Boots & Sabers

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Category: Firearms

ATF Used Firearms Records to Identify Killer

It’s almost as if the fears of gun rights folks are valid.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives analysts at a facility in West Virginia search through millions of documents by hand every day to try to identify the provenance of guns used in crimes. Typically, the bureau takes around eight days to track a weapon, though for urgent traces that average falls to 24 hours.

[…]

In an era of high-tech evidence gathering, including location data and a trove of evidence from cell phones and other electronic devices used by shooting suspects, ATF agents have to search through paper records to find a gun’s history.

In some cases, those records have even been kept on microfiche or were held in shipping containers, sources told CNN, especially for some of the closed business records like in this case.

The outdated records-keeping system stems from congressional laws that prohibit the ATF from creating searchable digital records, in part because gun rights groups for years have fanned fears that the ATF could create a database of firearm owners and that it could eventually lead to confiscation.

Guns Allowed Near RNC Convention

Yes, because it’s not about the gun. It’s about the person. Tyranny is not the correct response to evil. Tyranny is evil.

Inside the Fiserv Forum and the immediate security perimeter around the Republican National Convention, which kicks off Monday night, guns are not allowed. However, guns will be allowed immediately outside the convention center in the outer perimeter surrounding the Secret Service-controlled area due to Wisconsin state law.

 

The situation is facing increased scrutiny in the aftermath of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on Saturday at a rally in Pennsylvania.

 

Due to Wisconsin state law, people will be allowed to openly carry guns and can conceal-carry with a permit inside the so-called “soft perimeter,” which surrounds the Secret Service patrolled inner “hard perimeter.” City officials tell ABC News they are frustrated following Saturday’s developments but don’t expect a change.

SCOTUS’ Ruling On Bump Stocks is About Agency Overreach

Democrats are really trying to scare people with SCOTUS’ bump stock ruling by making it about guns because they want you to ignore that the ruling was really about reining in rogue agencies who are abusing their authority. For example:

“But now that they have got a Supreme Court that seems ready to unwind the entirety of the Second Amendment and take away from Congress or the executive branch the ability to keep our communities safe, they’re once again lining up behind the gun industry.”

 

Murphy’s comments echo the response of gun control advocacy groups, which argued Friday that the court’s ruling will have a dangerous impact in a country constantly reeling from gun violence.

But if you read the actual ruling, the court did not even mention the 2nd Amendment. The ruling rested on the fact that the ATF exceeded its statutory authority to define a bump stock as a “machinegun.”

Held: ATF exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a Rule that classifies a bump stock as a “machinegun” under §5845(b). Pp. 6–19.

(a) A semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is not a “machinegun” as defined by §5845(b) because: (1) it cannot fire more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger” and (2) even if it could, it would not do so “automatically.” ATF therefore exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a Rule that classifies bump stocks as machineguns. P. 6.

(b) A semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock does not fire more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger.” The phrase “function of the trigger” refers to the mode of action by which the trigger activates the firing mechanism. No one disputes that a semiautomatic rifle without a bump stock is not a machinegun because a shooter must release and reset the trigger between every shot. And, any subsequent shot fired after the trigger has been released and reset is the result of a separate and distinct “function of the trigger.” Nothing changes when a semiautomatic rifle is equipped with a bump stock. Between every shot, the shooter must release pressure from the trigger and allow it to reset before reengaging the trigger for another shot. A bump stock merely reduces the amount of time that elapses between separate “functions” of the trigger.

What Democrats really want to preserve is the ability of federal agencies to operate on their own without the authority of Congress. They WANT to empower the Executive Branch at the expense of the Legislative Branch because they know that their agenda is too unpopular to implement with the consent of the governed. That is why they are up in arms, so to speak, to usurp the court as a means to usurp the Congress.

SCOTUS ruled how all Americans should want them to rule. They simply said that a federal agency may not make up laws. Congress has the sole authority to make laws. If you wanted a different ruling, then you don’t really support democracy.

Uvalde Families Sue Gun Maker; Video Game Company

My sympathy for the people of Uvalde wanes when they begin to engage in frivolous lawsuits that look like they are meant more as a shakedown than as recompense for their suffering.

