Category Archives: SCOTUS

Constitution, Courts, gun control, Law, SCOTUS

Good News From California

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But don’t get too excited yet.

Federal Judge Strikes Down California’s Decades-Old ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban: ‘No Historical Pedigree’
U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, a George W. Bush appointee, struck down the 1989 ban, enacted by the California legislature in response to the Stockton school shooting, which prohibits the transfer, manufacturing and possession of certain semiautomatic weapons. Benitez wrote that American tradition “is rich and deep in protecting a citizen’s enduring right to keep and bear common arms like rifles, shotguns, and pistols” and does not include firearm restrictions based on “looks or attributes.”

That’s our guy Benitez again. At least on 2A issues, he’s a constitutionalist, and he read and grasped BRUEN (something most of the Ninth Circuit Appeals haven’t managed).

The problem is that, as always, this case is going to keep bouncing back and forth to the Ninth for years, with endless stays of Benitez’s ruling. Unless and until SCOTUS starts issuing contempt of Supreme Court bench warrants for those who are willfully defying the Second Amendment and BRUEN.

But given that Chief Justice Roberts sided with the gun grabbers on the frame/receiver rule, don’t get too excited about warrants either.

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authoritarian swine, Courts, Law, Rights, SCOTUS

SCOTUS: Enforcement Or Irrelevance

Pigpen51 left a comment on an earlier column regarding the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals complicity in California’s brazen violations of the Constitution. He thinks the Supreme Court needs to make some rulings with absolutely no wiggle room to allow California — and like-minded oathbreakers — to continue enforcing bad laws.

I hope that they do so with, shall we say gusto, or extreme prejudice, or with a heavy gavel? Because if they leave even the smallest crack in the rebuke, no doubt the anti Constitution liberals will find a way to yet again hold things up

Crack? Taking advantage of a “crack” is what they did with the original Gun-Free School Zones” law. SCOTUS tossed it, so they passed a new bill virtually identical to the original, with “moved in interstate commerce” tacked on.

Mostly they don’t worry about cracks anymore. If a law gets tossed, they simply pass it again with the punctuation slightly altered, and declare that it’s new and SCOTUS hasn’t ruled on this one. That forces the pro-freedom types to waste time and money to fight what is essentially the exact same law. Blue state legislators and AGs don’t mind because it isn’t their money they’re wasting; it’s yours.

SCOTUS should have put a stop to that decades ago. Now, emboldened by SCOTUS’ failure to slap them down, they’re escalating. California just passed a couple more bills that clearly violate BRUEN. And they know it. Newsom said so, saying that they will not be bound by the “general, historical legal tradition” demanded by BRUEN.

“Newsom framed the move as a response to the “rights reduction” caused by gun laws that function under a “1790s framework,” a recording of the signing showed.”

And it wasn’t just Newscum saying it. It’s actually in the bill passed and signed. (It helps to read the “Whereas” rationalization preface to bills, and not just the hard action portions.)

No longer will they need to “keep kicking that can down the road.” If SCOTUS doesn’t start arresting these scumbags, they don’t need to “change the makeup of the court” that they’ll ignore anyway.

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Constitution, Courts, gun control, Law, SCOTUS

Ninth Circuit Judicial Games

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No doubt you’ve heard that federal Judge Benitez once again ruled in Duncan v. Bonta that California’s ban on “high capacity” magazines is unconstitutional; particularly in light of SCOTUS’ BRUEN decision. He stayed his injunction until October 2, to allow the state time to file yet another appeal.

And once again the state did appeal to the Ninth Circuit. Which took the unusual action of taking the state’s “emergency” request for an administrative stay past October 2 en banc. Normally such requests for administrative stays is done by a three judge panel.

The en banc Ninth issued an administrative stay until October 10, 2023.

However, a couple of the Circuit judges wrote dissenting opinions, objecting to the Court gaming the system to delay or deny Second Amendment rights.

