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Oct. 26, 2022 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
45:32
ATF may CRIMINALIZE millions of Americans in 2023: Mr. William Kirk from Washington Gun Law
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Welcome, everyone, to this, I think it's going to be a really fun interview about Second Amendment issues, which is key to liberties in America.
And I am joined by a first-time guest, but someone whose work I'm very impressed with.
Of course, for those of you new, I'm Mike Adams, the founder of Brighteon.com, and I was deplatformed.
So I built a platform so that we can speak about these issues, and that platform is Brighttown.com.
And our guest tonight is Mr.
William Kirk, and he runs WashingtonGunLaw.com, and he has a very popular YouTube channel of the same name, WashingtonGunLaw.com.
Again, it's his website, and that's his channel name.
And it's Washington State is what we're talking about here, but he's got expertise across the country.
Mr.
Kirk, welcome to the broadcast.
It's an honor to have you on, sir.
Mike, thank you very much for having me.
Well, I've got to thank you for taking the time.
I've heard several of your videos.
You're so knowledgeable.
Thank you for being willing to share your knowledge with the American people.
Let's start with a big issue that's coming up, which is the ATF arm brace designation.
I don't know what their new ruling is.
This is something that was...
Put in place by unelected officials.
Nobody voted on this.
Not Congress, not the public, nothing.
But they're going to try to, it seems, criminalize millions of Americans who have legally purchased pistols with arm braces.
And I guess they're going to, what, round people up, turn them in, melt them down?
What's the situation?
Well, I mean, the first part of your statement, your summary of what's occurring, is unfortunately quite accurate.
That is exactly what is occurring.
The ATF, many, many years ago, determined that something we all knew, which was pistol braces were lawful, and they made a determination as such.
This current administration and current weaponization of the alphabet agencies are creating situations here now where We're kind of unleashing them.
And so what the ATF is doing at this point is they're going to make a new determination that there are firearms that are equipped with pistol braces, maybe AR pistols as we all know them, but many of them may in fact be short-barreled rifles.
And of course, once we get into the short-barreled rifle realm, we are now into a realm where we are federally regulated, the NFA applies, there's registration requirements, and of course there's a large taxation that comes with that as well.
And so the rule was originally published, I believe, in the summertime, and much like it was with the rule with frames and receivers, it was rather alarming.
It was earth-shattering.
There was a lot of comments, and I think the American folks, those in the 2A community, did a fantastic job of commenting to the ATF and flooding the system with comments.
The rule has since been pulled back, pulled back completely, and it's going to be republished now in December.
Which means if the rule is published in December, it has 120 days under federal regulations before it becomes active rules, not laws, active rules, and that will give us 120 days to figure out what all this really actually means to us.
Well, hold on a second.
What do you mean when you say the rule has been pulled back?
So the federal regulations, as you know, when you publish a rule to the Code of Federal Regulations, you publish it to the CFRs, and then the rule, if it remains in place, if that's your proposed final rule, there's a 120-day waiting period before...
There's a 120-day waiting period before the rule becomes effective.
What ATF has chosen to do is actually pull back the rule.
They did this on the frames and receivers as well, and they are going to publish an amended version of the rule, so it also pushes back the implementation dates of the rule as well.
Okay, so what, they got too much pushback on the first version, they basically deleted it, and then they're working a new version, and they're going to publish that, and then that starts the clock counting again for 120 days.
That's exactly right.
Now, whether or not they've got too much pushback or they're trying to come up with more nefarious ways of screwing the lawful and responsible gun owner nationwide, I don't know.
There obviously was a couple of huge developments from a legal perspective on the legal landscape.
That I think the ATF would be wise to consider in their final rulemaking procedure.
And then, of course, there's the whole question that is really bubbling to the surface, which is, you know, are they even capable of regulating this sort of stuff, or is this really supposed to be an act of Congress?
Are there attorneys ready to sue the minute that this is republished or re-implemented?
Yes, and I would point out that the two on the national level, actually, yeah, the three groups, I would say, that on the national level, and this is for all your listeners, that I think really, if you're looking for groups that want to jump down into the trenches and get their knuckles bloodied and really fight the fight, there's three, and that's the Firearms Policy Coalition.
The Gun Owners of America and the Second Amendment Foundation.
Oh yeah, all great groups, yeah.
Great groups.
Listen, because I've excluded other groups, I'm not disparaging any other pro-2A group, NRA included in that.
What I'm saying is that if people are looking for the groups that really, I mean, take the fight to this type of legislation and this type of rulemaking or anything, yeah, these three groups notoriously are leading the charge.
