Posts Tagged bureaucracy

ATF Can’t Backup “Ghost Gun” Claims

From Ammoland:

For example, one senior ATF official – Carlos A. Canino, former Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the ATF’s Los Angeles Field Division – can be credited for jumpstarting the war on homemade firearms, so it is especially important to verify everything he has said. After all, last year the ATF announced notice of proposed rulemaking that could regulate many of the core components of homemade firearms. To be clear, Canino’s quotes caused all of this.

In a lengthy email chain yesterday, I asked Longnecker to verify Canino’s comments and to add some context. Specifically, how many firearms did ATF’s Los Angeles Field Division seize? Did the 41% constitute five or six homemade firearms or were there hundreds or thousands.

To be clear, Longnecker was unable to verify Canino’s statement or add any context.

“I contacted the Los Angeles Field Division earlier today after your initial email, and their Public Information Officer was unable to verify any figures provided in 2019 by former-SAC Canino without knowing the time-period(s) he used for his comments,” Longnecker said in the email. “For that reason, we rely on verifiable data generally documented on our website or obtained through a FOIA request.”

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FBI Audit Finds Massive Rule Violations During Investigations Into Politicians, Religious groups and Media

From The Washington Times:

FBI agents violated agency rules at least 747 times in 18 months while conducting investigations involving politicians, candidates, religious groups, news media and others, according to a 2019 FBI audit obtained by The Washington Times. 

The internal review revealed a ratio of slightly more than two “compliance errors” per sensitive investigative matter reviewed by FBI auditors. These errors included agents’ failure to obtain approval from senior FBI officials to start an investigation, failure to document a necessary legal review before opening an investigation and failure to tell prosecutors what they were doing.

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ATF Says Forced Reset Trigger Is A Machine Gun

From Ammoland:

Firearms Policy Coalition today issued the following statement regarding the ATF’s “Open Letter to All Federal Firearms Licensees” regarding its classification of some “forced-reset triggers” (FRTs) as “firearms” and “machineguns” as defined in the National Firearms Act (NFA) and Gun Control Act (GCA):

This latest effort by the ATF to punish and stoke fear among peaceable people who purchase protected-arms components specifically designed to comply with federal law is further proof of the agency’s abusive overreach of statutory and constitutional bounds and a manic desire to expand its dominion. Furthermore, by being purposefully vague in saying it “intends to take appropriate remedial action,” the ATF adds to the unscrupulous nature of this action leaving sellers and owners unsure if they’ll be subject to abuse.

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US Government Ignores External Threats While Creating Fake Internal Threats

From Wired.com:

P4x says he was later contacted by the FBI but was never offered any real help to assess the damage from North Korea’s hacking or to protect himself in the future. Nor did he ever hear of any consequences for the hackers who targeted him, an open investigation into them, or even a formal recognition from a US agency that North Korea was responsible. It began to feel, as he put it, like “there’s really nobody on our side.” 

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Forbes Freaks Out Over New Ghost Gunner, Shills For State Power

From Forbes:

Dubbed the Zero Percenter, because it can turn a completely untouched piece of aluminum into a firearm, the software and a few accompanying components are Wilson’s answer to what he considers government overreach. He seems to care little about the “open source” terrorism and crime it might unleash. So-called privately made firearms or ghost guns, the type Wilson has long championed, have confounded law enforcement officials for years. According to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, from 2016 through 2020, some 23,906 suspected ghost guns were recovered from crime scenes, including 325 homicides or attempted homicides.

“There’s always going to be this mystical platonic line where a component becomes more like a gun than not a gun, and to regulate those intermediary steps of manufacture in any serious level completely disrupts modern American manufacturing, the American system,”  says Wilson, dressed in black and brandishing a 24-carat gold ring, embossed with the initials DD. “They are literally trying to control the world. But as the Zero Percenter demonstrates, blocks of metal are also guns.”

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ATF Wants To Double Its Size

From Ammoland:

AmmoLand News has learned from a leaked Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) video conference meeting that the agency is looking to double its size over the next five years.

