Archive for the 'BATFE' Category

This is an informative video.  For example, I was unaware of the need for placing additional information on the frame, and the follow-on need for retooling in the factories.

These folks never stop do they?  They’re pulling out all the stops.  Fortunately, GOA is ready to take the first shot at them.

I’m guessing our buddy Stephen Stamboulieh will be busy for a while on this.

BREAKING: Reports suggest @JoeBiden’s Backdoor Universal Background (Registration) Checks to be published soon.

Gun Owners of America will be filing a lawsuit to block this unconstitutional rule ASAP.

for details ⤵ pic.twitter.com/sxiAM3RaAw

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) August 1, 2023

That’s the good part.  The unfortunate part is that they remanded the case back to district court to determine the scope of relief (to whom this decision applies).

I do like Don Willett’s concurrence.  I’ve followed him for quite a while.  I wish he had been chosen for supreme court rather than Barrett.  Or Kavanaugh.

He finds some problems and dishonesty.

Americans have a God-given right to make machinery, including machinery that propels a projectile.

If you recall, a federal judge completely vacated the ATF’s frame and receiver rule, and after appeal to the Fifth Circuit to issue a stay on the judge’s decision, the Fifth Circuit told the ATF that they weren’t likely to prevail.  It’s a bit more complicated than that, because there were non-challenged provisions vacated along with the stupid main points of the frame and receiver rule.  But the ATF doesn’t care about that, and neither do the plaintiffs.

Well, the ATF got their panties in a wad over all of that and had a girl-fit, and they have sent this to the Supreme Court.

Here is their paperwork.  Most of it is laughable.  In fact, it’s so stupid that I’m not going to lift prose out of it.  You can read it for yourself.

Let’s rehearse this again.  What the ATF is saying is that they don’t want people to be able to do what the colonialists did back in the days before and preceding the war of independence.  That is, make their own machinery, if said machinery can propel a projectile.

The FedGov wants them all serialized, because guess why?

I’ve said it before.  I consider the entirety of the serialization schema to be immoral and unconstitutional.

Epoch Times.

Having failed to pass gun bans to curtail Americans’ purchases of firearms, the Biden administration appears now to be attempting to restrict the supply of guns, with a new “zero tolerance” policy at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) that has put nearly 2,000 gun sellers out of business in the past two years, according to one lawsuit. 

Starting in 2021, the ATF implemented an aggressive agenda in its inspections of Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs), in many cases permanently revoking licenses over what defendants say are minor clerical errors. 

“This is an end-around gun ban, because you start putting gun dealers out of business and now all of a sudden it’s very difficult for people to purchase firearms,” Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America (GOA), told The Epoch Times. GOA filed a lawsuit on July 11 against the Biden administration in response to the ATF’s zero-tolerance enforcement.

The GOA lawsuit is requesting that the courts issue an injunction to end the ATF’s zero tolerance policies and “declare that the [ATF] has acted unconstitutionally, arbitrarily, capriciously, and contrary to law, in the establishment of and/or application of standards for revocation of federal firearm licenses.”

According to the ATF, the agency revoked 88 FFL licenses in 2022, compared to five that were revoked in 2021. 

But a recent GOA court filing states that, “in addition to revocations, ATF has coerced and intimidated an ever increasing number of FFLs into ‘voluntarily’ ceasing operations. In fact, the number of FFLs who discontinued business following a compliance inspection increased from 96 in 2020 to 789 in 2021 (the year that ‘zero tolerance’ was adopted) to 1,037 in 2022, an overall increase of more than 1,000%.”

Here is the GOA lawsuit.  Our buddy Stephen Stamboulieh is involved in this.  Godspeed to Stephen.

Here is a video of a home FFL in Texas trying to fight the power.

Look folks, it doesn’t matter if you’re a manufacturer, distributor, store-front FFL or home FFL.  Certain things must be done to stay in business.  You must be error-free.  You must engage in the tools for reduction of human errors, STAR (stop, think, act and review), independent verification, self-check, etc., etc.  You cannot mark down the wrong serial number on a Form 4473.  This is the case not because it’s the moral or right thing to do.  I consider the entire schema of firearm serialization to be unconstitutional and immoral. Furthermore, those who enforce this unconstitutional and immoral practice are communists.