Yeah, and Gun Owners of America is one that I've really helped support in the past.
I think they do extraordinary work, but all the groups that you mentioned are fantastic.
Since I own multiple Armbrace-equipped AR-15 pistols, And some of them really don't function.
I mean, you can't just swap out the arm brace with a standard stock.
Some of these are like Sig Sauer MCX platforms and things like that.
It doesn't work any other way.
And so I took an interest in this, and I went through the ATF proposed rules, and I saw the little scorecard thing.
Is that $49.99?
I don't recall the number, but it's got the point system.
Yeah, the Form 4999, the four-point system, yes.
Yeah, so the point, just so I can explain it to our listeners, the point system works like this.
For all the characteristics that this firearm has, there is a score.
And if you have more than, I think, three points in any one of these...
Two categories, then they consider it to be an SBR, not a pistol with an arm brace.
And they're very strict.
I think one of them said, if a gun shoots, then it's considered an SBR. If it has a trigger, for example.
I'm kidding, but I went through the point system and it's like, I'm going to have to strip everything off this firearm to have it qualified.
What's your take on that?
Okay, well, yeah, my take on it is that as much as I've seen the rule pulled back, I have not seen $49.99 pulled back or any discussion of amending $49.99.
So I think the scoring criteria that's on the form is going to be the scoring criteria.
And yes, if you accumulate four points or more, then yes, you do not have an AR pistol, you have an SBR, now subject to NFA regulations and taxation and all of that.
So that's the first thing.
Now, the other thing is that if you're really just in general, if you want a 35,000-foot view of what $49.99 is all about, anything that's in the configuration of that firearm that suggests that the firearm is going to be shouldered is going to accumulate points.
Right, that's a good way to describe it, yeah.
Right?
Including the way the optics are mounted.
Exactly, including the type of optics, because as we know, there are some optics where if you had it strapped to one arm extended as the brace was originally designed to be used, especially for disabled veterans and other disabled people who wanted to continue to shoot in that platform, and that was the entire purpose of why that brace was designed,
but the optics, if it's one that can be used either if it was arm extended or shouldered, Yes, right.
But there are a lot of other things that are worrisome to me I'd like to ask you about.
For example, I saw some language on that forum that said, no matter what the points are, we, the ATF, can just decide, well, it's an SBR anyway.
Yeah, and this gets back to this whole new phenomenon that ATF is kicking around called amnesty registration.
And this is a very alarming term.
As we know, there is a budget proposal.
ATF requested additional funds because they had to amend Form 1.
Form 1, of course, is the form that we use when we assemble an NFA item.
The reason they need to amend Form 1 is due to their new pistol brace amnesty registration period, which they are proposing.
Now, just to geek out for a moment, when we take a look at the word amnesty, amnesty infers that we've done something illegal.
We get into it, and then government forgives us, if you would.
It's like, you know, as a Catholic, I got to go to communion, or confession, I should say, you know, and absolve myself, right?
But these people, what is there to get amnesty from?
Right, because the owners of these arm braces have not violated any laws in the choir.
Absolutely none whatsoever.
Nobody violated any law when they purchased an AR pistol.
And so if you take a look at their budget request, though, they're saying that they need to amend Form 1 because they've got to make sure that they get photographs of the firearms to ensure that it, A, utilizes a stabilizing brace, and, two, qualifies for amnesty registration.
I don't know, and we don't know what the term qualifies for amnesty registration means.
Does that mean you get to register it and not pay the $200 tax stamp?
Is it a tax amnesty registration?
Which would be, you know, okay, that's one thing.
Or is it, hey, listen, if you submit these photos, which of course will involve, you know, the specifics necessary for ATF to make its own determination of the firearm using Form 4999, Then, if you're not granted amnesty, what happens?
Now you've given them the photograph of the firearm that they want to confiscate.
Well, exactly.
I mean, isn't this almost a Fifth Amendment issue?
You know, it's self-incrimination trying to comply.
You send in a photo and, you know, your home address and the serial number and everything else, and then ATF shows up at your door like you're under arrest.
Why?
Well, because we determined that your photo showed an unregistered SBR. Well, just trying to comply, sirs.
Which we compelled you to do through the threat of forfeiture to begin with of your property.
Exactly.
It's a horrible, horrible trap that's being set.
It's one of the more grotesque examples of government overreach that you'll find.
And it really goes to show how dangerous this current political agenda and the weaponization of these alphabet agencies is.
It could be.
The ATF has always been used as a little bit of a stick or a sword, but we're beginning to see it in a lot of the other alphabet agencies as well, and it's really alarming.
