I am not impressed by this answer. The investigation is ongoing and the matter is certainly not a settled one. A reasonable person might expect that Holder's resignation might remove him as a roadblock and allow a special prosecutor to be appointed.
Video of the hearing below the fold. The IRS material starts about 8 minutes in.
This matters because a licensed dealer will have to run a background check on anyone buying their firearms, even if the firearm is listed for sale online. (They will also need to sell the firearm in person; shipping the firearm through the mail would be illegal for both licensed dealers and private sellers). It's likely some of the other listings were also for licensed firearms dealers if Everytown didn't bother to check who was selling the firearm.
Since the report alleged Crossfire Arms was selling firearms to criminals without background checks, as evidenced by the watermark on the posted pictures, it sounds to me like a lawsuit for defamation would be entirely reasonable.
Rand Paul's FAIR Act would curtail abuse of civil forfeiture
Read the whole thing. Holder may have changed DOJ policy on this issue, but policy changes are easily reversed, and the fine print of his policy change had more loopholes than a mime has facial expressions.
The debate over global warming has moved away from science. Now, the debate is between pseudo-scientists trying to find new ways to make it look like the planet is being warmed by human activity and actual scientists trying to catch them at it.
No, not his armed drone flights over foreign countries bombing weddings and terrorists (apparently in that order, sometimes). He wants to criminalize drunken government employees accidentally flying their unarmed toy drones over the White House fence.
His new law probably won't stop anything, but the manufacturer has committed to adding firmware restrictions to prevent drone flights within 25km of Washington, DC.
This isn't a surprise to cynics, of course. Obama was not going to nominate someone who might make decisions significantly different from Holder's decisions because the coverups need to last another 2 years. But for anyone who had been harboring hopes of an honest AG in this latest nominee, you won't find them.
A defensive gun use that never happens... on video
Politico, speaking here for the anti-gun left, thinks that defensive gun uses don't exist because there aren't enough news stories about dead bodies. The reality is, most defensive gun uses take place without any shots fired or anyone being hurt. This is a rare example caught on video:
They have granted 8 and denied 11 out of 69 applications so far, and have certified 6 trainers. This is a victory for gun rights, but DC's rules for obtaining a license are so strict that legal challenges are likely to continue.
New Mexico court rules switchblades not protected by the 2nd Amendment
The most important thing to know about this case for most of us, who don't carry switchblades in New Mexico, is that there appears to be a circuit split between the 9th and 10th federal districts on knife rights. That makes a Supreme Court ruling on the issue more likely.
This is a big deal if the FDIC actually has the authority to enforce it. The letter to banks will counteract the pressure to close accounts of politically-disfavored businesses, and more importantly the requirement to make recommendations in writing will provide for an evidence trail in cases where accounts are actually closed due to government regulatory pressure.
I do find myself with some uncomfortable questions, though.
First, obviously this doesn't address past issues. Second, it won't stop people from giving "advice" and not putting it in writing. It may discourage it, but it can't stop it. Third, Operation Chokepoint has generally been described as a joint operation with the Department of Justice. The details aren't known, but FDIC doesn't necessarily have authority over everyone involved.
Admission of wrongdoing sounds like lawsuits can and should be filed pronto.
This is big news, and I wonder if -- like with the IRS case -- an internal investigation is driving the desire to get out in front of the news cycle with this.
Government monitoring gun shows with license plate readers
The only thing I have to add to this is that it is no longer a hypothetical situation. Between satellites, drones, automated license plate readers, financial monitoring of credit card transactions, the paper 4473s, NICS, and NSA monitoring of communications activity (including email, telephones, and web traffic) the government could compile a list of gun owners and match that list to a high-confidence list of what firearms they owned with relatively little effort. It wouldn't be serial numbers, but probably close enough for the cop on the raid to ask you where the AR-15 you bought last year is and why you didn't turn it in.
Confirmed: Justice Department has an operational database of guns and cars
That's the "car" part of the database. Put it together with other databases, such as state lists of concealed-carry permit licensees, and you can find out if a particular car is likely to have a gun, as happened to this Florida resident driving through Maryland. We know their motivations are centered around guns because they originally intended to deploy this around gun shows:
It seems clear this is a fully operational gun-registration program that purports to be about cars and has been kept mostly secret until now.
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