Heretofore ignored by the legacy press and mainstream media, in February, federal authorities invaded a neighborhood in the Flathead Valley with militarized police and terrorized its occupants with what appears to be Waco-level tyrannical overreach

In 1992, a federal siege occurred in Boundary County, Idaho, at a location known as Ruby Ridge.  The eleven-day siege lasted from August 21-31 and resulted in the deaths of one U.S. Marshall, and the wife and son of Randy Weaver, the target of the siege.  This event captured the attention of the nation. To secure the land around this seven-person home composed of three adults and four children, the federal government saw fit to send in hundreds of federal agents, as well as associated vehicles and air support.

The reasons for the siege are not pertinent here, but the fact is many lessons were learned as a result.  Those lessons revolved around Rules of Engagement, the use of force, and other legal concerns.  One would have hoped the lessons would be applied in future encounters, but in 1993 the same FBI Hostage Rescue Team commander took part in the siege and raid of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. After fifty-one days, the compound was breached and seventy-five people were killed, including twenty-five children.  Nearly thirty years after Ruby Ridge, it seems that the only real lesson federal agencies applied from Ruby Ridge and Waco is that they needed to do a better job of keeping their activities out of the eyes of the public.  Why?  Because a similar event occurred in Western Montana on February 2, 2021, and it’s likely you’ve not heard anything about it.

In the early Tuesday morning hours, motion sensors alerted the occupant, hereafter referred to as John Doe (names have been changed to protect the innocent) that there was movement along the driveway to his home.  Given the time of day, the location of the home, and some recent history that will be discussed later, Doe knew he needed to react, but in a non-threatening manner.  His decision was to put on a pair of pants, remain barefoot and shirtless, and move to the front porch with his hands raised in the air.  What appeared in the driveway was the lead vehicle of three BearCat armored personnel carriers – commonly referred to as personnel tanks (pictured left) – in a convoy of over thirty total vehicles.

The BearCats are armed with a rotating turret for housing customer-specific weapon systems. Five gun ports are located on each side of the vehicle, and an additional two on the rear. The vehicle are often equipped with .50 BMG or 7.62mm rifles. It is a military-grade vehicle often used by U.S. Special Forces and the Australian military.

But on this day, they were cruising the Flathead Valley with thirty other police vehicles in tow.

Also surrounding the house were one-hundred-plus federal agents with a helicopter in support.  Federal agents immediately took Doe into custody and placed him in loose-fitting flex cuffs into the back of one of the BearCat vehicles. Inside the vehicle, John was placed on the outer wall, and at his feet were loaded weapons.  Doe later concluded that this had to be a setup, for if he were to try to free himself, he would likely be killed.  Seemingly unbeknownst to the Feds, Doe’s 88-year-old mother (who suffers from dementia) was asleep in the house. The actual homeowner, Jane Doe, was also in the home. This is why Doe wanted to avoid confrontation and the stress of such an event by presenting himself peacefully. What looked to be a quick and peaceful resolution then took a strange turn to the worse.

Why did agents breach the house when Doe was already in custody? Counter to standard practice, the team chose to enter a window next to Doe’s basement door.  That window is over three feet off the ground and thus difficult to breach and enter by a team that needs to move fast.  There are many windows in the house that would have made a breach entry a lot easier.  This window was different, not only in its height above ground and the resulting impact on the tactics used, but it is also right next to Doe’s bed.  If Doe had not exited the house and moved to the front porch to peacefully present himself, the concussion grenade employed by the breaching team would have landed on him while he was sleeping.  There’s no telling what would have happened in that instance, but John’s death is a possibility.

Federal agents obviously knew the home’s layout and they immediately entered Doe’s storage and security room and disconnected all security cameras while conducting a search. Though not included on the warrant, the federal agents searched John’s gun safes, a detached garage, and vehicles parked around the residence.

What provoked this Montana this raid?  Doe’s former girlfriend from North Carolina filed a restraining order (a civil matter, not criminal) against Doe in that state claiming he was homicidal, suicidal, a threat to her, and had bomb-making materials with the intention to cause harm.  She also claimed he had booby traps all over the home and the surrounding property.  But none of this was true.

Doe does in fact hold a Federal Firearms License (FFL) and is licensed for all weapons, ammunition, and powders on his property.  Given this fact, federal agents can request to see all his material at any time, no siege required. Circumstances brought Doe back to Montana and, despite the foregoing, a restraining order secured under false information in North Carolina caused a massive raid in Montana involving federal agents from around the country.

According to the Constitution, federal operators may not engage in law enforcement activities without the permission of the local county sheriff, something that is often overlooked and ignored, which is the case here.

Doe was not read his rights until two hours into the event. He was eventually transported to the Flathead County jail by a Deputy Sheriff who was not aware of the preceding events until well after the fact. Doe was released three days later on his own recognizance.  Jane was never read her rights despite being questioned by federal agents.  John, Jane, and John’s mother were not the only victims of this raid.  John’s neighbor, who shares a long driveway with him, was detained in handcuffs for two hours as he left for work. A close friend of John’s heard what had happened and was detained when he went to the house to check on his well-being.