Now, your clients, because you're a practicing attorney in Washington State, correct?
Correct.
So clients come to you from all over the country to help deal with ATF issues, or what kind of clients do they have?
Primarily, I'm a criminal defense attorney specializing in this area of law, so I do represent a lot of folks in the state of Washington on various offenses and most often self-defense claims, things such as that, other firearms-related issues, other self-defense-related issues.
On a national level, I've gained a pretty good knowledge and rapport with the ATF. I kind of stumbled onto some issues a year ago about forced reset triggers and solvent traps and kind of got a little lucky in some predictions where I had done some videos back in the day saying, hey, I just don't think this is a good idea, and I think ATF's going to come back and haunt people on this.
And got a lot of hate comments back then in the day for doing it, but low and bold...
We fast forward to where we ended up late this summer and this fall with Operation Reticent Recall and the scavenger hunt that ATF's been on looking for forced reset triggers, wide open triggers, solvent traps and all of that.
And so I have been able to assist a lot of people on a national level and just kind of communicating on their behalf to the local ATF divisions.
Okay.
Well, that's actually great to hear.
It sounds like if the ATF publishes these new rules, you're going to have like a year-long wait.
So many people calling you needing representation because there's going to be 10 million instant criminals in America if the ATF does this.
Well, yeah.
Unfortunately, I don't think that that's an overstatement here.
That's exactly what could occur.
But I think that, you know, we talked earlier, if you don't mind kind of segwaying into another case here, which is this West Virginia case that you and I were talking about before we started the cast here, which is a lot of people are all excited about the Bruin case, and that's New York Pistol and Rifle Association v.
Bruin that came out over the summer, and we can talk about that in a moment.
Yeah.
The case that a lot of people really need to pay attention to is West Virginia versus EPA. Because the West Virginia EPA case was basically the Supreme Court saying, listen, if we have an executive agency which is making policy decisions which significantly affects American commerce,
that is, that there is a large transfer of wealth from one industry to another industry, or from one sector of the economy to a different sector of the economy, That's what's considered a major question, and under the major question doctrine, we cannot have executive agencies making those decisions.
That's a violation of separation of powers.
That needs to be through an act of Congress.
Let me just interject here.
This was over the EPA's decision to essentially declare carbon dioxide to be a pollutant.
That's right.
And the Supreme Court slapped that down, setting this precedent you're talking about in this case West Virginia versus EPA. And the ramifications of this, if properly challenged, By other attorneys through other cases, could affect overreach in ATF, FDA, CDC, I mean, DEA, even all kinds of agencies.
Any of the alphabet agencies.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And because what the court said there is, what the Biden administration essentially did is, as we all know, they declared war on fossil fuels, okay?
And they wanted to have this green energy.
And of course, they couldn't enact this through an act of Congress because there's just not the political clout in this particular administration to get anything done in Washington, which is a good thing in some ways, although they've still managed to find enough ways to damage.
But what they did here is they basically turned the EPA loose on the coal industry.
And the EPA wrote all these new regulations and reinterpreted a lot of pre-existing regulations so that the coal industry essentially was going to be put out of business and...
And of course the green energy industry would flourish because of the new interpretations of rules and new rules that were put in place.
Well, the Supreme Court correctly pointed out that you're talking about transferring billions and billions of dollars of commerce From one industry to another industry without an act of Congress.
That's not how it works in this country.
Well, so fast forward and take the same analogy now to what ATF is doing here.
We have what?
We don't know, but somewhere between 25 and 50 million AR pistols that could all be subject to a $200 tax.
And registration, which is actually a big issue.
So you're talking about billions and billions of new dollars in taxation, which is being created without an act of Congress.
And I think that's where you will see one of the biggest challenges to this rule the minute it drops.
Am I certain that Firearms Policy Coalition and Gun Owners of America and Second Amendment Foundation probably already have their pleadings teed up?
Yeah, they probably do.
And I think that while the Bruin case is incredibly helpful for all gun legislation moving forward, this EPA case is a much bigger deal than I think a lot of legal scholars are giving it credit for.
I completely agree with you, because the EPA case kind of cuts off the head of the Hydra.
Right.
It's, you know, hey, you have to stay in a smaller box.
That's right.
You've got to stay in your lane.
Congress gets to delineate where your lane is, and then once you're in it, that's where you've got to stay.
And if Congress wants to give you more authority, well, then Congress has to act and give you more authority.
Right.
Yeah, exactly.
But what about then, you mentioned the New York Pistol and Rifle Association versus Bruin decision.
