Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

The current count is six pistol brace lawsuits.

Gun Owners of America

Second Amendment Foundation

Texas Public Policy Foundation, et. al.

Firearms Policy Coalition

Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, Veterans

Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition

Source.

More than 20 Republican-led states, along with gun rights groups and a disabled Army veteran, on Thursday sued the Biden administration over a new rule restricting sales of gun accessories known as pistol braces.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in North Dakota, the states said that the rule finalized earlier this year by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) was “arbitrary and capricious” and violated the right to bear arms under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.

This case is joined by the NRA.  I guess they arm twisted and pulled enough money out of Wayne’s account for buying suits to assist with the lawsuit.  I cannot locate a URL for the complaint.

Why on earth they’re targeting the state of ND I have no idea.  They’re not likely to be successful there, and the whole goal should be to drive this to the supreme court.  On the other hand, this might be the sacrificial lawsuit to do just that.

A much better chance comes from GOA, and the complaint can be found here.  Friend of TCJ, Stephen Stamboulieh, is responsible for this fine work.  It has been filed in Texas.

Source.

Coming on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling on New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, Massachusetts’ top law enforcement official Andrea Joy Campbell has taken action in court to protect laws intended to keep residents from experiencing gun violence.

Campbell, according to a release, filed the briefs in lawsuits pertaining to handgun safety regulations and a case taking opposition to a motion to block the state’s assault weapon and large-capacity magazines ban.

“Under my leadership, Massachusetts will continue to lead …

What she really means is continue to violate rights as given by God, enumerated in the constitution, and recognized by the supreme court.

This caused me to go read her court briefs for a bit.  I stumbled on this.

Further, the handgun must have a “safety device,” as defined by statute, that prevents the firing of the gun by an unauthorized user.

What exactly does that mean?

Such safety devices include, but are not limited to, “mechanical locks or devices designed to recognize and authorize, or otherwise allow the firearm to be discharged only by its owner or authorized user, by solenoid use-limitation devices, key activated or combination trigger or handle locks, radio frequency tags, automated fingerprint identification systems or voice recognition.” Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 140, § 131K.

Massachusetts must have passed smart gun laws while I was looking elsewhere.  What a cesspool of communist overreach.  If there are gun owners who still live in Massachusetts, I just have one question.  Why?

I reiterate my smart gun challenge – the one that has never been accepted by any gun controller.

“Perform a fault tree analysis of smart guns.  Use highly respected guidance like the NRC fault tree handbook.

Assess the reliability of one of my semi-automatic handguns as the first state point, and then add smart gun technology to it, and assess it again.  Compare the state points.  Then do that again with a revolver.  Be honest.  Assign a failure probability of greater than zero (0) to the smart technology, because you know that each additional electronic and mechanical component has a failure probability of greater than zero.

Get a PE to seal the work to demonstrate thorough and independent review.  If you can prove that so-called “smart guns” are as reliable as my guns, I’ll pour ketchup on my hard hat, eat it, and post video for everyone to see.  If you lose, you buy me the gun of my choice.  No one will take the challenge because you will lose that challenge.  I’ll win.  Case closed.  End of discussion.”

Any takers?

This is a massively confused rant from a massively confused politician, a very incoherent rant indeed.

She begins by asserting that her cop husband puts on a uniform each and every day to protect and serve, and then posing the rhetorical question she doesn’t very much like, “If the police don’t arrive in time, what is a person supposed to do?”

She then goes on to rehearse a crime in her neighborhood where children perished, saying that the police arrived within two minutes and that didn’t save the children’s lives.

You heard that right.  The police are there to “protect and serve.”  I would remark that they only protect and serve to the extent that they follow the constitution, but that as I have remarked so many times before, cases like Castle Rock v. Gonzalez, Warren v. D.C., and DeShaney v. Winnebago County prove without question or caveat that it’s not the job of police to protect anyone.

It’s your job to protect yourself and your family.  This politician demonstrates again why that must be the case.  Police cannot arrive in time to prevent crime from being committed.  The time frame is too compressed.

And then after asserting that it’s the job of police to protect, against evidence to the contrary, she then asserts that it can’t ultimately be successful.

She goes on with this incoherence.  “Why should anyone be allowed to have a higher caliber, more powerful weapon, than my husband …”

So according to her, (1) police are there to protect.  (2) Police can’t protect you, therefore:  (3) You shouldn’t be allowed to have weapons that match his (I suppose for example a .40S&W, .45ACP, or .44 Magnum, assuming he carries a 9mm like most cops do these days).

