Category Archives: Law

Legislative News From The Swamp

Rep. Jamie Raskin [Dumbass-MD8] has filed two new firearm bills.

H.R.2427 – To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to increase the transfer tax on certain firearms, and for other purposes does two things. First, it would immediately raise the NFA stamp tax price to $300, from the current $200. Thereafter, it increases annually by the cost-of-living adjustment. That’s bad enough, but the second thing it does is worse.

It channels the tax stamp revenue to the DOJ and ATF so they can fund “gun violence prevention initiatives.” That sounds like grants to Demanding Mommies and whatevername Brady is using this month (honestly, I can’t keep up).

I’d give this one a fifty-fifty chance of passage. Law ‘n order Republicans might just roll over on tax stamps.

Compared to that, H.R.2426 – To prohibit the transfer of a firearm to a person whose State license to purchase, own, or possess a firearm has been revoked, or a person who has been ordered by a State court to surrender all firearms is almost funny. The title says it all. Clearly Raskin, in his idiocy, has mistaken Maryland for the rest of the country.

There are twelve states, and the District of Calamity, that require any sort of license to purchase or possess a firearm. And, generally speaking, the things that get a license revoked are usually things that make one a prohibited person anyway. Ditto with court orders to not possess guns. HR 2426 is basically a redundant waste of taxpayer-funded time and money.

This bill I give a 70% chance of passage. Again, the law ‘n order Republicans will tend to like preventing criminals getting guns, and some will support as a dickering tool, since they’ll largely see it as redundant.

Then again, I suppose I might have underestimated Raskin’s intelligence. He could have filed it as an expendable bill that the Dims can sacrifice in a pretend-compromise.

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Commenting On Biden’s Proposed Rules

As I told you earlier, the Biden Harris administration is planning more Second Amendment infringements. We now know more about the time frames.

  • The Justice Department, within 30 days, will issue a proposed rule to help stop the proliferation of “ghost guns.”
  • The Justice Department, within 60 days, will issue a proposed rule to make clear when a device marketed as a stabilizing brace effectively turns a pistol into a short-barreled rifle subject to the requirements of the National Firearms Act.
  • The Justice Department, within 60 days, will publish model “red flag” legislation for states: Red flag laws allow family members or law enforcement to petition for a court order temporarily barring people in crisis from accessing firearms if they present a danger to themselves or others.

The first two will require Administrative Procedures Act rule-making with public commenting. The Zelman Partisans will provide links for comments when they are published. But why wait until then to prepare? Start working on comments now. I have some draft comments you may wish to work with.

Pistol Brace = Short Barrel Rifle
I expect them to dust off the same one they floated last year, so this may work:

The ATF has not presented any “objective factors” to determine whether a pistol-braced firearm is a pistol or short-barreled rifle.

No single factor or combination of factors is necessarily dispositive, and FATD examines each weapon holistically on a case-by-case basis.”

That is no more than fancy language for Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s infamous, “I know it when I see it.”

That statement would appear to leave us precisely where we are now: at the mercy of a proven arbitrary and capricious federal agency bound to infringe upon the Second Amendment. But it is really worse than that. By including “length of pull” in the “factors,” the ATF starts with the assumption that a braced firearm is a short-barreled rifle until and unless it is proven otherwise.

An objective definition of pistol brace would be: A device designed to aid a user in holding a large pistol with one hand, which extends no further than the user’s forearm when gripping the firearm normally, and which conforms to the user’s forearm.

“Ghost Gun” Unfinished Frames/Receivers
Rumors of this circulated last month, so I’ll draw upon my remarks then for potential commenting:

I object to the classification of unfinished parts as firearms.

Per 18 U.S. Code § 921(a)(3)
The term “firearm” means (A) any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive; (B) the frame or receiver of any such weapon; (C) any firearm muffler or firearm silencer; or (D) any destructive device. Such term does not include an antique firearm.

