Tag: gun control

New Colorado Law Makes It Far More Difficult to Buy Semi-Automatic Firearms

Enacting what gun-grabbers see as the next-best thing to an outright “assault weapon” ban, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday signed off on a law that will make it a much bigger hassle purchase many semiautomatic firearms.

The law, which will face immediate legal challenges from gun rights groups, also takes aim at bump stocks and binary triggers, while increasing the penalty for violating the state’s magazine restrictions. It’s set to take effect on August 1 of next year, with violators facing up to 120 days in jail, a fine, or both. Repeat offenders could be locked up for 18 months.  

“The bill enacts some of the most sweeping gun regulations ever considered in the Centennial State, even compared to the few dozen restrictions Colorado lawmakers have been stacking up over the last decade,” notes The Reload‘s Jake Fogleman. The law affects the purchase of so-called “assault rifles” — like AR-15s and AK-47s — as well as gas-operated pistols that use a detachable magazine. Recoil-operated handguns aren’t subject to the restrictions; the bill’s advocates say 90% of the pistol market won’t be affected. Examples of affected gas-operated handguns include the Desert Eagle, Walther PPK, Sig Sauer MPX Copperhead and Smith & Wesson MP 5.7. 

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FBI Weaponizes Background Checks To Enforce California Gun Ban

When you go to a gun store to buy a new gun, you can expect a few things to happen.  First, some paperwork.  Second, you can expect to have to pass a background check before leaving with your gun.  And third, you can expect that the gun store will keep a record of your purchase for as long as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (“ATF”) requires.  After all, that is how the government traces crime guns back to their original purchasers.

But what you might not expect is an FBI agent receiving a ping that you – yes, you – just successfully bought a gun.  And you might be surprised to learn that this agent has been receiving notifications of your purchases for months – or years.

Of course, such a surveillance scheme would be flatly unconstitutional – not to mention a violation of several safeguards already codified in federal law.  Yet slowly but surely, the government has been building a record of the private collections of thousands of American citizens, even though federal law expressly prohibits that “any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or dispositions” be established.

Of course, even though they are being monitored, these victims remain law-abiding, meaning the government has no probable cause to justify seeking a warrant authorizing such a search in the first place.

Now, Gun Owners of America has discovered that the FBI has been using its Second Amendment surveillance program not only to enforce federal law, but also to help California target owners of newly banned “assault weapons.”

FBI’s NICS Monitoring Scheme

When news first broke of the FBI and ATF’s joint “NICS Monitoring” surveillance scheme, the public was shocked.  As journalist John Crump reported in April of 2021, “monitoring of NICS isn’t for prohibited people,” but rather those who are eligible to purchase firearms but who law enforcement agents nevertheless suspect might commit a crime.

GOA learned that targets of NICS Monitoring – which exploits records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (“NICS”) before they are deleted within 24 hours – never receive notice that their firearm transactions are being monitored.  Thus, there is no way to challenge the FBI’s surveillance.

In fact, in order to enroll a target for NICS Monitoring, an agent only needs to complete an internal request form. At no point does an agent seeking NICS Monitoring have to convince a judge (or anyone other than himself, really) that this surveillance comports with the Fourth Amendment.  Entirely usurpingly, then, the FBI’s abuse of NICS Monitoring is rampant.

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Rep. Masssie Pushes For Nationwide Right To Carry Firearms Without Permit

Earlier this week, the House Judiciary Committee passed a bill HR 38, a bill that allows licensed concealed firearm holders to carry in other states that allow concealed carry. 

However, for Rep. Thomas Massie, R-KY, this bill does not go far enough. On X, he said “ I support this bill, but there is a better option, and it is National Constitutional Carry.” 

He added, “29 states already have Constitutional (i.e. permitless) Carry. Why not extend it to all 50 states?” 

Constitutional carry is the simple concept that any lawful individual can carry a firearm without having to ask the government for permission.

Under HR 38, Massie noted that residents of constitutional carry states can carry firearms in any state that issues permits to its citizens. The recent Bruen Supreme Court decision requires all non-constitutional carry states to issue carry permits.

Massie highlighted how when HR 38 passes, residents of the 29 constitutional carry states will be able to carry in all 50 states without a permit. Though paradoxically, residents of the 21 states without constitutional carry will need permits in their own states, while visitors from constitutional carry states won’t.

