This is TTAG’s weekly roundup of legal and legislative news affecting guns, the gun business and gun owners’ rights. For a deeper dive into the topics discussed here, check out this week in gun rights at FPC.
Media and politicians push federal ghost gun ban
I don’t know what’s in the air aside from this virus but it seems that tyrants have been making a serious push to ban things they don’t understand or are afraid of. Almost as if they’re spooked by some apparition. Ghost guns are no different. They’ve also started to streamline the process.
This week, CBS brought us 60 Minutes of cringe in the form of a so-called “investigative report,” where they discussed using custom firearms for the commission of other crimes. The report couldn’t have been more poorly executed. They brought on two known hacks – Sheriff Villanueva and former ATF goon David Chipman to give their clearly biased opinions on the matter. Not only was the program deliberately slanted, but it contained a number of factual inaccuracies that could have been addressed with some basic internet research and maybe contacting a couple guys via Twitter.
Conveniently enough, the newspapers got in on the game on the same day, with the L.A. Times giving Sheriff Villanueva a print and internet soapbox, echoing his sentiments about guns that, although sometimes found at crime scenes, are almost never used to actually commit an assault or murder. Shortly thereafter was an announcement from Politico. Gun grabber extraordinaire, Senator Blumenthal introduced a bill to ban ghost guns, with Senator Warren signing on as a co-sponsor. I’m sure all of this timing was purely coincidental.
Bills like this are just an attempt by Senators who aren’t doing anything important to pretend that they’re bringing something to the table. They don’t actually accomplish anything, except for criminalizing a generally harmless and constitutionally-protected activity. Considering most of the firearms being seized are tied to the drug trade and other organized crime, it would probably be a better use of Dick and Liz’s time to figure out how to economically disincentivize activities that are already unlawful instead of making criminals out of people who aren’t harming anyone. You can read more, and take action against this garbage campaign here.
Ventura County, California caves ahead of hearing
Just days before a hearing on a motion for preliminary injunction against orders banning gun stores from operating, lawyers for Ventura County, California, filed documents in federal court saying that the defendants, including the County, Sheriff Bill Ayub, and Dr. Robert Levin, the County’s Public Health Officer, have issued a new order to re-open firearm and ammunition dealers throughout the county. Key filings in McDougall v. County of Ventura, including the County’s latest order, can be viewed here.
Ronda N. Baldwin-Kennedy, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said that the County’s latest filing was a move to avoid losing the case early. “The defendants were obviously wrong on the law and had no constitutional support for their frivolous arguments, so it makes sense for them to change course now. We are delighted that this lawsuit moved the County to issue another order so that our clients and the people of Ventura County can exercise their constitutional rights.”
“The facts are that the Ventura County defendants made it a crime for individuals to patronize and operate firearm and ammunition retailers, and worse, these government officials banned travel for firearms and ammunition as ‘non-essential’. Those are precisely the kinds of actions our Constitution was designed to protect against, so we look forward to the next phase of litigation in this lawsuit,” said the plaintiffs’ co-counsel, attorney Raymond DiGuiseppe.
Ultimately, they have already admitted in court that they violated constitutionally enumerated rights,” noted FPC’s Adam Kraut. “Especially because there may be a second or third wave of COVID-19, we will seek an injunction so that they cannot do this again should cases spike.”
Bernie blows it: Republicans take another bite out of Fourth Amendment protections
If you thought the Democrats are the only ones jeopardizing your right to privacy, you’re dead wrong. The Senate renewed the Patriot Act this week. That’s right – the set of federal laws that gave the intelligence community sweeping authority to monitor your communications. This time, Senate Republicans modified the Act to enable the government to monitor your browser history without first obtaining a warrant, further diminishing your protections under the Fourth Amendment for the sake of “security.”