Couldn't that decision also set a precedent that could be used to overturn the ATF's new arm brace rules?
I think it absolutely could.
I think that what a lot of people need to understand about the Bruin opinion is it is a landmark opinion.
Not because it shot down the May-Carrie laws.
That was a very, very wise portion of the opinion.
It was a righteous and just portion of the opinion.
But what Justice Thomas authored in the majority opinion was the rule of law moving forward that must be used anonymously Any other time we're going to analyze the constitutionality of gun control legislation.
And it has done away with the two-part balancing test that all of these Federal Circuit Court of Appeals would use as being politically motivated to justify You know, AR bans, magazine bans, ammunition bans, some of these crazy registration requirements, these may issue laws, and all of this based upon this balancing test.
Well, we're saving lives, so therefore the infringement to the individual is insignificant compared to what...
And that was the balancing test.
What the court said is, nope, nope, nope.
Moving forward, we don't get into the second part of the test.
We're going to ask ourselves one thing.
Does the activity that's regulated here, the type of activity which is encompassed by the Second Amendment?
And then if we have a regulation, is there a historical analog that supports that?
And that if you really want to geek out on the opinion and read like what Justice Comey Barrett wrote, the historical analog is one that exists at the time that the Second Amendment was ratified.
Wow.
Which is 1791.
Yeah, exactly.
Okay.
So, now, I'm sure there will be great debate amongst legal scholars as to whether or not that is truly the thing, but if we're going to actually talk about a historical analog in any way, shape, or form, we've got to remember that most of these crazy gun control legislation that we see around the country has really only come into existence in the 1990s and forward.
I think the first magazine ban was 1989 in California.
So on a historical perspective, that's not a broad historical perspective of this type of similar restrictions.
When we get back into more longer restrictions that we've seen throughout the course of time, for example, prohibiting felons from possessing firearms and things like that, I think there is a much more of a lengthier historical analog for that.
Yeah, and by the way, looking back in time, I'm really surprised that in 1994 they passed the 10-year ban on AR-15s, just in retrospect.
Because think about how important having an AR rifle is today, given the increase in violence and the anti-police, you know, defunding the police and rural living and everything.
I can't imagine living on a ranch without an AR-15.
But they banned new AR-15s for 10 years!
They did.
They did.
And yet, when you take a look at the data on the reduction in gun violence during that time, there is no data to support it.
Yeah.
Right.
Exactly.
And we all just bought pre-banned ARs at the time and just paid more money.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Now, on the issue of AR bans, as we know, there are some states that have done it, California, Maryland, and candidly, my state tried it last year, didn't get off the ground too far, but I think that they're going to make a big run at it here in Washington State this coming legislative session, which starts in January.
But there's a case that got kicked down from the United States Supreme Court, a case called Bianchi v.
And it's a case out of Maryland.
And that is a case that is a challenge to Maryland's assault rifle ban.
And that case was awaiting review by the United States Supreme Court when the Bruin case got handed down.
And there were four cases, really important, four Second Amendment cases that were waiting there.
It's like being at the front of the line, waiting to get led into the club.
And when the Bruin opinion came down, what the Supreme Court did with all four of those cases is they GVR'd it.
So they granted, vacated the ruling and remanded it down.
So they sent it back down to the lower courts where they'd come from, but with an order from the United States Supreme Court saying, hey, you didn't correctly apply the law, so let us give you this.
Here's the new roadmap you're going to use.
It's a much more simple roadmap than what you used before, and we want you to redo this.
And if those courts correctly apply the rule of law, then an AR ban, a magazine ban, and things like that simply cannot survive.
Yeah, it's just a thing of beauty, actually.
Justice Thomas is God's gift to America right now, I'm telling you.
He's doing some incredible things.
And listen, to give credit where credit is due, Justice Scalia really made this rule what we thought abundantly clear 14, 15 years ago in Heller vs.
District of Columbia.
Huh.
and an excellent author of opinions.
And he had made it very clear that it was a strict scrutiny analysis.
And for whatever reason, the appellate courts just didn't seem to think he was serious about it.
So interestingly, during that course of time between Heller and Bruin, there were many, many other cases that had asked to be reviewed by the Supreme Court.
And the Supreme Court would routinely just not accept review, leaving the rulings of the lower courts in place.
And it was Thomas that would consistently write these scathing opinions and dissenting opinions when they denied review about, you know, why are we treating this as a second-class right?
They still don't have the rule of law correctly.
Why are we allowing them to use the wrong analysis?
We need to get a case up here so we can correct this once and for all.
And Thomas was very vocal about it.
