Tag: gun grabbers

ATF Agents Carrying Rifles Raid Oklahoma Gun Dealer’s Home, Confiscate Guns

As agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) left Russell Fincher’s house with 50 legally-owned firearms and his freshly relinquished Federal Firearms License (FFL), they offered him a tip.

“They said, ‘Tell all your FFL friends we’re coming for them next,’” Mr. Fincher told The Epoch Times.

An ATF spokesman said he could not comment on the June 16, 2023, raid at Mr. Fincher’s home in Tuskahoma, Oklahoma.

“We are not allowed to comment pertaining to ongoing investigations. I can assure you once we can discuss the case, you will be notified,” Ashley N. Stephens, resident Agent in Charge of the ATF’s Tulsa Field Office, wrote in an email to The Epoch Times.

According to Second Amendment advocacy groups, the raid indicates a coordinated effort by President Joe Biden’s administration to throttle legal gun sales to advance a gun control agenda.

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Law Profs Tout Qualified Immunity for Unconstitutional Gun Restrictions

Some ideas are so terrible that combining them into a cocktail of awfulness makes rotten sense. So it is with gun control and qualified immunity: Why not mix impunity for violating basic rights with denial of a specific right so as to maximize the harm? At least, that’s the inspiration that struck two law professors who propose qualified immunity for enforcing even overtly unconstitutional gun control measures. While the duo sees the idea as much as a means of weakening officials’ protections from liability as for promoting restrictions on private arms, it’s a dangerous innovation that could entrench authoritarianism.

“Gun regulation seems to have hit a legal brick wall,” complain Guha Krishnamurthi, associate professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, and Peter Salib, assistant professor at the University of Houston Law Center in Notre Dame Law Review Reflection. “In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, the Supreme Court threw out what had been the standard approach for applying the Second Amendment to gun laws.”

Krishnamurthi and Salib argue that Bruen impedes “regulatory innovation” and leaves lawmakers “shackled to the regulations of the distant past.” That’s an interesting way of regretting that government is bound to respect constitutional protections for individual rights. But the two legal thinkers have a fresh regulatory innovation to propose for bypassing such protections—or, at least, a fresh way of applying a controversial legal doctrine to achieve their desired ends.

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ATF Says a Quarter Million Guns Registered Under Pistol-Brace Ban

Only a fraction of the guns affected by the ATF’s new rule were registered with the agency during the four-month grace period that ended this week.

The ATF told The Reload on Friday it has received just over a quarter million applications to register pistol-brace-equipped firearms. Registering the affected guns was one path toward avoiding possible criminal punishment for possessing the guns under the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) after the agency implemented a rule reclassifying the firearms as subject to NFA restrictions. The ATF waived the tax requirement for registration to encourage owners to comply before the deadline.

“The final rule provided possessors of such firearms the option to comply with the registration requirements of the National Firearms Act through a tax-free process using either the ATF eForms System or a paper application process with a deadline for such applications of 11:59 PM (ET) on May 31, 2023,” Erik Longnecker, Deputy Chief of the ATF’s Public Affairs Division, told The Reload. “As of June 1, 2023, ATF received 255,162 applications for tax-free registration.”

That number represents just a fraction of the braced guns believed to have been sold in the decade since the ATF first classified a version as outside the scope of the NFA. In the impact assessment for the rule, the ATF estimated that three to seven million devices exist. However, the Congressional Research Service puts the number much higher at somewhere between 10 and 40 million.

That puts the registration rate for pistol-brace-equipped guns at between 0.6 percent and eight percent.

Longnecker noted that owners of the affected guns could also comply with the rule by either dismantling the firearms and destroying the braces or turning them over to the ATF. He said the agency does not know how many Americans may have taken those routes.

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Serbians Turned Over 13,500 Guns to Government. Now Their President is Threatening ‘Repressive Measures’.

Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic has threatened “repressive measures” to bring gun owners to heel amidst a so-called amnesty which has already seen around 13,500 weapons turned over to the state.

Vucic, who vowed to see through an “almost complete disarming” of the Serbian public after consecutive mass shootings killed 17 people at a school and a trio of villages on May 3rd and May 4th, warned of a crackdown once the amnesty ends in early June.

“After June 8th, the state will respond with repressive measures and punishments will be very strict,” the Serbian Progressive Party leader said.

“What does anyone need an automatic weapon for? Or all these guns?”

Gun ownership rates are high in Serbia – at least by European standards – given the Balkan country’s long history of partisan activity and ethnic and religious conflict. Many weapons are held “illegally,” since the country’s constitution enshrines no rights to bear arms like the United States.

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“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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MSNBC Talking Head Says “Guns Are Our New Moloch”

MSNBC’s Joy Reid ran a segment last week in the wake of the Nashville Christian School shooting by a transgender individual, during which a transgender activist and a leftist preacher blamed “White Christian nationalism” for the shooting, claimed that “guns are our new Moloch,” and that Americans having reservations or questions about transgenderism is “anti-Christ.”