You must do it to stay in business.  Obtain help.  Hire another worker to check behind you.  Make it the sole responsibility of one of the workers to check the forms.  This is your livelihood.

By the way, the error rates from lowest to highest in industries is as follows. (1) Commercial Nuclear Power where tens of thousands of manipulations are performed each day, from opening or closing valves, turning pumps on or off, venting systems, calibrating transmitters, and so on, (2) The Airline Industry (whose error rate is higher than nuclear power, but still relatively low considering all of the flights and equipment manipulations every day), (3) the Pharmaceutical Industry (whose error rate is very high according to an executive with whom I talked), and finally, (4) The Medical Profession.  A Major Study by Harvard and Johns Hopkins found that over 800,000 Americans are killed/seriously injured every year due to medical errors and misdiagnoses.

But they want to shut down the FFLs.  You must be better than them.

You know what will be done about this illegality?

That’s right.  Nothing.

Source.

At summary judgment, the district court found that the two challenged provisions in the Rule exceeded the statutory jurisdiction and authority of the ATF and vacated the entire Rule per the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(C). The district court rejected a stay pending appeal but granted a seven-day administrative stay to allow the ATF to bring an emergency appeal.

Because the ATF has not demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on the merits, nor irreparable harm in the absence of a stay, we DENY the government’s request to stay the vacatur of the two challenged portions of the Rule. “[V]acatur . . . reestablish[es] the status quo ante,” Defense Distributed v. Platkin, 55 F.4th 486, 491 (5th Cir. 2022), which is the world before the Rule became effective. This effectively maintains, pending appeal, the status quo that existed for 54 years from 1968 to 2022.

The ATF is likely correct, however, that the vacatur was overbroad. The district court analyzed the legality of only two of the numerous provisions of the Rule, which contains an explicit severability clause. See 87 Fed. Reg. at 24730. Where a court holds specific portions of a rule unlawful, severance is preferred when doing so “will not impair the function of the [rule] as a whole, and there is no indication that the regulation would not have been passed but for its inclusion.” K Mart Corp. v. Cartier, Inc., 486 U.S. 281, 294 (1988); see also Sw. Elec. Power Co. v. EPA, 920 F.3d 999, 1033 (5th Cir. 2019) (vacating only challenged portions of a rule). Because the agency has shown a strong likelihood of success on its assertion that the vacatur of the several non-challenged parts of the Rule was overbroad, we STAY the vacatur, pending appeal, as to the non-challenged provisions.

We sua sponte EXPEDITE the appeal to the next available oral argument calendar. To allow time for additional proceedings as appropriate, this order is administratively STAYED for 10 days.

I’m not sure what all of this means, but according to the decision, throwing out the entirety of the new frame and receiver rule would have vacated several non-challenged provisions.

It’s good to see, however, that the Fifth Circuit doesn’t believe the ATF can win on the challenged provisions of the new rule.

When light is darkness and darkness is light.  And when your only goal is to illegally harass gun and ammo stores because you’re a communist.

Liberty Doll has the details along with some commentary.

Here is also a writeup of what happened.  What you heard about the SWAT team berating the man, a pastor, husband and teacher, a normal man by any account, is exactly what these people are like.  These people are not the exception, a few bad apples in an otherwise good bushel of apples.  No, they are all bad.  They want to violate your constitutional rights.  They live for it.  They are sociopathic criminals.

Imagine being employed by the ATF and being able to look at your wife and children when you get home and look yourself in the mirror at night and be able to fall asleep with no trouble.  Imagine having your conscience hardened and soul seared with hot coals to the degree these people have.  I hope this fate doesn’t befall anyone reading this.

As for ATF Special Agent Theodore Mongell sending several SWAT teams to knock on someone’s door, I know little girls with more courage than that.