When anti-gun rights group Brady, Giffords, and Everytown filed their amici curiae brief on December 10 “in support of defendants,” they ironically aligned themselves with the Pam Bondi Justice Department and its legal position of defending the National Firearms Act – a tough pill to swallow for gun owners who have been told that Bondi is “the most pro-2A AG in US history.”
The 21-page brief filed jointly by Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Everytown for Gun Safety, and Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence supports the position of the Bondi Justice Department which is defending gun control measures within the National Firearms Act in a case known as Silencer Shop v. Bondi.
The most recent DOJ action in November in this case claims that the case is about “enumerated powers,” but then goes on to explicitly support numerous gun control measures, including the NFA itself, writing that it comports with the Bruen test because “The NFA fits within that historical tradition by targeting particularly dangerous weapons that ‘could be used readily and efficiently by criminals.'”
Although the non-profits represented in this brief claim they are “dedicated to reducing gun violence through education, research, and advocacy,” we have documented extensively how these groups are backed by globalist payrolls aimed at disarmament through sophisticated propaganda.
Everytown, for example, recently backed anti-gun candidates in special elections in New Jersey and Virginia. And as News2A contributor Terra Semaia documented, its propaganda-laden gun safety training classes are full of messaging discouraging gun ownership.
Notwithstanding the Second Amendment’s direction that the “right to bear arms shall not be infringed,” the brief is full of supporting arguments for infringements, including for example, regulation of suppressors which are used daily by millions of law-abiding citizens in order to protect their hearing:
Proponents of deregulation, including the plaintiffs, often portray these devices as benign accessories intended solely to protect shooters’ hearing or reduce noise pollution at gun ranges. But because silencers reduce noise, they have also been used by mass murderers, terrorists, and assassins.
The coalition also asserts that, “Short-barreled rifles and shotguns pose a different but equally serious set of risks. These weapons occupy a dangerous middle ground in firearm physics: they combine high-velocity power, similar to that of a long gun, with concealability closer to that of a handgun.”
Ignoring the fact that criminals by definition ignore laws, and every crime with a firearm is an illustration of the point, they write, “National Firearms Act registration requirements facilitate lawful possession while reducing the risks of criminal misuse of NFA items.”
The three anti-gun rights groups perfectly align themselves with the Pam Bondi Justice department when they invoke the impermissible “public safety” argument writing, “These registration requirements serve critical regulatory and public safety functions.”
Perhaps unwittingly, the groups also attempt to support the NFA through an argument that has been struck down by courts when addressing every other civil liberty – whether those rights can be taxed. They seem to think so:
Under the NFA, manufacturers and dealers of covered firearms must pay a Special Occupational Tax ranging from $500 to $1,000 per year. 26 U.S.C. Section 5801. The registry ensures compliance by recording every transfer, enabling the government to track weapon flows and identify when a purported “hobbyist” is actually operating as a dealer and evading tax obligations.
They also further the idea that there is a justifiable defense for infringing upon a right because there is an economic aspect – an argument that would be unimaginable if applied to the right of free speech or freedom to worship or assemble:
The NFA regulates the commodities themselves – firearms – by controlling how they are made, sold, and tracked. In other words, it governs the economic enterprise of manufacturing and transferring firearms.
The mere fact that anti-civil liberty groups find themselves siding with the Department of Justice’s position on gun rights is greatly troubling to the approximately 100,000,000 law abiding gun owners as well as non-gun owners who believe in the unqualified statement in the Second Amendment that “the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