There’s a lot to unpack here.

Reid’s guests were transgender activist Charlotte Clymer and Jim Wallis, a former ‘spiritual advisor’ to Barack Obama, and head of the Center for Faith and Justice at Georgetown.

Clymer claimed that “children are only unsafe at drag shows when a shooter shows up to kill them,” and then accused conservatives of “cynically weaponiz[ing] this and exploit[ing] these children’s deaths.”

Wallis proclaimed that “White Christian nationalism, which is behind all this, is literally a biblical heresy.” and then compared gun owners to the ancient God Moloch, the same one that is worshipped in the form of a creepy giant owl by the Bohemian Grove elites.

“There was an ancient God called Moloch. Leviticus talks about Moloch, who was a God that children were sacrificed to in flames. And the Bible is very tough on Moloch. Guns are our new Moloch. Guns are the Moloch. We’re sacrificing our children to Moloch, when we could do easy common sense things about guns,” Wallis declared.

He continued, “Politicians could do something, if they wanted to. What’s behind that is, they are worshiping a false God, and they are literally sacrificing all our children.”

Insane.

“This is anti-Gospel, anti-Christ,” Wallis asserted, urging “We have got to confront it theologically, and not just politically.”

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Guess what a left-wing Fox News personality said AR-15 stands for

Geraldo Rivera, a left-wing Fox News Channel personality, suggested on “The Five” that the “AR” in “AR-15” stands for “automatic rifle” — he gave the answer after Greg Gutfeld asked Rivera what “AR”stands for.

Rivera suggested that owning an AR-15 is about people being macho and claimed that there is not a legitimate purpose for owning one, aside from perhaps being used in sport clubs.

“Those most passionate about ‘gun control’ tend to know the least about guns,” the Daily Caller tweeted when sharing a clip of Rivera.

“Heard the Daily Caller and fellow travelers are ranting about my incorrect definition on-air of ‘AR’ as in AR-15. Whatever. Point is, there is no place (other than sporting clubs and similar skilled settings) for assault rifles. They’re substitute appendages,” Rivera tweeted.

NPR has indicated that the “AR” traces back to, ArmaLite, Inc. and stands for ArmaLite Rifle.

The modern AR-15-style weapons made by gun manufacturers are semi-automatic — the guns have become a significant point of societal debate, with opponents often referring to them as “assault weapons” and calling for them to be banned.

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New ATF rule on pistol stabilizing braces will effectively ban millions of rifles

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives released a new rule on pistol-stabilizing braces that will effectively ban millions of rifles and has Second Amendment supporters up in arms.

The ATF had previously ruled that pistol braces were legal, but a new rule was sought by President Joe Biden as part of his promise to reform gun laws.

The 296-page document outlines several options that gun owners with stabilizing braces have to avoid prosecution.

“Any weapons with ‘stabilizing braces’ or similar attachments that constitute rifles under the NFA must be registered no later than 120 days after date of publication in the Federal Register,” read the rule, “or the short barrel removed and a 16-inch or longer rifle barrel attached to the firearm; or permanently remove and dispose of, or alter, the ‘stabilizing brace’ such that it cannot be reattached; or the firearm is turned in to your local ATF office. Or the firearm is destroyed.”

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Biden Admin Expands Crackdown On Ghost Guns

The Biden administration has dialed up its crackdown on so-called “ghost guns” by issuing guidance that basically expands the definition of what “readily converted” means in a new federal rule and making more do-it-yourself pistol parts subject to restrictions.

In an open letter to firearms dealers (pdf) dated Dec. 27, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) told firearm vendors that nearly-complete handgun frames or receivers—basically the pistol grip and firing mechanism—will be treated the same as fully completed firearms.

Ghost Gun Rule

Firearm vendors who sell near-complete pistol frames and receivers—often as kits that can be relatively easily turned into untraceable homemade guns—were hit with the new rule in August, which required that frames and receivers that could be “readily converted” into fully operational guns are subject to the same regulations as traditional firearms.

The August regulation, dubbed the Ghost Gun Rule, meant that kits containing partially complete frames or receivers plus assembly tools and instructions were subject to licensing, background check, and serialization requirements.

But ambiguity around the definition of the word “readily” in the regulation meant that some vendors continued to sell nearly complete unserialized frames and receivers as standalone products while additional components needed to finalize their at-home manufacture were offered separately, or by third parties.

Such was the argument made in an October letter (pdf) by a dozen or so Democrat lawmakers to the ATF and Justice Department, which claimed that a number of ghost-gun companies were continuing to sell unserialized frames and receivers by interpreting “readily” in a way that amounted to a loophole.

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