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ATF Backs Down On Pistol Braces

From Guns.com:

Five days after the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives posted the 15-page notice and request for comments in the Federal Register, igniting a firestorm of criticism, the agency backpedaled and withdrew it. The action mimicked the rapid reversal on the proposed regulation on M855 Greentip ammunition in 2015 that saw a similar outcry. 

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MAC On ATF Pistol Braces

From Military Arms Channel:

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Colion Noir On The ATF Pistol Brace Problem

From Colion Noir:

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ATF Pistol Brace Rules Are Confusing

From Bearing Arms:

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The ATF’s Arbitrary Rule Making Needs To Stop

From The Truth About Guns:

Then, as we neared the election, the ATF dropped an October surprise, declaring some braced pistols were actually SBRs — NFA-regulated short barreled rifles — only to later back off that determination under pressure. That declaration was in direct disobedience to the Department of Justice’s edict (which happened, in a big part, thanks to Rep. Gaetz with help from brace manufacturer SB Tactical) that ATF could not pursue any new rulings or regulations on pistol braces without first setting clear standards for the accessories in cooperation with the firearm industry.

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Bureaucrat Militias and the Threat To Freedom

From Law and Liberty:

In addition to the administrative agencies that we would expect to have militias, the Justice Department, Homeland Security, the Bureau of Prisons, and such, some unlikely federal bureaucracies actively train and use militias: IRS, Social Security Administration, Department of Education, Consumer Safety Products Commission, Bureau of Land Management, Department of Agriculture, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a host of other agencies, both large and small. Sensational stories about the Environmental Protection Agency raids to enforce the Clean Water Act have surfaced in recent weeks; the Education Department has used its militia to terrorize citizens suspected of defaulting on student loans; and a few years ago, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, along with the militia from the Fish and Wild Life Service made a spectacular raid on a Miami business suspected of having violated the Endangered Species Act.

These raids were full-scale military operations to enforce administrative agency regulations. Government militias have become so active in the past several years that the rate at which they purchase ammunition for training purposes has caused widespread shortages in civilian markets—at times it has been almost impossible for civilians to purchase the most popular calibers used by government militias. What should we make of this dramatic expansion of the administrative state?

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How The ATF Arbitrarily Creates Criminals

From FEE.org:

What if government agents could, by declaration, make you into a criminal? What if, without legislative change, bureaucrats could decide that what was legal yesterday is a felony today? What if we were governed not by law, but by arbitrary statements telling us what we may or may not do?

Unfortunately, those questions are not merely hypothetical—thanks to recent abuses of power by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), millions of American gun owners are facing them head-on. Even if you hate guns, you should be deeply concerned by the arbitrary power wielded by the ATF against your fellow Americans. If an unchecked executive agency can run roughshod over any of our rights with impunity, all of our rights are in danger.

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ATF Re-classifies Honey Badger Pistol As Short-barreled Rifle

From Firearms Policy Coalition:

ATF has once again unlawfully and unconstitutionally exceeded its authority and changed the law by issuing a new determination that is devoid of logic and reason, contains no explanation as to the manner in which it arrived at its conclusion, conflicts with its prior determinations, and embodies the very essence of “arbitrary and capricious”. 
After examining a sample Q Honey Badger Pistol, the ATF’s Firearms and Ammunition Technology Division (FATD) concluded that “the objective features of the Honey Badger firearm, configured with the subject stabilizing brace, indicate the firearm is designed and intended to be fired from the shoulder.” FATD further concluded that it is a SBR as defined by the National Firearms Act (NFA) and Gun Control Act (GCA). Yet, ATF does not explain how it arrived at this conclusion other than vague generalizations that the firearm was “designed” to be fired from the shoulder and by virtue of its barrel length meeting the definition of a SBR. 

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The Only FFL In DC Is The Police

From Washington Free Beacon:

In an arrangement unique to Washington, D.C., the local police department is the only federally licensed firearms dealer that is open to the public. Residents tell the Washington Free Beacon, however, that legally obtaining a handgun has become nearly impossible due to the department’s inaction.

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