Per 27 CFR § 478.1
Firearm frame or receiver. That part of a firearm which provides housing for the hammer, bolt or breechblock, and firing mechanism, and which is usually threaded at its forward portion to receive the barrel.

Taking the AR-pattern lower “receiver” as an example: , that does provide housing for the trigger group and hammer. But note the lack of the rest of the firing mechanism, the firing pin. That goes in the upper, which is not considered a firearm. No does the lower house the bolt/breechblock. It doesn’t even have an attach point for the barrel. One characteristic out of four magically makes it a “firearm.” Federal courts have taken note of this, and dismissed firearm possession charges against those who had unassembled lowers.

An UNFINISHED frame or receiver doesn’t provide housing for any component, nor does it have a barrel attach point. That is WHY it is unfinished.

If you administratively enact this proposed rule, you will open up the can of worms that is most semiautomatic pistol frames: no bolt or breechblock, no barrel attach point, no firing pin or striker. Under current law, most unassembled semiautomatic pistols are not “firearms,” and we will take the point to court as part of demonstrating why your proposed rule on unfinished parts fails to meet legal definitions.

Model Red Flag Law
This amounts to a “white paper,”s o doesn’t get a rule-making process. But sending the Attorney General some remarks… well, won’t really do any good, but it can’t hurt.

The state of Florida enacted a “red flag” law on March 9, 2018 in response to the Parkland school shooting. It has proven ineffective.

For two years prior to enactment, Florida’s homicide rate was in decline. Its suicide rate was flat.

In the first year after passage, both homicide and suicide rates increased; dramatically so in the case of suicides. Two years after passage both rates are still above pre-“red flag” rates.

If correlation were causation, we would be forced to consider “red flag” laws as equally dangerous to rights AND lives.

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Hammer Drop

The expected Biden victim disarmament hammer dropped. Initially, six items are planned.

The Justice Department, within 30 days, will issue a proposed rule to help stop the proliferation of “ghost guns.”

It will be interesting to see how they intend to do this. Redefine unfinished frames/receivers as “firearms”? They already have a problem with finished lowers. Not to mention semi-auto pistol frames.

The Justice Department, within 60 days, will issue a proposed rule to make clear when a device marketed as a stabilizing brace effectively turns a pistol into a short-barreled rifle subject to the requirements of the National Firearms Act.

I make odds of three-to-one that the proposed rule will be virtually identical to the last attempt, with all the flaws intact. Basically, It’s a short-barreled rifle if we say so.

The Justice Department, within 60 days, will publish model “red flag” legislation for states.

I wonder if they’ve found some ways to prevent the “Florida Effect,” where homicides and suicides both went up after passage of a “red flag” law.

The Administration is investing in evidence-based community violence interventions.

Even the “details” of this are so vague that it’s hard to say exactly what they mean. Other than it looks like pork for Dimocrat social justice weasels. I have a better idea; a simple three step plan.

The Justice Department will issue an annual report on firearms trafficking.

-sigh- They already do.

The President will nominate David Chipman to serve as Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

That would be the David Chipman who thinks the Branch Davidians shot down two helicopters at Waco.

Frankly, all of this is old, recycled fails. I’m a little surprised at the lack of imagination in Gropin’ Joe’s puppeteers. Just off the top of my head, I came up with four things they could do, without any new legislation, that would disrupt all commercial sales. Three would require publication in the Federal Register, and one wouldn’t need even that. For obvious reasons — I know that congresscritters read my columns — I’m not publicizing them. But if Mo Brookss staffer want to talk about how to prevent them, they know how to reach me.

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Ballless in Blue Ridge

Georgia state House Speaker David Ralston is a useless, effing coward.

Gun rights legislation fails to get final approval in Georgia House
House Speaker David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge) said after the session ended Wednesday night that the recent mass shootings, including one in metro Atlanta, played a factor in his not calling up House Bill 218 for a vote.

“Frankly, I thought we needed to be very, very sensitive to any gun legislation,’’ he told reporters. “We’re less than two weeks out from two major mass killings. That heightens my level of sensitivity to that.’’