On March 5, Doe and his neighbor both received mail that contained a list of confiscated weapons, but no ammunition was listed despite it all having been confiscated.  The list further contained only about twenty percent of the total number of items taken.  The address listed on the paperwork was John’s neighbor’s house and it remains unclear why both homes received the notice.

As of the date of the publication of this article, there continues to be a news blackout of this event. John has not been charged with any federal crimes, gun-related or otherwise. Jane has had to pay over $4,000 in out-of-pocket repairs for property damage to her home caused by the breaching team and the subsequent search. (She has received forms to request reimbursement from the Feds). Doe has had to pay thousands of dollars for legal representation.

The Feds spent thousands of tax dollars to execute this raid with agents from around the country, even as far away as Pennsylvania, Florida, and Virginia. Now that Joe Biden is so focused on removing the 2nd Amendment from the Constitution, these actions could become the norm. Americans will be made criminals as unconstitutional measures such as H.R.8 and H.R.127 pass through the U.S. House, on to the U.S. Senate, and ultimately to Joe Biden’s desk.  Let us all hold accountable the government that works for We the People, because what happened to John is not what America is supposed to be.

[Editor’s Note: The Montana Daily Gazette stands by the veracity of this report from a field reporter and we believe the Legacy Press has been intimidated into silence by the federal government. Names have been changed to protect the innocent]

Nick Sibilla

Senior Contributor

 

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear oral argument in Caniglia v. Strom, a case that could have sweeping consequences for policing, due process, and mental health, with the Biden Administration and attorneys general from nine states urging the High Court to uphold warrantless gun confiscation. But what would ultimately become a major Fourth Amendment case began with an elderly couple’s spat over a coffee mug.

In August 2015, 68-year-old Edward Caniglia joked to Kim, his wife of 22 years, that he didn’t use a certain coffee mug after his brother-in-law had used it because he “might catch a case of dishonesty.” That quip quickly spiraled into an hour-long argument. Growing exhausted from the bickering, Edward stormed into his bedroom, grabbed an unloaded handgun, and put it on the kitchen table in front of his wife. With a flair for the dramatic, he then asked: “Why don’t you just shoot me and get me out of my misery?”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the tactic backfired and the two continued to argue. Eventually, Edward took a drive to cool off. But when he returned, their argument flared up once again. This time, Kim decided to leave the house and spend the night at a motel. The next day, Kim phoned home. No answer.

Worried, she called the police in Cranston, Rhode Island and asked them to perform a “well check” on her husband and to escort her home. When they arrived, officers spoke with Edward on the back deck. According to an incident report, he “seemed normal,” “was calm for the most part,” and even said “he would never commit suicide.”

However, none of the officers had asked Edward any questions about the factors relating to his risk of suicide, risk of violence, or prior misuse of firearms. (Edward had no criminal record and no history of violence or self-harm.) In fact, one of the officers later admitted he “did not consult any specific psychological or psychiatric criteria” or medical professionals for his decisions that day.

Still, police were convinced that Edward could hurt himself and insisted he head to a local hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. After refusing and insisting that his mental health wasn’t their business, Edward agreed only after police (falsely) promised they wouldn’t seize his guns while he was gone.

Compounding the dishonesty, police then told Kim that Edward had consented to the confiscation. Believing the seizures were approved by her husband, Kim led the officers to the two handguns the couple owned, which were promptly seized. Even though Edward was immediately discharged from the hospital, police only returned the firearms after he filed a civil rights lawsuit against them.

Critically, when police seized the guns, they didn’t claim it was an emergency or to prevent imminent danger. Instead, the officers argued their actions were a form of “community caretaking,” a narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.

First created by the Supreme Court nearly 50 years ago, the community caretaking exception was designed for cases involving impounded cars and highway safety, on the grounds that police are often called to car accidents to remove nuisances like inoperable vehicles on public roads.

Both a district and appellate court upheld the seizures as “reasonable” under the community caretaking exception. In deciding Caniglia’s case, the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals acknowledged that “the doctrine’s reach outside the motor vehicle context is ill-defined.” Nevertheless, the court decided to extend that doctrine to cover private homes, ruling that the officers “did not exceed the proper province of their community caretaking responsibilities.”

Siding with law enforcement, the First Circuit noted that a police officer “must act as a master of all emergencies, who is ‘expected to…provide an infinite variety of services to preserve and protect community safety.’” By letting police operate without a warrant, the community caretaking exception is “designed to give police elbow room to take appropriate action,” the court added.

In their opening brief for the Supreme Court, attorneys for Caniglia warned that “extending the community caretaking exception to homes would be anathema to the Fourth Amendment” because it “would grant police a blank check to intrude upon the home.”