I found the dissents to be rather interesting.

Bumatay, J., dissenting:

For over a decade, our court has improperly interest-balanced our way around the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court has had enough of it. See N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. __, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022). In Bruen, the Supreme Court made clear that the Second Amendment must no longer be deemed a disfavored right.

With this clear direction from the Supreme Court, you might think that our court would return to regular order and handle this Second Amendment case like all others before our court. And in the normal course, emergency motions would be handled by a three-judge panel. But not here. Because this is a Second Amendment case, we now take the unprecedented step of taking an emergency motion as an en banc panel in the first instance. While our rules may leave room for such an unusual step, discretion and wisdom counsel against it. Indeed, to my knowledge, no en banc panel of this court has ever handled an emergency administrative stay motion as an initial matter. And the majority cites no precedent otherwise. So I’m left wondering why we rush to do something so unorthodox.

Judge VanDyke doesn’t wonder:

I share Judge Bumatay’s concerns about the irregularities created by this en banc panel’s all-too-predictable haste to again rule against the Second Amendment. Apparently, even summary reversal by the Supreme Court has not tempered the majority’s zeal to grab this case as a comeback, stay the district court’s decision, and make sure they—not the original three-judge panel—get to decide the emergency motion (and ultimately, the eventual merits questions) in favor of the government. I think it is clear enough to everyone that a majority of this en banc panel will relinquish control of this case only when it is pried from its cold, dead fingers. And I think it is clear enough to everyone why.

Excellent turnabout of the “cold, dead fingers” cliche, Your Honor. I laughed, which rarely happens when reading court decisions and dissents.

And yes, the reason is clear enough. The Ninth is determined to allow California to continue violating the 2A, and is play games with stays and appeals, and bumping cases back to lower courts instead of doing their SCOTUS-mandated job.

if the Ninth had to take this request en banc, what they properly should have done was say Stay denied. We already sent the state’s appeal back to the district for a final ruling in light of BRUEN. The district court granted a permanent injunction against the ban in light of BRUEN. The lower court’s stay is lifted, and the permanent injunction against enforcement is upheld.

And I’d bet good money that when the state’s actual appeal is filed, the Ninth will find an excuse to bounce the case back to the district again, rather than make a final decision so that either 1) the state concedes, or 2) the state finally appeals to the Supreme Court.

This sort of judicial lawfare is just going to continue until the Supreme Court finally takes notice of lower courts and other officials blowing off its decisions, and starts finding offenders in contempt and issues bench warrants.

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authoritarian swine, Constitution, gun control, Law, Rights, SCOTUS, Violence-Enabling Victim Disarmers

More Victim Disarmament In California

Governor Newsom signed a couple of more bills yesterday, as if Commifornia didn’t have enough laws.

SB 2 raises the age to purchase any firearm to 21 years, and increases areas where firearm possession is banned.

within any state or local public building or at any meeting required to be open to the public

Governor’s Mansion, or any other residence of the Governor, the residence of any other constitutional officer, or the residence of any Member of the Legislature. (The governor’s mansion? Perhaps Newscum realizes how unpopular he’s becoming.)

the grounds of the Governor’s Mansion or any other residence of the Governor, the residence of any other constitutional officer, or the residence of any Member of the Legislature.

any building, real property, or parking area under the control of an airport

a public transit facility

an area in, or on the grounds of, a public or private school providing instruction in kindergarten or grades 1 to 12, inclusive, or within a distance of 1,000 feet from the grounds of the public or private school.

They generously exempt “place of residence or place of business or on private property.” If you live in a school zone and want to take any firearm that could be concealed carried somewhere else, it must be unloaded and locked in a case and transported in a motor vehicle or locked in the trunk of the motor vehicle. That means if your sole means of transportation is foot or bike, you’re screwed. Same with public transit buses, unless the bus can pick you up directly on your private property, and drop you off on private property.