The Catholic Church has an abuse problem. This is a bad time to defend freedom of religion.

Someone said something mean. This is a bad time to defend free speech.

There are crack houses. This is a bad time to defend property rights.

Our Secretary of State violated the hell out of state election laws. This is a bad time to defend voters’ rights.

What pray tell, Mr. Ralston, do the actions of law-breaking murderers have to do with my rights? A mentally ill guy in Atlanta murdered people, so the millions of Georgians who didn’t do it should be blamed? That’s exactly what you’re doing when you decided to abandon us because someone else did something bad.

Ralston caved because he has no balls.

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Lifting the Veil On [S]BLM[K]

 

 

 

My heart goes out to the brave men and women of the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement. You put your lives on the line to protect America from enemies foreign and domestic. Your countrymen have betrayed you. They have handed her over to these people who hate this country and despise everything for which you stand and fight.

At the start of each New Year, pundits and commentators on the passing scene typically offer a retrospective best and worst of list for the preceding year. This is my offering for the Ten Biggest Whoppers of 2020:

1. Mostly peaceful protests.

2. Two weeks to flatten the curve.

3. Social media supports the 1st Amendment.

4. Black lives matter to Black Lives Matter.

5. Follow the science.

6. Emulate your political “leaders”; always wear a mask and social distance.

7. Fair and honest elections.

8. AOC is not an eighth grade girl blogging from her bedroom.

9. Nancy Pelosi does not sleep with the undead.

10. Joe Biden is president.

Growing up in America, like anyone else, I was an avid consumer of pop-culture entertainment, film, and music. By my university years, I perceived the Left was using these medium to inculcate unsuspecting youth with their subversive “values”. Their goal is to deconstruct Judeo-Christian based Western Civilization. Like shop-a-holics, credit card in one hand phone in the other watching the HSN Channel, people seemed incapable of resisting indoctrination. Too many bought into the value system and worldview peddled by cultural and political revolutionaries without question. Even more insidious are public school teachers serving as their political commissars in classrooms. Has there been a ripple effect to this brainwashing?

I have been a Formula 1 racing fan, the world’s premier motorsport, since childhood. My favorite teams included Lotus and McLaren. Several years ago, I gravitated toward Mercedes with her glittering silver cars trimmed in teal. Englishman Lewis Hamilton won his first World Championship with McLaren and then six more with Mercedes. Wikipedia, perhaps the worst source for information, lists Hamilton as black. However, he is actually mixed-race. His dad is black from the Caribbean and his mother white from England where Lewis was born and raised. Over the years, I collected Hamilton apparel, biography, autographed picture, and die-cast racecar. However, because he chose to inject politics into the sport, my Hamilton memorabilia is no more. I have binned it all. Last year, Hamilton decided he was an angry black American, from South Central Los Angeles no doubt, who took up the cause of black Americans BLM claims the police are systematically murdering on behalf of white America. This millionaire jet-setting bon vivant was soon sporting BLM shirts and hats, kneeling sans American flag, and raising the Marxist clenched fist before each race. However, that was not enough. He publicly called out as racists, drivers who did not kneel with him. He forced them to wear black T-shirts reading “End Racism” during the host country’s national anthem. Formula 1’s panjandrums decreed that racetracks and buildings display slogans about racism. However, that was still not enough. Mercedes repainted their shimmering silver cars an angry flat black with BLM-like slogans on the car’s halo device. I was stunned. BLM, started by three Marxists, is a domestic terrorist organization with the blood of police officers and citizens on its hands. Heading into a new season, I wondered how much of BLM’s Kool Aid motorsports fans had imbibed. Time to find out.

