How Adamiak received 20 years in prison for semi-auto Uzis and other legal guns, gun parts [More]
Who knew that “full might” also meant “full might not”?
Tag: Second Amendment Task Force
Holding GOA Accountable
President Trump is standing up for our rights. But the Department of Justice and Pam Bondi are BLOCKING his pro-2A agenda and ignoring orders from the top. This is an outright betrayal. Congress MUST hold accountability hearings NOW. Gun owners deserve answers. The DOJ and ATF cannot be allowed to defy the president and attack your freedoms. Tell your members of Congress: Investigate the DOJ’s betrayal of President Trump, gun owners, and the Constitution. Only you can force Congress to act. SIGN THE PRE-WRITTEN LETTER NOW [More]
One question: What has GOA done to promote and demand a Task Force seat to keep these kinds of abuses from happening before they do?
There’s all kinds of ways to make it happen and they could head off any need to have to run to Congress — which is prepared to do what, exactly?
It’s always better to keep the mess from happening in the first place instead of having to clean it up after it’s done untold damage. If they haven’t even tried, and this is their “solution”, I’m not sure I want to help.
You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet!
It’s all part of that bipolarity we’ve been talking about.
Fortunately, there’s a cure. We’ve even got the legal wrangles and alternatives figured out.
Except none of the rice bowl groups want to play. They say they have their own contacts, and apparently perceived exclusivity if their priority. Except that means things get done in secret with our rights that we may not agree with– as has happened before and will happen again — and the bipolar disappointments and flat-out reneging and betrayals will continue, the groups will continue to walk on eggshells so no administration feathers are ruffled, and popular 2A cheerleaders will convince a critical mass that it’s not only a good thing, but masterful 3D chess.
We Could Tell You But Then We’d Have to Kill You
In an interview, Gottlieb noted that the organization has “been obviously working very closely with the Trump Administration.” However, he stipulated that “we don’t like to get into details talking about who we’re working with and how we’re accomplishing it.” [More]
Why not? Those are our rights being talked about in the back room, and if we have no input, who knows what kind of “deal” will be worked out by our betters, and if we’ll find the cost/benefit trade-off acceptable?
No one is saying to lay out all details of the legal strategy so the enemy knows your battle plans, but existing briefs and arguments mean they’re already pretty much known anyway. And if the “gun lobby” doesn’t have political/legal goals announced and prioritized by now, then what the hell?
I call bull$#!+ on “Rest assured we know best” attitudes. My feel is this has more to do with walking on eggshells and being able to jockey for credit. But when you have a longer reach, and a louder voice, you can ignore solutions that don’t provide for that.
The Impossible Dream
More Ideas For Fixing 2A Task Force (Codrea) [More]
There’s one other idea that would bypass all the FACA restrictions: Form a PRIVATE 2A Working Group with reps from gun orgs, influencers,2A legal minds, etc., a Gun Confederation, if you will. They could “meet” once a quarter or so (Zoom? MS Teams?) and invite relevant experts and a DOJ rep to their sessions.
They could consult with members/followers and cooperatively come up with and prioritize workable ideas on legislation, lawsuits, rules, appointments, etc., and routinely update gun owners, representatives, and put the administration on notice with position papers on how to advance the agenda and their policy expectations.
How’s that for a pipe dream that none of them would touch with a 10-foot pole?
The Task at Hand
And likewise, I’m even more disappointed the various 2A groups haven’t pushed for one of the fixes legally available to make this 2A Task Force a great tool for our cause. This is a golden opportunity, which is being wasted… The midterms are coming fast. [More]
Concerns have been raised that a task force, by law, can’t include non-government members. Yes, and no. See the overviews I compiled.
Regular readers will recall that my initial suggestion was not for a task force, but for an Office of Second Amendment Protection to act as a counter to Biden’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention. I was disappointed that earlier Trump administration efforts, from the 2016 Second Amendment Coalition, co-chaired by Don Jr., and 2020’s Gun Owners for Trump, though promising to act as advisory panels (which can trigger Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) rules), they panned out to be voter election inducements that made no further announcements of agendas and progress made.
The Democrats did it differently. From March for Our Lives:
After four years of concerted pressure and advocacy from March For Our Lives youth activists, President Biden established the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention in September 2023…Led by our friends and fellow activists Greg Jackson, formerly the Executive Director of Community Action Justice Fund, Stefanie Feldman, and Rob Wilcox, and overseen by Vice President Kamala Harris, the office has already hit the ground running.
