Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

This is an ugly picture.  The new nominee to head the ATF went on Chinese television (CGTN America) to shill for gun control in America.

.@JoeBiden introduces his gun plan:

"No amendment to the Constitution is absolute. You can't yell 'fire' in a crowded movie theater and call it freedom of speech. From the beginning, you couldn't own any weapon you wanted to own." pic.twitter.com/shOkaXmLqH

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) April 8, 2021

You see President fraudster, God grants rights and duties, not you, and not the constitution.

Politico.

Among the actions Biden will take will be to direct the Department of Justice to begin, within 30 days, the process of requiring buyers of so-called ghost guns — homemade or makeshift firearms that lack serial numbers — to undergo background checks and, within 60 days, regulating concealed assault-style firearms, according to the White House.

NPR.

Biden will announce that the Justice Department will pursue two new regulations: one to curb the proliferation of so-called ghost guns, weapons that lack serial numbers and, in some cases, can be constructed at home; and a second that would regulate stabilizing braces, accessories that can be used to make pistols more like rifles.

The Politico article is muddled, perhaps the NPR article a little clearer.  I assume that the regulation will be that no lower receivers can be sold without being serialized, regardless of the stage of completeness.  Nothing is stated about what they might do about upper receivers, if anything.  How this might affect the sale of components and parts (trigger assemblies, springs, detents, BCGs, etc.) isn’t currently known.  Clearly, this is unlawful and unconstitutional.

The presumed second component of this appears to be that they wish to regulate the full assembly of pistol stabilizing braces – when installed on guns barrels shorter than 16″ – as an SBR.  Also quite clearly, this is unlawful and unconstitutional.  It also affects at least hundreds of thousands, and maybe millions, of gun owners.

I don’t expect compliance with any new regulations of this sort by gun owners, but the magic sauce is in what manufacturers must do.  But you already know that, and so do they.

Breitbart.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) 2018 National Vital Statistics show 37,455 people died from unintentional falls throughout the year.

The same CDC data shows unintentional firearm deaths for 2018 came in at 458, which means accidental death by falling was about 82 times more likely than accidental death via any kind of firearm.

The numbers become especially pertinent to today’s political climate when FBI Unified Crime Report figures are brought into the equation. The FBI figures look at the intentional, criminal use of firearms, and show a total of 297 deaths from rifles of any kind in 2018. This means accidental death by falling occurred 126 times more often than intentional death by a rifle of any kind in 2018.

Breitbart News reported other FBI figures for 2018 showing death by hammers and clubs far exceeded death by rifles of any kind as well. Whereas there were 297 deaths by rifle, 443 people were killed with hammers, clubs, or other “blunt objects.”

I’ve discussed the dangers of assault hammers before, and as an engineer I certainly know about fall protection and the dangers of a fall, engaging in safe practices when I’m elevated, including in a tree stand.

But if I engage in more safe practices than the average person, does that mean we should outlaw falls, maybe?  Or perhaps we should outlaw any activity that means placing your body more than 6′ off the ground?

For the children.  I don’t hear doctors complaining about falls, and yet I know they treat falls commonly in the ER of most hospitals.

Since they’re focused on rifles instead of falls, I can only conclude they don’t care about the children.

First up, I had failed to mention that David Codrea did a followup at Ammoland on the commentary Rob Pincus co-authored supporting universal background checks.

Second, Anthony Garcia, president of Save The Second, ostensibly a Rob Pincus organization, wrote a commentary at Ammoland defending Rob, or so it seems from his words.  He pleads for unity.

I am sure by now most of you have read Rob Pincu’s article. And if you haven’t read his co-authored article with Dan Gross and only the commentary about it then I would highly suggest you go read it and listen to his videos about it. Nearly all the attention that has been focused on the article has revolved around his discussion of background checks.

What this article has done is laid bare the state of the Second Amendment community. And this has shown us that there is a demonstrable lack of unity, far too much knee-jerk reactionism, and little to no focus placed on messaging and narrative. A portion of Rob’s article was related to those last two topics, narrative and messaging, yet no attention has been paid to them. Ironically, controlling the narrative is one of the few ways that we will win and something that everyone can play a part in. Let’s discuss these topics one at a time, beginning with unity.

Gun control extremists and proponents of citizen disarmament have shown us for decades why it is important to maintain a united front. They have maintained an appearance of unity through thick and thin, regardless of nearly any scandal that comes out against one of their own, and they have plenty of legislative and cultural victories to show for it.

We must stay on point with our messaging and not allow ourselves to be distracted by internal politics.

There, you have the gist of it.

But the problem is that a discussion about whether we are going to support a bill that effectively creates a national gun registry isn’t about internal politics.  We covered that in my response.  This commentary by Garcia reeks of a demand for agreement with Rob, with the tool of extortion being the appearance of lack of unity.

But the lack of unity wasn’t created by me, or most of my readers.  It was created by Rob.  One cannot simply defenestrate one of the core doctrines of liberty and then demand agreement with those who love liberty by simply appealing to unity.