I joined several Face Book Formula 1 Groups. One gentleman lamented the manner in which Hamilton has injected politics into the sport causing “divisions” between fans. I noted the hypocrisy of Hamilton and Formula 1 claiming to be fighting oppression while holding races in countries with state sanctioned slavery and in Islamic states where women are second-class citizens. Mr. Qundiso Mpofu challenged me to name such countries. I listed several in Africa, the Middle East, and Red China. Mr. Mpofo insisted there was as much oppression against blacks in the United States as in any other country. Then he made the jaw-dropping claim there was as much slavery in the U.S. as in China! I suggested he had taken leave of his senses and asked him to provide me examples. No response was forthcoming. He was alone among black Hamilton fans who equated criticism of BLM with racism.

On the FormulaNerds page, a member also bemoaned the degree to which Hamilton’s political activism was damaging the sport. I agreed noting, although Hamilton is a great driver worthy of the hype, I could no longer support him. Four members of my family served in the U.S. Military and two, including me, in Law Enforcement. I feel betrayed by his support of BLM. For a week, members responded with “likes”. Then a Liston Alexander asked how, by standing against racism and racial oppression, Hamilton had betrayed me. He asked if the “cellphone pictures were faked”? He chided “people like you” with “law enforcement experience” see the world differently than others, meaning blacks. I asked him to what cellphone images he referred and who was committing acts of oppression and violence against blacks in America’s cities. It is not police gunning down blacks in Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, and Philadelphia among others. Does Hamilton speak out about oppression of blacks by other blacks? He has thrown support behind BLM whose message is the white race is inherently (born that way) racist, they constructed America’s institutions to preserve white hegemony by suppressing blacks, and the white race is waging a war of genocide against the black race, with police their instrument of extermination. Considering these are monstrous lies, guaranteed to generate hatred and violence between races, how could I support Hamilton?

Liston Alexander responded writing I had no empathy or understanding of the centuries of systemic racism inflicted on African-Americans. He claimed the only terrorists in America are the “armed supporters of Satan who stormed the Capitol building” and for me to shift the blame to BLM for anything, and black people, who are the “victims tells me exactly who you Are” [capitalization in the original]. I responded writing I owed Mr. Alexander an apology presuming he was an educated intelligent person but that was clearly not the case. I noted the greatest oppression of blacks occurs between Mauritania in the west to Somalia in the east and Chad in the north to Zimbabwe in the south. In addition, I had grown up partly in Baltimore and Philadelphia’s inner cities, and attended majority black schools. Whites did not oppress blacks they were terrified of them. BLM never mentions this. No response.

An argument commonly employed by supporters is to say they do not endorse BLM’s Marxist goals and violence only its struggle against racism. It does not work that way. As the Monster from Austria [MFA] built the National Socialist German Workers Party, he attracted Germans with disparate grievances. Germany’s military was its pride and joy. Veterans believed politicians stabbed them in the back while still on battlefield at the end of the Great War tarnishing them with the stain of defeat. Soldiers wanted the military returned to its former glory. Germans crushed by the burden of war reparations, as well as union workers, believed MFA would restore the economy and jobs. Others rejected the war-guilt clause of the Treaty of Versailles and many Germans feared the rise of the Communist Party in the Weimar Republic. Of course, there was the bizarre cult that saw Jews as subhuman and poison to German culture. People representing these factions found themselves supporting the Nazi Party vigorously or as the lesser among several evils.2 History demonstrates that one cannot disaggregate responsibility for the evil a group does by declaring support for only part of its actions. This would be like declaring, although one opposes lynching, nevertheless, they joined the Klan because it supports strong families. In addition, sans support for the NAZIS by these factions, they would not have come to power. This is why, after the war, the Allies did not allow Germans who were members of the Party to say they never supported persecution of and ultimately mass murder of Jews. Who then, is Black Lives Matter?

