The ATF's Unconstitutional Abuse Never Ends

This Fresh Illegal Exercise of Authority Targets Law-Abiding Gun Owners

Jan 16

What is wrong with Democrats? Really. I don’t mean this in the spirit of frenzied, screaming partisan noise. I am sincerely curious. Permanent Swamp Creatures in the Federal bureaucracy can always be abusers of rights, but they seem to do so with increasing gusto under Democrat Administrations.

Every single thing they do and idea they purport to champion only damage normal, law-abiding taxpayers and encourage criminals.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) just made a bizarre new rule which places millions of law-abiding Americans in jeopardy of becoming Federal felons for using a piece of bracing material whose sole purpose is to stabilize a firearm while shooting. A rational person might wonder why the government would prefer that someone shooting a gun do so in a less stabilized and therefore less controlled manner.

There are 10 to 40 million of these devices owned by millions of Americans. The ATF has just put forward 500+ pages of rule materials which could toss any one of these Americans into prison for decades. Let’s be clear about how insane this new rule is: Legally purchased and commonly used products could suddenly land you in prison for decades.

There are myriad smart people commenting on the (il)legality of this madness. Links to three of them are included below should you be so inclined to learn more of the nitty gritty.

You can dive deeply down this rabbit hole and many lawyers will help you do so, including the ones I link to below. I am aiming my comments at normal, rational Americans who have not been following this insanity. This has nothing to do with public safety and is solely about government exercising arbitrary and unconstitutional control over citizens’ lives. This time it’s about guns, which is why Democrats are so keen on it; all Leftists from Hitler to “Black Face” Trudeau in Canada hate independent citizens being armed for self-defence.

Next time it’s about you, smug urban liberal. If you think you’re safe from government tyranny because you have allowed your State to strip you of your right to self-defence, the next arbitrary rule they issue may well make you a felon.

Among the absurd litany of “tests” to see if the pistol you bought legally and like to shoot on the weekends will now send you to prison for decades: The ATF is now going to review “marketing material” of component manufacturers to see if the company has suggested their brace be used to allow some horrible taxpayer to shoot a firearm braced against their shoulder.

All this crap has nothing to do with preventing criminals from being criminals, nor will it increase public safety in any way. Quite the contrary - if you are in favor of, say, an older person being able to shoot better by stabilizing the gun they are using, this rule demands that older, wobbly people shoot their firearms in a less controlled manner.

But, hey! It’s not all tyranny! There is some great news, granted to us by Our Gracious If Unelected Rulers at the ATF.

To avoid becoming a felon, you can:

Destroy a weapon which was perfectly legal yesterday and is now suddenly illegal.
Surrender to the government a weapon which cost you a lot of money.
Go through some insane process which involves begging these same totalitarian assholes to tell you your gun is exempt from this rule.
Register your gun with the ATF in violation of the 2nd Amendment and pay a $200 tax stamp for something you already bought and paid taxes on.

Nothing in this illegal rule will do a damned thing to make a single, honest American safer.

I am not even going to wade into the fact that the DOJ and ATF have flipflopped on this absurdity five times over the last few years. You know what does not involve changing back and forth repeatedly? Things which are clearly bad or good. The government does not change its mind six times in four years regarding whether murder should be illegal.

My call-to-action exhortation applies to everyone.

If you think this is a great rule, call your Congressional Representatives to tell them you love the substance of the rule, but Congress must craft legislation to make it so. ATF has no statutory authority.
If you think this is an insanely bad rule and appalling abuse of freedom, call your Congressional Representatives to tell them that Congress must craft legislation to make it perfectly clear that neither ATF nor any other non-elected bureaucracy has any statutory authority.

Happy 2023! Let’s make it the year we beat the Federal Leviathan back into a much smaller shape.

Some background videos: