The title is not in error. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF/BATF/BATFE/AFT if you're Joe Biden) is attacking freedom of the press. If you are outside the US, this may confuse you even more than it confuses me here. The image below now theoretically constitutes a "machine gun." Congratulations. You're potentially a felon now if you save this .jpg.
Copied from an archived image with a dead link because things are weird right now.
Allow me to explain. First, a brief history:
In 1775, British colonists in Massachusetts began an armed resistance against the British Empire when the royal military set out to confiscate arms and ammunition stored by the citizen militia. This revolt spread quickly. The Continental Congress finally got around to formally declaring independence in 1776. Fighting went on until 1783, when British and American representatives signed the Treaty of Paris. Meanwhile, the former colonies established the Articles of Confederation as a sort of unifying government over the former colonies that had declared themselves independent nations. In 1789, factions dissatisfied with the restrictive nature of those Articles drafted a new Constitution instead of revising them.
This new Constitution was controversial. The Federalists insisted, "No, guys, it's all cool, see? We're just trying to make this work, and it totally protects your hard-won liberty." The Anti-Federalists replied, "Not cool, dude. This looks like a power grab by a bunch of y'all and it's sketch as hell." The Federalists responded with, "Tough titties, we're doing this anyway. Deal with it." However, in order to garner enough support, they agreed to add the Bill of Rights specifically saying what this new government could not do. This was ratified in 1791, and they all lived happily ever after, right?
Here we are in 2023. The federal government has usurped more power and claimed new authority with every passing administration. The Bill of Rights has been gutted to the point people scoff at the very concept of citing the 9th and 10th amendments which say the enumeration of specific rights does not deny other rights retained by the people, and government has no powers not explicitly granted. The rest have all been eroded as well.
One of the major issues surrounding politics today is the second amendment and firearm ownership. A lot of ink has been spilled over what the second amendment means. Since I'm literate and literal, here's how I read it.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
"Regulated" did not mean "under government control," it meant "well equipped and trained." This meaning was still cited as of my old 1884 Webster's dictionary. Remember that 1775 kerfuffle with Paul Revere, Concord, and Lexington from that famous poem? No one wanted the new federal government or the states to hold a monopoly in armament any more than they wanted the King of England to have that kind of power.
"Militia" means all able-bodied adult males willing and able to fight. Citation: literally everything written about the militia by the colonial figures of the day. Even now, all adult males between the ages of 17 and 45 are legally considered members of the unorganized militia.
"security of a free state" may mean, "independent nation," or "independent condition." Either way, this clause does not mean the right belongs to members of an organized militia.
"Keep and bear" means "own and carry." Not too difficult, right? It does not mean they amended the Constitution to benevolently grant a right to enlist in the military. That's already in the main Constitution. This reading as protection for formal state guard units is dumb.
"The people" can only mean individuals. Only individuals can reason, choose, and act. Only individuals have rights. Only individuals can suffer trespass.
"Arms" means any and all weapons. Muskets were the standard infantry weapon and common civilian arms. Rifles used by many militiamen were superior in range and accuracy, albeit at the cost of firing rate. People still carried swords as a part of formal attire. Despite what Joe Biden keeps repeating, people even literally owned cannons.
"Shall not be infringed" means "no touchy!"
Nonetheless, the Federal Firearms Act of 1938 (FFA) and numerous additional laws since then have regulated, taxed, and restricted civilian ownership of certain kids of firearms and firearm accessories. The then-exorbitant $200 tax stamp and registration effectively made machine guns illegal. One silver lining to the looming cloud of inflationary monetary policy is that baked-into-statute $200 has become more and more affordable for the average Joe even though newly-manufactured machine guns have been illegal for commercial sale since 1986, severely restricting supply and driving up prices.
In short, the right to keep and bear arms has definitely been infringed. Imagine if these high-capacity fully-automatic printing presses we have at our fingertips were equally restricted. "No one needs more than an 8-bit processor or 64 K of RAM. What are you, a terrorist hacker?"
