Author: Sarah Okeson

Sutherland Springs Actions Raise the Questions President Joe Biden likes to portray himself as the anti-gun violence president, but Biden’s Justice Department is working to block grieving victims and relatives of the 2017 Sutherland Springs church massacre, like a girl whose mother died while trying to protect her siblings, from receiving money ordered by a Texas judge. The girl, identified in court records as R.T., then 9, hid under a pew at First Baptist Church. Devin Kelley, whose name wasn’t entered into a national database that would have prevented him from buying an AR-556 file, fired 450 rounds with it…

Federal Law Deemed To Be Unconstitutional and To Be “An Outlier That Our Ancestors Would Never Have Accepted.” Our nation’s most conservative federal appeals court, based in New Orleans, used a pro-gun Supreme Court decision to throw out the conviction of a man who had a rifle and a pistol at his home even though he was barred from possessing guns because of a domestic violence restraining order. Judges in the Fifth Circuit flip-flopped after the Supreme Court decision, even though a three-judge panel had earlier upheld the guilty plea of Zackey Rahimi. The decision strikes down the federal law…

New Rule Requires Registration of Pistol Stabilizing Braces Our nation’s firearm regulators essentially called b.s. on companies that make braces to convert pistols into deadly short-barreled rifles which have been heavily regulated since the Depression. Gun owners, dealers and manufacturers will have 120 days to register the weapons with the ATF once the rule is published by the Federal Register. It was submitted on January 13. Nothing in the new rule bans braces or the use of braces of pistols that aren’t turned into short-barreled rifles. “This rule enhances public safety and prevents people from circumventing the laws Congress passed…

Straw Purchasing Is the Most Common Way to Traffic Illegal Guns The murder of Marquisha Wiley, killed in a shootout in October 2021 at a St. Paul, Minn. bar, helped prompt the state’s top prosecutor to sue the business that sold a 9mm semiautomatic pistol used by one of the gunmen, calling Fleet Farm a public nuisance. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is asking a judge to appoint a monitor to observe and track gun sales at Fleet Farm stores and for the business to give up profits from unlawful sales of firearms in the state. Fleet Farm has 17…

The State Wants the Supreme Court to Limit Congressional Power over Native American Child Welfare Matters Texas and two other states are asking the Supreme Court to invalidate a law that is supposed to make it harder for states to tear Native American families apart. The state’s Radical Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who sued Interior Secretary Deb Haaland with Republican attorneys general from Indiana and Louisiana, told the Supreme Court that a lower court’s ruling that mostly upheld the act is wrong. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case on Nov. 9. “If allowed…

Two Pastors Are Among the Plaintiffs Arguing State Shouldn’t Bar Firearms from Churches

Plastic Guns Cannot Be Traced, Making Them Ideal for Murders Federal prosecutors are supporting a New York City lawsuit against firearms companies that sell illegal, unfinished firearms parts to build “ghost guns” which have helped criminals make our cities into killing grounds. Breon Peace, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, filed a motion earlier this month supporting the lawsuit against Arm or Ally LLC and four other firearms companies. “The United States has serious concerns about the proliferation of untraceable firearms,” the…

Nonprosecution Agreements Are Bad—Secret Nonprosecution Agreements Much Worse

Right-Wing Groups Take Their Case Against a New Jersey Statute to the Deep South Fifth Circuit 

Firearms Maker, 17 States Say ATF Rule Violates the Second Amendment