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CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: US Justice Department plans gun rights office within civil rights unit.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Expert Witness: ATF Prosecuted Collector Because He Didn’t Have an FFL.
Georgia gunsmith and technical specialist Len Savage is an expert witness who has been involved in 29 federal court cases over a 20-year span. He has been hired by defense attorneys, federal public defenders and sometimes the U.S. Department of Justice, which last asked him to verify government testing at $175 per hour.
Savage’s firm, Historic Arms, LLC, is a leading source for semi-auto Bren light machineguns and other unique items, and he also repairs full-auto weapons. “I haven’t had to testify in many, many years,” he said. “The last time I was summoned to examine the government’s evidence they dismissed the case.”
Savage has closely followed the ATF’s treatment of Patrick “Tate” Adamiak. “I am familiar with Tate’s case and I have even spoken to him,” Savage said Monday. “Was this a legit charge? Nope. This was part of Joe Biden’s anti-gun agenda. They were going after everything during that time period. They went after pistol braces—they went after everything you can imagine.”
Adamiak is just starting the third year of his 20-year federal prison sentence. A series of more than 30 stories revealed that none of the charges he faced were based on any actual violations. All were made up by the ATF.
How about a presidential pardon and a few presidential “You’re fired!” moments?
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Gun Control Orgs Ready to Floor It in Virginia As Soon As Spanberger Takes Office.
Youngkin has vetoed 42 gun reform bills since he took office in 2022, including an assault weapons ban, a prohibition on abusive dating partners owning guns, and a minimum age for rifle purchases, according to a Trace analysis. He vetoed 24 of those bills in 2024 alone. The following year, Democrats reintroduced 15 of the same bills — plus three new ones — knowing they had little chance of passage. Now, with Spanberger set to be sworn in on January 17, Democrats are mobilizing for another try.
“We’re not going to take our foot off the gas,” State Senator Adam Ebbin, who chairs the Legislature’s gun violence prevention caucus, told The Trace. Ebbin plans to reintroduce the bills he sponsored that were vetoed by Youngkin last year. “I know that we’ll have others as well who are strategizing on it currently,” he said of his fellow Democratic lawmakers. “So there’ll be a substantial gun safety package reintroduced. And I expect the bills to be signed.”
Here’s what you can expect, Virginia: The 12 gun bills passed by the Colorado legislature this year and signed into law.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Supreme Court May Consider the Age-Old Second Amendment Question. “Out of the Fourth Circuit comes West Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. At issue in this case is whether a federal law that bans licensed sales of handguns and handgun ammunition to anyone under the age of 21 violates the Second Amendment rights of 18- to 20-year-olds who otherwise can own firearms, in general. The 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen requires a “plain text” reading of the Second Amendment, consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulations.”
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Trump’s DOJ Moves to Back Second Amendment Rights in the Courts.
More recently, Pirro has determined another D.C. firearms statute can’t be reconciled with the Second Amendment: the city’s blanket ban on possession of so-called large capacity feeding devices. This statute arbitrarily limits the capacity of a firearm magazine to 10 rounds or fewer, well below the factory-specified capacity for many common guns.
Last month, the United States filed a motion to vacate an appellant’s conviction under D.C. Code §7-2506.01(b) for possession of a large capacity feeding device. According to the filing, it is “the United States’s view that a complete ban on large capacity ammunition feeding devices as defined in D.C. Code § 7-2506.01(b) cannot survive constitutional scrutiny,” and, “As a result, the United States is not prosecuting violations of §7-2506.01(b) …” The filing further acknowledged the Department of Justice’s past defense of the statute but noted it “has changed its position as to the validity of the statute under the Second Amendment.”
If this keeps up, Trump 47 will go down as the most 2nd Amendment-friendly administration since… I don’t even know when.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: DOJ Asks Court to Vacate Man’s Conviction of ‘High Capacity’ Magazine Possession in Washington, DC. “But let’s not miss the forest for the trees here. No administration has ever acknowledged that magazine bans are unconstitutional before. This is absolutely unprecedented. We knew they took this position in civil cases based on their amicus briefs in the 7th and 3rd circuits, but this is further confirmation that they are also taking the same position even in criminal cases.”
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Chicago Declares War On Lawful Gun Owners. “Both McWilliams and Washington are black, and CBS heavily pursues that angle. I guess we’re supposed to believe that a city with radical leftwing black Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson, running a one party Democratic city who hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1931, in a state run by Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker since 2019, is institutionally racist against black people. Maybe. But judging from their rhetoric and actions, Chicago and Illinois Democrats seem institutionally hostile to lawful gun owners of all races.”
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Mayors in America’s Gun Control Nirvana Now Want to Take a Supply-Side Approach Their Persistent ‘Gun Violence’ Problem.
Brady President Kris Brown said, “Let’s focus on the supply side.”
Brown said irresponsible gun dealers sell to straw purchasers, weapons traffickers, and often do it off the books.
“Here in California, it’s 10% of the dealers that are responsible for 50% of the guns recovered in crime,” Brown said. …
Richmond Mayor Eduardo Martinez said his officers have been researching the supply side of gun violence.
“We need to make sure that they are penalized for making our streets less safe by providing guns,” Martinez said. “In Richmond, we’ve had the Police Department start identifying the weapons and sourcing them just so that we have and idea of where they’re coming from.”