So it was very poetic that he got to author the majority opinion.
Yeah, yeah, that's extraordinary.
Now, there's something I'm confused about that I think you can probably clarify and answer.
I believe after the New York Pistol and Rifle Association versus Bruin decision, I think New York State, but correct me if I'm wrong, I think their lawmakers went back and said, okay, we're going to have to let people carry guns, but we're going to restrict it.
And basically they wrote a law, I'm exaggerating slightly, that said, okay, you can carry a gun anywhere except everywhere.
Yeah, so Governor Hochul and her goons in Albany basically completely crapped themselves.
And it's interesting you bring this up because I was actually reading subsession law out of New York just a few nights ago looking at this.
And so what they did is they had one of these special needs.
You've got to demonstrate, one, you're lawfully allowed to carry a firearm and then a special need in order to get a permit to carry.
And, of course, nobody ever met the special needs.
And that's what struck down.
But what they've supplanted that with is good moral character.
You must establish that you're of good moral character.
Now think about this first.
You must establish that you're of good moral character.
So do we start from the presumption that you're not?
Well, right.
And more importantly, all of these bureaucrats in New York would say that anybody who wants to own a gun is a bad moral character.
Yeah.
The same ones who also supported their governor for a number of years, too.
Right.
So, I mean, it's a catch-22.
You can't qualify.
Well, the problem is that it's introducing subjectivity into what should be an objective criteria.
Yes.
Okay?
Okay.
And this is one...
Even though I'm critical of Washington State on a lot of my videos and the Washington State Legislature, I will say that I think that if you're going to have a concealed carry license in your state, Washington State does it pretty good because Washington State is a shall-issue state, and our rules work quite simply.
When you apply, it is law enforcement's duty to disprove that you are eligible to possess a firearm.
And if they cannot find any reason for which you are ineligible to possess a firearm, they shall issue you the permit and it shall be issued within 30 days of its application.
If you're an out-of-state guy, if you applied for Washington State, you could apply at any state, and they have up to 90 days to issue.
But again, if they run a background check on you and you check out, you're lawfully allowed to possess a firearm, that's all that's required of you.
Right, right.
But what's going to happen in New York?
What's going to happen in New York is that this is going to get challenged again.
It's going to run all the way up.
And I think what's happening with a lot of these states is they're sore losers.
They're literally writing laws that they know to be in violation of Supreme Court precedent.
They're literally writing laws that they know to be in violation of the Second Amendment.
And they're just saying, well, yeah, they'll get knocked down someday.
But in the meantime, we can disarm our citizens this way.
I see.
Yeah.
Wow.
And it's a sad state of affairs to say that about any elected official that you would just willingly write laws that you know do not stand constitutional muster.
The folks in Oregon right now have a ballot measure called ballot measure 114.
And if your listeners haven't checked it out, please check it out.
It is the worst piece of gun legislation you've ever read in your entire life.
And it's being sold to the folks in Oregon like it's just a magazine ban and a little bit of mandatory training before you can get a gun.
But what it really amounts to is that you have to apply for a license that is a privilege that's granted to you by the state before you can then go exercise a constitutional right.
Right.
And that's going to be, if it passes, that's going to be challenged immediately as well.
As it should, because this would be no different than if we wanted to give everyone a political litmus test before we allowed them to vote.
Or a religious litmus test before we allowed them to pick what church they go to on Sunday.
And that's not how it works.
Yeah.
All right.
I want to give out your website one more time.
WashingtonGunLaw.com is the site for Mr.
William Kirk here.
And it's okay if I call you Bill?
Yes.
Okay.
Absolutely.
All right.
And I've got a few more questions for you if you have a couple more minutes.
Yeah, let's do it.
Okay.
So one of the things that I think a lot of gun owners...
They really want to obey the laws because they want to keep everything legal so that there's no question that they're not gun runners or anything like that.
They're just law-abiding citizens that want to be safe in their person, in their homes, in their families, and so on.
So they want to abide by the laws.
Well, let's go back to this arm brace decision or ruling, whatever the rules are that the ATF is about to publish.
I recall reading that the ATF After the 120-day period, if this goes into effect, they gave people, I think, four ways to remedy a firearm that would not be allowed to have an arm brace.
You probably remember the four ways better than I do.
I think it was five, actually, and I can actually pull it up here real quick.
Yeah, please do, but I know one of them was to turn over the firearm to the ATF, so nobody's going to do that.
That's one of your options, yes.
The second one was to destroy the firearm and provide proof to the ATF. Uh-huh.
The third one was, I think, to put on a 16-inch barrel.