Families of the Uvalde victims have filed a lawsuit against Daniel Defense, the makers of the AR-15 assault rifle, and Activision, the publisher of the first-person shooter video game series “Call of Duty,” and Meta, the parent company of Instagram, over what they claim was their role in promoting the gun used in the shooting.

 

The suit alleges the companies partnered to market the weapon to underage boys in the games and on social media.

 

The lawsuit filed on Friday, marked two years since the shooting took place.

Colorado Seeks to Ban Semiautomatic Weapons

Blatantly unconstitutional. 

DENVER (AP) — Colorado’s Democratic-controlled House on Sunday passed a bill that would ban the sale and transfer of semiautomatic firearms, a major step for the legislation after roughly the same bill was swiftly killed by Democrats last year.

 

The bill, which passed on a 35-27 vote, is now on its way to the Democratic-led state Senate. If it passes there, it could bring Colorado in line with 10 other states — including California, New York and Illinois — that have prohibitions on semiautomatic guns.

 

Biden Violates Law to Restrict 2nd Amendment

Again he violates the law and clamps down on civil rights. This man is a tyrant.

The Biden administration on Thursday announced they are closing what is often known as the “gun show loophole,” by tightening up the definition of what it means to be “engaged in the business” of selling firearms.

 

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) has just implemented a change in the federal register language, which was previously more specific to who was selling guns, and the agency did it in accordance with the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was passed in 2022.

 

[…]

 

Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican who helped negotiate the bill said he and Senator Tom Tillis plan to introduce a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act to overturn, what a spokesperson for Cornyn called an “unconstitutional rule” and a spokesperson said the two already have other Senate Republicans signed on in support.

 

“The administration is acting lawlessly here, and the vast majority of this rule has nothing to do with the BSCA. Of course, this rule has been on the administration’s wish list for many years despite Congress rejecting these provisions repeatedly,” a Cornyn spokesperson said.

There is no doubt as to the intent of Congress when the people who wrote the law are calling Biden out.

Choice and freedom spreading

My column for the Washington County News is online and in print. Here’s a taste:

 

One of our nation’s structural supports that has provided the stability to make us the world’s oldest republic is our federalist structure. In a very geographically large and demographically diverse nation, the ability for each of the 50 states to shape public policy in accordance with the peculiarities of its citizenry is a strength — not a weakness.

 

Our federalist structure also permits each state to experiment with various policies and let other states see the effects. In recent years, we have seen states decriminalize drug use and soften police enforcement to disastrous effect. We should be thankful that such policies are tried on a state level and not implemented on all of us.

 

While we are increasingly losing our grip on federalism as power and authority concentrates in far away Washington, D.C., each of our United States continues to experiment with different policies. It is worth taking note of policies that are taking hold and becoming widespread. Two such policies are sweeping the nation and Wisconsin is not participating. Last week, Alabama became the twelfth state to pass universal school choice and six other states are considering it this year. Some 28 states and the District of Columbia already have some form of school choice according to Education Week. School choice was an innovation born in Milwaukee by a coalition of liberals and conservatives who wanted to give poor families a chance to get their kids into better schools — even if that better school was a private school. For several years, various income-based school choice programs spread throughout the nation before stalling under the withering assault of entrenched government school interests. The pandemic changed everything. Being affronted with the reality of just how bad our government schools had become, parents insisted on a better option and breathed new life into the school choice movement. While school choice comes in many forms, the common feature is that parents are provided some or all of the funding that would have been spent for their child in a government school to be spent on alternative educational options. The goal is to couple the funding to the child and not to the bureaucracy.

 

School choice has become a potent political force in states like Texas. Despite being dominated by Republicans, school choice failed to pass the Legislature last year when a cohort of House Republicans joined the Democrats to vote against it. In the primary election last week, six Republican incumbents were ousted outright and four more are headed for runoff elections — all on the power of the school choice issue. It is an issue that transcends party and motivates parents.

 

Despite being the birthplace of school choice, Wisconsin has lost its place in the vanguard of education reform.