In the Kentucky congressman’s view, if Congress can mandate California to allow permit-less carry for out-of-state visitors based on the Second Amendment, it only makes sense to extend this right to California residents as well. 

Massie posed the following question: “Why not pass national constitutional carry and afford everyone in the United States the right to ‘bear arms’ which is enshrined in the Constitution?”

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Pam Bondi Aims To Revive a Moribund Legal Process for Restoring Gun Rights

Although President Donald Trump has been entrusted with control of the nation’s vast military might, including its nuclear weapons, he is not allowed to own a gun. He lost that right as a result of 34 state felony convictions involving falsification of business records. Whatever you think of the legally dubious case underlying those convictions, this situation makes no sense as a matter of public safety. It epitomizes the absurdly broad criteria that bar Americans from possessing firearms under federal law.

Attorney General Pam Bondi recently took an important step toward addressing the unjust, constitutionally dubious burdens imposed by that policy. An interim final rule that took effect last week aims to revive the moribund legal process for restoring the Second Amendment rights of “prohibited persons” who pose no threat to public safety. The rule rescinds the delegation of that process to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), which Congress has long prohibited from accepting applications for relief.

“For decades, law-abiding Americans who have had their gun rights unfairly restricted have been left in legal limbo—creating an unconstitutional de facto lifetime gun ban,” says Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America. “This bureaucratic failure has denied thousands of individuals their lawful opportunity to restore their rights. The [Justice Department’s] decision to finally withdraw ATF’s authority in this matter is an encouraging sign that this administration is serious about protecting the Second Amendment for all Americans.” 

Under 18 USC 922(g), prohibited persons include anyone who has been convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year of incarceration, regardless of the sentence that was actually imposed, whether or not the offense involved violence, and no matter how long ago it happened. This is the provision that forced Trump to give up his guns, even though his offenses were nonviolent and did not result in any formal punishment. The law also prohibits gun possession by anyone who has ever been subjected to involuntary psychiatric treatment, even if he was never deemed a threat to others.

Anyone who defies these bans is committing a federal felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. He could face additional penalties for lying on the federal form that must be completed to buy a gun from a federally licensed dealer, which can be construed as two distinct felonies under 18 USC 922(a)(6) and 18 USC 924 (a)(1)(A), and for “trafficking in firearms,” which Congress has counterintuitively defined to include prohibited persons who obtain guns. All told, a prohibited person who dares to exercise his Second Amendment rights could face combined maximum sentences of nearly half a century.

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Unhinged Tennessee Democrat Lunges at GOP Colleague After Gun Control Bill Fails

Chaos erupted in a Tennessee House Criminal Justice Subcommittee meeting Wednesday when far-left State Representative Justin J. Pearson (D-Memphis) lunged at a Republican colleague in a fit of rage, hurling insults and pointing fingers—literally—after his anti-gun bill went down in flames.

The showdown started when Pearson pushed his latest gun-grabbing scheme, HB 1392, a bill that would’ve gutted Tennessee’s permitless carry law—a hard-won victory for Second Amendment patriots.

Under current law, law-abiding Tennesseans can carry firearms without jumping through bureaucratic hoops, a right Pearson wanted to strip away.

Thankfully, the committee saw through the nonsense and crushed the bill in a 7-2 vote, according to NBC39.

“We have a responsibility to protect our kids and our communities,” Pearson whined from the podium, trotting out tired liberal talking points about “gun violence.” But when State Representative Andrew Farmer (R-Sevierville) dared to call him out, all hell broke loose.

Farmer said, “I know every member in this committee has been here this year, working, during committee, during session, voting on bills. And I know that you may have some things going on, but you have not. So, I don’t think it’s fair for you to come here before this committee and lecture us on hard work and convictions and hard work for our committee.

Farmer continued, “So, while I understand where you’re at and what you’re doing and why, but at the end of the day, we’ve been here working. We’ve been on the House floor voting on bills. We’ve taken the tough questions. We’ve taken the tough votes, and we’re doing so. So I just don’t think it’s fair for you to come in here and lecture this committee on hard work when we’ve been up here doing the hard work.”

That’s when Pearson lost it. Pearson said that Farmer’s remarks made him “very, very angry.” The Memphis Democrat then explained that he had been absent because his brother died by suicide last December.

