This Week in Gun Rights is TTAG’s weekly roundup of legal, legislative and other news affecting guns, the gun business and gun owners’ rights.
The Chipman Hearings
ATF director nominee David Chipman’s hearings kicked off last week, and it was… well, an unmitigated disaster.
From stating outright that he thought ARs ought be included under National Firearms Act regulation, to being called out for his myriad insulting remarks against American gun owners, to his weird Dr. Pepper moment, to stating that the only people who’d benefit from unrestricted suppressors would be criminals, the hearings can’t be said to have gone well for old Chippy.
Remember, appointments like this wind up requiring only a simple majority on the Senate floor, where two Republicans and two Democrats say they are yet unsure as to their position on Chipman’s nomination. The Senate is split more or less down the middle, so Manchin’s vote here is likely to make or break the situation. Chipman’s performance was so poor, though, that his confirmation doesn’t seem incredibly likely, at least not to this observer.
I agree with Cam Edwards, who posited that, “this should be a moment of bipartisan agreement,” where people on both sides of the mainstream have reason to oppose Chipman’s nomination.
Chipman has an extremist, totalitarian view of law enforcement and a naked contempt for American gun owners and their Second Amendment rights. Executive agencies are supposed to be tasked with dutifully enforcing the law, not with militant expansionism and an over-active imagination with respect to new and interesting ways to lock Americans in cages.
It’s Nerf or Nothin’
A gentleman on twitter by the name of 00Meat posed a question: “I want a list of the consequences if every nerf gun would become an 80% receiver.” Then came the CAD.
In mere hours, the absolute madlad had designed a kind of bolt and barrel to be affixed to common Nerf toy guns. Why do such a thing? Well, to point out how absolutely clownshoes ATF’s new “Frame or Receiver” definition is.
With 00Meat’s design, should ATF’s new definition go through (which attempts to treat unfinished receivers the same as firearms), there’s a compelling case to be made that every Nerf gun in the country will then be an “unfinished receiver.” The design is evolving, and a group of eager individuals is standing behind 00Meat to help test and hash out the design.
Texas’s Suppressor Haven
The Texas Senate has passed HB957, and it’s headed to Governor Gregg Abbott for his signature. Many have likened this to Kansas’ ill-fated attempt to give the people of their state relief from the NFA’s aggressive overreach, but it’s a bit more nuanced.
Texas’ law doesn’t go so far into the supremacy problem, it merely recites a basic principle of the law surrounding the Constitution’s Commerce Clause: that the feds are without commerce jurisdiction over items without interstate character.
It’s really already the state of the law, but Texas’ HB957 incorporates some sanctuary logic as well, prohibiting state and local law enforcement from giving effect to suppressor prohibitions.
Now, it’s important to note that the law does nothing to protect residents from federal attempts to give force to suppressor restrictions. It couldn’t do that without posing supremacy issues.
It’s also important to remember that the Supreme Court has really screwed the proverbial pooch with respect to the Commerce Clause in a number of cases. Some newer members of the Court have expressed concerns with these prior decisions, but it remains to be seen whether, and on what side, the Supreme Court would weigh in on a case such as this.
Washington: No 2A When there’s 1A Afoot
Washington governor Inslee has signed SB5038, which prohibits the open carry of a firearm within 250 feet of a “permitted demonstration” in a public place. The law is pretty toothless, it seems, as it requires first that the individual be notified and asked to leave before criminal consequences attach. This may be designed to complicate legal challenges against the new bill, as factual situations involving enforcement would necessarily sound in trespass, leaving prosecutors an “easy out” to avoid the bill’s difficulties.
Mississippi Sheriff Providing Training to Elderly
In Claiborne County, gun safety and training classes are being offered to ensure the vulnerable can be armed and ready if needed. “I’m hanging [my target] on my back door so my children will know that I am very capable of popping a cap,” added a retired school administrator who took the class.
Man Shot Hours After Police Took his Gun
In Inkster, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, a man’s girlfriend was shot. When police came to investigate her death, they seized the firearm of her boyfriend to ensure it wasn’t the one used in the shooting. Hours later, the men who killed his girlfriend returned and shot him in the head.
White House Press Secretary: The US Has a Guns Problem, not a Crime Problem
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked whether we have a “crime problem,” given the blip in violent crime. She replied with “Well, I would say certainly there’s a guns problem,” before pivoting to bloviating about promises for gun control.
Reno May Demonetized
A great person and good channel seeking to help others navigate the contours of staying on the right side of the law in California was demonetized this week. YouTube is known for demonetizing channels heavy on firearms content, but Reno’s channel featured very little use of firearms. Most of his content centering around California compliance. That was apparently too much for YouTube’s censors to endure.
Must be a stock suppressor picture since the 22 Mag has Huntsville, Al on it.
https://www.advanced-armament.com/
The military wing of the democRat Party better known as the KKK and the nazi socialist party are not dead. They are alive and well in every aspect of Gun Control.
