Tag: gun control

“Were You Expecting Us?”: ATF Agents Go ‘Door To Door’ To Confiscate FRT-15 Triggers

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) under the Biden administration continues its ‘door-to-door’ operation to seize Rare Breed FRT-15 triggers from private citizens. The latest example comes days ago when ATF agents, noticeably armed and wearing ballistic plate carriers, showed up at a person’s home, demanding the surrender of the FRT-15 trigger.  

A man who claimed to be the owner of Moonlight Industries, a company specializing in making chest rigs for special forces operators, posted a video on Moonlight’s YouTube channel of two ATF agents visiting him at his home.

The conversation begins with the woman ATF agent saying, “Were you expecting us?”

The man responded, “Well, it doesn’t surprise me with a guy wearing a plate carrier showing up…” 

The woman ATF agent (who does most of the talking) said, “The reason why we’re here … that just recently, the ATF, classified the FRT as machine guns.” 

She said, “We are aware that you might have purchased some of these FRTs.” She admitted, “Like the whole agency is basically ‘reaching out’ to these purchasers, and we have to pick them up.” 

After all that, Moonlight’s owner responded, “Well, I won’t be answering any questions today … and I don’t have any comments on this subject … and I won’t be giving you anything.” 

In a split second, the male ATF agent asked Moonlight’s owner, “Are you refusing to give us the trigger?”

Moonlight’s owner said, “I’m not refusing to give anything. I just won’t be answering any questions.” 

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YouTuber Guilty For Selling ‘Metal Cards’ That DoJ Says Are “Machine Gun Conversion Devices” 

A Wisconsin gun dealer whose YouTube channel has 180,000 subscribers was convicted of “conspiring to transfer unregistered machine gun conversion devices” that were nothing more than metal bottle openers etched with patterns called “lightning links” that, when milled, can convert a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle into an automatic machine gun. 

Gun dealer Matthew Hoover, who operated the CRS Firearms channel, was found “guilty of conspiring to transfer unregistered machine gun conversion devices that they referred to as “Auto Key Cards,”” the Department of Justice wrote in a press release. He was convicted of four counts of transferring unregistered machine gun conversion devices and faces 45 years in jail. 

Also facing severe jail time is Kristopher Justinboyer Ervin. The DoJ said he was convicted “of seven counts of transferring unregistered machine gun conversion devices, three counts of possessing unregistered machine gun conversion devices, and one count of structuring cash transactions to avoid currency transaction reporting requirements.”

Ervin faces a maximum penalty of 110 years in federal prison. Sentencing for the two is scheduled for July 31. 

Hoover and Ervin sold lightning links, etched into metal cards, which he referred to as “Auto Key Cards,” from around $40 for one version to more than $180. Hoover touted the cards on his YouTube channel. 

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Louisville Bank Shooter Left Behind Manifesto Detailing 3 Reasons for Rampage: Report

It is now reported that Louisville bank shooter Connor Sturgeon left a disturbing manifesto outlining three key reasons for his killing spree that left five coworkers dead.

The 25-year-old wrote a 13-page screed describing his motives for gunning down his colleagues during their morning conference at the Old National Bank, “a massacre he captured on a deranged Instagram live stream,” the New York Post reported.

The murderer’s treatise reportedly lists three principle goals that served as motivation for the murder spree, addressed here in no particular order.

One was suicide. Sturgeon could easily have achieved this goal without killing anyone else, but he did reportedly list suicide as one of his three motives.

A second goal was to raise awareness regarding mental health issues in America. Sturgeon dealt with depression and anxiety and was taking medication.

A third goal communicated by Sturgeon was to demonstrate how easy it is to purchase a gun in Kentucky.

Observers have noted that Sturgeon was aware that he was about to be fired from the bank, but the veracity of that report is now disputed.

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Louisville shooter Connor Sturgeon reportedly detailed reasons for rampage in manifesto

Louisville bank shooter Connor Sturgeon apparently left a disturbing manifesto outlining three key reasons for his violent rampage that left five co-workers dead.

The 25-year-old commercial developer wrote a 13-page missive that detailed his motives for gunning down his colleagues during their morning conference at the Old National Bank last week, a massacre he captured on a deranged Instagram livestream, the Daily Mail reported.

Sturgeon reportedly hoped to showcase how easy it was to buy a gun in Kentucky and wanted to highlight the mental health crisis in America.

He also planned to end the slaughter by suicide — a wish that was granted when he was shot to death by police officers when he brandished his firearm.

Sturgeon’s manifesto is reportedly in the hands of the Louisville Police Department.

The agency would not confirm or deny any details of the alleged missive.

The mass shooter legally purchased his AR-15 assault rifle from a local gun dealership just six days before the rampage.