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“Not Today, Satan!”: Ex-FBI Agent Finds Possible ATF Honeypot Website Operation Selling Glock Switches

Ex-FBI agent and federal whistleblower Kyle Seraphin has uncovered a fake Polymer80 website selling illegal Glock Switches (devices that convert pistols into machine guns), which he describes as a likely honeypot operation set up by the ATF. 

“Have you ever wanted to buy an illegal MACHINE Gun DIRECTLY from @ATFHQ ?” Seraphin wrote on X. 

If this is a honeypot operation run by the federal government—whether the ATF or another agency—its web developers should refine the website’s rough appearance; it looks rushed and clumsily mimics the now-defunct Polymer80 site. Notice how “Glock Switch” product is number one on the list, which tells you all you need to know about intentions here: entrapment.

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What Hunters Should Know About Colorado’s First-in-the-Nation Gun Ban

Colorado is poised to become the first state in the nation to ban entire categories of rifles, pistols, and shotguns based solely on their operating systems and without regard for cosmetic features like collapsible stocks or pistol grips.

However, recent amendments to the legislation have created loopholes that would make it easier for hunters to continue owning these now-banned types of firearms. These amendments earned the support of Governor Jared Polis and passed the state Senate on a narrow 19-15 vote.

Now, the bill heads to the state House of Representatives, where the Democrats supermajority all but assures the bill’s passage.

Sportsmen’s groups have decried the legislation as an attack on Second Amendment rights and warn it could impact conservation funding moving forward.

“Modern sporting rifles and semi-automatic shotguns are not only important to our hunting heritage but are highly popular in the recreational shooting community which is widely credited as the source of roughly 80% of conservation funding generated through the Pittman-Robertson Act,” said the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation. “This legislation would severely undermine our hunting heritage, firearm rights, and would negatively impact the American System of Conservation Funding.”

The bill’s supporters argue that the legislation is necessary to prevent mass shootings, and they refuse to characterize the bill as a “ban.”

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Mel Gibson Controversy Highlights a Bigger Scandal: Many Americans Lose Their Gun Rights for No Good Reason

Elizabeth Oyer, a former public defender who was appointed as the Justice Department’s pardon attorney in April 2022, says she was fired last Friday because she refused to sign off on a recommendation to restore Mel Gibson’s gun rights. The movie star and director, who supported Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election and was recently designated as one of the administration’s three “ambassadors” to Hollywood along with Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone, lost the right to own firearms because of a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction.

Oyer presents the episode as a conflict between public safety and political favoritism, and The New York Times framed the story the same way. But the incident also illustrates how difficult it is for people who have lost their Second Amendment rights as a result of criminal convictions—a category that includes the president himself—to regain those rights, even when there are no grounds to think they pose a threat to public safety.

In March 2011, Gibson pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge involving his girlfriend, and Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner sentenced him to 36 months of probation. Although Gibson’s deal with prosecutors allowed him to avoid jail time, his plea triggered an ancillary penalty under 18 USC 922(g)(9), which makes it a felony for anyone who “has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” to receive or possess a firearm. Another provision of the same law, Section 922(g)(1), sweeps more broadly, imposing the same lifelong disability on anyone who has been convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year of incarceration, no matter how long ago it was committed and whether or not it involved violence.

As Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett noted in an opinion she wrote as an appeals court judge, the constitutionality of the latter prohibition is doubtful. Barrett dissented from a 2019 decision in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit upheld the application of Section 922(g)(1) to a manufacturer of therapeutic shoes and footwear inserts who had pleaded guilty to mail fraud. History “demonstrates that legislatures have the power to prohibit dangerous people from possessing guns,” she wrote. “But that power extends only to people who are dangerous.”

The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen added heft to that argument by clarifying that gun control laws must be “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” when they impinge on conduct covered by the “plain text” of the Second Amendment. In 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled that Section 922(g)(1) failed that test as applied to Bryan Range, a Pennsylvania man who had pleaded guilty to food stamp fraud, a state misdemeanor that was notionally punishable by up to five years in prison. Based on similar reasoning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit last year overturned the Section 992(g)(1) conviction of Steven Duarte, a California man who had lost his gun rights because of a nonviolent criminal record.