 

Another movement that started in the mid-1990s was to reinstate Americans’ civil rights by allowing citizens to carry a concealed weapon. For 20 years, states steadily implemented concealed carry laws to allow qualified citizens to carry concealed. Wisconsin was a laggard in this regard as the 49th state to allow concealed carry. Illinois reluctantly followed suit many years later to make concealed carry in some form a universal American policy.

 

In the past ten years, many states have gone further to allow constitutional or permitless carry whereby virtually anyone who is legally allowed to possess a handgun may carry it concealed without a permit. According to the United States Concealed Carry Association, 29 states currently have permitless carry.

 

Here again, the pandemic, coupled with the riots of 2020-2022, sparked new urgency with this issue. Recognizing that law enforcement is largely unable, and sometimes unwilling, to prevent people from committing crimes or protecting innocents, Americans began taking personal responsibility for their physical safety. Women and people of color are two of the fastest-growing groups of gun owners.

 

There is no definitive source to know how many guns there are in private hands and who owns them. That is as it should be. A Pew Research study from last year estimates that there are about 222 million private guns owned by about 105 million Americans. Guns are, and always have been, part of our culture and our right to keep and bear arms was protected at the founding. While our nation has always done a decent job protecting our civil right to “keep” arms, states are now doing a better job of protecting our civil right to “bear” arms. What good is a right if you have to ask the government to exercise it?

Jewish Americans Take Ownership of Personal Security

The 2nd Amendment is a bedrock of individual liberty. The attacks by Hamas reminded everyone that when seconds count, the police are minutes away.

The deadly terrorist attack in Israel and the torrent of social media threats that followed have forced many American Jews to reconsider their long held stances against owning or using guns.

 

Firearm instructors and Jewish security groups across the country say they have been flooded with new clientele since Hamas assaulted Israel on Oct. 7. And gun shop owners in Florida say they have seen more Jews purchase firearms in recent weeks than ever before.

 

“We’ve definitely seen a tremendous increase in religious Jewish people, Orthodox people, purchasing firearms,” said David Kowalsky, who owns Florida Gun Store in the town of Hollywood, and also offers firearms training classes. “I’ve seen a surge in interest in individual training as well as group training.”

 

Kowalsky, who is Jewish, said local synagogues had reached out to him to host gun training seminars and shooting sessions in the past week. At one gun safety seminar he hosted this past week, Kowalsky said most participants were new to guns.

TSA Intercepts 20 Guns a Day at Airports

A 0.00001% rate. Seems low.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said it intercepts nearly 20 unauthorized guns per day at checkpoints nationwide, putting the agency on track to break its annual firearms record, the agency told ABC exclusively.

 

[…]

 

This comes as more passengers take to the skies. TSA says it’s screening more than 2 million people per day at airports across the country.

Hawaii Continues to Suppress Civil Rights

Yup. Still unconstitutional.

HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii Gov. Josh Green on Friday signed legislation that will allow more people to carry concealed firearms but at the same time prohibit people from taking guns to a wide range of places, including beaches, hospitals, stadiums, bars that serve alcohol and movie theaters. Private businesses allowing guns will have to post a sign to that effect.

 

The legal overhaul comes in response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from last year that expanded gun rights by saying Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense.

 

New York and New Jersey adopted similar laws last year that quickly met legalchallenges which are making their way through federal courts.

Washington State to Pass Gun Ban

Reason #7928420 why I’ll never live in that ridiculous state.

The Washington law would block the sale, distribution, manufacture and importation of more than 50 gun models, including AR-15s, AK-47s and similar style rifles. These guns fire one bullet per trigger pull and automatically reload for a subsequent shot. Some exemptions are included for sales to law enforcement agencies and the military in Washington. The measure does not bar the possession of the weapons by people who already have them.

 

The law would go into effect immediately once it’s signed by Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee, who has long advocated for such a ban. When the bill passed the state House in March, Inslee said he’s believed it since 1994 when, as a member of the U.S. Congress, he voted to make the ban a federal law.

 

[…]

 

Another gun-control bill that passed in Washington this session would allow people whose family members die from gun violence to sue if a manufacturer or seller “is irresponsible in how they handle, store or sell those weapons.” Under the state’s consumer-protection act, the attorney general could file a lawsuit against manufacturers or sellers for negligently allowing their guns to be sold to minors, or to people buying guns legally in order to sell them to someone who can’t lawfully have them.

