Category: ATF

Without Further Comment

Once the comment period has ended, the ATF will consider the public comments before deciding whether to adopt the rule, modify it, or drop it. [More]

Y’know, I was nodding along with you right until this last line. Does anyone seriously believe the decision wasn’t made before the required rule was posted for comment?

The only reason I submitted one was to show my solidarity with those making their refusal to bow down a matter of record. That’s why I urge you to come and stand with us, regardless of the coordinated Astroturf campaign.

I just wish I could believe the poor showing from “our side” is because most consider it a useless effort and believe Bruen will save us, instead of what “experience hath shown” to generally be the case.

[Via Dan Gifford]

The Eye of the Beholder

The Case That Could Destroy the Government [More]

So essentially it’s the same principle as ATF having no lawful authority to effectively “legislate” bans…? In other words, this is a case that could force government back in its delegated powers chains — if the usurpers were inclined to obey such rulings, which they’d never do without a fight unless cowed into it.

But leave it to the government control cultists at The Atlantic to act like the “swarms of officers” are the injured party here…

[Via Dan Gifford]

It’s a Trap!

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.”

Slap Down

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.

What a novel idea that would be.

We’re the Only Ones Chronic and Habitual Enough

“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…?

Up in Smoke

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]

Where Credit is Due

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]

Unauthorized Means Unlawful

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]

Cert Granted

Cargill v. Garland [More]

Issue:

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.

Semantic Gymnastics?

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]

Willful Tyranny

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.”

Reports of Gun Smuggling to Mexico Recalls Fast and Furious Gunwalking Plot

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.

Back to Square One?

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]

So Much for ‘Crime Gun Intelligence’

“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]

Gunwalker 2.0

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…

Speaking of Zero Tolerance for FFL Errors…

*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 ga

This 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.

We’re the Only Ones Gunwalking Enough

A former investigator with the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) is accused of trafficking weapons to Mexico while he was an employee of the bureau in 2017, according to a letter sent to the ATF Director this week by US Senator Charles Grassley. [More]

Jeez, another letter…?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

I went to Grassley’s “News Releases” page and didn’t see the letter. I asked him for a copy:

Anybody have a link?

I started an AmmoLand article on this but then found another writer was working on it. I’ll wait for that one to see if there’s anything substantive I can add.

[Via gbob]

We’re the Only Ones Conspiring Enough

North Carolina and North Dakota Police Chiefs and Federal Firearms Licensees Indicted for Conspiracy to Illegally Acquire Machineguns and Other Firearms. [More]

Amidst all the outrage over Larry Vickers, let’s not forget we all have the right to such firearms the chiefs claimed for themselves but would arrest us for. I also find it difficult to comprehend how an FFL and recognized expert, versed in all the traps and pitfalls, could stumble into such a huge one himself.

[Via Jess]

The Same Except They’re Different

The argument that commercially available, AR-type firearms are somehow less dangerous or lethal simply because they fire only in semi-automatic mode is misleading. They retain the identical performance capabilities and characteristics (save full-automatic capability) as initially intended for use in combat. [More]

Oh, is that all? Spread that lie under oath!

Also from the linked Exhibit:

As mentioned previously in this report, many of the firearms prohibited by the Ordinances directly trace their origins to those developed for use in combat. As such, these firearms were never initially intended for general distribution or sale to the public.

Except if we’re talking ARs, and of course he is, guess which one came first:

“Colt sent a pilot model rifle (serial no. GX4968) to the BATF for civilian sale approval on Oct. 23, 1963. It was approved on Dec. 10, 1963, and sales of the ‘Model R6000 Colt AR-15 SP1 Sporter Rifle’ began on Jan 2, 1964,” one critic of the article contended. “The M16 wasn’t issued to infantry units until 1965 (as the XM16E1), wasn’t standardized as the M16A1 until 1967, and didn’t officially replace the M14 until 1969.”

Tell me this Yurgealitis trough feeder isn’t cognizant of Founding intent and is incentivized by those who fear that and obscure it through gaslighting.

And tangentially related:

As predicted, they’re taking full advantage of Scalia’s critical error.

In re later “Bowie knives” edicts and the like, does anyone have a record of such laws ever being challenged on Second Amendment grounds and such bans being upheld and/or appealed to a higher court?

Next Stop, the Christian Baker…

Iannicelli feels his second amendment right to bear arms has been violated by the Florence Gun Shop making him unable to complete his gun purchase. Iannicelli felt the shop denied his background check because of his personal business card that included a link to a website affiliated with Antifa. In addition, Iannicelli said a gun store should not be able decide whether or not to give a background check based on political affiliation. [More]

I’d be in trouble, too, because I’d do the same with Democrats.

I hope their lawyer makes the case that with increased ATF “scrutiny” aimed at revoking FFLs over minor paperwork glitches, the Presidential “Memorandum on Inadmissibility of Persons Affiliated with Antifa Based on Organized Criminal Activity” makes him fear processing a transfer without official guidance– and put the burden on reversing that and declaring Antifa members have an individual right to keep and bear arms on the Biden administration, Merrick Garland, Christopher Wray, and Steve Dettelbach.

[Via Jess]

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