Biden’s Dim ATF Nominee Would Greatly Harm Gun Owners

Daily Caller During his Senate confirmation hearing on May 26, Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), David Chipman, was asked to define an “assault weapon.” For someone being considered for such a position, especially with his decades of experience lobbying for stricter gun control laws (and as an ATF special agent), the question from Sen. Tom Cotton should have been a soft ball. Instead, Chipman whiffed like a little leaguer going up against Nolan. After sputtering through some nonsensical gobbledygook, Chipman finally declared that an “assault weapon” is “any semi-automatic rifle capable of accepting a detachable magazine above the caliber of .22.” Really? If the ATF nominee actually believes what he said, it represents an unprecedented expansion of the general definition of “assault weapon” even as has been used by Democrats for decades in crafting gun control legislation. Regardless of whether his response reflected a degree of careful analysis, or was simply a poorly crafted off-the-cuff answer, the statement by itself disqualifies him for the job. Anyone who has ever debated gun control advocates on this issue, or on any matter related to the Second Amendment, surely has observed the disparity between knowledge of firearms and the intensity with which liberals make their arguments against them. In fact, the two traits appear inversely proportional, with often the loudest advocates of gun control having the least knowledge about firearms and the Second Amendment. A perfect example of this dichotomy is the loud but ignorant gun-control hero, Parkland High School alumnus David Hogg. This ignorance does not exist in a vacuum, and it has...

State And Local Regulatory Schemes Continue To Undermine Second Amendment Rights

Daily Caller Conservatives for years have warned about the dangers posed to the Second Amendment by regulatory chokepoints imposed by state and local lawmakers. They warned these processes could be unintentionally, or more likely intentionally, used to chill citizens’ Second Amendment rights. Over the last year in North Carolina, these fears have proved frighteningly prescient. North Carolina is one of 10 states and Washington, D.C. that require a permit to purchase a pistol, which is processed and approved by the county sheriff after completing a background check on the applicant. State law requires this process to be completed within 14 days. Despite this legal requirement, however, in some counties the wait is now stretching into months. Unlike federal background checks, there is no “default” approval after expiration of the statutory window for processing. County sheriffs, such as Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry L. McFadden who rode into office on the 2018 “Progressive Wave,” claim the simultaneous factors of COVID-19-related work disruption and a historic surge in gun purchases, have put counties behind in processing pistol purchase permits. Thus, people should “just be patient.” In other words, the officials will get to the permits when it fits their priorities, and in the meantime, citizens should sit quietly and wait. The lack of urgency to addressing what amounts to a denial of citizens’ Second Amendment rights is inexcusable. Consider the impact this bureaucratic bottleneck places on first-time gun purchasers in particular. If a person believes himself or herself to be in imminent danger, other than a long gun that is completely impractical for arming oneself outside the home, there is no option other than...

The Pentagon’s New Political Commissar

Daily Caller As America celebrates another Memorial Day, remembering and honoring those who gave their lives in defense of our country and our freedoms, it is appropriate that we reflect also on the state of our armed forces, not so much in terms of where and how our forces are deployed (itself a timely and critical exercise for the Congress to deal with), but from the perspective of freedom within the military. In other words, are the men and women who serve, and who have served in our armed services, in both military and civilian capacities, having their individual liberty constrained simply by being associated with the military? This might seem an odd question to be asked of our military, but considering the strange priorities reflected in actions taken by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin during his first four months in office, it is a very relevant inquiry; the answer to which is deeply troubling. In his 2003 book on the history of secret police – The Unsleeping Eye – Robert Stove quotes a passage written by Napoleon Bonaparte’s notorious Minister of Police, Joseph Fouché, to describe the situation by which new governments solidify their hold on power: “Every government at its dawn usually takes advantage of a danger it has created, either to make it more firm, or to extend its power; all it needs is to escape a conspiracy to acquire more strength and influence.” Joe Biden was sworn into office just two weeks after the Jan. 6 violence that took place on Capitol Hill following a speech earlier that day by then-President Donald Trump. This “insurrection,” as liberals and the mainstream media have come...