 

A second bill would require gun buyers to show they’ve taken safety training. It would also impose a 10-day waiting period for all gun purchases — something that’s already mandatory in Washington when buying a semi-automatic rifle.

Court Strikes Down 21-year-old Threshold to Carry a Gun

As a matter of law and policy, I agree with the ruling. It will be interesting to see if it holds up.

(Reuters) – A federal judge on Friday struck down a Minnesota law requiring a person to be at least 21 before obtaining a permit to carry a handgun in public, finding it violated the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

 

The order by U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez in St. Paul is the latest in a series of legal defeats for state gun control measures following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year expanding gun rights nationwide.

 

[…]

 

The plaintiffs argued in their lawsuit that the age minimum violated the Second Amendment because 18- to 20-year-olds were permitted to possess guns at the time of the United States’ founding.

 

[…]

She noted that the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a 21-year age minimum for handgun purchases in Florida, based on 19th-century laws, but said those laws only concerned gun sales, not the right to carry guns.

Guns in Cars

The over-the-top anti-gun bias in this article is laughable, but this appears to be another front in the defense of our civil rights.

A report issued in May by the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety analyzed FBI crime data in 271 U.S. cities, large and small, from 2020 and found that guns stolen from vehicles have become the nation’s largest source of stolen firearms — with an estimated 40,000 guns stolen from cars in those cities alone.

 

[…]

 

And as the problem has grown, public health officials and lawmakers, including some in Tennessee, have proposed a rather prosaic solution: encouraging or mandating that gun-toting drivers store their weapons in their vehicles inside of sturdy, lockable gun boxes.

 

Gun control advocates are hoping that the adoption of the boxes in cars will come to be seen as a solution that both sides of the gun debate can accept, much as both sides encourage the use of gun safes and trigger locks in the home.

 

[…]

 

Tennessee’s Republican-dominated state legislature is considering a pair of bills with bipartisan support that would explicitly outlaw leaving a firearm in a motor vehicle or boat unless it is “locked within the trunk, utility or glove box, or a locked container securely affixed.”

See the pattern… identify a problem: punish the victims.

The identified problem is that more guns are being stolen out of cars. Why? I suspect there are two underlying causes. First, more people are carrying guns. With the spread of liberty to more states, more people are carrying guns and it is much easier to smash and grab a gun out of a car than it is to burgle a house.

Second, while more people are carrying guns, there are still many places that don’t allow it. I say this as someone who is almost always armed. Let’s say that I’m out running errands and I need to swing by a government building or school or even a private establishment that prohibits guns… what do I do with it? Do I carry my gun into the place at the risk of sanction? Do I leave it in the car? Do I leave it home completely? Or what if I’m going to work and I can’t carry in my workplace? Should I leave my gun at home, thus not having it available for the other things I might do that day, or do I leave it in my car? For many people, they will simply leave their gun in their car.

So if the underlying problem is that people leave their guns in cars, how should we address it? One policy prescription could be to liberalize the places where people are allowed to carry. It is much less likely that a gun will be stolen if it is on someone’s body. Liberals won’t even consider this solution.

We could also… i don’t know… punish the people who steal the guns. They are, after all, committing a crime. What if we had a penalty enhancer for people who commit crimes with stolen guns? Maybe an extra mandatory 10 years of prison for any crime committed with a stolen gun? Even in the absence of an associated crime, what if being caught with a stolen gun was an automatic 10-year prison term? If rigorously enforced, this would have a deterrent effect on people stealing guns. This is how we have traditionally dealt with crimes – punish criminals.

But no… the policy prescription advocated in the article is to punish the victims or potential victims. They want to force law-abiding citizens to incur extra expense for a secure box or be sanctioned for it. They want to criminalize the victim of a theft if their stolen property is used in a crime (what if someone steals a hammer out of your garage and kills someone with it?). They don’t even suggest that the thieves are at fault. The entire burden of responsibility is being yoked onto the victims.

Before you start forcing extra costs and legal jeopardy on citizens who carry guns, let’s start with assigning responsibility for the problem to the correct people – the crooks who steal guns.