So just make it a regular longer barrel with an arm brace.
And I think the other way was to remove the arm brace.
And my question for you, and you're probably the perfect person to ask this, if this rule goes down and millions of Americans don't want to suddenly become criminals, could they just remove their arm braces and just separate them?
Yeah.
It's a great question.
And the jury's still out on that a little bit.
There have been some people out there in the YouTuberverse that say that you have to also destroy your arm brace.
I don't read the rule that way.
The option as it's currently written in ATS rule, again, this is subject to change upon the publishing of the new rule, is permanently remove or alter the stabilizing brace such that it cannot be reattached.
There you go.
Permanently remove.
That was the thing that tripped me up.
How do you permanently remove?
Well, there's a couple different ways.
Obviously, you could remove the stabilizing brace and destroy it to such a way that it would not be able to be reattached.
I believe you can also change out the buffer tube, right?
Make it so that nothing could be attached to it?
Yes.
Okay.
That's a couple of different ways of doing it.
The way I see it and the way I've interpreted it is this.
The entire rule is called firearms with attached stabilizing braces.
That's what the score sheet is called.
A firearm with an attached stabilizing brace.
So if it's not attached...
If we don't have a stabilizing brace attached to it, why are we scoring the firearm at that point?
Yes.
Yeah, exactly.
But also, you mentioned someone could change the buffer tube, but that's not necessarily permanent.
I could put on a different buffer tube and keep all the old parts.
You could.
Here's the other thing, and I'm sure you've got some listeners out there that have done their own Form 1 stuff, okay?
When you're going to build an NFA item, you can buy all the components for an NFA item, you register it, and then once you get ATF's blessings, you can do final assembly, right?
Yeah.
Well, what ATF is asking us to do through amnesty registration is send to them firearms that they believe to be NFA items, send them photographs of them in their absolute completed configuration.
Before they approve our Form 1?
Wait a second.
They're telling you to violate the law before they allow you to not violate the law.
And listen, I think that, you know, if it weren't the ATF, we'd probably be like, oh, there's got to be a better explanation.
But this is unfortunately the reputation.
This is the reputation that they've earned, okay?
And in defense of ATF, and this is all I will say in defense, The agents that I deal with in the field are really awesome people, and a lot of them roll their eyes at what the brass is telling them to do.
Sure.
I also think that those agents have no future in the ATF because they're not rotten to the core and therefore they will not make it into the upper leadership.
Well stated, yeah.
Yeah, but the ones I get to deal with, the ones that show up in my office to pick up triggers and solvent traps, absolutely fantastic people, really.
But for your listeners, the five options on this pistol brace thing is, number one was to either permanently remove or alter the stabilizing brace such that it cannot be reattached.
Two is remove the short barrel and attach a 16-inch or longer barrel, thus taking it out of that.
Which, of course, if you're going to do that, you probably should just go ahead and throw a regular stock on the back end of it, too.
Yeah, exactly, right.
I mean, it's a rifle now, so just make it a rifle.
Number three, destroy the firearm.
And ATF does promise that they're going to publish videos on their website on how to do that.
I'm sure.
You know, the service operation that they are.
Number four is, of course, turn the firearm into your local ATF office.
And then the fifth one, and this is the one that we got to, again, we're going to have to parse the language out and see what the rule says finally, but it's complete and submit an application to make and register a firearm ATF Form 1.
As part of the submission, the $200 tax payment is required with application, and then it goes through all the other things that you have to do to properly file a Form 1.
So again, I'm beginning to wonder, what's the amnesty here?
Right.
Right, and these questions will not be answered, even potentially by the time this rule goes into effect.
That's the thing, is you don't know how these rules are going to be interpreted or implemented.
No, and I have been able to talk to some of the higher-up chief counsel for ATF. Private conversations off the record.
And I asked them, I was like, you know, listen, and you mentioned this yourself just a moment ago.
Lawful gun owners.
Lawful gun owners are the most law-abiding community in the entire United States.
The Department of Justice Statistics bears this out.
You want to know the group of individuals has the lowest crime per capita.
It's concealed carry holders in the United States.
Yes.
They have a lower crime per capita than college-educated Asians.
Wow.
And you can imagine that college-educated Asians have an incredibly low crime rate in that demographic group.
Okay?
Okay.
So they just want to know where are the lines so they can scribble inside of them.
And so when I talk to ATF counsel and I said, can you please just give me some information so that I can disseminate it to my viewers and just say, guys, this is what this really means.
And then, you know, you all get to act in the level of compliance that you choose to act in.
That's fine.
But my job's really always been like, let me just show you where the lines are and then you decide what you do with that.
