Gun Control Laws And Opposition
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FBI Carried Out Warrantless Monitoring on Man Who Posted Guns for Sale on Facebook
According to internal documents reviewed by The Epoch Times, two ATF special agents interviewed the Hispanic man who admitted to “advertising” his personal firearms for sale on Facebook. He stated that he had a “habit” of purchasing new guns, tinkering with them, losing interest, and subsequently selling them. The man told the agents that he never made a profit.
“I kept waiting for the part where ATF identified something illegal, and it never came,” Eric Olson, a lawyer for Gun Owners of America (GOA) told The Epoch Times. GOA obtained the records through its ongoing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the ATF and FBI. This production is more heavily redacted than the previous ten, with entire pages covered in black.
“They are monitoring this guy for doing what millions of other hobbyists do—selling part of their personal collection. That’s not a crime, but apparently ATF doesn’t like people turning over their guns at a high rate,” Mr. Olson said.
Secret ATF–FBI Program
ATF spokesman Erik Longnecker confirmed to The Epoch Times that the man who used Facebook was placed under FBI daily monitoring in 2021 for “suspected violations” of federal laws against straw purchasing and dealing guns without a license.
This revelation is part of an ongoing, exclusive series about the unearthed program between the ATF and FBI using the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to monitor individuals for mere “potential” violations of the law. NICS is a database of individuals prohibited from purchasing firearms due to felony convictions, drug use, domestic violence, and other disqualifications.
Every suspect that the ATF submits to the FBI’s “NICS Monitoring Services” is put on a daily, manual check for firearm sales for 30 to 180 days, with the option to renew surveillance unlimited times. A spokeswoman for the FBI said the NICS section declined to comment on whether the man is still being monitored.
Which anyone in the community would know is not uncommon.
There are those that buy selectively and keep, and those that have to have the new thing, and then get rid of previous buys to fund it.
The ATF and FBI are full of commie ####tards.
Yep. Some just live for the "new" and when it isn't any longer >>> > > > > > >
Big Loss for Biden's Crusade Against 'Ghost Guns'
The ATF Can't Just Make Things Up, Now or In the Past
One of those lawsuits, VanDerStok v. Garland, brought by Jennifer VanDerStok, Blackhawk Manufacturing Group, and other plaintiffs, has now resulted in a loss for the federal government. On July 5, building on a preliminary injunction issued last year, Judge Reed O'Connor of the U.S. District Court for Northern Texas wrote that the "Final Rule was issued in excess of ATF's statutory jurisdiction" and the "Definition of 'Frame or Receiver' and Identification of Firearms…is hereby VACATED."Reed gave his reasoning days earlier, on June 30, in his memorandum opinion.
"A part that has yet to be completed or converted to function as frame or receiver is not a frame or receiver," O'Connor wrote. "ATF's declaration that a component is a 'frame or receiver' does not make it so if, at the time of evaluation, the component does not yet accord with the ordinary public meaning of those terms."
Elsewhere in the opinion, Judge O'Connor rejected the ATF's astonishment that any court could take issue with the agency's arbitrary reclassification of inert items as firearms.
"Defendants offer several classification letters in which ATF previously determined that a particular component was (or was not) a 'firearm' for purposes of the [Gun Control Act of 1968] based on the item's stage of manufacture," O'Connor chided the feds. "But historical practice does not dictate the interpretation of unambiguous statutory terms. The ordinary public meaning of those terms does. If these administrative records show, as Defendants contend, that ATF has previously regulated components that are not yet frames or receivers but could readily be converted into such items, then the historical practice does nothing more than confirm that the agency has, perhaps in multiple specific instances over several decades, exceeded the lawful bounds of its statutory jurisdiction."
In other words: Thank you for this evidence that you have repeatedly exceeded your authority!
"We're thrilled to see the Court agree that ATF's Frame or Receiver Rule exceeds the agency's congressionally limited authority," commented Cody J. Wisniewski, who represented the plaintiffs in this case as counsel for the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC). "With this decision, the Court has properly struck down ATF's Rule and ensured that it cannot enforce that which it never had the authority to publish in the first place."
"With this effort to rewrite federal regulations, Biden tried to make countless individuals criminals," agreed plaintiff's co-counsel Mountain States Legal Foundation. "But Mountain States and FPC sued, and argued that the rule was illegal, on behalf of Jennifer VanDerStok, Mike Andren, and Tactical Machining. Our winning argument was that the ATF exceeded its authority, as outlined by Congress."
We've read the full story and to be honest, we don't know if this is just a great piece of satire from Charles — the quotes are just too on the nose. And we can't find any other reference to Unpull the Trigger. But anyway, Charles writes:
Supreme Court Urged to Reject Ghost Gun Ban
The judge “correctly held” that the ATF “exceeded its authority by seeking to depart from over fifty years of regulatory practice and extend[ing] the definitions of ‘firearm’ and ‘frame or receiver’ in federal law beyond any reasonable understanding of those terms,” the brief reads.
The Gun Control Act (GCA) “reflects a fundamental policy choice by Congress to regulate the commercial market for firearms while leaving the law-abiding citizens of this Country free to exercise their right to make firearms for their own use without overbearing federal regulation.”
The statute “defines a ‘firearm’ to mean ‘any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive’ and ‘the frame or receiver of any such weapon.’”
Congress didn't intend to interfere with private citizens' making firearms or with the “commercial production and sale of other items that may be used by private citizens to make firearms for their own use.”
But the ATF, which “apparently believes that it has now become too easy for private citizens to make their own firearms,” has “decided to take matters into its own hands” and “expanded the regulatory definition of ‘firearm’” instead of trying to convince Congress to revise the statute, according to the brief.
In its emergency application filed with the Supreme Court on July 27, the federal government urged the court to leave the stay in place.
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Democrats demand 1,000% excise tax on ‘assault weapons,’ high-capacity magazines
Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., and 24 other House Democrats introduced the legislation Friday. It’s the second time Democrats have put forward the idea.
Beyer and 37 Democrats proposed the same idea last year when Democrats controlled the House, but it never moved.
The text of Beyer’s new bill was not out as of the weekend, and it was unclear if any changes were made from his 2022 version. His bill from last year imposed the tax on any magazine or related device that can accept more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
Shocker. His represents NoVA.