An activist court is a dangerous court

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News last week:

The election on April 4 presents an unambiguous choice for voters about the future of Wisconsin. Daniel Kelly would keep the Wisconsin Supreme Court on its constitutionally humble and conservative path. Janet Protasiewicz has already trumpeted the kind of activism she would wage to turn the high court into a political weapon for leftist causes. As we have seen in other states, leftists do not have any qualms about muscling political victories through the courts when their ideas fail to win public support at the ballot box.

 

In recent weeks we have learned that Protasiewicz is not just the ardent activist who protested against Act 10 and giddily shares how she will tip the scales of justice when her “values” demand it. Not only have we learned that her long judicial record is one of callous disregard for victims of violent crime as she coddled felons. We also learned from Wisconsin Right Now’s reporting that she allegedly abused her first husband, who was over thirty years older than she, and that two witnesses have come forward who heard her regularly use racial slurs when she was a Milwaukee prosecutor.

 

The optimist in me hopes that some of Wisconsin’s leftists would feel the twang of guilt about voting for someone with such deep character flaws, but the realist in me understands that they are more interested in outcomes even if the vessel that delivers them is cracked. They will vote for Protasiewicz in droves. The rest of this column, therefore, is directed at conservatives who need to understand the gravity of the election and get off their duffs to vote.

 

The thing about judicial activists is that nothing is safe. Policies that were correctly adjudicated long ago by the court and considered settled will be resurfaced by activists to get a different outcome. Protasiewicz has already said that she considers Act 10 to be unconstitutional and Wisconsin’s electoral maps rigged, so expect those to be overturned by a Protasiewicz-led court. That will just be the start of an avalanche of legal activism to roll back important policies.

 

During Gov. Scott Walker’s administration, Wisconsin made giant strides to being Wisconsin closer to the Founders’ guarantees in the Second Amendment. The Legislature passed Wisconsin’s first concealed carry law to allow law-abiding citizens to exercise their Second Amendment protection to “keep and bear arms.” The Legislature further protected citizens by enacting the castle doctrine, a simple, but important, law that presumes that someone is under imminent threat if a thug forcibly enters their home, vehicle, or business.

 

As is their compulsion, leftists sued to overturn both concealed carry and castle doctrine policies when they lost the policy debate at the ballot box. Both policies were upheld by the courts. According to the Wisconsin Department of Justice, over 700,000 Wisconsinites have been issued concealed carry permits since 2011. If Protasiewicz is elected, we can expect those hundreds of thousands of licenses to be canceled. And no, it does not matter what the law or Constitution actually says. Judicial activists care not for the constraints of law. That is the point.

 

One thing that the pandemic reminded us is that in times of trouble, our government schools will choose institutional interests over the welfare of children every time. Given the decades of declining performance, increasing violence, and curricular malfeasance, this bureaucratic colonialism should have been obvious, but their collective response to the pandemic has crystalized their priorities.

 

Wisconsin’s school choice programs have been offering children an alternative path to getting a quality education and a successful future. When Gov. Tommy Thompson pioneered school choice in Milwaukee, the leftist institutional interests fought back in court. After a heated legal battle, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutionally permissible for religious schools to participate in the Milwaukee School Choice program. The U.S. Supreme Court later declined to hear a challenge to the law, thus ending the legal challenge. The vote on the Wisconsin Supreme Court was decided by a single vote. Had one justice ruled the other way, generations of Wisconsin’s children would still be trapped in failing schools and doomed to navigating life without a quality education.

 

Since that Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling in 1998, the Legislature has steadily expanded Wisconsin’s school choice programs to benefit hundreds of thousands of children throughout the state. Should Protasiewicz be elected, expect those monied interests who want to build barbed-wire fences to keep our children in their failed institutions to relaunch their legal challenges to school choice knowing that a Protasiewicz-led court will rule in their favor. Janet Protasiewicz is telling anyone who will listen how she will vote on issues brought before the court and how she considers it her duty to put her finger on the scales of justice when the law says otherwise. Listen to her. In this, she is telling the truth.

