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ATF Issues Cease and Desist Order to Non-Firearms Manufacturer

November 22, 2010 by 1 Comment

On Thursday, the ATF hand delivered a Cease and Desist order to KT Ordnance of Dillon, MT. They are a company that machines 60% unfinished 1911 frames and AR-15 lowers. The products requires additional machining to make them usable. For example, on the 1911 unfinished frames, you still must cut the the slide rails and the barrel seat cut as well as drilling the hammer and sear holes. I know I’m not enough of a metal worker to do this!

As you can see in the picture below, it is hunk of metal that can’t readily be made into a firearm without much additional work.

 

David Codrea in his National Gun Rights Examiner has an extensive report on this. He also has copies of the letter delivered to KT Ordnance as well as their attorney’s response to the ATF. The way the ATF is going about it is fairly strange as Codrea notes:

Here’s the thing: IF Celata is doing what the government accuses him of, since when do they give out warnings and advise people to get a license? Can you imagine the DEA finding you formulating and selling Oxycontin and responding by hand-delivering a letter telling you to stop and not resume activities until you become a legally-authorized pharmacist?

And since when does ATF do things that way? This looks like nothing so much as a clumsy attempt at entrapment–if they can get him to acknowledge in writing that what he is doing constitutes manufacturing firearms, they’ll be able to use that to obtain a warrant, do a raid and then characterize it to a jury as Celata’s “admission/confession.”

This bears watching.

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Black (Rifle) Friday Sale

November 22, 2010 by 1 Comment

Brownells, the source of parts and tools of darn near everything firearms related, is having their own Black Friday sale – except that it is a Black Rifle Friday sale. I think it is a great play on words!

Here is their press release on it along with links to their coupon codes.

Save on your gun related Christmas shopping starting at 12:00 AM, Friday, November 26! Go to http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/bapid=34/ClientPage/Black_Rifle_Fridayat 12:00 AM to get the special coupon code, or be a friend on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/BrownellsInc, and get early access to the coupon code, and a head start on savings. Entering the coupon code will save you 10% off any order over $150! The exclusive savings run through midnight, on “Cyber-Monday”, November 29, so make out your wish list for Santa and get ready to save! And, selected items have special, reduced prices, available all weekend; AND, the 10% offer is good there, too!

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Comply With Me

November 20, 2010 by

What can you say about the Iowahawk except that he is brilliant!

Eric Felten in his Wall Street Journal column yesterday had this to say sarcastically with reference to the TSA anger at criticism of their new “procedures”:

Shame on those of you who have bought the “Don’t Touch My Junk” T-shirts that entrepreneurs made available this week. Shame too on the Tea Party types who mocked the inviolable authority of the TSA by replacing the Gadsden Flag’s “Don’t Tread On Me” with Mr. Tyner’s impertinent slogan. And treble shame on the blogger Iowahawk who demeaned not only the TSA but Frank Sinatra by recasting “Come Fly With Me” as “Comply With Me.” (The lyric “Once I get you up there” became “Once I get all up there.”) You should all be aware that the TSA is not amused.

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Colt 1911 Rail Gun

November 20, 2010 by 2 Comments

At the same time Colt’s Manufacturing was rolling out the SP901 Modular Carbine to writers and bloggers at Gunsite, they were rolling out a new version of the 1911. Called the Rail Gun, it is part of their XSE line of 1911’s and features an integral rail for use with weapon-mounted lights or lasers. It is a full-sized Government model 1991 in either blackened or brushed stainless steel, has Novak 3-dot sights, an upswept beavertail grip, and the previously mentioned integral rail. Currently it is only available in .45 ACP.

Michael Bane reviews the pistol for DownRange TV in the video below. From the comments he made, it is obvious that he likes it. I believe he said in his recent podcast that he liked it enough to buy it. When a gun writer buys a gun with his own money that says something.

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Old Politicians and Old Press Releases Really Never Die

November 20, 2010 by

It is sometimes amazing what documents you can find that are still available on the Internet. I’m not talking about historical documents related to our country’s founding that might be found in the National Archives. Rather I came across this old press release from someone that the State of Illinois would rather forget – then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 14, 2005

Governor Blagojevich launches effort to fight gun trafficking
Governor sets up gun crime unit in State Police; New Gun Trafficking Unit will work with Indiana, Mississippi and federal agencies to stop flow of crime guns into Illinois

CHICAGO – In a new effort to stop the flow of illegal guns into Illinois, Governor Rod Blagojevich today announced the creation of an elite gun trafficking police unit that will work with federal authorities and law enforcement agencies from two other states to detect and capture gunrunners and dealers.

