. Subsection (d) has no exception for training and testing for a license. This is hardly the first time we’ve seen that, so it’s hard to blow off as a simple mistake.

But there’s a peculiar omission in Kim’s bill. I’d love to ask him about it but even though he likes to push bills that affect all Americans, he doesn’t want to hear from them.

The omission? Take another look at this.

it shall be unlawful for any individual to purchase or receive a firearm

“Purchase or receive;” not “possess.” As written, this does not require you to be licensed for anything you already possess. Kim being a Dim, I’m not quite sure to make of it.

It could be a typical Dimwit oversight, that he (or however drafted the big words for him) simply missed that part.

Or, it could be intentional, a tactic to get the bill passed without too much opposition from those who see just a teensy little problem with trying to license the current 120+ million gun owners. So you throw current owners a bone, but shut down all future would-be gun owners. Eventually the gun owners die off, and problem solved (there’s no licensing exception for inherited guns).

On the gripping hand, it could be his intent to slide the more encompassing licensing requirement in as an amendment later when he thinks no one is looking.

The rule redefining “firearm,” frame, and “receiver,” about which TZP has been warning for some time, is now in effect. The lawsuits should be spectacular.

TZP noted, and submitted an NPRM comment to the effect, that this is once again the ATF usurping the role of Congress; declaring themselves a fourth branch of government.

Congress has shown the ability to note and regulate new technologies at less than a glacial pace. But despite THESE devices existing for well over a century, Congress has chosen not to include them in the definition of firearm. We must, then, conclude that Congress saw no need to regulate them, and that ATF doing so violates the intent of Congress.

That arrogation of undelegated power was bad enough. The violation of the Administrative Procedures Act should be a nail in the rule’s coffin (assuming honest courts). But in the interval between NPRM commenting and issuance of the formal rule, we had BRUEN.

Since Heller and McDonald, the Courts of Appeals have developed a “two-step” framework for analyzing Second Amendment challenges that combines history with means-end scrutiny. The Court rejects that two-part approach as having one step too many. Step one is broad y consistent with Heller, which demands a test rooted in the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by history. But Heller and McDonald do not support a second step that applies means-end scrutiny in the Second Amendment context. Heller’s methodology centered on constitutional text and history. It did not invoke any means-end test such as strict or intermediate scrutiny, and it expressly rejected any interest-balancing inquiry akin to intermediate scrutiny.
[…]
In keeping with Heller, we hold that when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. To justify its regulation, the government may not simply posit that the regulation promotes an important interest.
[…]
We reiterate that the standard for applying the Second Amendment is as follows: When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. The government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only then may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s “unqualified command.”

Bless your hearts, ATF. Please tell me exactly what general, historical tradition there was at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification (or since) for designating unfinished parts, which have the potential to be worked into complete parts, to be actual complete firearms.

The rule-making failed the Administrative Procedures Act.

This rule fails the separation of powers. “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives,” not an executive branch agency.

This rule fails the basic Constitutional test of BRUEN.

And the ATF knew this when they unconstitutionally implemented the rule. Honest courts should toss this rule in summary judgement. But maybe the ATF knows the fix is in on this, too.