But now we get to the meat of the matter. Defense Distributed, DefCad, and other groups have been using the First Amendment to challenge numerous state and federal gun laws, because they are not exchanging naughty FFA parts or selling guns without a license. They have been exchanging files for people to make their own guns. See also the panic over "ghost guns" and 80% frames/receivers which must be machined at home to complete.
This problem has been brewing for years, and no one outside the gun community was probably even aware of the matter, but now it has resulted in federal felony convictions. Kristopher Justinboyer Ervin and Matthew Raymond Hoover (CRS Firearms) have been convicted of selling... what?
Making your own gun has never been illegal under federal law, same as the cannons Biden doesn't understand. Making your own select-fire or full-auto-only machine gun is very definitely illegal under various federal firearms laws dating back to that 1938 act mentioned earlier, but this recent case doesn't seem to apply to that, either.
These people were convicted of selling printed information and saying words.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
That's the First Amendment to the Constitution. Congress may not:
- Establish a state religion
- Prohibit people from exercising their religion
- Abridge freedom of speech
- Abridge freedom of the press
- Abridge the right to peaceably assemble, and petition the government for a redress of grievances
These are emphatic restrictions on the federal government, like all the rest of the first ten amendments. They are not grants of privilege, but acknowledgement that the people as individuals have preexisting rights which governments tend to trespass against, and no representative of the people has any authority to violate such natural rights. Or at least that's the official story behind the legitimacy of a representative republic.
These ATF charges against Ervin and Hoover, and the laws cited to support those charges, appear to me as blatant violations of the First Amendment. The Auto Key Card apparently was not engraved. It is just printed data to make a poor man's drop-in auto sear if, and only if, you properly use the template to cut metal and fabricate the part in question. Even when printed directly on metal, it is not a simple thing to make properly. These are not like those metal model kits ready to punch out of the frame and build after a quick cleanup with a file. Nonetheless, the court decision decrees that sharing printed information is the same as making and selling a machine gun. Do you see why this is such a big deal?
It has never been illegal to share blueprints, manuals, CAD files, templates, or jigs to make a gun, or even a machine gun. The physical object was previously necessary to show cause and justify prosecution. Now, however, that crappy image at the start of this article is potentially a machine gun even though it only exists as digital pixels. I can't even guarantee it works, because
A. that is only one of the two parts in the assembly, and,
B. I'm not crazy enough to try making one of these.
The Lightning link, for better or worse, arguably makes an AR-type rifle into an actual machine gun according to the letter of the law, but is it really "readily convertible?" Fun as that would be on the range, I don't want to shove sketchy parts into a rifle and lose the very useful semi-automatic function it had before the change, no matter how temporary and reversible. Plus, it won't even work with all receivers, bolt carriers, and trigger groups.
It's not a proper select-fire rifle with the lightning link installed. It removes the very useful option of single well-aimed shots for the sake of either being safe or full dakka. One of the legal and functional advantages to "bump stocks" was the option to switch back to standard rifle mode very easily. Same for the binary triggers and forced reset triggers made to circumvent the specific language of those same stupid laws. All of these were arbitrarily declared "machine guns" by this unelected enforcement agency "...[B]y a single function of the trigger" is very specific verbiage, but government goons will rob, cage, and even kill you anyway if you "resist."
Here's a gun-tuber's overview of the situation with a clearer explanation of the mechanism and more information regarding these legal machinations. F-bomb warning, by the way.
This is also yet another reason we need venues like HIVE where subversive information is difficult for these control freaks to squelch. You have the natural right to speak and write freely, to defend yourself against aggression with proportionate force, to make tools and weapons, to trade, to cooperate with others, and to otherwise live like a free human within the bounds of the non-aggression principle. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Don't violate others by doing things you would see as a violation if done to you. This does not mean no one else can or will violate you, but it's a fundamental principle for society to flourish. What should you do to those who do infringe? I leave that for you to discuss in the comments.