“Most guns used in crimes come from out of state. The more we can stop the flow of illegal guns into Illinois, the less gun crime and gun violence we’ll see. That’s why we’re creating an elite gun crimes unit to reduce the flow of crime guns into the hands of criminals. We’re going to track illegal guns to their sources and crack down on the sale and distribution of illegal guns,” Governor Blagojevich said.

More crime guns flow into Illinois from Indiana and Mississippi than from any other state. According to recent data, 777 crime guns from Indiana and 532 crime guns from Mississippi were located in Illinois. Crime guns from these two states alone nearly equal the total number of crime guns from the next 10 states combined.

Nationwide, close to 90 percent of guns used in crimes are trafficked. In Chicago, for the past two years more than 75 percent of murders involved guns.

Trafficking is when a gun is passed from a legal buyer or seller, to a person or group who are not permitted to have a weapon. Trafficking also takes place when a gun is stolen, sold by a corrupt dealer to a criminal, sold to a legal buyer who gives it to a criminal, or inadvertently sold to a criminal. In Illinois, almost half of traced gun crimes were trafficked from another state.

“Illinois is flooded with a deadly tide of crime guns that come from states that have very lax gun laws. This initiative will have a greater impact on reducing Illinois crime than any other gun safety measure currently being proposed,” said Jim Kessler, Policy and Research Director for Americans for Gun Safety.

The gun-tracing unit will work with authorities in Indiana and Mississippi, coordinating information on purchases, allowing law enforcement to take action. The unit will also analyze federal data to detect trends and patterns and prevent criminal activity.

The unit will be led by a Master Sergeant and will include five new intelligence analysts to study crime gun data and help lead agents to gun traffickers. The state troopers assigned to this unit will be trained by the federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).

The Governor also sent a clear message to those who want to make guns more easily accessible. “Bills that would preempt the home rule and take away the power of cities to enact gun control laws, or that would make Illinois a conceal and carry state, or that would destroy records that will make it harder for law enforcement to trace gun crimes, are bills that would weaken our gun laws and increase crime. If any of these bills reach my desk, let me say it right now: they are dead on arrival.”

Illinois State Police Director Larry Trent, Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics Director George Phillips, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Division of the ATF Andrew L. Traver, and the leadership of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police as well as legislators and leaders from state and national gun control advocacy groups including Americans for Gun Safety, the Chicago Chapter of the National Brady Campaign and the Northern Suburban Chapter of the Million Mom March joined the Governor at the press conference.

Blago, as he has become know in new headlines, was impeached and convicted by the Illinois General Assembly in 2009. He was later tried on Federal corruption charges. Blagojevich was convicted on one count of lying to the FBI when a mistrial was declared on the remaining 23 charges as the jury couldn’t reach a decision. He will be retried on those charges in April 2011.

It is important to remember that Blagojevich always made gun control a central part of his political campaigns. Running for reelection in 2006, he pummeled his Republican opponent mercilessly on gun control especially her opposition to a new assault weapons (sic) ban.

I’m sure that is one news conference and one disgraced politician that Andrew Traver and those supporting his nomination to be the Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives would sooner forget. The beauty (and the curse) of the Internet is that things are never really forgotten.

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And In North Carolina News…

November 20, 2010 by

Congressman Bob “Who Are You” Etheridge has conceded defeat to Renee Ellmers. In the unofficial recount, Ellmers has maintained her approximately 1,500 vote lead. Ellmers, if you will recall, was rated AQ by the NRA and was eventually endorsed by them. Etheridge, by contrast, was rated D by the NRA. It is somewhat surprising that someone with his weak gun rights credentials could hold on to his seat in rural eastern North Carolina for so long.

One last thing about Renee Ellmers – she has her CCW and didn’t hide that fact.

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CCRKBA Joins Fight Against Nomination of Traver

November 19, 2010 by

This was released yesterday by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms regarding the nomination of Andrew Traver to head ATF:

CITIZENS COMMITTEE OPPOSES TRAVER NOMINATION TO HEAD BATFE
Thursday, November 18th, 2010

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today is announcing its opposition to the nomination, by President Obama, of Andrew Traver as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

Traver is currently special agent in charge of Chicago’s BATFE field division, where he has a history of working with gun prohibitionists. He served as an advisor to the International Association for Chiefs of Police on that group’s 2007 “Gun Violence Reduction Project,” in cooperation with the anti-gun-rights Joyce Foundation. This project involved several high profile anti-gun-rights advocates, but there was not a single representative from the firearms community on the advisory panel.

“The nomination of Andrew Traver is more proof that Barack Obama has complete disregard for the Second Amendment and the rights of firearms owners,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “We have serious concerns that the agency, under his leadership, will maintain any semblance of cooperation with the firearms industry, over which BATFE exercises considerable control.”

