Texas Judge Blocks Biden Administration’s Unlawful Ban on Forced Reset Triggers
A federal judge has ruled against the rule implemented by the administration of President Joe Biden banning classified forced reset triggers (FRTs) as “machine guns” and making it a felony to possess an FRT, citing the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a ban on bump stocks last month.
Northern District of Texas Judge Reed O’Connor ruled in favor of gun owners’ rights groups that had sued the Department of Justice, United States Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in 2023 challenging the ban. The said suit centered on the ATF’s broadening of the term “machine gun” to include FRTs.
According to the ruling, although FRTs enable a user to fire weapons at a faster rate than normal triggers, they do not meet the statutory definition of a machine gun because they do not enable guns to fire multiple rounds with a “single function of the trigger.”
O’Connor’s decision also cited the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that spurred the polarizing debate on the legality of devices that increase the rate of fire of semiautomatic weapons. The judge acknowledged the “tragic nature” of the shooting but said that “no matter how terrible the circumstances, there is never a situation that justifies a court altering statutory text that was democratically enacted by those who are politically accountable.”
Two of the plaintiffs in the case were Texas Gun Rights, Inc., and the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR). There were individual plaintiffs, as well. NAGR President Dudley Brown wrote in a statement that the decision, along with the Supreme Court’s ruling on bump stocks, forces ATF “to return to their Constitutional boundaries.”
An FRT is a device that resets a semiautomatic firearm’s trigger mechanically, thus allowing the gun to be fired faster. However, the gun still fires only one round per trigger pull.
The ATF said in a 2022 letter to federal firearms licensees, that certain forced reset triggers, which were being marketed as replacement triggers for AR-style rifles, allow shooters to “automatically expel more than one shot with a single, continuous pull of the trigger” and were subject to a ban.
The FRT rule is the second ATF rule O’Connor has vacated in 2024. On June 13, 2024, Breitbart News reported that O’Connor vacated the ATF’s AR pistol brace rule, noting that it violated the Administrative Procedure Act.
The ATF pistol brace rule targets stabilizer braces attached to AR pistols, claiming the braces turn AR pistols into short barrel rifles (SBRs). And since SBRs are regulated under the National Firearms Act of 1934, the ATF issued its rule on AR-pistol braces to stop what it saw as a way around SBR regulations.
Judge rules that New Jersey’s ban on the AR-15 is unconstitutional
Another judge who fights unconstitutional gun bans is District Judge Peter Sheridan, who recently ruled that New Jersey’s ban on the AR-15 violates the Second Amendment.
Sheridan cited recent Supreme Court rulings when shooting down New Jersey’s ban on the rifle. This includes New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, which forces judges to view Second Amendment law in light of the “historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
“The AR-15 provision of the Assault Firearms Law is unconstitutional under Bruen and Heller as to the Colt AR-15 for use of self-defense within the home,” Sheridan wrote in his 69-page ruling.
The Second Amendment advocacy group Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs and two Garden State gun owners claimed that the state’s assault weapons ban limited their constitutional options for home defense. They appeared to take issue with the entirety of the state ban on assault weapons. However, Sheridan ruled that since a majority of their arguments focused solely on the AR-15, then that was the only weapon he could definitively rule on.
In his order, the judge begrudged the Supreme Court’s new standards on Second Amendment issues but acknowledged that he must nonetheless follow the high court’s precedents.
“It is hard to accept the Supreme Court’s pronouncements that certain firearms policy choices are ‘off the table’ when frequently, radical individuals possess and use these same firearms for evil purposes,” Sheridan wrote. “Even so… where the Supreme Court has set forth the law of our nation, as a lower court, I am bound to follow it.”
Check out SecondAmendment.news for similar stories.
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BREAKING VIDEO: Male Olympic Boxer Savagely Assaults Woman on International Television
On the Thursday show Alex Jones discussed a man who entered Olympic boxing, beat up a woman, laughed about it, snarled at her, then groped her breast.
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Tyson Offers To Fight Olympics Trans Boxing Winner & Give Proceeds To Battered Women’s Charity
The women’s boxing match at the Paris Olympics has triggered international outrage and raised more questions about the fairness of letting “biological males” compete against females. Italy’s Angela Carini faced off against Algeria’s Imani Khelif […]
The post Tyson Offers To Fight Olympics Trans Boxing Winner & Give Proceeds To Battered Women’s Charity appeared first on The People’s Voice.