This has been the trick of traitors, quislings and turncoats for millennia.  It has occurred that way in politics (witness the tide of collectivism in America over the past 150 years), the church (witness here the agreement of the mainline Presbyterian church [PCUAS] with the Auburn Affirmation in 1924, and in gun control (witness the push towards UBC, a renewed AWB, permitting schemes, etc.).  Many more thousands of examples could be given.

The example of the Auburn Affirmation should be telling.  It reads at the beginning, “An Affirmation
designed to safeguard the unity and liberty of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America Submitted for the consideration of its ministers and people.”  Unity, they said.  Unity means everything.

In that document, the ministers and elders of the PCUSA denied that the Scriptures are the word of God (they only “contain” the word of God), denied the deity of Christ, denied … They had the audacity to affirm that “The doctrine of inerrancy, intended to enhance the authority of the Scriptures, in fact impairs their supreme authority for faith and life, and weakens the testimony of the church to the power of God unto salvation through Jesus Christ.”  A bolder lie cannot be imagined.

Concerning the person and work of Jesus, they affirm that “we are united in believing that these are not the only theories allowed by the Scriptures and our standards as explanations of these facts and doctrines of our religion, and that all who hold to these facts and doctrines, whatever theories they may employ to explain them, are worthy of all confidence and fellowship.”

This all led to the separation of the PCA and OPC from the PCUSA.  And unity in politics has led to the separation of the people from the controllers.  And we must separate from Rob Pincus and anyone else who affirms that UBC must be approved.  Amos 3:3 rhetorically asks, “How can two walk together unless they be agreed?”

They can’t.  And we cannot walk with Rob Pincus, or Mr. Garcia for that matter.  Unity in error is no unity at all.  No, we can’t all just get along – not when core values are at stake.

Here is the last question: Is this the sort of commentary we should expect from Ammoland in the future?

Just The News.

A strong majority of U.S. voters in a new Just the News Daily Poll with Scott Rasmussen – including nearly half of Democratic voters surveyed – say they would prefer to live in communities where gun ownership is legal.

Sixty-three percent of voters said they would prefer to “live where individuals are allowed to own guns.” Just 26% said they would prefer to reside “where guns are outlawed.”

The remaining 12% was unsure.

Well that rather harshes the narrative, yes?  Remember that the vast majority of people believe in the right of self defense.  Not that it should matter to you whether people recognize your God-given duty when it concerns your conduct, but it’s interesting to note that the constant barrage of narrative in support of gun control is just that – a barrage, sound and fury signifying nothing.

If people really believed what they say people believe, then they wouldn’t have to repeat it all the time.

TTAG.

The Supreme Court has denied the cert petition of the New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal in Defense Distributed v. Grewal. In that case, Defense Distributed had sued Grewal for his efforts to restrain (and threats to prosecute) Defense Distributed’s distribution of various 3D print files for firearms and accessories.

The district court granted Grewal’s motion to dismiss, finding that his sending a threatening letter to Defense Distributed in Texas was insufficient to justify jurisdiction over him in a Texas federal court. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, however, disagreed.

As a result, AG Grewal will now have to justify his posturing, threats, and interference with Defense Distributed’s business in a Texas federal court…in a circuit that has already made it clear that it believes that governmental efforts to restrict Defense Distributed’s distribution of 3D files have very serious if not fatal First Amendment implications.

It’s ridiculous that anyone would think you could stop this signal now anyway.  This is intellectual material, plans, specifications, drawings.

But it’s very nice, I admit, that the arrogant, pompous, conceited, self-righteous collectivists and controllers in New Jersey and their awful AG have to try this case in a hostile venue.

Good.

GOA.

Springfield, VA – Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the district court’s decision, which had denied GOA’s motion for a preliminary injunction on bump stocks. Gun Owners of America is seeking an injunction to prevent ATF from implementing a final rule incorrectly classifying bump stocks as machineguns under federal law.

This case was brought by Gun Owners of America (GOA), Gun Owners Foundation (GOF), the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL), Matt Watkins, Tim Harmsen of the Military Arms Channel, and GOA’s Texas Director, Rachel Malone.

Dave Hardy has additional details.

“Notwithstanding the ATF’s frequent reversals on major policy issues, we understand that the Court would consider the bureaucrats at the ATF as experts in firearms technology. But that technical knowledge is inapposite to the question of what should be criminally punished and what should not.”

“Consistent with our precedent and mandated by separation-of-powers and fair-notice concerns, we hold that an administering agency’s interpretation of a criminal statute is not entitled to Chevron deference. Consequently, the district court erred by finding that the ATF’s Final Rule, which interpreted the meaning of a machine gun as defined in 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b), was entitled to Chevron deference. And because we find that “single function of the trigger” refers to the mechanical process of the trigger, we further hold that a bump stock cannot be classified as a machine gun because a bump stock does not enable a semiautomatic firearm to fire more than one shot each time the trigger is pulled. Accordingly, we find that Plaintiffs-Appellants are likely to prevail on the merits and that that their motion for an injunction should have been granted.”

Here is the ruling.  Occasionally a court gets it right.  One may suppose that the DoJ/ATF knew the weakness of using executive orders to supplant federal law.  Any case that has hinged on ownership of a bump stock should now be appealed.