Traver helped develop the IACP/Joyce Foundation report, which recommended banning an array of modern sport-utility rifles and .50-caliber rifles used in long-range competition. The report also encouraged Congress to repeal the Tiahrt Amendment that protects sensitive trace data used by law enforcement in criminal investigations from being misued in frivolous municipal lawsuits that have consistently lost in court, and urged the adoption of restrictive gun show regulations that would effectively force them to close.

“Mr. Traver appears to be joined at the hip to various gun control and gun ban efforts,” Gottlieb observed. “The Citizens Committee, its members and supporters across the country oppose this nomination because Traver’s history clear shows that he is not the right man for such an important job.”

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Brady Campaign Says Oops – Never Mind

November 19, 2010 by 1 Comment

Like a scene from the first season of Saturday Night Live where Gilda Radner’s character Miss Emily Litella is always saying “Never mind!”, so it is with the Brady Center.

Yesterday they had this announcement on their website trumpeting their filing an amicus brief in the NRA’s Texas case D’Cruz et al v. McCraw et al:

Brady Center Urges Court to Throw Out NRA Lawsuit to Allow Teenagers to Carry Concealed Firearms

Nov 17, 2010

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence today filed a brief in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas urging the court to throw out an NRA lawsuit claiming that teens and young persons ages 18-20 have a constitutional right to carry loaded, concealed weapons in public.

“It is dangerous and reckless for the NRA to claim that teenagers should be allowed to carry loaded semiautomatic weapons on our streets and playgrounds. The Second Amendment allows for commonsense gun laws, it doesn’t require that we legally allow armed teens in our communities,” said Brady Center President Paul Helmke.

The lawsuit, filed by the National Rifle Association, claims that the Second Amendment requires that states allow teens and young persons ages 18-20 to carry loaded firearms in public. It seeks to overturn a Texas law that generally prohibits the carrying of loaded, concealed weapons by people under age 21. Texas is one of 36 states that restricts the possession or carrying of firearms by teens and young persons ages 18-20. The Texas Constitution specifically allows the regulation of public gun carrying, stating that the “Legislature shall have power, by law, to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.”

The brief cites studies showing that young persons under 21 often lack the same ability as adults to “govern impulsivity, judgment, planning for the future, and foresight of consequences.” People aged 18-20 fall within the age range of offenders who commit the highest rates homicide and engage in criminal gun possession.

According to the Brady Center brief, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Second Amendment protects a limited, narrow “right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home” but has also made clear that the right to bear arms “is not infringed by laws prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons.” Laws restricting teenage gun possession and carrying are reasonable gun laws permissible under the Second Amendment.

The Brady Center amicus brief was filed today in the case D’Cruz v. McCraw by attorneys with the Brady Center, the law firm Hogan Lovells and Texas attorney Scott Medlock. The Brady Center was joined on the brief by Texas organizations Mothers Against Teen Violence and the Texas Chapters of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Today, in that same court, they filed a motion to withdraw their application of amici curiae.

In light of the fact that defendants have not moved to dismiss Plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint and have instead requested additional time to respond to the Amended Complaint, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Mothers Against Teen Violence, and Texas Chapters of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, through undersigned counsel, move to withdraw their application for leave to file a brief as amici curiae.

This move was not opposed by either the NRA or the Texas Attorney General’s Office.

Perhaps to make up for their premature filing of their brief, the Brady Campaign then filed an application to file an amicus brief in the Westchester County (NY) pistol permit case, Kachalsky et al v. Cacace et al. They attached as an exhibit the proposed amicus brief.

However, as I noted in a post describing the first endorsed letters in this case, Judge Cathy Seibel’s Individual Practices 2.A. requires a pre-motion conference arranged by letter before a motion is allowed to be entered into the record. She makes no mention of amici curiae filings. One must wonder if the Brady Campaign is quite aware of just how tightly Judge Seibel runs her courtroom. If not, they well could be in for a surprise and may have to say “never mind” again.

The Brady Campaign – the Miss Emily Litella of gun control groups.

UPDATE: David Codrea has a post on an earlier oopsie that the Brady Campaign had with an amicus brief here.

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No Appeal in Wisconsin Concealed Carry Case

November 18, 2010 by 5 Comments

About a month ago, I did a post on Clark County, WI Judge Jon Counsell who ruled that that Wisconsin’s ban on concealed carry was unconstitutional. At the time it was widely speculated that the State of Wisconsin would appeal that ruling.

They didn’t.

In an email that I received today from Asst. State Public Defender William Poss he said, “The good news is that the state did not appeal the ruling.” That is good news indeed for residents of Clark County, Wisconsin!

With the recent electoral victories of Republican Scott Walker as Governor and the Republican take-over of both houses of the Wisconsin State Assembly, look to see a bill authorizing concealed carry statewide in 2011.