BREAKING: Illegals Confess to Plan to Steal Election from Donald Trump in Georgia
Anthony Rubin of Muckracker.com joined Alex Jones on Thursday to break down how illegal aliens will be used to steal the 2024 election from Donald Trump.
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Pope Francis Tells Pro-LGBTQIAAP2S+ Conference: ‘I Will be Spiritually with All of You’
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis has once again sent a handwritten letter of support to Father James Martin SJ, expressing his closeness with the priest’s pro-LGBT Outreach conference being held this weekend.
Shortly before the commencement of its 2024 conference held in Georgetown University this weekend, Outreach published a photo of a hand-written letter sent from Pope Francis to Fr. Martin – the group’s founder.
Sent by Francis on July 11, the message reads:
Dear brother,
Thank you very much for your email.
I am glad that Cardinal Gregory will celebrate the Mass; I will be spiritually with him and with all of you, united in prayer.
Thank you for praying for me. I do the same for you.
May Jesus bless you and the Holy Virgin care for you.Fraternally,
Francis
The Pope’s letter came in response to a July 10 message sent to him by Martin, asking if the Pontiff had any message he wished to share with participants of the conference as has become custom in recent years.
BREAKING: #PopeFrancis writes (once again) to Fr James Martin ahead of his lgbt @OutrchCatholic conference this weekend.
Francis says he “will be spiritually with him [Cdl Gregory, who is saying opening Mass] and with all of you, united in prayer.” pic.twitter.com/Nxi0lHoaSA— Michael Haynes ?? (@MLJHaynes) August 1, 2024
Welcoming Francis’ letter, Martin told Outreach that “[w]e are honored by the Holy Father’s greetings and his promises of prayers and are grateful for his own outreach to LGBTQ Catholics over the years. We will be praying for his intentions this weekend as we gather together at Georgetown.”
This year’s Outreach conference is billed as drawing together “LGBTQ lay people, clergy, scholars, artists, educators, students and family members to build community, share best practices and worship together.”
Cardinal Wilton Gregory of D.C. and Fr. Martin will be the chief celebrants and the weekend’s two Masses. The advertised panel discussions for the 300-plus participants include:
- LGBTQ Ministry in Parishes
- Telling LGBTQ Catholic Stories
- The Bible and Homosexuality
- LGBTQ Ministry in Higher Education
- Transgender Catholics and the Church
- Race, Intersectionality and LGBTQ People
- Parenting LGTBQ Children
- Catholic LGBTQ Women and the Church
- Gifts of a Life of Chastity
- Outreach Outlook from Rome
- “Preach” Roundtable Discussion
Outreach itself operates “under the auspices of America Media,” which oversees the left-wing, Jesuit-run America Magazine. The group is the brainchild of Martin and his past pro-LGBT activities, as it aims to become a global resource center “where church leaders, both clergy and lay, can encounter the LGBTQ faithful, in their ‘joys and hopes’ and ‘griefs and anxieties’ as well as engage in respectful dialogue.”
Since its inception, Outreach has enjoyed a close relationship with Pope Francis, chiefly due to the personal friendship between Francis and Martin.
Indeed, the Pope has now sent at least five publicly-known letters to Martin and the Outreach group in relation to the LGBT conferences they stage, although the first in 2021 was before Outreach was officially launched.
In 2021, just prior to Martin’s online LGBT conference, Francis wrote to the Jesuit thanking him for his “pastoral zeal” and “ability to be close to people, with that closeness that Jesus had and that reflects the closeness of God.” The Pope described Martin’s LGBT advocacy as being an imitation of the “style of God.”
Outreach was then launched on May 1, 2022, and only days later Francis replied to a letter Martin sent him in which he argued that a “selective” Church is “a sect,” and decrying what he styled as the Church’s “rejection” of “LGBT Catholic[s].”
Francis decried “rejection from the Church,” saying that for so-called LGBT individuals “I would have them recognize it not as ‘the rejection of the Church,’ but instead of ‘people in the Church.’ The Church is a mother and calls together all her children.”