Former police officer and currently a forensic criminologist Ron Martinelli, Ph.D. writes of BLM, “This is an organized and well-funded, media savvy, national, and international movement, based upon revolutionary Marxist ideology. The movement seeks to systematically attack, diminish, and eventually overthrow the rule of law and the democratic form of government to free whom they see to be the oppressed masses”.3 How can those supporting BLM, like American professional athletes and Lewis Hamilton, not know this? They support an organization seeking to overthrow the U.S. system of government in favor of a Marxist dictatorship. They say so. BLM and its “ancillary militant groups and organizations” drive to defund law enforcement, in order to upend the rule of law, is preparatory to overthrowing American’s “democratic way of life”.4 If this is true, how can so many people, black and white, support [S]BLM[K]? Could the answer be what I have written is false? To answer this question, we repair to BLM’s Webpage from 2015.

Three female Marxists founded BLM in 2013 following the jury’s acquittal of George Zimmerman charged by the state [Florida] with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. BLM used the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri [2014], as the vehicle to catapult it to national prominence.5 BLM’s founders, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, used rare police shootings of unarmed black men to claim these shootings were, instead, the norm and represented a monstrous conspiracy by the white to exterminate the black race. Garza, a lesbian Marxist, began the call for Black Lives Matter on Face Book. Cullors, also a lesbian Marxist, joined the nascent organization while running a convict “advocacy” organization in prisons. Tometi, a Marxist immigrant from Nigeria, ran an advocacy group for black immigrants.6 In 2015, BLM’s website consisted of history, a mission statement, and various political declarations. They asserted white cops were waging a war of terrorism against the black race. Their credo under “We Affirm That All Black Lives Matter” clearly explains “Black lives matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It’s an affirmation of Black folk’s contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression”.7 Systemized and intentional means; people organize a process to achieve a specific goal through methods standardized to the point they become a replicable system. It requires an objective and metrics by which those managing the system can measure progress toward that goal and a definition of what accomplishing that goal looks like. Intentional means individuals deliberately created the plan and system with a specific goal in mind.8 Therefore, BLM argues leaders within the white race decided to exterminate the black race. They created a standardized plan to achieve their goal (systematic), methods to ensure its success (institutionalized), and a means (the police). The white race has purposed to commit genocide against the black race according to BLM’s webpage (if they have not sanitized it yet). BLM affirms its right to fight back by any means. They mean killing police officers and race war.9 What do they mean their movement is “ideological”? Clicking on text boxes quickly provides an answer.

Under “Black Villages” it reads “We are committed to disrupting the Western prescribed nuclear family structure requirement supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another and especially ‘our’ children to the degree that mothers parents, and children are comfortable”.10 Other textboxes contain militantly feminist, homosexual, and “transgendered” (sic) statements. BLM is committed to dismantling the traditional Judeo-Christian family structure replacing it with a lesbian ruled matriarchy wherein hermaphroditic men serve their interests like worker bees. They declare, “We are working to [re]build the Black Liberation Movement”.11 Liberation from what? In the 1960s, the Black Power Movement, a liberation movement, founded by Stokely Carmichael, Malcom X, and others broke with Martin Luther King over his insistence on non-violent resistance and universal brotherhood. They preached gathering arms to execute violent revolution and enact revenge on the white race with separation being their ultimate objective.12 The Black Power Movement’s view of the white race as an irredeemable enemy and call for violent revolution, with separation into a black nation lines up with today’s BLM movement.

Calls for healing, reconciliation, and unity are contrary to the worldview of the BLM movement. They despise notions of black life’s “fate in America decided inevitably by white people”. Liberation is freedom from “the power of whites” who have no future in their world.13 BLM denounces “buy black” campaigns because they ignore “our sisters queer, and trans (sic) blacks”. They affirm, “The lives of black queer and trans (sic) folk, disabled folks, black undocumented folks” and black prison inmates “along the gender spectrum”. They assert black poverty is the result of state directed genocide. Blacks in prison are innocent victims of “state violence” and “Black queer and trans (sic) folk bear a unique burden from a hetero-patriarchal society that disposes of us like garbage and simultaneously fetishes us and profits off of us and this is state violence”. Their slogan is “justice, liberation, and peace”, identical to the slogans of communist guerillas in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.14 Knowingly or not, anyone who dons BLM apparel, raises a clenched fist, or takes a knee metaphorically spitting on the American flag, lends support to BLM’s claim white people are beyond salvation and their call to race-war.