And I can't even do that when it comes to ATF. So, where does this end up?
I mean, I can see innocent people being arrested and convicted even though they tried to comply.
Yeah, I don't know if we'll get to that level.
I think that what we're all going to have to do is right after the first of the year, after this rule has dropped and we get through the holiday season, be very cognizant of what types of actions are being filed in various circuit courts around the country, especially those that are requesting injunctive relief.
And take a look at how fast these accelerate from the district courts into the federal circuit appellate courts.
You may see some accelerated things.
Now, anything coming out of the Ninth Circuit where I sit will probably not be promising, but there are other circuits in which you may see more promising action out of.
Ultimately, if this thing drops, it's going to have to go all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
Yeah, clearly.
And by the way, I noticed you just used the term drops, and I hear a lot of people using that term when it comes to the publishing of these rules, but I don't want people to be confused.
It means that it gets active, not nullified.
Right.
To say it's dropped, it means it's published.
That's right.
That's right.
So what happens?
And I think the same could happen to the folks in Oregon here.
I think ballot measure 114 could pass.
I think these rules are going to be published.
I think these rules are going to go into effect.
I think they're going to affect Americans.
For a period of time until and at such time that a court either puts injunctive relief on or strikes the laws down.
Can people be harmed in the meantime?
Yeah.
What's most offensive about it is that I think that the people who draft this legislation, either they're absolutely completely morons and they never read case law or they are knowingly writing laws that they know are violative of the Second Amendment and the law of the land.
They know it.
You would not write these laws to be this way if that were the case.
Yeah, exactly.
Okay, another question relative to all this.
The binary trigger company, I forgot the name.
You would know the name who I'm talking about.
Franklin Arbery did the binary trigger.
There we go.
Now, didn't the ATF go to them or somebody like them and demand a customer list?
Maybe it's not the binary trigger.
It's like some automatic reset.
Yeah.
Yeah, okay.
So the ATF years ago, and I'll just call them all these post-market triggers that obviously accelerate the rate of fire.
And so we had Rare Breed had their forced reset trigger.
Yeah, that's the one I'm thinking, Rare Breed.
Yeah, Rare Breed with the forced reset, Big Daddy with the wide open trigger.
You had the Hellfire trigger system, and then you had the binary trigger.
ATF, despite previous determinations that forced reset and wide open triggers did not constitute a component of a machine gun, has since reversed course on that.
And they are in a position now where they are actually running around the country trying to pick up these triggers.
But to do that, they acquired customer lists, correct?
Okay, so, yeah.
This is my experience talking to probably 250 people around the country in various levels of trouble as it came to this, is that if you bought the trigger from Big Daddy, you probably have not...
I've never talked to anyone in the country who bought from Big Daddy that received a letter from ATF yet, okay?
Okay.
I talked to very few people who bought from Rare Breed that had received letters.
A small number, but not many.
But if you bought these things off a gun broker, you have already gotten your letter.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
And so what ATF did is, there was a few people that had accounts, and they were selling a lot of these things.
And apparently, if you knew what you're doing, you could buy these things low and sell them high and make money, okay?
Huh.
And the ATF obviously came down on Gunbroker.
I don't know how much Gunbroker has cooperated with it.
We've never been able to verify whether they've cooperated or not.
I do know, and I've done a couple videos about a kid who was going to a major state university in another state other than Washington that was selling a ton of these things, and ATF showed up and raided his place.
- Huh, okay. - And of course they confiscated all of his sales records and everything, and so every one of his purchasers I talked to a hundred of them.
The reason I ask this and why this is relevant to the arm brace decision or rules is, wouldn't the ATF perhaps go to major online retailers like Brownells or whoever and say, give us the list of everybody who bought an arm brace or SB Tactical, for example?
Yeah.
Yeah, and I think if they went and asked Brownells or SB Tactical, I think they would probably tell them to pound sand.
But if they got a search warrant or subpoena deuces, take them signed for it.
Well, then all bets are off.
Now there's a court order.
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
And then you probably would get a letter.
Everybody who bought it would get a letter or a visit.
Now, I wanted to ask you about the visit, too, and I'm mindful of your time, so we're going to wrap this up shortly.
But there have been videos over the last few months, I know you've seen them, where ATF agents were showing up at people's homes, I believe.
Just people who bought a pistol and a rifle on the same day.
Yeah, yeah, I did a video on that.
I know exactly what you're talking about.
Yeah, and that, I mean, how crazy is that?
Because I always buy a rifle and a pistol on the same day.
I mean, why not?