Those presuppositions don’t support the conclusion.  There is no coherent syllogism there.  There isn’t even an immediate inference.

I’m surprised that the Virginia House Democrats have left this video on Twitter.  It should be embarrassing to them.

Delegate @CandiMundonKing: “Why should anyone be allowed to have a higher caliber, more powerful weapon than my husband who goes out every day in uniform who has trained and served his community with pride for years?” pic.twitter.com/dnH8AHmJlj

— VA House Democrats (@VAHouseDems) January 27, 2023

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.

Source.

Just days after Illinois became the ninth U.S. state to ban assault rifles, the state already hit a roadblock to implementing the law: defiant sheriff’s offices.

At least 74 Illinois sheriff’s departments have publicly vowed to defy elements of a recent gun-control law signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, which banned assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and switches. The offices have vowed to not check if weapons are registered with the state or house individuals arrested only for not complying with the law.

As the number of uncooperative sheriff’s offices increased, Pritzker has made his own vow – to ensure those members of law enforcement who fail to “do their job… won’t be in their job.”

The Illinois Sheriffs’ Association issued a statement Wednesday expressing continued opposition to the law. Simultaneously, dozens of sheriff’s offices began to post nearly identical messages promising they would not check for compliance with the law or arrest offenders of the law.

Jim Kaitschuk, executive director of the Illinois Sheriffs’ Association, said he drafted the statement which sheriff’s offices began to sign or modify.

“Therefore, as the custodian of the jail and chief law enforcement official for DuPage County, that neither myself nor my office will be checking to ensure that lawful gun owners register their weapons with the State, nor will we be arresting or housing law abiding individuals that have been charged solely with non-compliance of this Act,” DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick wrote in a statement, which was mirrored by dozens of other offices.

With a population of over 920,000 residents, DuPage County is the largest county to defy the law.

ABC News was able to identify at least 59 sheriff’s offices that issued a nearly identical statement, the main identifiable difference between the statements being the letterhead and name of the county in the text of the statement.

In total, at least 74 offices said they plan to not use resources to enforce elements of the law, impacting nearly 4,000,000 Illinois residents, or over 30 percent of the state’s residents.

Other than DuPage county, the most populous counties in Illinois – Cook, Lake, and Will Counties – have not issued any statement opposing the law. The deadly 2022 Highland Park parade shooting took place in Lake County, which is enforcing the law. Most of the sheriff’s offices opposing the law reside in counties with less than 100,000 residents, though nine defiant counties have populations exceeding 100,000.

Kaitschuk said he disagreed with the idea that sheriffs have an obligation to check compliance with the law or house offenders in their jails.

“That is not a charge that is provided to us, or mandated to us in the bill that passed and was signed by the governor,” he said.

Many of the sheriffs defying the law have described their opposition to the law as akin to civil disobedience to protect the Second Amendment.

“We will not be enforcing it in this county; I will also not house anyone in my jail that has violated this act because we know it to be an unlawful act by the general assembly and the governor,” Jefferson County Sheriff Jeff Bullard Sr. said in an online video.

Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell, whose jurisdiction covers nearly 200,000 residents, signed a modified version of the statement. In an interview with ABC News, Campbell based his opposition to the law due to both adherence to the constitution and the ineffectiveness of the law.

“The law will have zero impact on the murder rate in the state of Illinois,” Campbell said.

Some offices took less defiant stances which include waiting for movement from the courts or legislative action.

“I understand that our nation had witnesses frequent tragedies involving gun violence and I am in no way attempting to minimize the impact these events have had,” St. Clair County Sheriff Richard Watson wrote in a statement, in which he said he opposed the law but did not promise to defy it.

When asked why he decided to not enforce the law rather than wait for action from the courts, Campbell returned his belief that the law is unconstitutional and will eventually be struck down.

Pritzker addressed the defiance, commenting that members of law enforcement who fail to enforce it might lose their job.

“The fact is that yes there are of course people who are trying to politically grandstand, who want to make a name for themselves by claiming that they will not comply,” he said. “But the reality is that the state police is responsible for enforcement, as are all law enforcement all across our state and they will in fact do their job or they won’t be in their job.”