I suppose Democrat mayors could try arresting and prosecuting criminals, but that would go against every principle of constituent service.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: DC Man’s Slip of the Tongue Lands Him in Jail for Possession of a Forced Reset Trigger. “You probably haven’t heard the name Erez Avissar — but if you’re a gun owner, you’d better remember it. Because what just happened to him in Washington, D.C. should scare the hell out of anyone who believes in the Constitution.”
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: A Surprisingly Good Self-Defense Decision From Massachusetts’ Top Court.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: ASA, NRA, SAF, FPC File Lawsuit Challenging the Constitutionality of the National Firearms Act.
You have to love the strategy. If you’ll remember, back in June when the Big Beautiful Bill was being haggled over, there was much sturm und drang over the existential nature of the National Firearms Act, and how the Senate Parliamentarian would treat efforts to pull items like suppressors and SBRs out as part of the reconciliation process. Again, reconciliation measures can sidestep the Senate’s 60-vote requirement and pass with a simple majority.
As many pointed out, the courts and the DOJ had for decades made the case that the NFA is tax measure. That’s how its primary champion justified it as not infringing on Americans’ gun rights when the NFA was being considered back in 1934. That being the case, inclusion of both the SHORT Act and the Hearing Protection Act in the B³ should have been a no-brainer.
The Senate Parliamentarian, however, saw things differently and ruled them out. That’s why, instead of pulling suppressors, SBRs and SBSs out of the NFA and regulating them like any other firearm you can buy today, the only step forward included in the final version of the B³ was the elimination of the $200 tax stamp (which will take effect on January 1).
But wait. Zeroing out the tax stamp isn’t nothing. As we and others have pointed out, eliminating the tax stamp undercuts any remaining argument that the NFA is a tax…because there is no longer a tax involved. On top of that, cans and SBRs are in common use. That means they pass the Heller test. There’s also no text, history or tradition of regulating them which means doing so doesn’t pass the Bruen test.
More at the link.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: SCOTUS Will Hear Hawaii Carry Ban Case.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Court Rules Against Post Office Carry Ban.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Another Win for Bruen: Judge Holds Ban on Carry in Post Offices is Unconstitutional. “Judge Reed O’Connor, a Trump appointee, said both the Post Office’s own regulation and a federal law barring firearms possession in a ‘federal facility’ cannot survive scrutiny after the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in the Bruen case. That ruling said that for firearms restrictions to stand, they must be consistent with what the founders who crafted the Second Amendment would have envisioned.”
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Delaware Superior Court Strikes Down Gun Ban Aimed at 18-21 year olds. “Article I, Section 20 of the Delaware Constitution enshrined the right of citizens to “keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and State, and for hunting and recreational use.” At a minimum, some provisions of HB 451 infringe on the right of a subsection of adults, aged eighteen to twenty, to exercise their right to ‘defense of self, family, home and State.’ Accordingly, those provisions violate the Delaware Constitution and are unenforceable.”
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Gun buyer licensing law giving some Colorado sheriffs heartburn.
Not enforcing it, [Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams] said, makes it harder on his constituents, not easier.
“If I ignore this and don’t issue these permits, I’m creating a bigger barrier for them to exercise their constitutional right to buy a gun,” Reams said. “I’m just trying to get out of the way. It is unconstitutional. But until someone sues, I can at least not be a roadblock. Sheriffs are squarely in the middle of a gun conflict that we didn’t ask to be in.”
Reams was referring to the steps added to purchase semi-automatic guns that accept detachable magazines, which amounts to a huge number of commonly owned handguns and rifles.
Hopeful buyers must first get fingerprinted to prove eligibility to own a gun, then taking that proof to the local sheriff, who then gives them a card that approves them to take a special class by a certified instructor (the details of which are not yet in place). Once the applicant passes that test, they will be put into a statewide database for five years, which gun dealers will then need to access to confirm the person is legally able to purchase the firearm.
However, the added workload and costs to sheriff’s offices across the state are what are of concern for many – but not all – sheriffs. Reams said at this point he’s planning to request two more full time employees to manage the increase. But those numbers are not guaranteed. He said it could be more.
“Weld County has 27,000 concealed-carry permit holders,” Reams said. “That keeps my front office staff busy enough as it is. My guess is there will be four to five times as many people who will want to exercise their right to take that class to go buy a gun.”
I imagine that underfunding/understaffing the required two-day class might prove to be another one of Denver’s infringements.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Cornyn Is Learning Meaning of FAFO. “It came after Uvalde, which I guess he thought Texans would be so irrational about that they’d suddenly support gun control, and he was just making the savvy political move. Unfortunately, he’s learning all about how, if one f**** around, one finds out.”
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Federal District Court Rules NY’s Non-Resident Carry Ban Violates the Second Amendment. “This ruling will, of course, be appealed. The game, after all, is to delay, delay, delay. Still, this is a very positive ruling and another brick knocked out of the gun control wall.”
I choose to think of it as one small step on the way to nationwide constitutional carry.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Colorado’s gun rights restrictions keep criminals empowered. “The recent flurry of gun control measures has made Colorado one of the most restrictive states for firearm ownership in America. Senate Bill 25-003 for example, imposes a three-stage process on every Coloradan who may need to purchase a semiautomatic pistol for self-defense. There is no cap on fees and there is no time frame within which an application must be approved or denied. This will create substantial time and cost barriers for anyone who needs protect themself and their families in case of an emergency.”