“US wins injunction over devices it says turn rifles into machine guns,” Reuters reported Tuesday. “U.S. District Judge Nina Morrison in Brooklyn said the Department of Justice was likely to prove that the ‘forced-reset triggers’ sold by Rare Breed Triggers LLC and its owners were illegal machine guns under federal law.”
In her decision, Morrison alleged Rare Breed had defrauded customers by claiming their product was “absolutely” legal and further alleged “efforts … to obstruct the government from tracking and confiscating the devices, including by destroying sales records and using fake names on packages sent through the mail.”
That alone should win points with gun owners who believe that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed and that that right by necessity, by the intent of the Framers, and by the Bruen standard of history, text, and tradition, must include what Continental Congress Delegate Tench Coxe called “every terrible implement of the soldier.” That’s what Democrat gun prohibitionists scare the deliberately uninformed masses with by calling them “weapons of war” – as if the Founders would have considered that attempted smear the pejorative it is intended to be.
Whenever a judge comes down with a ruling that betrays their oath to the Constitution by favoring citizen disarmament and ignoring the Second Amendment, advocates can get a good feel for political party loyalties by checking out their entry on Ballotpedia, a website covering federal, state, and local politics and elections. (But not always, as Donald Trump-appointed Judge Timothy Kelly sentencing a non-violent Marine veteran to 15 years for merely walking through the Capitol building on January 6 demonstrates.)
In Morrison’s case, we find, unsurprisingly, she’s a Democrat and a Joe Biden appointee. We also find that “The U.S. Senate confirmed Morrison on June 8, 2022, on a vote of 53-46.”
That was close. And it means Republicans had to vote to confirm her. Which Republicans?
For that, the Senate has the record of the Roll Call Vote for the 117th Congress – 2nd Session, and we also see that one Senator did not vote.
The “Yeas” included Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The non-voter was Mitt Romney, lately carried by the winds of political opportunism to Utah.
Collins, a career RINO, is no surprise, and the other three shouldn’t be to any gun owner who’s been paying attention.
We know that Romney, despite attempts to rehabilitate his image by Walking with Wayne, would grab our guns in a heartbeat if he thought he could get away with it.
Last time he was up for reelection, Graham was “A” Rated by NRA-PVF, with its lead reason for supporting him being he “Supports Pro-Gun Judges.”
While Murkowski was downgraded by NRA to a “B” after her betrayal on Biden’s “Bipartisan” gun control bill, the only real questions after looking at all the other times she unleashed her inner Democrat are “What took them so long?” and “Why isn’t her grade lower?”
And speaking of the “bipartisan” bill, Collins, Graham, and Romney also joined with Murkowski and other GOP turncoats to sell out their gun owner constituents and enable the current Democrat feeding frenzy to end private sales and set the stage to enable registration.
Back to Morrison’s confirmation, if all Republicans had voted not to confirm her, the score would have been tied. And while there’s no doubt Kamala Harris, in her role as Senate President, would have broken the tie, it would have put the lie to the concept of “pro-gun Democrats,” as former NRA darlings Jon Tester and Joe Manchin share their portion of responsibility for Morrison’s ruling – as well as culpability for Joe Biden’s latest assault on the right to keep and bear arms.
What the Stupid Party is failing to grasp is that if it keeps siding with Democrats, “lesser of two evils” voting will no longer work for them, and they’ll lose.
But that will work against gun owners, some will cry. Democrats will then be able to pass whatever laws they want and have them upheld by whichever judges they appoint.
That’s true.
The questions then become who will surrender and disarm, who will refuse, and who will keep pushing until those they oppress push back?
Some will no doubt scoff. But being in denial invites catastrophe.
[W]here in history is any civilization guaranteed stasis? Has not despotism and mass destruction plagued every civilization that preceded ours? Is it not, in fact, still commonplace throughout the globe? By what suspension of reality, by what denial of the observable and the probable, by what art, device or magic are we sheltered few immune from catastrophe? Are we certain, from our brief and privileged vantage point, that such things will ever remain headline curiosities? Is it not just plain stupid to proclaim that our familiar way of life will forever be the norm, when everything that has gone before us shows we are, instead, the extremely lucky beneficiaries of a rare and fortunate convergence of circumstances; and one, by the way, that has only been preserved under force of arms?
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