But just in case they might have missed an area, there’s 25850

A person is guilty of carrying a loaded firearm when the person carries a loaded firearm on the person or in a vehicle while in any public place or on any public street in an incorporated city, city and county, or in any public place or on any public street in a prohibited area of an unincorporated area of a county or city and county.

Streets, sidewalks, parks…

I’m sure all of California’s frustrated gangbangers are fretting over how this will impact their crime sprees.

But of you still want to buy a gun, and you’ve turned 21, prepare to shell out a lot more money. AB 28 adds a new 11% excise tax on firearms and ammunition. I expect ammo sellers in Nevada are pleased.

I’ll bet you’re thinking that these restrictions might run afoul of the BRUEN test of “general, historical legal tradition.” Newscum thought of that.

Newsom framed the move as a response to the “rights reduction” caused by gun laws that function under a “1790s framework,” a recording of the signing showed.

Yep, this was intended to out-right violate the BRUEN decision. Judge Benitez will have fun with this.

This column puts my personal contributions to The Zelman Partisans over 50% of all of our columns. I fear this makes TZP a little one-sided. Please, we welcome columns from other people. If you are interested in writing about 2A issues, particularly from a Jewish perspective, contact me.

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authoritarian swine, Constitution, gun control, Law, SCOTUS, self defense

Remember Grisham’s Excuse For Her NM Gun Ban?

Here’s an update on NM Dictator Grisham’s unconstitutional order banning public possession of firearms.

Recall that she cited three cases of children killed with guns as her excuse for raping the US and state constitutions. Two cases definitely were committed by people in unlawful possession of firearms, which made it unlikely that the perps would obey Gov. Stalin’s order; she later admitted that criminals wouldn’t obey.

More information on the third case is now available.

The suspects have been caught. The police say it was gang-related (duh), and a case of mistaken identity. The perps were after a man in a white truck, but shot the wrong white truck. One perp was already wanted on drug charges, so… prohibited person. The second perp was busted a week after the shooting when transporting 22 pounds of fentanyl. He had gang-type neck tats covered up with makeup; I’ll make a WAG that he was also already a prohibited person at the time of the shooting. Official charging docs should be available later today.

So every shooting that Gov. Stalin cited to rationalize her unconstitutional ban wouldn’t have been stopped by it. Because criminals don’t obey laws, much less tyrannical edicts.

The Biden administration is never going to charge Grisham for her 18 U.S. Code § 241 – Conspiracy against rights and 18 U.S. Code § 242 – Deprivation of rights under color of law violations. But just maybe, if Trump or another Republican somehow gets elected next year, he can be pressured into making the DOJ do the right thing.

Probably not.

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Constitution, Courts, gun control, Law, SCOTUS

Two-Tiered Justice?

Hunter Biden has been indicted for possessing a firearm while being a user of illegal drugs, and lying about it on the 4473. If the law is for everyone, I think it’s… ahem high time.

Technically, he was indicted for the 4473 lie previously, but was going to be allowed to completely skate on the charge, with pre-trial diversion. Some of us wondered, if his name wasn’t “Biden,” whether he would have faced more serious penalties. But this being 21st century America, Dimwitocrats have turned that around now.

Dem Rep. Goldman: ‘Two-Tiered Justice System’ Indicting Hunter for Seemingly Violating Gun Laws Because He’s a Biden
Goldman said, “Well, look, it is a crime that, in my ten years as a federal prosecutor I have never heard of being charged.

Really? Never? Not even just a few months ago?

Legal experts say the charges against Hunter Biden are rarely brought

Define rarely. These folks might be surprised to hear that. So would the ATF.

I found all those recent (post Hunter’s little possession adventure) cases in about two minutes with a single web search.

And, as states decriminalize majijuana use, that federal firearm prohibition is of concern to users, who seem to be a bit more aware of the issue than is Rep. Goldman.