That gun is slated to be auctioned off thanks to state law allowing guns seized by the police to go to auction, including those used in violent crimes.

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Barack Obama Falsely Claims Guns Are Number One Killer of Children

On Monday evening, former President Barack Obama tweeted his response to the Nashville Christian school shooting by repeating the left’s false claim that guns are the number one killer of children.

On March 23, 2023, Breitbart News reported that actor Billy Porter made the same false claim, screaming that “the leading cause of death in children are guns” during an appearance on ABC’s The View.

Porter’s claim, which is now Obama’s claim as well, became a common one among leftists and non-fact-checking moderates in the summer of 2022 after a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was widely reported in late May that year.

FOX News ran a story titled “Guns now the leading cause of death for US children, per CDC.” The story noted that CDC figures show firearm-related deaths of people ages 0-19 totaled 4,368 in 2020, while motor vehicle deaths for the same age range totaled 4,036. And during a June 2, 2022, speech, President Joe Biden reacted to the CDC figures by claiming, “Guns are the number one killer of children.”

But Breitbart News dug into the CDC figures and ascertained that the only way to make the claim work is to count 18 and 19-year-olds as children. But if one does a custom search on the CDC website to adjust the category of children to include only those aged 0-17, only those below voting and military age, then the outcome completely flips.

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Mother of Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale shared several gun control posts on social media

The mother of the Nashville school shooter who killed six people — including three 9-year-olds — appeared to be a gun control activist who once urged friends on Facebook to sign a petition calling for keeping firearms out of schools.

“So important!” Norma Hale wrote in a March 8, 2018, Facebook post as she shared the petition to “Keep Guns Out of School” that appeared to be from the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation.

The webpage’s domain to the petition did not appear to exist anymore.

In another post from Feb. 21, 2018, Hale shared another petition from Sandy Hook Promise urging lawmakers to “Make Large-Capacity Gun Magazines Illegal.”

Hale’s adult child, Audrey Hale, carried out Monday’s horrific mass shooting at the Covenant School on Monday morning.

The 28-year-old, believed to be a former student at the small Christian school, was carrying at least two assault rifles and a handgun, police said.

In various other Facebook posts dating back several years, Norma Hale, who appeared to work at a Nashville-based church, the Village Chapel, as a coordinator, gushed over her two children for various achievements and milestones.

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The DOJ Says Forbidding Pot Users To Own Guns Is Like Telling People Not To Carry Guns When They’re Drunk

Every state prohibits driving while intoxicated, recognizing that alcohol use impairs the ability to safely operate a motor vehicle and increases the risk of potentially lethal accidents. Using a cellphone also impairs the ability to safely operate a motor vehicle and increases the risk of potentially lethal accidents. It therefore makes sense to prohibit cellphone users from owning cars.

That faulty syllogism bears more than a passing resemblance to the Biden administration’s defense of the federal law that makes it a felony for cannabis consumers to possess firearms. That law, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) argues in an appeal brief filed last week, is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”—the constitutional test established by the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. To make its case, the government cites laws passed in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries that prohibited people from carrying or firing guns while intoxicated, which it implausibly argues are analogous to the gun ban for marijuana users that Congress imposed in 1968.

The DOJ is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to uphold a 2022 decision in which Allen Winsor, a federal judge in Florida, dismissed a Second Amendment challenge to that gun ban by state-authorized medical marijuana patients. In the 10th Circuit, meanwhile, the Biden administration is appealing a contrary 2023 ruling by Patrick Wyrick, a federal judge in Oklahoma who concluded that the law, 18 USC 922(g)(3), is unconstitutional.

The government’s 11th Circuit brief wisely eschews the DOJ’s earlier reliance on what Wyrick called “ignominious historical restrictions” that disarmed slaves, Catholics, loyalists, and Native Americans. Those precedents, the government had argued, showed that legislators have the authority to withhold gun rights from any group they deem “untrustworthy.” But the DOJ is still arguing that “the people” protected by the Second Amendment are limited to “law-abiding, responsible citizens,” a category that it says does not include cannabis consumers or anyone else who breaks the law, no matter how trivial the offense.

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GOP Compromise Unintentionally Creates Universal Firearm Background Checks

Remember the Cornyn-Murphy Compromise that Gun Owners of America and our members warned Congress about? We were loud and clear about how this legislation did nothing to end mass public murders and only infringed on gun owners’ rights.

We attempted to warn elected officials. Nevertheless, Congress rushed to sign gun rights away, including 15 Republican Senators who enabled the passage of the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.”

Well, President Biden just announced that he’ll be using his “regulatory authority” to implement Universal Background Checks thanks to that bill.

