Notes from the Resistance
ATF Claims Solvent Traps Were Always Unregistered Silencers… The ATF says that end caps by themselves are suppressors, even if an end cap is the only part an end-user has. The ATF clearly believes that a silencer does not have to be complete or functional before the owner crosses the line. Just the mere possession of a single part can send a person to prison if the ATF decides to prosecute. [More]
And some may be surprised with what they mean by “part.”
The Fifth Circuit panel ruled that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Final Rule is illegal. Circuit Judge Kurt D. Englehardt wrote, “An agency cannot label conduct lawful one day and felonious the next—yet that is exactly what ATF accomplishes through its Final Rule. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED to the extent it holds unlawful the two challenged portions of the Final Rule, and VACATED and REMANDED as to the remedy.” The case is known as VanDerStok v. Garland. [More]
A Justice Department that was true to the Constitution would be enforcing rights and punishing government transgressors.
“The Justice Department will do everything in its power to find and hold accountable the gun traffickers who are arming the cartels.” [More]
Good one! And they’re headline whoring for the same reasons.
Why does Sir Wilfrid’s cross-examination of Frau Helm come to mind…?
Did the ATF Just Make Airsoft Smoke Grenades Illegal? [More]
I’d read the notification and made the wrong assumption that this only applied to “government contractors and subcontractors performing explosives operations exclusively pursuant to a current and valid contract with a government agency,” but I guess that part just means they no longer have de facto exemptions.
Having zero experience with the Airsoft community, I wasn’t aware of that aspect.
[Via Jess]
The Supreme Court Should Not Let Bureaucrats Invent Crimes by Rewriting the Law – The Trump administration’s unilateral ban on bump stocks turned owners of those rifle accessories into felons. [More]
Let’s not forget the role Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox played in paving the way (and good luck finding their joint statement on the NRA website anymore).
Pointing all that out and more seems to make some people uncomfortable. One angry reader canceled his subscription over it.
You know the type.
[Via Michael G]
The US Department of Justice made a major concession involving whether licensing officials working for executive agencies may exercise “discretion” over CCW permits. [Watch]
That is big.
And using that rationale, I’d argue they can’t exercise executive “discretion” in “rulemaking” not backed by legislation, either.
Or in creating new classifications of “prohibited persons.”
[Via Jess]
BREAKING PISTOL BRACE INJUNCTION NATIONWIDE! This is NOT a drill!! Britto v. ATF [Watch]
The assumption here is that “in its entirety” means nationwide.
[Via Wirecutter]
ATF’s Leaked Pathetic Call With Former Sheriff. [Watch]
What’s the first rule of Rights Club?
[Via Jess]
Cargill v. Garland [More]
Whether a bump stock device is a “machinegun” as defined in 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b) because it is designed and intended for use in converting a rifle into a machinegun, i.e., into a weapon that fires “automatically more than one shot … by a single function of the trigger.”
Guess what that will determine.
ATF Director Calls for Universal Background Checks, Assault Weapons Ban at Harvard IOP Forum [More]
Then there’s this:
And then we scan them, right? But as far as I know, we are the only customer of Adobe Acrobat that actually pays extra money to have search capability taken out of that software.
I see some influencers treating this like a newly admitted database violation “Gotcha.” I must not be grokking something because this has been out there for years:
How can a database be “non-searchable”? Trick question: The system can’t really be considered a database. (There is a reason the ATF uses the phrase “data systems” instead). There is no ability to search the text of a file, and no effort is made to tag files with identifiers that could later be used to sort and search. “We compare it to an electronic card catalog system, where records are digitally imaged, but not optimized for character recognition,” ATF spokesman Corey Ray says.
Am I completely missing a point?
[Via William T]
He and many other dealers complain that ATF changed their definition of what constitutes a willful violation. The ATF now says that every gun dealer has been told to submit only proper paperwork, so any error – even clerical – constitutes a willful violation of ATF rules. [More]
There is no new thing under the sun.
The functionaries carrying this out must be pretty confident they’ll never be held personally accountable for their “willful violations.”
The intent here appears to be to once more blame “lax American gun laws” for Mexican cartel carnage and to assist in the deception… [More]
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Hunter Biden legal team may need to overhaul defense strategy in gun case [More]
That drives the timing on resurrecting one FOIA and pressing one complaint:
And point of order on that “second gun”– the (extremely NSFW!) Marco Polo report, at the top of page 282, claims:
“Five days after he illegally obtained a .38 caliber handgun, Hunter solicited a female to the Red Roof Plus+ in Newark. During the tryst, he posed with what he claimed was a black ‘airgun,’” [further identified in a footnote as a] “PT-80 Semi-Auto .177 Cal. CO2 Pellet Pistol 8 shot magazine from GAMO.”
No?
In any case, I’m interested in finding out if any report raised the question of Biden lying on the 4473 before this one.
[Via Dan Gifford]
“The flow of crime guns to those people. How are they being armed? Many of them are felons, people who the law says can’t have weapons yet there finding them anyway.” [More]
So the guy in charge admits what he’s doing isn’t working and his solution is to do more of it…?
And marvel at the way professional “Authorized Journalists” are not only subject matter ignorant but grade-schoolers with their stock-in-trade, the English language.
So much for the “tenants” of journalism…
[Via Jess]
ATF Employee Caught Gun Running to Mexico [More]
This is the topic I was thinking of writing up in detail.
I do have a quibble:
The Mexican Government makes the bold claim that 70% of all guns used in crimes were smuggled into Mexico from the United States.
That used to be the claim the antis all made, but they started at “95 to 100 percent.” Now the DSM is more properly qualifying things by saying:
Nearly 70% of TRACED [emphasis added] firearms used to commit crimes and seized in Mexico come from the United States, according to ATF.
So instead of being a flat-out lie, it’s now an insidious lie of omission, because they don’t then inform:
No specific numbers on how many of those guns “recovered in Mexico and traced back to the United States” were, in fact, military purchases, but the State Department cables indicate a portion of the fewer than 12 percent of the traceable weapons actually came from the United States in gun shop/individual type purchases. Remember, that’s not 12 percent of the tens of thousands of weapons recovered – it’s only 12 percent of the weapons recovered that were traceable. It’s nowhere near the 12 percent figure that has been misquoted and used as evidence of the United State’s “horrific” problem of illegal gun sales.
Now, tell us more about the drunks…
*Glock 22 40 caliber REVOLVER??
*Glock Model 27 45 (it is supposed to be a 40)
*Browning B799 (it should be a BT-99) 12 gaThis wouldn’t be a big deal, but…the ATF is shutting down gun dealers for minor paperwork errors… [More]
I came across this 2008 post while looking for something else. The original link to the spreadsheet is no more so I had to download one from the Wayback Machine.