Without such judicial intervention, “prohibited persons” like Range and Duarte have little recourse. Under 18 USC 925(c), they theoretically can ask the attorney general to restore their Second Amendment rights. The attorney general has the discretion to do that based on a determination that “the circumstances regarding the disability, and the applicant’s record and reputation, are such that the applicant will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety and that the granting of the relief would not be contrary to the public interest.” But that responsibility has been delegated to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), which Congress has barred from considering such applications.

“Although federal law provides a means for the relief of firearms disabilities,” the agency explains, “ATF’s annual appropriation since October 1992 has prohibited the expending of any funds to investigate or act upon applications for relief from federal firearms disabilities submitted by individuals. As long as this provision is included in current ATF appropriations, ATF cannot act upon applications for relief from federal firearms disabilities submitted by individuals.”

If the ATF cannot act on such applications, can people with disqualifying criminal records seek relief in federal court? No, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in the 2002 case United States v. Bean.

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Gun Owners Take DC Magazine Restrictions To Supreme Court

Gun owners in the nation’s capital are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the District of Columbia’s ban on magazines with more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

The petition in Hanson v. District of Columbia was docketed, or officially accepted for filing, by the court on Feb. 28. The respondent, the District of Columbia, was directed to file a response by March 31.

The district enacted the Firearms Registration Amendment Act of 2008 after the Supreme Court invalidated the city’s sweeping restrictions on gun ownership in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). In Heller, the nation’s highest court determined that individuals have a right to possess firearms for lawful purposes, including self-defense at home.

The statute made it a felony-level offense to have a magazine that could hold more than 10 rounds. A violation can result in a prison term of three years and a fine of $12,500. District officials say the law is needed to protect the public.

Lead petitioner Andrew Hanson and co-petitioners Tyler Yzaguirre, Nathan Chaney, and Eric Klun, who all have concealed carry pistol licenses in the District of Columbia, possessed magazines holding more than 10 rounds outside D.C. and said they would use their magazines for lawful purposes in the district if the 10-round limit did not apply.

Hanson argues in the petition that the district’s magazine cap is unconstitutional according to a test the Supreme Court articulated in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), which recognized a right to bear arms in public for self-defense.

Weeks after Bruen was decided, the petitioners sued the District of Columbia, asking for a declaration from a federal district court that the magazine cap ran afoul of the Second and Fifth Amendments.

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras issued an April 2023 decision that denied Hanson’s request to block the law on constitutional grounds. Contreras found that the local law adheres to the U.S. Constitution.

The judge found that the District’s ammo limitation, which was aimed at promoting public safety, was justified. The ban constituted “an attempt to mitigate the carnage of mass shootings in this country.”

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We Caught FBI Using “Minority Report Style” Secret Form Pressuring Gun Owners To Forfeit Their Rights

Gun Owners of America just caught the FBI coercing more people into giving up their Second Amendment rights!

Thanks to a FOIA request by GOA’s lawyers, we uncovered even more evidence on the FBI’s unconstitutional and unlawful NICS Indices program.

In 2019, it was discovered that the FBI was using a document titled “NICS Indices Self-Submission Form” that purported to allow American citizens to “voluntarily” waive their Second Amendment rights. 

By completing this FBI form, law-abiding Americans allegedly “consent” for the FBI to enter their names into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, marking them as permanently prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms or ammunition.  And as the form warns, once an individual waives their rights, it’s impossible to get them back.

Now, the mere existence of this form was troubling, and it clearly violates the Second Amendment and even the Gun Control Act. But at that point, we weren’t sure how extensively the FBI was using the form, if in fact it was being used at all.

Fast-forward a few years to 2022.

GOA published our initial findings that the FBI had provided these forms to agents for use on American gun owners, who were pressured into signing and therefore “voluntarily” relinquished their rights to purchase, possess, and use firearms.

These FOIA records painted a vivid picture of FBI agents showing up to people’s homes, place of work, etc., presenting to them these forms, and “asking” them to declare themselves to be a “danger” to themselves or others, or lacking the “mental capacity to adequately contract or manage” their lives.

You can imagine how coercive these sorts of FBI visits must have been.  The FBI’s use of this secret form has occurred during recent years when the bureau has become increasingly politicized and weaponized against Americans, including gun owners.

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