Following the June 2022 Outreach conference, Francis again wrote to Martin in August 2022 after the Jesuit priest had sent the Pontiff details about the 2022 event. Francis praised Martin for “working in the culture of encounter,” which, he said, “shortens distances and enriches us with our differences, just as Jesus did.”
Then for the 2023 event, Francis continued the established practice by sending another hand-written letter. He thanked Martin “for all the good you are doing,” and also expressed his closeness to all at the conference.
Martin has met with Francis privately on a number of occasions, and was personally selected by the Pope to participate in the current Synod on Synodality. He is also a papally appointed member of the Dicastery for Communications.
READ: Pope Francis meets with Fr. James Martin, reportedly affirms his LGBT activism
Martin’s favor with Pope Francis comes alongside his longstanding record of promoting LGBT ideology in dissent from Catholic teaching. The Jesuit priest is described as “arguably the most prominent activist” in the Church for LGBT issues.
His record also includes promoting images drawn from a series of blasphemous works by homosexual artist Douglas Blanchard and describing viewing God as male as “damaging.” Martin has additionally promoted homosexual unions and called for openly homosexual individuals to kiss during the sign of peace at the Novus Ordo Mass.
BREAKING NEWS | @Pontifex Supports LGBTQ Conference Led by Father @JamesMartinSJ
— LifeSiteNews (@LifeSite) August 1, 2024
Read the latest update from Rome Correspondent @MLJHaynes: https://t.co/1E155gkZqL#CatholicTwitter #Catholic #PopeFrancis #LGBT pic.twitter.com/GTneo579lC
In contrast, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s (CDF) 1986 document “On the pastoral care of homosexual persons” stipulates that a “truly pastoral approach will appreciate the need for homosexual persons to avoid the near occasions of sin.”
“We wish to make it clear that departure from the Church’s teaching, or silence about it, in an effort to provide pastoral care is neither caring nor pastoral,” wrote the Vatican’s doctrinal office. “Only what is true can ultimately be pastoral. The neglect of the Church’s position prevents homosexual men and women from receiving the care they need and deserve.”
READ: Father James Martin says he knows ‘hundreds’ of homosexual priests: ‘They’ve been my mentors’
The CDF added how “special concern and pastoral attention should be directed toward those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not.”
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Biden-Harris Task Force Urges Online Age Verification Digital ID Tool Development
The online digital ID age verification creep in the US continues from a number of directions, through “recommendations” and “studies” – essentially, the government is nudging the industry to move in the direction of implementing digital ID age verification tools.
At this point, it is happening via various initiatives and legislation, still, without being formally mandated.
One instance is a recommendation coming from the Biden-Harris Administration’s Kids Online Health and Safety Task Force, which is telling online service providers they should “develop and inform parents about age verification tools built into the app or available at the device level.”
The task force is led by the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS (its Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration, SAMHSA,) in what is referred to in official statements as “close partnership” with the Department of Commerce.
Related: The 2024 Digital ID and Online Age Verification Agenda
This initiative is presented as an industry guidance that will ensure the safety of youths on the internet, as well as their health and privacy.
One of the steps presented in the fact sheet refers to age verification. This is a hot-button issue, particularly among privacy and security advocates, considering the methods that would be necessary to prove somebody’s real-life identity online, and that this would have to apply to all users of a site or app.
Yet, the current White House is now “urging” the tech industry to, among other “critical steps” inform parents about developing and building digital ID tools into either apps or devices themselves.
The setting up of the task force and its recommendations are supposed to contribute to Biden’s “Unity Agenda,” while a report released last week talks about an “unprecedented youth mental crisis” as the reason for coming up with these recommendations for families and industry.
The initiative, announced in May, bases its claims about the metal crisis of previously unwitnessed proportions on a report put together by the US surgeon-general and his advisory concerning social platforms.
In addition to “sneaking in” the mention of age verification, the report also talks about the need to enact bipartisan federal legislation aimed at protecting the health, safety, and privacy of young people online.
Another point is urging the industry to advance “action to implement age-appropriate health, safety, and privacy best practices on online platforms through federal legislation and voluntary commitments.”
The documents’ authors from the several departments behind the task force also want platform data to become available to “independent researchers.”
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