(Photo by Sirtravelalot/Shutterstock)
December 23, 2024
By Darwin Nercesian
Anytime I write about a CBS investigation, the topic is hardly the investigation itself but rather the abject stupidity of the people conducting it and the complacency and arrogance by which they openly discuss the violation of Americans’ Constitutional rights. The latter half, one could argue, stems from a lack of education in the firearms debate. However, I contend that it is a concerted effort to desensitize Americans and promote a sense of normalcy regarding the loss of our liberties. In the wake of a recent CBS investigation alleging widespread illegal sales of restricted firearms from members of the law enforcement community across the country, House Democrats have rattled their sabers once again, demanding the ATF hold agencies and individuals accountable even though their source is shoddy at best and rhetoric is conspicuously not in line with the founding traditions or values of this country. It’s safe to say that when you represent yourself as investigating a matter, you should have an informed foundation on the subject. Erin Cauchi, a CBS News Crime and Public Safety Unit producer, apparently didn’t get the memo. The key premise of the investigation is that the guns being sold are “weapons of war,” according to the network, a made-up term used interchangeably by politicians and the media whenever they think a firearm is too scary for civilians to own. But we know better, don’t we? They don’t want us to own any guns, or more accurately, any means of defending ourselves from subjugation. “They’re using their access as law enforcement officials to gain access to things that otherwise wouldn’t be on the market… In the most egregious cases, there were battlefield weapons,” Cauchi says.
The investigation’s key focus is law enforcement personnel drafting law letters allowing them to obtain post-sample machine guns, and then selling those firearms to unauthorized individuals. Post-sample machine guns are fully automatic weapons manufactured after May 19th, 1986 (or imported after 1968 Gun Control Act went into effect) and are restricted to law enforcement and Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) that pay the Special Occupational Tax (SOT). Machine guns otherwise produced before the cutoff date are known as transferables, and any person who is legally permitted to own a firearm can purchase one, however, limited availability since the Firearms Owners' Protection Act (FOPA) amended the National Firearms Act (NFA) in 1986 has caused prices to skyrocket out of the reach of most Americans. You can thank Ronald Reagan for that. What is the difference between a machine gun manufactured before and one manufactured after 1986? Not a damn thing.
Are machine guns really more dangerous because of their select fire capability? For perspective, a military issue M4 has a cyclic rate of 700 rounds per minute. A practiced shooter can perform a “Bill Drill,” drawing a gun and firing six rounds semi-automatic in two seconds. Eliminating the draw time to keep things equal, the six shots can be fired in one second for an estimated cyclic rate of 360 rounds per minute. While this may sound like a lot of firepower, remember that a typical AR-15 magazine only holds thirty rounds. This means that the firearm can be emptied in about five seconds before having to change magazines in a semi-automatic, whereas it may take closer to three seconds on the equivalent machine gun. More importantly, how many targets could be acquired in three seconds? The truth is that a shooter is far more effective manually firing their weapon from target to target due to having increased control. That control means less recovery time between target-to-target transitions. Manipulating a firearm in this manner also means you still have most of your ammunition left in the magazine to acquire additional targets before needing to reload. Individuals can only carry so many magazines, with the higher end of a combat loadout ranging from 210 to 240 rounds or between seven and eight magazines. All of a sudden, big scary numbers like 700 rounds per minute don’t seem so scary anymore, do they?
Because of this, it is a fact that soldiers equipped with fully automatic rifles like the M16 or M4 very rarely use that capability, as it is mostly a great way to run out of ammunition in a gunfight while sacrificing the ability to accurately put rounds on hostile targets. You are more likely to see automatic fire used to keep enemy heads down to cover the movement of teammates as they maneuver into a more advantageous position. Aside from post-sample machine guns, most of the other firearms identified in the investigation are classified as short-barreled rifles (SBR) and shotguns (SBS), also having no business being restricted in America. In the case of these weapons, most states allow ownership, but the federal government regulates these items under the NFA, like machine guns, but without any cutoff date. Citizens can purchase or construct an SBR or SBS by filing applicable paperwork with the ATF and paying a $200 government extortion fee known as a tax stamp. And what makes these firearms so much more dangerous? Not a damn thing. An SBR simply means the rifle’s barrel is shorter than 16 inches, with an SBS denoting a shotgun with a barrel under 18 inches. Neither is particularly concealable, and even someone with a novice education in ballistics understands that these weapons bring with them an inherent reduction in effective range and lethality over their higher velocity, longer barrel counterparts.“These weapons are usually deemed too dangerous to be on the streets…
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Just to give you a sense of what kind of weapons these are, these could take out an armored tank, they could go through a building at the other side, hit a target eighteen football fields away, they can take out a military helicopter,” Cauchi continued, making an absolute mockery of herself. What Cauchi is saying is not only untrue, but it is so far off that it exceeds even the most remote margin of error. As detailed already, SBRs and SBSs are considerably less powerful due to their anemic velocity, while machine guns do not vary in power from their semi-automatic counterparts, only in cyclic rate. In response to the CBS News report, House Democrats have called for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to answer for the lack of accountability and oversight that has apparently led to at least 50 alleged cases of law enforcement personnel conducting illegal sales of the restricted firearms. California Representative Robert Garcia, serving on both the House Oversight Committee and the Homeland Security Committee, penned the letter to ATF Director Steven Dettelbach, joined by New York Representative Dan Goldman and Florida Representative Maxwell Alejandro, citing "grave concerns around troubling reports of certain law enforcement officers exploiting their positions to acquire and illegally distribute firearms.” The letter also highlights recent ATF data stating that nearly 26,000 guns have been traced back from American crime scenes to government agencies, law enforcement, or the military between 2017 and 2021, and requests the agency respond to their inquiry by January 15, 2025. "Reporting suggests that there may be serious systemic vulnerabilities in current machine gun and sawed-off shotgun and rifle regulations and enforcement mechanisms, jeopardizing public safety by enabling the proliferation of dangerous weapons, often into the hands of international traffickers and organized crime groups," the letter reads.
The arbitrary nature of the NFA serves as a reminder that we should never budge an inch with the left because it is much more difficult to have your freedoms restored than it is to preserve them. I hope we’ve all learned by now that no compromise exists that will satisfy the left short of stripping Americans of all firearms, which is their ultimate goal. I refuse to entertain the idea that these firearms should be under any restriction in the first place, a belief grounded in the founding documents that politicians, judges, federal, state, and local officials have sworn their oath to yet brazenly scorn in open defiance. Creating a law to circumvent the Constitution makes you a criminal. Being in a position of power such that no authority is willing to arrest you for it doesn’t make you any less of a criminal. To be clear, I am calling any lawmaker, judge, or enforcement authority who does not comply with the plain text of the Second Amendment a criminal, and their actions against any American who is not otherwise breaking the law are nothing more than unchecked criminal aggression. Full stop.