You're there, just get it done.
But that's not unusual.
Why are they visiting people's homes who just bought a pistol and a rifle?
Okay, so what a lot of people don't know is there is actually a document that ATF requires all FFLs in the country to fill out, which is a multiple purchase document.
And so whether you're buying two handguns, two shotguns, two rifles, two whatever, if you buy two or more on the same sale, there is a document that must be sent to ATF. Right.
Okay.
Now, it's been going on for years and years and years.
Nobody did anything about it.
What caught the attention of everyone is when these ATF agents and law enforcement agents showed up at this house, and it was really a guy who had absolutely no criminal history.
There was nothing shady about this guy at all.
He had bought a couple of firearms at one purchase, which, yes, have I done that before?
Yes, I have.
Have you done it before?
It sounds like you have.
Yeah, absolutely.
And listen, the day after Christmas, I might be on Palmetto State Armory buying many things.
I mean, how can you resist?
I mean, I'm there to pick up a transfer, and then I see something else that's awesome, right?
Well, you get online on one of those really good sales days and they're just blowing things out and it's just hard to resist.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, yeah, in this situation, though, for whatever reason, he got a visit.
Now, understand that if ATF ever comes to anyone's home to visit and they just want to see if you're willing to talk to them, you absolutely have the right to say no.
Right.
Yeah, because they didn't even show up with a warrant.
They just showed up with, I don't know, a printout of some gun serial numbers or something.
And in general, the rule is when law enforcement of any nature shows up at your home to talk to you, it's usually not for a good thing.
So...
At that point, I would not engage in any conversation.
I'd confer with an attorney right away.
In some instances, I've seen situations where I was like, no, no, we can talk to ATF about that.
And in other situations, it's like, nope, we're not going to talk to them at all.
And it really depends on what the individual situation is.
Sure, that makes sense.
It just seems more brazen on the part of the ATF to do that kind of thing.
It's almost like it's an intimidation tactic.
It's not that they expected to find a felon with a bunch of guns.
It's just they want to...
Yeah, I think that there is this generalized, we want to make things as uncomfortable and uneasy for gun owners as humanly possible, and just try to break their will to some degree.
Exactly.
People are just like, you know what, I just don't even want to deal with it anymore.
I mean, I live in Texas, and if ATF agents showed up at my door, I would say, look, you guys want to catch some guns?
Head south, man.
There's a whole bunch of guns coming across the border.
You'd catch one like every 10 minutes.
Well, yeah, listen, if we took every agent we have running around in the country right now looking for solvent traps and forced reset triggers and just put them all on the south side of Chicago for a couple of weeks...
Exactly.
How many unlawful firearms can we pull off the streets there?
And by the way, there are real numbers to back up what those firearms do on a weekly basis.
All you got to do is pull up the Chicago Tribune on a Monday morning and see how many they slaughtered over the weekend because it's disgusting.
Yeah, it is.
Absolutely.
All right.
You've been amazing, so knowledgeable in answering these questions that I'm sure the audience shares.
Is there anything that you want to add before we wrap this up today?
Sure.
Well, like I say, for your listeners out there, there's a lot of people out there that are going to tell you a lot of different things about what's going on.
And a lot of people, especially in the YouTube-verse, are going to tell you how to think about things.
And what we try to do at Washington Gun Laws, we try to give you the most objective information that you can get.
You get to decide what that means to you.
We'll tell you what compliance means and what a lack of compliance can cost you, but you get to decide what your level of compliance is.
We're really just trying to give lawful and responsible gun owners the most objective information they can so that they can make the wise decisions that they need to about how they want to live their lives.
Absolutely.
You represent people that have been involved in self-defense shootings as well?
Yes, I do.
Okay.
Okay, great.
And you represent people outside of Washington State?
I represent people outside of the state of Washington, usually on ATF issues.
If you're involved in a self-defense situation in a state other than Washington, I can certainly assist in making sure that you get the best counsel humanly possible in your jurisdiction.
There you go.
Okay, great.
All right.
Well, thank you, Bill, or Mr.
Kirk.
I mean, it's just been an honor to have you.
Okay.
You're welcome.
I've enjoyed it.
Thank you.
Yeah, absolutely.
Your knowledge based on this is really remarkable, and you're helping a lot of people sort this out.
And I hope to maybe connect with you again as we learn more about this ATF ruling and whether they publish it or it gets challenged or so on.
Maybe the first of the year, if not sooner.
Absolutely.
Anytime.
Love to be back.
Thank you for having me.
Well, thank you very much.
Have a great evening.
Thank you.
Okay.
Take care.
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