An activist court is a dangerous court

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

The election on April 4 presents an unambiguous choice for voters about the future of Wisconsin. Daniel Kelly would keep the Wisconsin Supreme Court on its constitutionally humble and conservative path. Janet Protasiewicz has already trumpeted the kind of activism she would wage to turn the high court into a political weapon for leftist causes. As we have seen in other states, leftists do not have any qualms about muscling political victories through the courts when their ideas fail to win public support at the ballot box.

 

In recent weeks we have learned that Protasiewicz is not just the ardent activist who protested against Act 10 and giddily shares how she will tip the scales of justice when her “values” demand it. Not only have we learned that her long judicial record is one of callous disregard for victims of violent crime as she coddled felons. We also learned from Wisconsin Right Now’s reporting that she allegedly abused her first husband, who was over thirty years older than she, and that two witnesses have come forward who heard her regularly use racial slurs when she was a Milwaukee prosecutor.

 

The optimist in me hopes that some of Wisconsin’s leftists would feel the twang of guilt about voting for someone with such deep character flaws, but the realist in me understands that they are more interested in outcomes even if the vessel that delivers them is cracked. They will vote for Protasiewicz in droves. The rest of this column, therefore, is directed at conservatives who need to understand the gravity of the election and get off their duffs to vote.

 

The thing about judicial activists is that nothing is safe. Policies that were correctly adjudicated long ago by the court and considered settled will be resurfaced by activists to get a different outcome. Protasiewicz has already said that she considers Act 10 to be unconstitutional and Wisconsin’s electoral maps rigged, so expect those to be overturned by a Protasiewicz-led court. That will just be the start of an avalanche of legal activism to roll back important policies.

 

[…]

 

One thing that the pandemic reminded us is that in times of trouble, our government schools will choose institutional interests over the welfare of children every time. Given the decades of declining performance, increasing violence, and curricular malfeasance, this bureaucratic colonialism should have been obvious, but their collective response to the pandemic has crystalized their priorities.

 

Wisconsin’s school choice programs have been offering children an alternative path to getting a quality education and a successful future. When Gov. Tommy Thompson pioneered school choice in Milwaukee, the leftist institutional interests fought back in court. After a heated legal battle, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutionally permissible for religious schools to participate in the Milwaukee School Choice program. The U.S. Supreme Court later declined to hear a challenge to the law, thus ending the legal challenge. The vote on the Wisconsin Supreme Court was decided by a single vote. Had one justice ruled the other way, generations of Wisconsin’s children would still be trapped in failing schools and doomed to navigating life without a quality education.

 

Since that Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling in 1998, the Legislature has steadily expanded Wisconsin’s school choice programs to benefit hundreds of thousands of children throughout the state. Should Protasiewicz be elected, expect those monied interests who want to build barbed-wire fences to keep our children in their failed institutions to relaunch their legal challenges to school choice knowing that a Protasiewicz-led court will rule in their favor. Janet Protasiewicz is telling anyone who will listen how she will vote on issues brought before the court and how she considers it her duty to put her finger on the scales of justice when the law says otherwise. Listen to her. In this, she is telling the truth.

Federal Judge Strikes Down California’s Unconstitutional Gun laws

Good. But realize that this unconstitutional law was on the books for over two decades. This is why judges matter.

(Reuters) -A federal judge on Monday blocked California from enforcing a state law requiring new semiautomatic handguns to have certain safety features, finding it violates the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

 

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney in Santa Anna, California is the latest in a line of decisions striking down state gun laws following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year expanding gun rights. The judge said it would not take effect for 14 days to give the state a chance to appeal.

 

The California Rifle & Pistol Association and four individuals sued the state last year to challenge the law. The association hailed the ruling while the office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

The 2001 law, known as the Unsafe Handgun Act, requires new semiautomatic handguns to have an indicator showing when there is a round in the chamber and a mechanism to prevent firing when the magazine is not fully inserted, both meant to prevent accidental discharge. It also requires that they stamp a serial number onto bullets they fire, known as microstamping.

Credit Card Companies Pause Effort to Track Gun Purchases

It’s just a pause, but the news is welcome. I don’t think Visa and Mastercard understand the American gun-owning consumer very well. They stand to lose a lot of revenue as we just use cash.