When we told the anti-gunners in Congress how this bill was poison and would just add fuel to the fire for President Biden to go beyond what was written, compromise-hungry swamp monsters didn’t believe us.

Well, we hate to say, “I told you so,” but that’s exactly what happened. The Biden Administration, by their own admission, is going around Congress to infringe on your rights.

President Biden wants to use the expanded definition of “engaged in the business” to force you to file a background check for every single time you purchase a firearm.

According to the White House, the President is directing the Attorney General to move the U.S. as close to universal background checks as possible without additional legislation by supposedly clarifying the statutory definition of who is “engaged in the business” of dealing in firearms, as updated by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

It seems that Biden would rather harass law-abiding gun owners who sell as few as just one firearm per year than lock up the criminals who are responsible for gun violence.

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Feds used secret form to strip citizen of 2A rights as part of plea deal

Gabe Kaminsky of the Washington Examiner has been doing a great job of covering the scandalous use of a secret form used by the FBI and Secret Service that compelled individuals to “voluntarily” give up their right to keep and bear arms during the Obama and Trump administration. Thanks to Gun Owners of America’s invaluable work in uncovering these documents through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, we know that the form was used on at least 60 individuals, and now Kaminsky reports that in at least one case the form appeared to have been used as plea bargain bait.

The U.S. government conditioned a plea agreement with a defendant stipulating they sign a secret form, which was not authorized through Congress and has been slammed as “unconstitutional” by Republican lawmakers, that stripped their rights to buy, own, or use firearms, documents show.

Between 2011 and 2019, the FBI, Secret Service, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement coordinated to obtain signatures on an internal form from at least 60 U.S. citizens that stripped their gun rights, according to newly obtained records and multiple Washington Examiner reports. In at least one instance, the bureau and Secret Service worked behind closed doors with what appears to be a government prosecutor who conditioned signing of the form as part of a legal case, the Washington Examiner has learned.

“Dear Agent [redacted],” reads a June 10, 2019, letter written by a lawyer to a Secret Service agent in West Palm Beach, Florida. “You will find enclosed the NICS firearm form which has been signed by my client and his doctor. This is being provided in compliance with [redacted] plea agreement. Yours sincerely.”

It’s unclear what the 2019 defendant was being charged with or why the FBI and Secret Service had involvement. The FBI redacted the case number on the document, which was obtained by the firearms rights group Gun Owners of America through the Freedom of Information Act and shared with the Washington Examiner.

There are still some very basic questions about the form’s existence that have not been answered by the FBI or the Secret Service, including what agency developed the form and why it was put into use without any Congressional notification. Well, actually I think we know the answer to that last question. Given that there is no provision in federal law allowing someone to voluntarily give up their Second Amendment rights and prohibit themselves from passing a NICS check, there’s good reason why these agencies wanted to keep congressional watchdogs and the general public about the existence of these forms.

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‘All-Out War’: Biden’s Budget Would Balloon ATF Funding To Nearly $2 Billion, Up 50% From Obama Admin

President Joe Biden is seeking to beef up the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) budget to $1.9 billion in fiscal year 2024, a $663 million increase in funding compared to the end of the Obama administration’s fiscal year 2017 budget.

Under Biden’s proposed fiscal year 2024 budget, the ATF would receive $1.9 billion in federal funding, an increase of roughly 50% or $663 million compared to the end of the Obama administration’s fiscal year 2017 budget of $1.237 billion. Biden’s budget coincides with several gun control measures, including pistol stabilizer rules, ghost gun rules and a “zero tolerance” policy for gun dealers.

“Especially through the Department of Justice, and in particular with the ATF, this administration has declared all-out-war on the Second Amendment,” director of federal affairs for Second Amendment advocacy group Gun Owners of America (GOA), Aidan Johnston, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Whether it’s their demands for significant increases in funding for enforcement, by arbitrarily changing statutory definitions via executive fiat, or by implementing a zero tolerance policy to shutdown firearms dealers and expand an illegal gun registry, President Biden and his anti-gun cabal are doing everything they can to harass, discourage, and chip away at gun owners and the community as a whole.”

Biden’s fiscal year 2024 budget would provide additional funding to the ATF to further regulate the firearms industry, create gun trafficking strike forces, enforce background checks and implement the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, according to the budget. Alongside the DOJ and ATF, the FBI will receive $51 million to support the continued implementation of enhanced background checks required by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

If the proposed budget for fiscal year 2024 is passed, the ATF’s budget would increase by 35.7% or $500 million compared to the final year 2020 budget of $1.4 billion when Biden took office. Year over year, the budget would increase by $200 million, a 13.6% increase from the fiscal year 2023 budget.

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