Archive for the 'BATFE' Category

Here are the precedents he cites.

Staples v United States.

Caetano v Massachusetts.

Concerning the last supreme court case, Mark is making the same remarks and observations we cited here.  Common use and dangerous and unusual are mutually exclusive.  Something can’t be dangerous and unusual if it’s in common use.

We should all dislike and disapprove of the Heller court including machine guns in the list of “dangerous and unusual” weapons.  I’ll repeat what I’ve said before concerning my youngest son’s experience in Fallujah.

After the city was barricaded off and locked down from the flow of insurgents through the main points of ingress and egress (and that includes terminating the flow of insurgents across the Euphrates River by deploying airborne assault with helicopter, of which my son took part), every family was allowed to own fully automatic AKs for home defense against the insurgents flowing in from Ramadi.

I ask my son if he ever felt danger from those weapons.  He gave me an unequivocal ‘no’ and stated that the danger came from insurgents, not men protecting their families, and he could always tell the difference.

Having said that, in this case the dangerous and unusual test may be our friend.  I suspect the ATF has written the very prose that will kill the pistol brace rule, and maybe other parts of the NFA if the supreme court is honest about this.

Prior:

Common Use Excludes Dangerous and Unusual

New ATF Brace Rule Forces Destruction of Imported Pistols

Gun Owners of American Discovers Fatal Trap in Pistol Brace Rule

ATF: Byzantine, Arbitrary and Ridiculous Rules to Live By

The Hunting and Conservation Nexus of the National Firearms Act

A friend sends this along (“Dangerous and Unusual: How an Expanding National Firearms Act Will Spell its Own Demise”), written almost as if prescient concerning the ATF circus on braced weapons.

In what must have been an allusion to the NFA, the Court found support for this common-use formulation by recognizing the “historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.'”  Removing the double negative, the Heller rule provides that the Second Amendment protects weapons in “common use” and those “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” but not those that are traditionally thought to be “dangerous and unusual.” What could follow from this formulation is concerning – if the legislature or an executive agency can make a certain type of firearm sufficiently rare to the point that the citizens do not typically possess it for lawful purposes, the firearm presumably loses Second Amendment protection. Using this exception, the Heller Court carved the NFA out of its common-use formulation, granting deference to historical prohibitions and a presumption of constitutionality therefrom. In short, the prevailing [*288] understanding of 2008 was that weapons that are “dangerous and unusual” are antithetical to being in “common use” or even “typical,” at the very least. However, “dangerous and unusual” must be treated as a rebuttable presumption, as it is possible for weapons that once fell into this category to gain such popularity through legal acquisition so as to become quite typical – and indeed common.

I think it’s obvious that the ATF has an uphill battle in court.  Doubtless there will be some lower and appellate courts who side with the administrative state, but in the end, this will all have to be rectified at the supreme court.  If they are true to their previous rulings, this brace ruling will be overturned.

The case against the ATF is clear enough just from the Heller court.  After Bruen, it’s really difficult to imagine why the ATF would be doing this if it were not for political pressure (and the existence of crackpot nutcase Merrick Garland).

We’re beginning to see the effects of the pistol brace rule.  Per reddit/Firearms, this report.

Range USA is refusing to transfer a pistol with a brace. They stated it comes up as a class 3 item in the system when they file with the ATF, so taking off the brace will not make the firearm eligible for transfer.

They stated the rule was effective 1/13/23, but it’s not in the federal register as of this moment.

Since the rule isn’t in effect yet it’s not apparent to me why anyone is “filing anything with the ATF.”  This should be a routine transfer.

Nonetheless, assuming the veracity of this report, the ATF is already interfering with interstate commerce and having averse effects on businesses.  They are also managing to choke an entire industry and errect roadblocks to an entire category of weapons in America.

All by design, of course.

Following what appears to be a terrible flaw in the pistol brace rule that will entrap gun owners, this report comes to us concerning another consequence of what they’ve said.  What a terrible mess, all by design.

This lawyer makes another relevant and disturbing point.

Article 1, Section 9, paragraph 3 of the U.S. Constitution says this: “No Bill of Attainder or ex-post facto Law will be passed.”

I guess what the constitution says isn’t important anymore.

Apparently some LEOs don’t like it because their Ox is being gored.  It would be nice if they would step up based on principle rather than expedience.  So, go cry me a river unless until you step up and do the right thing regardless of the effect on you.

BLUF.  Your form has 88 days before it turns sour and gets automatically rejected.  In other words, it times out.  The ATF can’t complete approvals at their normal pace in < 88 days, much less with millions of gun owners submitting forms for SBRs.  When your forms time out, it creates enforcement action for the ATF since you now have an unapproved SBR, for which you have sent your name, pictures, address, SS # and virtually every other piece of identifying information. Read that again. ENFORCEMENT ACTION.