I understand the pique of blacks at my critique. Pathologies afflicting black cities include high rates of unemployment, poverty, crime, drug use, school dropouts, and unwed mothers. BLM and its supporters have invested too deeply in white oppression narratives as the cause of these pathologies to countenance contrary explanations. Racism is the root cause of their lagging academic and employment accomplishment, compared to Asians and Hispanics. If not for the white race using its institutions and police to hold him down, they would succeed like everyone else. Black crime rates are no higher than other races; the police simply target only them for enforcement. Challenging BLM’s assertions, I encountered anger and brick wall like resistance to the truth. It is easier to blame scapegoats than accept perhaps to some degree; pathologies plaguing inner cities might be self-inflicted. Equally, I understand the pique of whites. From them I rob any rationale for purging their “white-guilt” through self-hatred and prostration before blacks, believing they rightfully deserve the hatred, opprobrium, and debasement BLM hurls at them. I take away the validity of “deconstructing” their whiteness through acts of self-flagellation.

Why do whites submit to debasement and humiliation by BLM and its allies? Why are they sock-puppets spewing the propaganda of those who hate them? What has so annealed them to the point they cannot be reached? Two culprits come to mind. Had pop-culture and public education not first fertilized their minds with the manure of lies and evil propaganda, America would not today be harvesting such poisoned fruit.

22 The BBC, Higher Learning, “Why The Nazis Achieved Power”, at https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitsize/guides/zsrwjxs/revision/7

33 Ron Martinelli, Ph.D., The Truth Behind The Black Lives Matter Movement And The War On Police (Temecula, California, Martinelli & Associates, Justice and Forensic Consultants, Inc., 2016), 3.

44 IBID. viii.

55 IBID. vii-viii.

66 IBID. 1-2.

77 Black Lives Matter, 2015, at http://www.blacklivesmatter.com

88 Yitzhak Goldstein’s definition derived from educational theory with respect to measuring learning progress.

99 BLM Webpage.

1010 IBID.

1111 IBID.

1212 Daniel J. Boorstin and Brooks Mather Kelley, A History of the United States Since 1861 (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice Hall, Inc., 1990), 437-439.

1313 David Horowitz, Hating Whitely And Other Progressive Causes (Dallas, Texas, Spence Publishing Company, 1999), 82-83.

1414 BLM Webpage. I am not writing from memory. Not only did I take notes, I downloaded and copied their 2015 webpage.

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Weird Lawsuit: Monroe County, Iowa v. Iowa Firearms Coalition & J.D. Thompson

As the suit says, Monroe County is suing IFC and a county resident. Specifically, the suit is over a Chief Justice order barring firearms from court houses, and a state law that says if you do that, you must provide security. I jumped right into the filing because I really wondered how the heck the county was going to rationalize a claim against those defendants.

And… I don’t see a claim against them.

I need someone smarter than myself to explain this to me. The obvious unofficial backstory makes it clear that the county is maliciously targeting IFC and Thompson because they warned the county to comply with the law. But the only way the court filing addresses the official defendants is this.

STATEMENT OF THE IOWA FIREARMS COALATION (sic) AND MR. THOMPSON
30. Monroe County, Iowa has been advised by the Iowa Firearms Coalition that if it continues to comply with a lawful Order of the Iowa Supreme Court, that it will impose this unfunded mandate upon Monroe County, Iowa or that Monroe County, Iowa will be liable for this unfunded mandate plus attorney fees and other costs allowed by HF 2502. Monroe County, Iowa denied Mr. Thompson’s request.

31. No personal judgement is sought against Mr. Thompson.

WTF? There’s no actionable claim. They only say that IFC warned them they should comply with the law. Thompson gets no mention beyond that he made an unspecified — in the filing — request. Neither IFC’s nor Thompson’s warning/request is included in the filing. So even this vague soeta-claim is unsupported.

