…….

…….

What is a “machine gun”?

B.L.U.F. The DoJ got a judge to grant a TRO against Rare Breed’s FRT-15 trigger. This might have interesting fallout with regards to the NFA and/or ATF overstepping their bounds, again.

27 CFR § 479.11

Machine gun. Any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machine gun, and any combination of parts from which a machine gun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.

This is the law. Congress passed this law in 1934. The issue has always been that the final ruling on what is and is not a NFA item or a firearm has been the opinion of the ATF.

[N]either laws nor the procedures used to create or implement them should be secret; and … the laws must not be arbitrary.
U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Diane Wood, “The RUle of Law in Times of Stress”(2003)

Judge Wood’s comments highlight the need for, first, an open and transparent system of making laws and, second, laws that are applied predictably and uniformly. Openness and transparency are essential. If people are unable to know and understand what the law is, they cannot be expected to follow it. At the same time, people deserve to know why a particular law has been passed and why they are being asked to obey it.

— American Bar Association “What is the rule of law”

There is a point in time where a piece of metal or a fabrication moves from being an object, a hunk of aluminum, or a piece of bent sheet metal to a frame or receiver. The point at which this happens is not know from the law. It isn’t defined. One moment the thing isn’t a firearm, the next it is.

For example, if you were to cast a piece of plastic in the shape of an AR15 lower and were then to fill in the fire control area with a different colored plastic, that thing is a firearm. It became a firearm when it became a receiver which happened when it was first shaped like an AR15 receiver. Filling it back in does not make it “not a frame or receiver” once a receiver, always a receiver until properly destroyed.

Now let’s say we reverse the process, we create a piece of plastic that is the shape of the fire control pocket and then cast another piece of plastic around that first piece of plastic, making one single piece of plastic. That is not a receiver when the ATF was asked.

How about if the fire control pocket is orange and the exterior is black plastic? Ummm, that MIGHT be a receiver. How about if the fire control pocket had pins in the places where you drill the holes for the selector, trigger and hammer pins? According to the ATF, even though it takes exactly the same amount of work to finish, marking those holes makes it a receiver.

The point in time where you put your first dimple on an AR-15 “80% lower” where any of those three holes will go it becomes a receiver.

How do we know? Because many different people and companies have sent samples to the ATF and asked for a determination letter. Is this a firearm? The ATF will then send back a letter saying yes or no.

So here is the magic of definitions and the every changing opinions of the ATF. Marking where the magic forth hole will go makes that hunk of aluminum not just a regular frame or receiver, it makes it a machine gun receiver.

How do you, a normal citizen know at which point you have a firearm and when you have just an object? It isn’t clear.

Because it isn’t clear, the courts rely on the agency to tell them. This is why the ATF gets to say. Now the courts do get to look at the definitions and say “ATF, you are full of shit. Your definition doesn’t match what is written in law.”

Which brings us to some stupids.

“The ATF is so wacko that they ruled that a shoelace was a machine gun.”

This is true. They did. And yes, the firearm that had that shoelace on it was a machine gun. So enterprising individual had created a fully automatic M1 Garand or made an M1A Semi-Auto rifle fully automatic by adding a string to it.

The string is tied to the trigger and then fed through a eye behind the trigger. With this you could pull the string to fire the rifle. When the rifle is fired, the charging handle comes back, the case is ejected and the bolt moves forward stripping a round from the magazine and chambering the round. The trigger is reset when it moves forward.

Now take the other end of that string and attach it to the charging handle. If the string is the right length, as the bolt, with charging handle, moves forward it pulls the string tight which pulls the trigger. Bang. Bolt and charging handle move backwards and the string goes slack. Trigger resets. Bolt moves forward and Bang again. Repeat until magazine is empty.

That is a machine gun.

As stated above, for years people that want to stay on the right side of the ATF have sent samples to the ATF and gotten determination letters back. The problem is that the ATF can change their mind. The lab back in DC sends out a determination letter that says “it is not a firearm”. A local ATF inspects the same thing and says it is. The determination letter isn’t going to keep you out of trouble.

Rare Breed Triggers, LLC and Rare Breed Firearms, LLC decided to poke the tigger. They created a device that fires only one shot “by a single function of the trigger”. This device used the rearward movement of the bolt to push the trigger forward along with the shooters finger to position the shooters finger to press the trigger again.

By engineering magic, the reset didn’t complete until it was safe for the shooter to press the trigger again.

From the outside, it looks a lot like a machine gun. It can be used to fire very rapidly. According to Rare Bread Triggers, LLC it is not a machine gun.

Their big poke in the eye of ATF was that they didn’t bother to ask ATF. They went to their lawyers, and their experts and asked “According to the law, is this a machine gun?”

Their lawyers and their experts said “it is not.”

Having received legal advise from their lawyers they proceeded to sell the FRT, or Forced Reset Trigger.

Of course the Karens of infringement land shit their collective panties. How dare somebody find a legal way to make and sell a fun switch for a firearm. Hadn’t they just gotten evil bump stocks banned? And now this FRT is trying the same thing, only different.

