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.
Update and advice on the ATF proposed rule change
We’ve been talking about this for a while, but last week saw the ATF finally posted the purported final version of their new “frame or receiver” rule. The clear intention of the ATF’s rulemaking is to vaporize the 80% market. Not just cripple it, but entirely delete it.
As compared to the original leaked document, they’ve made a few structural changes, and fixed a couple grammatical error. Most interestingly, they’ve added a list of factors that one can consider in trying to divine what part (or parts) the ATF thinks is a “frame or receiver,” thus requiring an FFL for transfer.
I had made a video last week giving some general advice on commenting, and many have written me asking why they couldn’t seem to make a comment on the proposed rule. Well, interestingly, that’s because the ATF still hasn’t published its proposed rule.
That’s kind of odd, as usually the announcement coincides with publishing the proposed rule on regulations.gov. In this case, though, we got the announcement followed by over a week of silence.
Luckily, the time period for comments won’t begin to run until ATF gets around to actually publishing the rule. So don’t fret, but we’ll be keeping our eyes out for the rule to (officially) drop.
In the meantime, you should take a moment to read the rule, identify issues you see, its legality, its enforceability, and any other factors that point out just how clownish this rule is, so you’re ready to go when the time comes.
It’s important to remember: commenting isn’t just for political activists and lawyers. It’s one of the only ways ordinary Americans, with our wealth of diverse experiences, can directly tell a captive federal audience how ludicrous what they’re trying to do is. Don’t be discouraged. The concern you raise could be the one that throws the proverbial wrench in the government’s gears.
Say Hello to the heroes of Colorado’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention
A Colorado bill is heading to the House, proposing to blast $3 million to create an agency to act as a clearinghouse on gun violence data. The “Office of Gun Violence Prevention” would sniff through data and use it to create public service advertisements and the like.
Gun controllers have an interesting fixation with “gun violence” data. The problem is, of course, that history has shown that gun controllers seem to gravitate towards bad data and making impermissible connections.
For example, speaking about “gun deaths” without separating out suicides. The agency’s stated purpose: preventing suicides and gang-related violence, are surely things most of us can get behind. Call me jaded, but the buzzwords make me suspicious of the intentions of these people.
New Jersey task force searching for smart guns
New Jersey, a state that has longed openly to ban ordinary handguns once “smart guns” come to exist, has assembled a new commission tasked with approving “smart guns.” Of course there are lots of problems here, but one of them boils to the top: the composition of the commission.
It’s staffed with people either directly or with ancillary connections to the “smart gun” industry. For example, in this article which interviewed “Timmy Oh,” who claims to be a gun guy (immediately suspicious given his poetic waxing on the 1911) happens to own a company selling “smart” fingerprint-unlocked holsters.
We all know smart gun technology exists only to rob working-class Americans of the ability to buy an effective firearm for a reasonable price, and to enrich whoever has the first “approved” technology. New Jersey’s strategy is an unusually transparent display of gun control chrony-ism.
Dishonesty and Deceit: Is the murder rate peaking?
In a very misleading way, politicians are kvetching that the murder rate has seen the largest one-year increase in U.S. history, and that we’ve reached “levels not seen since the 1990’s.” How true are these claims?
In reality, the murder rates are only touching levels seen at the very tail of 1998…and couldn’t possibly have anything to do with tremendous social unrest and a deeply divided nation. It’s definitely, assuredly a gun problem. Or so we’re led to believe by all of the smartest people.
It’s always entertaining to see gun violence “researchers” refuse to zoom out of trendlines. A simple look back shows that we’re still, thankfully, at levels of violence that haven’t been so low since before the government launched the drug war, a bloody campaign which the drugs have been winning for decades.
SIG SAUER suing Springfield Armory over magazine patent
Everything old is new again and everything new is likely old. Even so, SIG has launched a suit at Springfield, targeting the Hellcat’s magazine. And finally . . .
Putin orders new gun laws after school shooting
Following a school shooting with a self-loading shotgun in the Russian city of Kazan, Vladimir Putin immediately ordered an overhaul of the nation’s gun laws. Russia actually has a fairly deep shotgun shooting culture, with civilian-owned shotguns being fairly common in the country.
What’s most interesting is the reference to “US-style” shootings, and a claim that in Russia exist a group called “Columbiners,” who allegedly worship the Columbine murderers.
It seems no matter where mass murders happen, people can’t help but blame Americans. Perhaps because recognizing that the evil nature of humans isn’t limited to one nation’s borders would undermine the now-international narrative that Americans should give up what’s left of our natural right to armed self defense.