One of the few Senators with some sense on the matter, Ron Wyden of Oregon, introduced a hostile amendment to the Act, attempting to remove this provision. Unfortunately it failed to pass by one vote. Who didn’t show up, you ask? Bernie Sanders. I guess it just wasn’t worth his time to show up and cast a single vote to protect your right to privacy. And in case you were wondering which Senators actively supported government agents monitoring your every move, here’s a list:
| Barasso (R – WY) | Blackburn (R – TN) | Blunt (R – MO) | Boozman (R – AR) |
| Burr (R – NC) | Capito (R – WV) | Carper (D – DE) | Casey (D – PA) |
| Collins (R – ME) | Cornyn (R – TX) | Cotton (R – AR) | Feinstein (D – CA) |
| Fischer (D – NE) | Graham (R – SC) | Hassan (D – NH) | Hyde-Smith (R – MS) |
| Inhofe (R – OK) | Johnson (R – WI) | Jones (D – AL) | Kaine (D – VA) |
| Lankford (R – OK) | Manchin (D – WV) | McConnell (R – KY) | Perdue (R – GA) |
| Portman (R – OH) | Roberts (R – KS) | Romney (R – UT) | Rubio (R – FL) |
| Shaheen(D – NH) | Shelby (R – AL) | Thune (R – SD) | Tillis (R – NC) |
| Toomey (R – PA) | Warner (D – VA) | Whitehouse (D – RI) | Wicker (R – MS) |
| Young (R – IN) |
Internet privacy matters, especially for gun owners. It protects our ability to express our views confidentially, to engage in enterprise, and to exchange information. Imagine, for instance, how difficult it may become to exchange gun files or to engage in advocacy online. And we’re not alone. Anyone whose views don’t align with whatever administration is in charge will be under constant fear of persecution. Not only is this bill a massive blow to your right to privacy, it’s a massive blow to Free Speech.
Federal Appeals Court overrules order halting California ammo restrictions
Remember back in April when a federal judge issued an injunction preventing California from enforcing its stifling background check policy on ammunition purchases? Californians were only able to celebrate for about a day before the defendants got an emergency stay. Yesterday, May 14, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of A.G. Becerra in a 2-1 decision, overturning the preliminary injunction and allowing them to resume enforcement of the ammo background check law.
Of course, this isn’t the end of the case. This all relates to a preliminary injunction. There is still a long road ahead for both parties.
Michigan legislative commission backs off of making a gun ban decision
This week saw a pretty active state of Michigan. As you may well know, protesters have been pretty active at the state capitol in Michigan. Plenty of protesters would converge in Lansing to protest the Governor’s state lockdown orders, many of them peacefully carrying arms.
That some protesters were armed spurred a bipartisan discussion on banning arms at the state capitol. A meeting was planned this week to discuss whether to go forward with the ban, but it was delayed “in a meeting that later ended abruptly due to racist and threatening messages posted in Zoom.”
The whole Michigan kerfuffle has been spun pretty aggressively by the anti-gun side. Referring to the protestors invariably as violent, “armed right wing militants” and the like. The shutdown being for “fear” of these individuals is similarly contrived.
The ghosts Gun Control Zealots need to justify are the ghosts of Jim Crow and Adolph Hitler that are Rooted in their Racist and Nazi Based Gun Control Agenda.
At this point I doubt that not-renewing the “Patriot” Act would make a lick of difference.
Even if it weren’t renewed. You think they will just shut down the computers, wipe the drives, and go find something useful to do?
The apparatus is in place and the data is being gathered. They ain’t stopping now. If they have to do it in secret, they will.
Now is a good time to invest in a good VPN service, and look at increasing your online security in other ways.
This.
The gov was tracking and spying in all these ways before the PA and will continue to do so without the PA.
Whenever the feds say they’re starting a thing it’s a safe bet they started that thing a decade prior and if they ever come out and say they’ve stopped doing a thing it’s a safe bet they’re still doing that thing.
+ A WHOLE BIG BUNCH of +’s on a VPN. Been using one for about ten years now.
The tracking being done by big corporations is insidious. Massive amounts of data is collected about everyone. All for the purpose of marketing and predicting how money will be spent, trying to influence that spending.
Sure, governments know too much about us, that’s a given. But government computer systems, data collection and analysis are years behind and far smaller than what is done by corporations.
TTAG won’t let me post when my VPN is active. It kind of sucks having to drop it just to shitpost on here.
I’m curious as to why everyone thinks VPN is the answer?
Do you think the government hasn’t found a way to track it back to how you log in?
Here’s a hint, they haven’t banned people using VPN, they only ban things they can’t control, hence….
Because my VPN is one the feedle guv actively disparages, as being “t3rror!st” services. Pretty sure they’d being hauling in t3rror!st’s by the train load if my service provider was compromised. The persons behind it are all very public professionals with day to day employment that is largely dependent on their individual personal integrity for funding, and they are mathematicians, physicists , programmers, & cryptographers in their day jobs. Some of, if not the very finest the world has to offer.
While we can conjecture about the guv capabilities, they frequently complain about not having the funding to hire people of the caliber of those behind my VPN service right in front of our legislative branch. So, draw your own conclusions.
________________________________________________________________________
Interjecting a quote from the article, “Internet privacy matters, especially for gun owners.”
Errr, wat? 97 scripts, analytics spy trackers, frame injections, social media spying, advertising spying trackers, redirects, referrer headers’s, HTML 5 canvas fingerprinting, etc. being blocked or phreaked browser side. Here. At TTAG. And you don’t even want me to pull up my firewall log & post it to see what else is being blocked that doesn’t even make it to my browser. Privacy matters, indeed.
Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.
It’s amusing that certain politicians are increasing their efforts to ban 3D printed guns with greater and greater frequency and coordination. It just goes to show that the statists are feeling increasingly threatened by 3D printing technology because it undermines all of the power grabs that they have made up to this point. What they don’t seem to realize is that they can’t stop the signal so to say.
If anyone wants some 3D gun files for archival purposes here is a decent starter set:
https://archive.org/details/gunplans2019
That’s what the extra spying features in the new patriot Act are for.
They know what they’re doing. They ain’t dumb.
That’s all the more reason to stock up on 3D printed gun files and back them up offline before the inevitable government crackdown. The FBI and NSA may be able to track your browsing history and confiscate your computer, but they won’t even know to look for that flash drive full of gun files hidden in the engine block of that old car in your back yard.
*muttering to myself *
So much for using the old engine-block-as-a-hard-drive-hiding-spot routine.
True, but they’re also not as smart as they think either.
Can we get some real stats on how many ghost guns have been retrieved/seized up to this point that were used in crimes or owned by prohibited persons????
Is this really even a problem?
Or is it like bump stocks, machine guns and suppressors…. really a non-issue?
Gun grabbers are grasping at straws.
Let’s prosecute actual criminals using guns…and make the sentences harsh and non-negotiable.
Oh wait… that would be racist.
Don’t have any real stats, but I imagine ghost guns start becoming quite a problem for governments that forget their place and start overtepping their bounds, as ours seems to insist on doing lately.
I’m aware of only one incident where a broken 3D printed “Songbird” pistol was recovered from a drug user in Connecticut who was carrying it without a permit. However, I can’t find anything that says it was used in a crime other than the fact that the owner didn’t have a permit to carry it in public.
https://homemadeguns.wordpress.com/2019/05/25/3d-printed-gun-seized-during-arrest-in-connecticut/
If the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, he didn’t need any permit in the first place, the guilty inhabit the halls of government.
I agree that the government requiring people to have a permit in order to carry a firearm is unconstitutional, but the government still does what it wants to do regardless of what the constitution says and will still charge that guy for carrying a gun without a permit anyways. Likewise, as soon as that guy gets home he will probably print up a new gun to carry regardless of what the government says. Interesting times.
Lawdy, lawdy, it’s a ‘haint heater.