Other than that, the whole thing is a claim against the state for an unfunded mandate imposed by HF 2502. But even that is bogus. There’s no mandated expenditure; all they have to do is not declare a gun-free zone. If they choose to do that, then they voluntarily accept the expense. It would like Joe Blow calling vehicle registration fees an unfunded mandate; it isn’t because no one has to pay it unless they choose to buy a car.

This reads like a case against the state, and some office intern accidentally listed the wrong defendants. And even then, the alleged unfunded mandate would have been imposed by the Chief Justice who issued the gun-free order. Including IFC and Thompson has no point — legally; unofficially, it looks like retaliation for protected speech — but to make them pay for the county’s suit against the state.

OK, smarter people; what have I missed?

Statement from IFC Chairman Michael Ware:

“You just stated what our attorneys did as well. We have no idea what has motivated this action, but we seek to correct the injustice.”

The case may be BS, but IFC still needs to defend itself. Good attorneys are not cheap. You can help support IFC HERE.

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ATF Newspeak

The ATF is reportedly working on redefining “firearm” to include unfinished “80%” frames and receivers. And I am getting really tired of this.

18 U.S. Code § 921(a)(3)
The term “firearm” means (A) any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive; (B) the frame or receiver of any such weapon; (C) any firearm muffler or firearm silencer; or (D) any destructive device. Such term does not include an antique firearm.

27 CFR § 478.1
Firearm frame or receiver. That part of a firearm which provides housing for the hammer, bolt or breechblock, and firing mechanism, and which is usually threaded at its forward portion to receive the barrel.

That definition is already causing judges to toss firearm possession cases, where the defendant possessed AR lowers, which the ATF willfully and dishonestly calls “firearms.”

True, that does provide housing for the trigger group and hammer. But note the lack of the rest of the firing mechanism, the firing pin. That goes in the upper, which is not considered a firearm. No does the lower house the bolt/breechblock. It doesn’t even have an attach point for the barrel. One characteristic out of four magically makes it a “firearm.”

Judges disagree.

The upper, though, houses the bolt/breechblock, the firing pin, and has the attach point for the barrel. Three out of four of the firearm characteristics doesn’t make it a firearm?

So the ATF already has a judicial problem with the current effing arbitrary redefinition. And now they want to — totally without any lawful authority — to expand it to include unfinished frames/receivers/lowers-to-be.

Lessee… no barrel attach point, no place to put a bolt/breechblock, no place to put the trigger group and hammer.

Try telling the judges, who don’t believe that a finished and assembled AR lower is a firearm, that this paper weight is. Try telling them that the ATF has the lawful authority to pull that redefinition out of its… lower cranial storage orifice.

Currently, even with our corrupted court system, I don’t think this change will survive a challenge. But if the ATF draws out the administrative process of rule-making then Bye-Biden Harris may be able to install a sufficient number of anti-constitutional judges to uphold it.

Alternatively, with the Dims holding both House and Senate (senate president Harris, you know), and the White House, they could do this this legislatively for once.

Either way, I look forward to seeing how they define these “unfinished firearms.”

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The right to bear arms

..is not a right to bear arms in the Ninth Circuit

US Appeals court rules Americans don’t have right to open carry guns in public
On Wednesday, an en banc panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that the second amendment right to keep and bear arms does not citizens include the right to carry a firearm, either openly or concealed, in public.

The case is Young v. Hawaii. Hawaii doesn’t alllow any carry without a permits in the state are “may-issue-if-if-the-applicant-is-connected-or-makes-a-big-enough-campaign-donation. Young was neither. While the ruling is outrageous, it’s also consistent with the Ninth’s previously displayed contempt for the Constitution in Peruta v. County of San Diego.

I “love” this part, too.

The en banc court rejected Young’s argument that HRS
§ 134-9 is invalid as a prior restraint because it vests chiefs of police with unbridled discretion to determine whether a permit is issued. Joining its sister circuits, the en banc court held that the prior restraint doctrine does not apply to Second Amendment challenges to firearm-licensing laws.

