Well.. that just happened. ATF classification ruling that ArmBrace = SBR

[Hansel&Grendel]

Check out Clean Up ATF.org sometime if you want to peek under ATF’s skirt some more.

They’ve had major problems for decades. When they threaten one of their main agents who was UC with the motorcycle gangs, by saying they will get cartel informants/assets to film his wife being raped before they kill her and his kids, burn his house down, and stick the murder/arson charges on him, you know they went off the deep end long ago.

Their whole focus on the motorcycle gangs is based on the interstate commerce argument the AG and Asst AG made in 1934 before Congress. In addition to weaponizing Congress’s power to tax as a way around the Bill of Rights and Constitution, they also suggested using Interstate Commerce laws to charge hardened criminal gangsters and bank-robbers from transporting firearms across State lines was another legal tool to be enacted.

The thinking behind AG Cummings and Asst AG Keenan’s arguments in 1934 were entirely unconstitutional, and created a weird set of regulations about interstate transport that only hurt the people. The idea was to make it easier to arrest and prosecute suspects who were traveling over State lines in possession of firearms, which is part of the right to keep and bear. They didn’t like it because some of the cases built against gangsters (who were moving from one safe house to another across State lines) were pretty flimsy and didn’t result in the convictions they wanted.

It criminalizes the conduct of the entire citizenry just to catch a tiny gaggle of gangsters and bank-robbers in early 1930s America.

Interstate Commerce clauses are meant to promote, unify, and standardize trade between the States, not bottleneck or restrict it. That whole argument is fundamentally flawed and openly so.

ATF and BoN/DEA were big on that back in the 1970s and 1980s since DOJ could use the same provisions to prosecute gangs for smuggling.

The problem is, it’s a tempting tool for LEOs and DAs to use to penalize the citizens for normal and lawful conduct protected by the Constitution, since we don’t have a criminal standard of law like in other countries, despite ATF’s and DOJ’s attempts to change that into more of a police state.

Several criminal statutes involving interstate commerce are valuable tools for LE. We used the Mann Act appropriately to shutdown and prosecute the human trafficking of women from foreign countries. The majority were lured into prostitution often under the guise of masseuses at purported massage parlors. Six or seven women were crammed into one or two bedroom apartments and worked 6 12-hour days with all of their movements controlled. Local LE had misdemeanors whereas we had felonies including money laundering statutes to seize real and personal property, i.e., going after the fruits of the crime. Conversely, the use of the Mann Act had its moments of misuse and abuse in years prior.

I was well-established Federal LE when the Title 18 USC §§ 1956 and 1957 money laundering statutes were enacted to better deal with criminals and their illicit proceeds. Title 31 of the USC was used prior to §§ 1956 and 1957 but had issues associated with it. I witnessed some investigations, especially drug related, that were motivated by how many assets were subject to criminal forfeiture, thus taking precedence over how bad the criminals were. This was especially so with local LE who brought in the Feds because they could participate in Federal asset sharing programs. Many smaller local police jurisdictions that were paupers via poor funding received millions of dollars in asset forfeiture sharing (post-adjudication) and thereby supplemented their departments quite nicely. I tended to view that with a jaundice eye.

The previously mentioned Title 31 statutes commonly targeted individuals for "structuring" financial transactions to avoid and evade Federal currency reporting requirements. It was abused at times because proven structuring led to the forfeiture of entire bank accounts that became "tainted" by mere structuring but absent any underlying criminal conduct. The DOJ (I don't recall which AG) issued guidelines to stop using Title 31 without predicate criminal conduct. Why? Because innocent civilians who didn't like or trust the banking system lost tens of thousands of dollars to government seizure and forfeiture under Title 31. Or, shall I say (rhetorically) under the abuse of Title 31?

I must have viewed thousands of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) promulgated within the banking industry by Title 31 (The Bank Secrecy Act). The gatekeeper for the SARs is the Financial Intelligence Center (FinCEN). Great leads came from those SARs that led to the discovery of criminal conduct along with providing extensive previously unknown evidence for use in already active criminal investigations. The vast majority of agents across numerous Federal and local LE agencies that I worked with didn't abuse the system; however, the Treasury Department is partitioning SARs totaling hundreds of millions of dollars related to Hunter Biden, thereby preventing Congress from seeing the SARs. So, yes, right there is an example of abuse and politicization.

And, yes, I saw corruption first-hand at the Federal level during Joint Terrorism Tasks Force investigations. You can guess which Presidential Administration that was under. I and several other agents had 5 years of our careers thrown under the bus on a major JTTF investigation against some really bad actors; because a certain Presidential Administration (actually Administrations) wanted to protect foreign nationals (Middle Eastern) at all costs. I did something about it and was targeted for retribution, but survived. America was made safer and also more dangerous - the later based on politics and warped ideologies that are anti-U.S. at their core.

I won't even touch upon the illegal use of FISA wiretaps by certain FBI other than to give an honorable mention (actually, nothing honorable about it).

So, here we are today with a 294 page ATF ruling dealing with pistol braced guns. It's exhausting to read. As time goes along, I personally believe that the Federal government is going to have a difficult time in proving its case (the regulation) before the Federal Courts.

Federal statutes (and many State statutes) become problematic when they're unnecessarily created to begin with, or are politicized by a warped ideology against a law-abiding citizenry that already has enough to contend with. Combine that with a liberal wave of New Centurions in Federal LE, and it results in, "Houston, we have a problem."

May the Constitution and freedom prevail.