On January 19th, 2023 the US DoJ filed suit in the Eastern District of New York (Brookland) requesting a injunction against Rare Breed.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, – v. – RARE BREED TRIGGERS, LLC; RARE BREED FIREARMS, LLC; LAWRENCE DEMONICO; KEVIN MAXWELL

The gist of the complaint is that Bruen doesn’t matter at all. Instead AR-15s are scary and some bad people have done bad things with AR-15s and the FRT-15 makes AR-15 even more super scary because they empty magazines faster!

As with most of these gun rights cases, the government always starts with telling the court how evil guns are and because guns are evil they should be restricted(infringed on) in some way. Post Bruen the government then says “and the evil thing we are going to ban isn’t protected by the second amendment, it is up to them to prove it is.” Followed by “It isn’t in common use because we they can’t show that the evil thing is actually fired in self-defense situations, much less commonly used.”

Judge Nina R Morrison granted the TRO that the DoJ requested on the 25th. This happened without attorneys for Rare Breed being there. On Jan 20th, the DoJ asked that the case be sealed and that was granted. On the 23rd the Judge granted an ex parte hearing.

An ex parte hearing is “done with respect to or in the interests of one side only or of an interested outside party.”

The DoJ got to present their side, the Judge granted the TRO. The defendants (good guys) were served and then the DoJ requested and was granted a motion to unseal the case.

At this point there are two dates are mentioned, Feb 2nd, 2023 and Feb 16th, 2023. So we should see some action on this in the near future.

Given that this is post Bruen it will be interesting to see if the lawyers attack with a Second Amendment claim or if they go with “ATF is overstepping their bounds”.

It will be interesting in many ways. While this is of smaller concern than pistol braces and bump stocks, it is closely related and might very well get grouped with those other cases on appeal.

In my option, Rare Breed went into this business with the desire to be sued up to the Supreme Court in order to attack the NFA.

Case Docket

H/T Grossly biased headline Judge blocks sale of machine gun converters after U.S. sues

“In Defense of the Second Amendment” by Larry Correia. (Book Review)

 In Defense of the Second Amendment: 9781684514144: Correia, Larry.

First the “bad” news: Most everything I read in this book I knew already and if you are a long-time reader of this blog, you would know also because we posted and commented about it till we drove ourselves nuts. Interestingly enough, that is also the great news about this book: Everything we have talked about, discussed, figured out and come up with about the Second Amendment is in this book plus the fact that Larry writes so much better than me makes it a must-have book.

You will have at your fingertips in one dedicated package all the required information to make our case against those who hate Freedoms. This is invaluable.

And if you are too lazy to engage in arguments but need to help a new person or a fence sitter about the need for a Second Amendment, here is the tip I personally give you:

Get Two Copies Of The Book.

You keep one for your own use and the other to give away when somebody is really interested in know our side, and you figure Larry will deliver the message better than you could.

Bad legal take

I think Andre Branca is drunk on boot polish.

 

“The law says you can’t resist and run away from the police who are beating you to death for fun because trying to save your own life is resisting, which justifies beating you to death.”

Five cops vs one unarmed man trying to field goal kick hid head off isn’t trying to force compliance, that’s murder.

That’s just weird

Bodycam footage from the police response to the attack on Paul Pelosi:

 

Pelosi still had a drink in his left hand.

They opened the door almost casually.

This raises a lot more questions than it answers.

 

Link Dump

(Corporations are fighting huge minimum wage increases, greedy companies, putting money over people)

(Bad laws are in danger of being struck down, oh always me…)

(The Supreme Court followed the law and now I feel unsafe.  Whimper, pout)

(If you own a book you are greedy and insert insulting term, I’m better than you because I’m giving my cheap romance novels to those poor wretched creatures without my wonderfulness)

(Oh look, the Supreme Court followed the law so I’m going to infringe harder, that’ll show them)

(Clutch your pearls!  They shooter had a rifle!  And he a few boxes of ammo.)

(We are going to make this state safe for every criminal!  No more scary guns showing on somebodies hip)

As we’ve said before, when there is no open carry, cops will say that if you print you are open carrying.  If there is no CCW but there is open carry, the cops will say you are carrying concealed if any part of the holster or firearm is covered in any way.

(Oh my goodness, a bunch of FFLs are all in the same building!  And we managed to entrap one of them to making something that can be construed as a straw man sale)

A little bit of good news.

A leftist directed a hit piece on Justice Kavanaugh based on the fact that the FBI didn’t check all of the spurious reports left on their tip line.

And so it starts in Memphis

After the release of the Tyre Nicols videos, the inevitable begins.

 

The Tyre Nichols beatdown. Just a bit over the top. (Update: That was fast)

I am not a defender of the criminal element and I understand that a critter that does not want to be handcuffed can be an awful handful.

But shit, this is over the top, especially when you try to kick a field goal with his head which I believe no department allows for restratining an unarmed suspect.

 

The five officers were black. I wonder how fast the narrative will bleach their skins and how many BLM honchos buy new mansions with the donations.


UPDATE: Not even 30 seconds after I published, I found this.

Update 2: [smh]