However, given prosecutor Weiss’ eagerness to let Hunter Biden off, I wonder if he isn’t clued in a little better, legally speaking. Earlier this year, in US v. Harrison, a judge ruled this restriction on unlawful drug users’ possession of firearms to be unconstitutional, having applied the BRUEN precedent of general, historical legal tradition.

My guess is that Crackhunter will make that same argument, and Weiss will decline to challenge it. The possession charge, at least, goes away. Weiss declines to appeal. Hunter walks.

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authoritarian swine, Constitution, gun control, Law, Rights, SCOTUS, Violence-Enabling Victim Disarmers

NM: Governor Stalin Sending In The Thug Enforcers

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Well, assuming she can find any State Police officers stupid enough to sign those citations and serve them.

Gov’s office promises State Police will enforce gun ban
Even without that physical presence, the governor’s office intends to act.

“The order is being enforced, and citations will be forthcoming from the State Police,” said Caroline Sweeny, a spokesperson for Lujan Grisham’s office. ”To ensure officer safety, we will not be providing additional details at this time.”

Multiple people were live streaming the event in Old Town which turned into an open-mic lasting several hours for anyone in attendance, mostly armed with at least one weapon, to share feelings, concerns and possible threats in reaction to the order.

It appears Grisham expects the Staties to identifying “offenders” from video, and cite them for violating her unconstitutional diktat. Reportedly the Albuquerque police did have a surveillance “device” set up for the even, as they seemingly often do. But given the police chief’s opposition to the ban order, it seems doubtful that he’d assist them by providing video or still shots.

But several people live-streamed the event, so the governor may just pull that off the Internet. It wouldn’t surprise me if she tries geofencing the protest; but that leaves her with proving that a particular cell phone was carried by an armed person.

Next, she has to find someone willing to put his name on the citations, and open himself up to the expected 18 U.S. Code § 241 – Conspiracy against rights and 18 U.S. Code § 242 – Deprivation of rights under color of law.

Finally, she needs a bunch of Staties brave and stupid enough to serve the unconstitutional citations on armed citizens.18 U.S. Code § 241 and 18 U.S. Code § 242, again.

Will the State Police do this? While the Bernalillo sheriff, Albuquerque police chief, and district attorney were quick to weigh in negatively, I’ve seen nothing as yet from the State Police.

The State Police web site is notably devoid of any contact data other than a physical address and a post office box; no telephone numbers, email addresses, or contact form (other than a way to compliment them). I finally located a contact form for the Department of Public Safety, under which the SP falls.

I sent this a few minutes ago.

Good day,

I am a firearms policy and law analyst for The Zelman Partisans. I have a few questions regarding enforcement of Governor Grisham’s and Secretary Allen’s action in banning public possession of firearms.

Given that the Albuquerque police chief, Bernalillo County sheriff, and the Albuquerque district attorney have all announced that they will not enforce the unconstitutional edict, is the New Mexico State Police going to enforce it, as Grisham has claimed?

Has the State Police considered the Second Amendment implication in light of the BRUEN decision test of general, historical legal tradition?

Has the State Police consider the ramifications of the NM state constitution, Sections 4 and 6?

If the State Police choose to enforce this, what action will you take against any officers who refuse to participate and open themselves up to 18 U.S. Code § 241 – Conspiracy against rights and 18 U.S. Code § 242 – Deprivation of rights under color of law charges?

Given that at least three groups have already filed lawsuits (NAGR, GOA, and FPC, I believe), are you willing to be added to the lawsuits?

Are individual State Police officers willing to be added to the lawsuits?

Thank you for your time. I look forward to your replies.

I’ll update if I receive a useful reply.

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authoritarian swine, gun control, Law, SCOTUS

Tyranny In New Mexico

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, apparently enouraged by her success at tyrannical ChinCOVID rights-violating restrictions, is moving the tyranny goal posts a little closer.

She has totally “suspended” the right to publicly possess firearms in Albuquerque. Except for her uniformed thugs, naturally.

And the criminals who have already been carrying unlawfully. I suppose she “expects” them to obey her diktat when they blew off the law.

New Mexico governor issues emergency order to suspend open, concealed carry of guns in Albuquerque
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday issued an emergency public health order that suspends the open and permitted concealed carry of firearms in Albuquerque for 30 days in the midst of a spate of gun violence.

The Democratic governor said she is expecting legal challenges, but felt compelled to act in response to gun deaths, including the fatal shooting of an 11-year-old boy outside a minor league baseball stadium this week.

Damned right there will be legal challenges, and outright disobedience.

The order proper was issued by Patrick M. Allen, Secretary of of the NM Department of Health; under the claimed authority of Lujan Grisham’s previous executive orders. The governor did direct that the order be issued; “spurred” by three recent shooting deaths of children.

Let’s look at those cases.

A 13 year old girl was shot by a 14 year old boy, at his home, using his father’s gun. The “public health” order doesn’t ban possession of a firearm at one’s own home. And being 14, without adult supervision at the time, he was in unlawful possession of the firearm.

A 5 year old girl was killed in a drive-by shooting, by an underage suspect in unlawful possession (doubly so; an Albuquerque ordinance violation, too), and in a stolen car. I suspect this order would not have deterred him either, since the other laws didn’t.

The case of the 11 year old boy is less clear; the suspect has not yet been identified. But the circumstances prompt me to doubt that the shooter lawfully possessed the firearm: road rage shooting victim’s vehicle reportedly pulled in front of another car. That car did a U-turn and came back to let loose seventeen rounds at the victim’s car. I’m just waiting to see if this was a gangbanger, who we all know are prone to obeying laws and public health orders. (Yes, sarcasm.)

Clearly this unconstitutional order isn’t going to reduce crime, as they pretend.

And it violates the New Mexico constitution

Section 1. [Supreme law of the land.]
The state of New Mexico is an inseparable part of the federal union, and the constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land.

And what does the US Constitution have to say about this?

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

I think the guv is going to be hard pressed to find a BRUEN-style general, historical legal tradition for totally disarming private citizens outside of their own homes.

But back to the NM constitution. It has more to say on the subject.

Sec. 4. [Inherent rights.]
All persons are born equally free, and have certain natural, inherent and inalienable rights, among which are the rights of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and of seeking and obtaining safety and happiness.

Self defense is a little more likely when you have something with which to defend yourself; maybe something like…

Sec. 6. [Right to bear arms.]
No law shall abridge the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes, but nothing herein shall be held to permit the carrying of concealed weapons. No municipality or county shall regulate, in any way, an incident of the right to keep and bear arms.

That’s pretty clear. Even more so than the US Second Amendment.

Lujan Grisham and her jackbooted flunkies are violating the hell out of a right protected by the state and national constitution. Why, that sounds a lot like conspiring deprive citizens of rights. Specifically, 18 U.S. Code § 241 – Conspiracy against rights and 18 U.S. Code § 242 – Deprivation of rights under color of law

They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

If a single person, who otherwise would have been carrying a defensive firearm, is killed or raped because they were rendered helpless by this order, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Secretary Patrick M. Allen can be sentenced to death. They could be executed; and despite my tendency to oppose government-conducted death penalties, I would cheer.

And Fulton County, Georgia mass indictment-style every staffer and bureaucrat that Lujan Grisham and Allen talked to about this can join them.

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Action, authoritarian swine, Constitution, gun control, Law, SCOTUS

[UPDATE 2] “Engaged In The Business”

UPDATE: As always, it appears that the ATF screwed up the NPRM. The links I posted earlier now go to a error page.

We’re sorry, an error has occurred
A general error occurred while processing your request.

Now the correct URL is https://www.regulations.gov/document/ATF-2023-0002-0001. For now.

This change, as in the past, probably trashed all comments that had been submitted. So I’ll comment again. And very likely — based on the ATF’s history of NPRM errors — a third time. We’ll see.