I added the links to the quote to show who these people are. Committed anti-gunners and Democrat apparatchiks all, with ties and loyalties to prohibitionist organizations, Biden appointed them, making them, in effect, government “workers.”
There is no reason the Trump administration could not have followed precedent.
Then there is the option of creating a FACA-compliant advisory committee to include a non-government panel of experts. True, it would have had to create public records and allow comments from all sides, but so does rule making, and in the end, the administration makes the rules. And as gun owners, we should WANT to know what the committee is up to and what is being presented to it so that we could provide the arguments needed. And they could solicit input from individual consultations with non-government experts. And those individuals could get plenty of input from gun owners.
The President and AG Bondi could have also opted to simply meet with Second Amendment advocates and other special interest groups to understand their positions, gather information, and build support for their policy agendas.
There are ways to do this. Keeping things close to the vest may have the benefit of secrecy until they’re ready to make a move, but it also has produced, on more than one occasion, bipolar moves that one day make gun owners manic with enthusiasm, and on the next depressed that DOJ lawyers or ATF functionaries could do something so contrary to the promises AG Bondi made in her April 8 all-hands memorandum pledging the DOJ to “use its full might to protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.”
Related UPDATE
The groups could get around restrictions altogether by going private.
Where There’s a Shill There’s a Way
How do you know they’re “active and effective”? I haven’t seen any press releases. If you have, can you please post a link? [More]
We don’t hear from them directly to see what they’ve discussed or sent up the ladder — or been told to send up the ladder — for consideration. What we see comes from the administration they report to and hardly gives us oversight.
So when follow-up queries to assertions like the 2A task Force is “Hard at work” are made, we get the same kind of non-response as I got when I asked for substantiation on how the FTC leads by example if their actions and statements don’t show us that they do.
That’s what we can expect when representation is excluded. If that doesn’t change, assume all that warm liquid isn’t rain. By not insisting on a seat at the table with regular feedback, the 2A groups are failing their members.
Now tell me just trust them and they can’t say anything because that would not be smart 3D chess to show what they’re up to. Don’t worry our pretty little heads about it. And send money.
My rights aren’t theirs to negotiate with, certainly not in secret, and a truism you just can’t get around no matter what excuses you come up with: We can’t have self-government without representation.
Paging Bondi’s 2A Task Force…
Feds insist Second Amendment doesn’t protect machine guns [More]
And try figuring this argument out:
Machine guns are atypical weapons not protected by the Second Amendment because a reasonable person would not expect them to be used in militia service, the federal government argued Wednesday before an appeals panel.
Right. The Founders obviously intended the citizenry to resist tyranny with inferior arms.
I assume these government lawyer aren’t retarded, so that makes them goddamn liars.
If machine guns aren’t protected, the Second Amendment is a dead letter and anyone who maintains otherwise is a fraud.
[Via Andy M]
Take a Number
Colorado Republicans Ask AG Bondi to Utilize New Second Amendment Enforcement Task Force to Investigate ‘2A Infringements’ Happening in the State [More]
That’s why we need “civilian” Task Force partners.
[Via bondmen]
From the People Running the ‘Second Amendment Task Force’
Government Opposes Compassionate Release of Gun Tuber Matthew Hoover For Terminal Medical Condition [More]
Read this. Let your blood boil. Then ask yourself why Pam Bondi, the ATF’s new supposedly “pro-gun” Chief Counsel, and that DOJ Civil Rights honcho we’ve been hearing such hopeful things about are going to allow this tyranny to continue.
Because they’ve been pulling this crap of modifying seized property into “illegality” for a long time. And again. And again.
And it’s not like they have legitmate delegated authority even if the items worked without forced engineering.
Task Force’s Exclusion of Gun Owner Advocates Means Continuing DOJ Disappointments
Gun rights leaders and legal scholars could be identified and nominated to analyze and prioritize bills, lawsuits, regulations, opportunities, and threats, to advise on judicial and other federal nominees, and to help educate the public. [More]
Leaving the people most affected out of the discussion means they’ll end up being told instead of asked. Or as one comment poster notes, “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”
Do or Do Not. There Is No ‘Try’
NAGR has come a long way since the early days of “controversy,” and is becoming a real voice for SNBIers, with whom I unapologetically identify.
[Via Jess]
Half a Loaf Better than None?
[More]
Gun rights leaders and legal scholars could be identified and nominated to analyze and prioritize bills, lawsuits, regulations, opportunities, and threats, to advise on judicial and other federal nominees, and to help educate the public. The Office would provide a way for the public to express their concerns and to offer ideas and suggestions, meaning gun owners would have a conduit.
[Via Antigone]