“Media and politicians push federal ghost gun ban”
Sounds scary,not the guns ,rather the Marxist Left pushing for further infringements of natural civil rights. I’m not sacred of no guns or ghost’s either, just the unAmerican Left in their continual attempts do destroy the Constitution and this nation.
I don’t see Rand Paul on that list. He doesn’t get enough credit for often being the sole voice of reason.
“your right to privacy, you’re dead wrong. The Senate renewed the Patriot Act this week. That’s right – the set of federal laws that gave the intelligence community sweeping authority to monitor your communications.”
The mental disease of Leftism knows no bounds,it’s the most communicable disease known to mankind, makes Covid 19 look like a cold sore,Eff the Left of both parties may they rot in hell.
Ain’t no left and right. There’s people who want to control others, and there’s people who don’t. That’s it. Plenty of em in both parties and on both political “sides”.
Unfortunately the people who seek to be in power, are the ones that shouldn’t have any. And the ones that should, are by their nature, not interested in it.
Hate to break it to you but the Patriot Act power grab was spearheaded by Republican Sensenbrenner and passed the Senate with 99 yes votes. Only 1 Senator had the guts to stand up for your rights and that was Feingold a Democrat. Then was signed into law by another Republican George W Bush.
Might also note Sensenbrenner served 21 terms in the House of Representatives. Things like this are why I am all for term limits and making it a job you cannot retire from.
If you think Republicans are on your side you are fooling yourself, they are literally as bad as Democrats. The handling of Coronovirus by both parties should of been a serious wakeup call for all of you, but it falls on deaf ears.
Republican Sensenbrenner was also the author of the real ID act.
And I clearly remember right after 911 when every right winger and conservative was begging for the patriot act and other freedoms stealing ‘anti-terrorism’ laws.
No one wants to remember courageous, constitution carrying Senator Robert Byrd who opposed the war in Iraq. Donald Trump says he was right now, but it’s a little late for 4000 American soldiers and $3 trillion.
“No one wants to remember courageous, constitution carrying Senator Robert Byrd”
Probably due to his overt racism and involvement in the KKK.
“Republicans take another bite out of Fourth Amendment protections”
Barasso (R – WY) Blackburn (R – TN) Blunt (R – MO) Boozman (R – AR)
Burr (R – NC) Capito (R – WV) Carper (D – DE) Casey (D – PA)
Collins (R – ME) Cornyn (R – TX) Cotton (R – AR) Feinstein (D – CA)
Fischer (D – NE) Graham (R – SC) Hassan (D – NH) Hyde-Smith (R – MS)
Inhofe (R – OK) Johnson (R – WI) Jones (D – AL) Kaine (D – VA)
Lankford (R – OK) Manchin (D – WV) McConnell (R – KY) Perdue (R – GA)
Portman (R – OH) Roberts (R – KS) Romney (R – UT) Rubio (R – FL)
Shaheen(D – NH) Shelby (R – AL) Thune (R – SD) Tillis (R – NC)
Toomey (R – PA) Warner (D – VA) Whitehouse (D – RI) Wicker (R – MS)
Young (R – IN)
All listed names above, by their vote have proven themselves guilty of violating their oath of office, on to sentencing and penalty phase.
Burr and Tillis from NC.
What a pair of cucksucking deep state tools.
Well for starters, there is no privacy on the internet. There never has been. Ther never will be. That has nothing to do with gun ownership either way.
“ Imagine, for instance, how difficult it may become to exchange gun files or to engage in advocacy online.”
This is already the case. I’mWhat do you think has been happening with YouTube all these years?
As for Sanders:
He blew it by being openly socialist. That happened a very long time ago.
I ain’t afraid of no ghost.
But I am afraid of the 9th Circus.
When the people fear the government there is tyranny,when the government fears the people there is liberty.
When the government fears the people there is mass murder.
This ⬆️ Ralph is on as always.
For the first time i am amazed that NY is not on that list.
Both WA senators are not on that list either.
Looking at that blue and green “ghost” gun makes me think to add the appropriate bumps to the files to make it look like it’s made out of Legos.
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