Visa and Mastercard paused their decision to start categorizing purchases at gun shops, a significant win for conservative groups and Second Amendment advocates who felt tracking gun shop purchases would inadvertently discriminate against legal firearms purchases.

The move is a setback for gun control groups. They say categorizing credit and debit card purchases might help authorities see potential red flags — like significant ammunition purchases — before a mass shooting could be carried out.

After Visa and Mastercard announced their plans to implement a separate merchant category code for gun shop purchases, the payment networks got significant pushback from the gun lobby as well as conservative politicians. A group of 24 GOP state attorneys general wrote a letter to the payment networks threatening legal action against them if they moved forward with their plan.

[…]

In a statement, Visa indicated that the legal pushback was partially the reason it paused the implementation.

“There is now significant confusion and legal uncertainty in the payments ecosystem, and the state actions disrupt the intent of global standards,” the company said.

Visa and Mastercard have said the gun shop categorization was a decision out of their control. The International Organization for Standardization, better known as ISO, is the group that categorizes merchant codes and Visa and Mastercard were just following their decision, the companies said. Gun control advocates lobbied for the change to ISO, not to Visa and Mastercard.

More Guns Being Confiscated at Airports

I suspect that this is just a statistical correlation to the number of people carrying guns now. I doubt that many, if any, were “attempting to bring their guns through airport security.” More likely, they forgot they had it on them.

An assault rifle and 163 rounds of ammunition taken from a man about to board a plane in New Orleans on Valentine’s Day is an example of a trend identified by US officials.

In some parts of the country, more passengers are attempting to bring their guns through airport security.

 

While 2022 was a record year for guns found at US airport checkpoints, the TSA says, 2023 may well beat it.

 

Officers in Seattle, Washington DC and Indianapolis have all raised the alarm.

The TSA intercepted a record 6,542 guns at airport checkpoints across the US last year. Some 88% of them were loaded with ammunition.

NJ To Replace Unconstitutional Gun Law with Unconstitutional Gun Law

One might suspect that the ruling party does not actually support civil rights.

The legislation scraps New Jersey’s current requirement that those seeking a permit to carry a firearm show “justifiable need” and be of “good character” to reflect the Supreme Court’s June ruling.

 

Other changes in the legislation include disqualifications for those who have been confined over their mental health, people who have had restraining orders as any “fugitive from justice.”

 

The measure calls for the end of a paper permitting system that used quadruplicate documents to register applicants. It also would establish a yet-to-be created online gun sales portal.

 

It increases from three to four the number of endorsements from non-family members in order to get a permit. They would also have to be interviewed by law enforcement officials as well.

 

The measure also boosts training requirements, calling for online, in-person classroom and target-shooting instruction. And it would require permit carriers to carry liability insurance.

Oregon’s Unconstitutional Gun Laws Coming Into Force

This is a good lesson in why it is important that we live in a Constitutional Republic and not a Democracy

Measure 114, which narrowly passed in the midterms, requires a permit, criminal background check, fingerprinting and hands-on training course for new firearms buyers and bans the sale, transfer or import of gun magazines over 10 rounds unless they are owned by law enforcement or a military member or were owned before the measure’s passage. Those who already own high-capacity magazines can only possess them in their homes or use them at a firing range, in shooting competitions or for hunting as allowed by state law after the measure takes effect.

 

After Thursday, a gun cannot be sold or transferred until the background check comes back; previously, sales could take place if the check took longer than three business days — the so-called “Charleston loophole,” a gap in federal gun law that allowed the purchase of the gun used in a 2015 South Carolina mass shooting.

 

Multiple gun rights groups, local sheriffs and gun store owners have sued, saying the law violates Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms. Gun sales and requests for background checks soared in the weeks since the measure was approved by voters Nov. 8 because of fears the new law would prevent or significantly delay the purchase of new firearms under the permitting system.

In a Democracy, this would be fine. Majority rules. But, thankfully, our Founders were fearful of the Tyranny of the Majority (like this) and established a Constitutional Republic. In our Republic, individual rights are protected even (especially) when the majority wants them quashed.

Oregon’s law is clearly unconstitutional and an unacceptable abridgement of basic civil rights, but they are going to have to fight it out.

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