It’s a trap.

From a friend, these words, pages 22-23 on the ATF website.

“Because these types of firearms were never designed to be fired from one hand, this rule, as described in the NPRM, does not apply to firearms commonly referred to as pistol grip shotguns.29 86 FR at 30828–29. The 2014 classification described above and any classification that provides that a pistol grip shotgun is not an NFA firearm is no longer valid or authoritative as of [INSERT DATE OF PUBLICATION IN THE FEDERAL REGISTER], and the firearm should be resubmitted to FATD for evaluation.”

Do you own a Benelli M4 for home defense?  If so, you may be rolled into the ATF clown show they’ve created for themselves and you with their awful pistol brace release.

Or based on the caveats, they may be referring to bullpup shotguns, or AOW.  Who knows at this point?

Proverbs 30:21-23 come to mind.

This is relevant to the Pistol Brace rule.

The simple truth is that short rifles and short shotguns were never a problem, and continue to not be a problem today. The 1934 National Firearms Act originally wanted to restrict handgun ownership, and the clauses relating to SBRs and SBSs were simply to close the loophole of a person cutting down a rifle or shotgun to get around a handgun prohibition. That handgun (effective) prohibition was removed before the legislation was passed, but the SBR/SBS parts were left in. And thus for 89 years we have has the ridiculous legal situation in which a handgun is fine, a long gun is fine, but something in between is prohibitively regulated.

Read the rest.

The pistol brace ban started with Bumpstocks and then binary triggers. If this isn’t stopped now, all manner of features and accessories will be banned until you’re left with nothing but a flintlock. But if you read the ruling carefully, they’ll be banning all rifle stocks soon, starting with the standard six-position AR stock.

I’m sure you can find the link for it so I won’t provide it here.  As I’ve said before, I don’t own any pistol-braced weapons.  Nonetheless, I’m sure readers need to know this information.  Most readers already know, but if you don’t, you are the one who needs to hear these things.

Source.

A small Iowa town of 800 residents likely has no need for a police force armed with 90 machine guns to keep the peace.

That, at least, is the view of federal prosecutors, who on Wednesday announced the indictment of Adair Chief of Police Bradley Wendt on charges of making false statements to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to obtain numerous machine guns over a four-year period on behalf of the Adair Police Department, which during Wendt’s tenure has never had more than three officers.

Instead, according to prosecutors, weapons were resold for profit through Wendt’s private gun store or another store owned by a friend who also is facing charges.

According to court filings and a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Wendt used his position as police chief to obtain 10 machine guns for the official use of the police department, but later resold at least six of those weapons for “significant profit.”

In addition, Wendt obtained 13 guns for his Dennison- and Anita-based gun store, BW Outfitters, under the pretense they were to be used as demonstration models for potential future purchases by the department. Another 10 weapons were obtained in the same manner for Williams Contracting, a business Williams owned that is federally licensed as a firearms dealer.

Prosecutors say Wendt sought to purchase or demonstrate approximately 90 machine guns between July 2018 and August 2022. Some of the weapons were used for public machine gun shoots, where Wendt and Williams charged customers money to be able to fire the weapons.

The indictment describes the firearms as fully automatic weapons not legally available to the public, including an M60 machine gun, a belt-fed weapon widely used by the U.S. military since the Vietnam war that was purportedly obtained for official use by the Adair Police Department.

Wendt also sought repeatedly to obtain for the department a rotary M134 minigun capable of firing 50 rounds per second, usually mounted on military helicopters. The ATF denied the requested transfer.

“The Adair Police Department does not own a helicopter,” the indictment notes.

Wendt is charged with 18 counts of making a false statement to the ATF and one for unlawfully possessing a machine gun. Williams is charged with three counts of false statements and with aiding and abetting. Prosecutors are also seeking forfeiture of at least 35 machine guns involved in the case.

“Brad Wendt is charged with exploiting his position as chief of police to unlawfully obtain and sell guns for his own personal profit,” Eugene Kowel, a senior FBI agent based in Omaha, said in a statement. “The FBI is committed to working with our law enforcement partners to investigate and hold accountable those who violate their oath of office to enrich themselves.”

Well, that last part is a pregnant bit of prose, yes?

So no doubt he wanted to enrich himself.  He’s corrupt like so many other LEOs.  But if the FBI is so committed to hold those accountable who violate their oath of office, how about those ATF agents who violate the 2A?

For whatever reason, Matthew 7:3-5 comes to mind.

There is a solution to all of this, of course.  Undo the infringement of the NFA, GCA and Hughes Amendment.  Then no one will be able to enrich themselves this way by selling machine guns.