Update 2: The new second docket, AT-2023-0002-0001, briefly went dead, but now appears again. It’s unknown if the comments we submitted were retained. We’ll submit comments again just in case. But…

A THIRD docket, ATF-2023-0002, is ALSO live.

Live, but empty at this time. If you look at the “Browse Documents” tab, it does link back to the intermitteently visible ATF-2023-0002-0001.

So as of 9/8/2023, 10:20 AM EDT, we’ve had

  • ATF_FRDOC_0001-0051 (dead)
  • ATF-2023-0002-0001 (sometimes there, sometimes not)
  • ATF-2023-0002 (empty, but links to ATF-2023-0002-0001; it may be a “home folder” for 2023 NPRMs)

This looks very much like someone is deliberately interfering with commenting.

Original post follows.

Of screwing Americans. The ATF is that. As usual.

More than a year ago, The Zelman Partisans warned that the so-called Bipartisan Safer Communities Act changed the definition of “engaged in the business” of selling firearms. And not in a good way.

No longer would you need to be selling enough guns to make a living. Just a single sale, if your intent is to make money, suffices to require a Federal Firearms License. There is no exception for sales to friends or family. There is no exception for sales to pay off medical bills.

The ATF has published their Notice Of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRM) instituting this change. There is a 90 day commenting period. I encourage you to comment and point out the idiocy of the ATF and Congress. TZP has done so. Feel free to use this as a basis for your own comments.

This proposed rule, essentially requiring any person, selling a single firearm to pay bills, to first obtain a Federal Firearms License (FFL), is blatantly unconstitutional. It also would not work as advertised, and would even be counter-productive.

Allow me to explain.

The proposed rule is in absolute, direct conflict with Supreme Court rulings in HELLER, MCDONALD, and especially BRUEN.

There is no general, historical tradition that has required private citizens making private, occasion sales — as opposed to deriving a significant, ongoing income from regular sales — to first obtain an FFL. That is not “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Never before has such a thing been required.

In fact, even the FFL itself fails BRUEN’s general, historical tradition test as no federal license for those actually engaged in the business was required until passage of the Federal Firearms Act of 1938 (FFA). America got along just fine without any such law for its first 162 years.

And while this unconstitutional action was directed by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, it would do nothing to make safer communities. Those dealing in black market and stolen firearms will simply ignore this rule; just as they have ignored the FFA for 85 years, and the Gun Control Act of 1968 for 55 years.

The only people who will be affected by this proposed rule are the honest folk, who would have to decide between following the criminals’ highly successful 85 year old example, or being compliant chumps.

Should a significant number of America’s 100+ million gun owners decide they need an FFL, just in case they might be in a car accident and need to sell their collections to cover medical expenses, the ATF will be swamped with Form 7 applications. The waiting time will rise from the current two month estimate to — potentially — years, leaving said bills unpaid and the victims of unchecked bureaucracy bankrupt. I strongly suspect the Supreme Court would find that such delays themselves are an unconstitutional infringement of the Second Amendment.

Allegedly, this proposed rule would have the effect of instituting universal background checks. I think someone failed to consider the effect of 18 U.S. Code § 922(t)(1). With a significant percentage of the gun-owning population being new FFL holders, they could happily transfer all the firearms they wish amongst themselves anyway; be it a previously-private sale, or a conventional purchase in a gun store.

The number of gun purchase background checks would DECREASE.

My personal comment added this line.

Please extract your craniums from your rectal orifice before it’s too late.

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authoritarian swine, Bump-Fire, Courts, gun control, Law, SCOTUS

Hoffman Tactical Super Safety vs. The ATF

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Hoffman Tactical has an interesting new design for an AR-pattern firearm part. It’s the Super Safety Active Trigger System.