In a futile appeal to sanity, dissenting judges pointed out one or two little problems with the majority ruling.

Dissenting, Judge O’Scannlain, joined by Judges
Callahan, Ikuta, and R. Nelson, would hold that both HRS
§ 134-9 and the 1997 County regulation destroy the core right  to carry a gun for self-defense outside the home and are
unconstitutional under any level of scrutiny. Judge
O’Scannlain stated that the majority holds that while the
Second Amendment may guarantee the right to keep a
firearm for self-defense within one’s home, it provides no
right whatsoever to bear—i.e., to carry—that same firearm
for self-defense in any other place. In his view, the
majority’s decision undermines not only the Constitution’s
text, but also half a millennium of Anglo-American legal
history, the Supreme Court’s decisions in District of
Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), and McDonald v.
City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), and the foundational
principles of American popular sovereignty itself.

I expect we’ll see this appealed to SCOTUS, where it will left to languish, until months later when denied cert. The blanket denial of the right to bear arms, will be used to support the Dem’s tidal weave of victim disarmament legislation.

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ATF Recruiting Call

The ATF held a Zoom recruiting call, and one man had a very pertinent question for them.

“Am I required to not know the Second Amendment, or am I trained to ignore it?”

Silence. And finally an evasive nonanswer.

Frankly, that surprised me. The ATF has been called out for decades for existing to destroy the Second Amendment. I’d expect, by now, that they would a prepped response for that and the lines of Our work is always consistent with the Second Amendment as found by the courts.

But declining to address it at all tells me that the official position is that even lip service to the 2nd is not an ATF concern.

They aren’t even pretending any more.

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Feinstein’s Assault Weapons Ban Dropped

Bill text HERE.

As you’d expect, Feinstein’s “Assault Weapons Ban of 2021” is a mess. The only good not-quite-revolution-inducing part is that everything owned — “assault weapons” and normal capacity magazines (i.e.- more than ten rounds) is grandfathered; you can keep them.

Feinstein’s press release includes the usual drivel.

“Assault weapons are designed for a single purpose – to kill as many people as possible in as short an amount of time as possible.”

Really? Taking a quick look at her abomination, I see this.

‘‘(4) Paragraph (1) shall not apply to—
10 ‘‘(A) the importation for, manufacture for, sale
11 to, transfer to, or possession by the United States
12 or a department or agency of the United States or
13 a State or a department, agency, or political subdivi-
14 sion of a State, or a sale or transfer to or possession
15 by a qualified law enforcement officer employed by
16 the United States or a department or agency of the
17 United States or a State or a department, agency,
18 or political subdivision of a State, for purposes of
19 law enforcement (whether on or off duty), or a sale
20 or transfer to or possession by a campus law en-
21 forcement officer for purposes of law enforcement
22 (whether on or off duty);

So law enforcement needs the ability “to kill as many people as possible in as short an amount of time as possible”? I feel threatened.

I’m not going to fisk the bill line by line. If you can read this, you can read the bill. Anyone who lived through the ’94 AWB will find it fairly familiar, but updated for firearm models that are new since then, or more common. But the definitions are interesting.

‘(36) The term ‘semiautomatic assault weapon’
22 means any of the following, regardless of country of manu-
23 facture or caliber of ammunition accepted:

‘‘(A) A semiautomatic rifle that—
‘‘(i) has the capacity to utilize a magazine
that is not a fixed magazine; and
‘‘(ii) does have any 1 of the following:
2 ‘‘(I) A pistol grip

After a few pages of banned models, we encounter some more definitions, including “pistol grip.”

‘‘(45) The term ‘pistol grip’ means a grip, a thumb-
14 hole stock or Thordsen-type grip or stock, or any other
15 characteristic that can function as a grip
.

I’ll repeat that: any other characteristic that can function as a grip.

Looks like a Feinstein pistol grip, Elmer. Good thing I don’t see an external magazine.

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