Kaitschuk rebutted the idea that Pritzker has the authority to fire members of law enforcement, especially elected sheriffs.

“I’m just not aware of any provision that provides the governor that opportunity to do so,” he said.

I’m not aware of any such provision either, but I do have a question.  Who pays the salary of the county Sheriffs?  If it’s the county, they’re good to go.  If it’s the state, then someone else holds all the cards.

As we discussed earlier, these are the initial baby steps of nullification.  The wheat will get sorted from the chaff as things move forward.

The “wheat” of the Sheriff’s Departments must follow through on action to arrest any officer who enforces the law, or else the nullification will have no effect.

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.

At Forgotten Weapons

The Blyskawica (“LIghtning”) is an SMG developed in occupied Poland to be issued out to Home Army units during Operation Tempest; the liberation uprisings planned for the advance of the Red Army into Poland.

The gun was developed starting in September 1942 by two engineers, Wacław Zawrotny and Seweryn Wielanier. Both were smart and talented, but neither had previous experience in arms design. The design they created is both innovative in some areas and inferior in others as a result, with major inspiration coming form the Sten and the MP40. Production was undertaken in the harshest conditions of occupied Warsaw, where just possession of cutting tools required German military permission.* It is a credit to the skill and dedication of the Home Army team that some 750 Błyskawica guns were made; the largest mass production of any underground weapon that I am aware of.

More at the link. And here’s an interesting video of the underground development of this weapon. The weapon is examined in detail as well.

NYT.

The Biden administration is closing a major loophole in a new federal rule intended to regulate the sale of pistol parts that can readily be turned into untraceable homemade firearms, in an aggressive expansion of its crackdown on so-called ghost guns.

On Tuesday, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives directed vendors who sell partially finished frames of Glock-style handguns — the pistol grip and firing mechanism — to treat them like fully completed firearms, which are subject to federal regulations. The move, outlined in an open letter to federally licensed gun dealers, requires sellers to mark the parts with serial numbers, and for buyers to undergo criminal background checks.

The guidance could severely restrict the sale of unregulated and untraceable “80 percent” frames and receivers that have been linked to thousands of crimes, a top goal of the gun control movement. Such parts only require simple alterations to become operational.

The move, should it survive likely legal challenges from gun rights groups, would be among the most significant executive actions President Biden has taken to fulfill his campaign promise to stem the scourge of handgun violence, an effort highlighted by the passage of a bipartisan gun deal in June.

But federal officials told The New York Times earlier this month that the leadership of A.T.F. had done little to stop retailers from continuing to sell the unfinished, unregulated frames, outside of the kits.

A.T.F. officials said that they had been simply weighing various legal approaches before issuing their guidance on handguns. But they were also clearly under pressure to toughen the policy, and have spent the past few weeks working on the new guidance in conjunction with senior lawyers at the Justice Department and White House officials, according to three administration officials familiar with the situation.

Under the new guidance, vendors and manufacturers who fail to comply with the technical requirements outlined in the letter would face penalties ranging from the possible loss of their federal licenses to criminal prosecution.

Yet the move, which the Justice Department described as a clarification of the regulation, is not without risk. Because the rule was created through executive action, rather than a statute validated by Congress, it has given companies confidence that they can keep selling individual gun parts.

Administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss possible litigation, said the new guidance would almost certainly be challenged in federal court on the grounds that it violates the Gun Control Act of 1968, which allows people to build firearms for their personal use without submitting to background checks or applying serial numbers.

Isn’t it a hoot how, when a regulation, law, or lack of regulation or law, doesn’t do exactly what some controller – rulemaker wants it to do, it’s considered a “loophole?”

Biden is just doing what Trump did in his precedent-setting move to ban bump stocks by rulemaking rather than forcing the Congress to do their job.

Biden’s plan may in fact suffer from an even further weakness, i.e., it explicitly contradicts another law.

How sweet.  Queue up the popcorn – the court cases will prove to be numerous and amusing.

Details and Video.

Dr. John Lott Jr., president of the nonprofit Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), testified before the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security last week for a hearing dedicated to “Examining Uvalde: The Search for Bipartisan Solutions to Gun Violence.”

Dr. Lott delivered a lot of information but he began with three basic facts that everyone should know about gun-related violence in America.

The three facts are written in summary. The video is 30min with a lot of detail, but the fight for liberty is a long fight and requires we be armed with knowledge.