Basically, it’s a 3D-printed crossbolt safety, instead of the familiar rotating lever. I actually kinda like crossbolt safeties, and might be interested in trying this on an AR just to see if I could get used to it (after forty plus years of M-16s and AR-pattern semiautos).

But that’s not really the truly fascinating part of the Super Safety; it’s the “active trigger system” aspect.

This might sound like a digression, but it isn’t. You may recall the Rare Breed Triggers FRT-15, the forced reset trigger loathed and banned by ATF determination. Pull the trigger, fire a round, and the bolt moving forward again actively forces the trigger to reset forward. If you maintain trigger pressure after firing (rather than manually releasing the trigger), you can immediately press the trigger, firing quite rapidly. It isn’t something I need, but for expensive range fun and certain specialized field situations, it could be handy. The ATF naturally –being the unconstitutional scumbags they are — immediately “determined” that the FRT-15, and other similar devices are machineguns. And, oops, manufactured after May 1986, so no forced reset devices for you. The ATF applied the same pseudo-logic from their bump stock ban, where they redefine “single operation of the trigger” to actually mean “single manual, volitional movement of the finger.”

That wasn’t a digression because Hoffman Tactical’s Super Safety has three switch positions: safe, ready… and right in the middle… forced reset. Yep, albeit with a different mechanism, it can accomplish the same trigger reset as the FRT-15.

You might be wondering why this isn’t covered by the same FRT-15 rule that the ATF used to go after Rare Breed Triggers and Wide-Open Triggers.

There is no such rule. The ATF used a mere “determination letter.” Tim, at Hoffman Tactical noted, “The ATF has not made a proper regulatory determination in regards to forced reset triggers. If that changes, then our intentions may be altered.”

To shut down the Super Safety, the ATF — using their current process — would need to obtain a Super Safety, inspect it, and determine that it specifically is a “machinegun.” Just like they did to Rare Breed.

At which point, Hoffman Tactical need only not 3D-print a Super Safety, leaving the ATF to redefine itself as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Explosives, and Computer Code. Which hasn’t gone well for the the feds in their fight with Defense Distributed over Ghost Gunner CNC mill computer code.

Or the ATF could just keep blasting out individual determination letters, like shot from a shotgun, every time someone clever comes up with yet another forced rest system. At which time, the innovators just generate yet another forced reset system (I’m thinking a modified bolt carrier group). Lather, rinse, repeat.

Alternatively, the ATF could promulgate another rule generally declaring any forced reset device to be a machinegun, and go after the smart folks automatically. For what it’s worth, I don’t think the ATF can legally make any such regulatory determination. That would require legislative action, not fiats from bureaucrats (FRT-15, unfinished frames/receivers, pistol braces, bump stocks, open-bolt semi-autos, etc). Thus far, the ATF has been relying on Chevron deference to get away with reinterpreting laws for its own benefit.

Right now, Chevron deference is in serious trouble. And several courts are noting that Chevron deference is only supposed to apply to civil law, not criminal law with criminal penalties. If LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO tosses deference, then a large swath of ATF rules will be ripe for toppling.

Would the ATF then simply go back to individual determination letters? (At least they might be too busy with paperwork to kick in doors and stomp kittens.)The fact is that even determination letters of the sort used for forced rest, bumpstocks, and pistol braces still rely on deference to allow them to redefine words.

Deference is on thin ice. It is used by courts to “defer” to bureaucrats in cases where the law is so vague that even the court can’t decide what the devil the lawmakers were trying to do; so they leave it up to the unelected bureaucrats. That’s lazy, and that’s wrong.

If a statute really is that vague, then it is unconstitutionally vague and must be voided. If the statute is clear, then the bureaucrats have no business “interpreting” it, to expand their power.

It’s a binary solution set: Either the law means exactly what it says, no more, no less; or the law is void for vagueness.

The ATF might find it a little harder to make “determinations” that your neat gadget violates an unconstitutional and voided law.

I wish Hoffman Tactical the best in the inevitable legal conflict with the ATF goons.

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