Don’t forget the new military wing of the DemoRat Party; BLM and ANTIFA. The KKK and the NAZI’s had their day. Instead of trying to re-impose Jim Crowe laws, the DemoRats have brought their prior enemies on to the DemoRat Plantation and convinced them they are their true Champions. Luckily their control of the media and the education system allows them to re-write history so that Pres. Lincoln and Frederick Douglas obviously must not have been Republican and it wasn’t the DemoRat party members that owned slaves and started the Civil War. Luckily for them, most of their followers are from the shallow end of the gene pool, so they continue to buy this crap, over and over again.
BLM and Antifa are indeed useful idiots. The head of the snake is the democRat Party.
Jim Crow Gun Control joe just called for wanting to know “everything” about the 1921 Tulsa Torch Massacre. Well I do too Jim Crow Gun Control joe. And that includes you telling America everything about the bigoted political party behind it.
As a News & Info junkie, it’s difficult to shake out the valid pertinent reality from the vast morass of Commie-ass propaganda elements and truth obfuscators out there. Mr. Larosiere is a Light House beacon of guidance on the shores of Tyranny, and a strong voice of Liberty and Justice for a free, Egalitarian America. He is a true Patriot Hero…
Shitman is to America, as Hitler was to Germany in his early days. If we don’t reject his nomination, we just reached a critical tipping point of more seriously ugly totalitarian jackbooted policy stomping down the pike… Remember, Marxism deploys a lot of psychology. You don’t have to do immediate mass confiscations. Just terrorize the people bad enough with enough target focused laws threatening to make virtually everyone a felon, subject to permanent, eternal gun prohibition. Based on a deprivation of rights 1968 GCA by the premier deep state Commie LBJ & Co. I agree with Reno May who believes that if you’re law abiding enough to not be locked up for ongoing crimes, they you should be allowed to defend yourself in this world gone mad. The permanant gun prohibition statute even if you paid your dues and were rehabilitated is the insidious scam behind all these new laws?
In other words, If there was no permanant prohibition after a crime has been prosecuted sentenced and completed, and the person is free, but no prohibition…
HOW COULD THEY EVER DISARM US…by making gun laws!
.And the news about Demonetizing certain gun tuber creators was a perfect prelude to what is certain to commence with intense assault with a Shitman’s appointment. As the onslaught of ‘perimeter disarming tactics like ammo taxation or registration, liability laws, and so on!
I study and observe behavior patterns and it ‘seems’ like only the most anti-atf guntubers were the first to be ‘marched’ to the gallows. Mr. May’s caustic invective about illegal Swat raids and anti-2/a confiscation sometimes paled to a few other you-tube creators like CRS Firearms who often made us ‘wince’ with their government mockery while we nervously waited for the flash bang to explode through their video studio. But the crowd went wild!
And these tip of the spear Patriots–who sometimes lose their prudent circumspection because they have “balls bigger than their brains”, were taken out in a different, more sinister way…
They were demonetized. They Hit ’em where it really hurts these days. We can take a hit, even the occasional knockdown, But it’s really hard to fall back and regroup when you don’t even have enough money to feed your family properly.
I understand that they can’t even get a reason or response from you tube? At least not from a real human?
And that’s why we must never retreat. In a real winner-takes-all war, there is no such thing as a stalemate or draw. There’s either winning or losing. And if we are not winning soon, we may have already lost and we don’t even know it!
One of the most important TTAG Articles I’ve read.
WRT the Texas suppressor law, the legal endgame is a bit more nuanced.
Yes, SCOTUS screwed the pooch decades ago with the awful Wickard opinion, which pretty much obliterated any limitation on the scope of the commerce clause. But in 1995 SCOTUS overturned the Gun Free Schools Act on commerce clause grounds (US v. Lopez), which was the first significant retrenchment from Wickard.
If the Fifth Circuit holds that Wickard still applies and the NFA can apply to intrastate suppressors, I doubt that Roberts and Kavanaugh will want to take a case that would require them to address Wickard. In that event, the case would probably not reach SCOTUS, and the status quo remains in place.
However, my read is that Texas sees that the Fifth Circuit (which, thanks to PDT, has a majority of GOP/conservative judges) MIGHT be willing to hold that application of the NFA to wholly intra state suppressors is governed by Lopez, not Wickard, and essentially dare the feds to take the case to SCOTUS.
If that happened (and let’s be honest, it’s a longshot), SCOTUS might be willing to avoid the potentially messy Wickard issue by simply refusing to hear the case, which would leave the Texas law in place. However, if Texas pulled off a successful appeal in the Fifth Circuit, I suspect the Biden administration might do a cost/benefit analysis and decide not to take the case up at all (a-la DC not seeking cert in Heller II).
The thinking would be that if the feds don’t appeal, then at worst suppressors will effectively be deregulated in Texas (and probably Mississippi and Louisiana, as those other Fifth Circuit states would likely pass similar laws in short order). While the Biden admin would not like that, it would not materially affect their big picture goals.
On the other hand, if they DO appeal and SCOTUS takes the case, then they are teeing up a case where SCOTUS might well decide to revisit Wickard. If Wickard ever falls, then the constitutionality of a staggering number of “progressive” federal programs and regulations are in serious question. That WOULD radically impact them, and that potential downside would likely outweigh deregulating cans in three states.
I’m not holding my breath, but this will be fun to watch.
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