‘Defund’ Movement Inspires Gun Boom And Private Policing

Daily Caller Last year’s toxic confluence of urban violence and COVID lockdowns led to a surge in gun ownership, particularly among first-time purchasers and minorities. More firearms were purchased in 2020 than any year on record – some 21 million, with about 40% being first-time buyers. The radical offshoot of 2020’s urban violence to “defund the police,” led in many cities by the Marxist-inspired Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, also has given rise to an increased interest in private police forces, run not by government and not paid for with taxpayer funds. The concept of private policing is by no means a new or novel idea; the Foundation for Economic Education, or FEE, wrote about it in an article by Nicholas Elliott 30 years ago in February 1991, for example. It is, however, taking on new life – and controversy – as a result of the dramatic rise in violent crime rates in cities hit hard by the “defund” movement. Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and of course, Minneapolis where the “defund” movement really started, all are witnessing significant increases in violent crime as law enforcement funding has been cut and as anti-police sentiment has grown. Historically, and contrary to popular belief, the primary responsibility for protection of oneself does not fall to the police; it is the primary responsibility of the individual. This not only reflects the reality that the police cannot be everywhere all the time, but also represents a legal principle recognized in federal court decisions, including by the United States Supreme Court. In fact, that there were no organized, publicly funded...

‘Wokeness’ In The Armed Forces Is Undermining Our War-fighting Ability

Daily Caller Shortly after being sworn in as our nation’s 46th president, Joe Biden issued an executive order emphasizing that his first priority as commander-in-chief was to ensure that transgendered individuals in the military are protected. Biden’s unusual, but not wholly unexpected, emphasis on transgenderism was followed within days by the new secretary of defense, retired Army General Lloyd Austin, issuing a military-wide order mandating protection for transgendered personnel. On Feb. 4, Austin doubled down on this inward-looking focus when he declared a 60-day “stand down” designed to identify and ferret out “extremism” in the ranks. Since early February, this administration’s obsession with wokeness in the military — referred to officially as “diversity” and “inclusion” — has only become worse. According to civilian military experts, this fixation is weakening our nation’s war-fighting ability. To confirm this disturbing state of military affairs, one need look no further than the U.S. Army’s recent recruitment video, “Emma/The Calling.” This animated video, designed obviously to encourage lesbians to enlist in the Army, does not even pretend to value what heretofore has been the raison d’etre for maintaining a military — the ability and responsibility to fight and win wars. Instead, Emma stresses the paramount importance of “inclusion,” as depicted by the character’s lesbianism and her “two mothers.” The Army video shares this vision with a similarly focused CIA recruitment video, in which a “Latina” employee of the Agency encourages other “intersectional” and “cisgender millennials” to join today’s “inclusive” Intelligence Community as she did, notwithstanding her preexisting mental problems (which she identifies as “generalized anxiety disorder”). The controversy surrounding the mission and values undergirding both our national intelligence capabilities...

Is Bureaucratic Infighting Stopping The STOP Act?

Daily Caller Despite being labeled a major health epidemic in 2013, the extremely powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl continues to flood into our country and ruin lives in communities from coast to coast. A nagging question is whether the United States Postal Service (USPS) is part of the solution or part of the problem. The lethargy exhibited by the USPS in complying with federal law mandating that it do a far better job of stopping fentanyl from entering the United States from abroad – especially from China — has been the subject of more than a single congressional hearing in recent years. Also problematic, however, is failure by the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to uphold its part of the bargain, as also mandated by the Congress. Despite the “Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention Act” (STOP Act) becoming law in 2018, only now, two-and-one-half years later, is the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP, getting around to issuing final regulations to implement the act. For its part, the USPS has been openly dismissive of the law’s requirement that it implement technology, known as “Advanced Electronic Data (AED),” by which to identify suspicious packages coming into one of several international mail facilities to be flagged for inspection by CBP. Such AED technology was supposed to have been in place by Jan. 1 this year but was not. Last September, the USPS Inspector General publicly blamed CBP for this shortcoming because it had failed to issue implementing regulations for the STOP Act. The CBP has taken an almost Alice-in-Wonderland view of the problem. For example, in testimony last Dec. 10 before the...