That fear is not unwarranted. In jurisdictions that have extended the community caretaking exception to homes, “everything from loud music to leaky pipes have been used to justify warrantless invasion of the home,” a joint amicus brief by the ACLU, the Cato Institute, and the American Conservative Union revealed.

This expansion could also have perverse effects and disincentivize people from calling for help. As that brief noted, “When every interaction with police or request for help can become an invitation for police to invade the home, the willingness of individuals to seek assistance when it is most needed will suffer.”

But in its first amicus brief before the High Court, the Biden Administration glossed over these concerns and called on the justices to uphold the First Circuit’s ruling. Noting that “the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is ‘reasonableness,’” the Justice Department argued that warrants should not be “presumptively required when a government official’s action is objectively grounded in a non-investigatory public interest, such as health or safety.”

“The ultimate question in this case is therefore not whether the respondent officers’ actions fit within some narrow warrant exception,” their brief stated, “but instead whether those actions were reasonable,” actions the Justice Department felt were “justified” in Caniglia’s case.

As a fail-safe, the Justice Department also urged the Supreme Court to uphold the lower court ruling on qualified immunity grounds, arguing that the officers’ “actions did not violate any clearly established law so as to render the officers individually liable in a damages action.”

But the Biden Administration, along with the courts that have extended the community caretaking exception, overlook a key component of the Fourth Amendment: the Security Clause. After all, the Fourth Amendment opens with the phrase, “the right of the people to be secure.”

In an amicus brief, the Institute for Justice noted that “to the Founding generation, ‘secure’ did not simply mean the right to be ‘spared’ an unreasonable search or seizure” but also involved “harms attributable to the potential for unreasonable searches and seizures.” Expanding the community caretaking exception to “allow warrantless entries into peoples’ homes on a whim,” argued the IJ brief, “invokes the arbitrary, looming threat of general writs that so incited the Framers” and would undermine “the right of the people to be secure” in their homes.

The IJ brief further argued that extending the “community caretaking” exception to the home would “flatly contradict” the Supreme Court’s prior rulings, which “has only discussed community caretaking in the context of vehicle searches and seizures.” In those cases, “the animating purpose for the exception [was] to allow officers to remove damaged or abandoned vehicles that pose a risk to public safety.” By contrast, the IJ amicus asserted,  “that justification is entirely absent” when it comes to homes.

“The Fourth Amendment protects our right to be secure in our property, which means the right to be free from fear that the police will enter your house without warning or authorization,” said Institute for Justice Attorney Joshua Windham. “A rule that allows police to burst into your home without a warrant whenever they feel they are acting as ‘community caretakers’ is a threat to everyone’s security.”

Did you know that if you’ve got the know-how to assemble IKEA furniture that you can assemble a ghost gun? Did you know that gun shows go so far as to actually display ghost guns like candy?

That’s the spin pushed by proponents of two new bills introduced in the California Legislature, both aimed at shutting down gun shows (SB 264-Min/D) and the sale of so-called “ghost” guns (AB 311-Ward/D).  The baloney comments about IKEA and candy are all part of the villainization of guns and their owners, and is being used as evidence that we are facing a ghost gun epidemic.

Scare tactics – pure and simple.

Last I checked, IKEA furniture doesn’t require meticulous drilling and labor with specialized hand tools, all which are required to create a working firearm component. The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) has it right when they say that “GHOST GUNS ARE A GUN CONTROL BOOGEYMAN.”  Ever since the foundation of our country, Americans have had the ability to legally make firearms on their own.  What’s more, this legal activity is regulated by state and federal firearm statutes.

AB 311 would ban the sale of “precursor parts” at gun shows – which, according to anti-gun propaganda, leads to a proliferation of ghost guns.  This is yet another attempt to close the non-existent “gun show loophole” because it would have the net effect of banning gun shows altogether since much of a show’s inventory are “gun parts.”

The word “loophole” is just another politicized term the gun controllers have invented – much like “ghost gun” and “assault weapon.”  There is not, nor ever has been a gun show “loophole.” No one can just waltz into a gun show and out with a gun, because all statutory and regulatory rules apply.  According to NSSF, “You must run a federal background check on any individual you sell a firearm to through the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The same paperwork, recordkeeping, age restrictions, and other rules also apply, as if the sale occurred in the dealer’s place of business. Further, only a small percentage of tables at gun shows, about 20 to 25 percent, actually sell firearms. The others sell books, accessories or other items.”  Plus, reporting that unlicensed dealers can sell firearms at gun shows is 100% untrue. Whoever does this is engaging in criminal activity.

Here in California, a press release by the Attorney General dated May 19, 2020, indicated that out  of 400 investigations under the Armed Prohibited Persons System, 2 so-called ghost guns were found, both possessed by one individual.  But Assemblyman Chris Ward – the author of AB 311 – has said the California Bureau of Firearms seized 512% more ghost guns from persons identified through the APPS database in 2019 than in 2018.  That sounds alarming, right? But once we drilled down on these numbers, this percentage translates to 41 guns in 2019 versus 8 guns in 2018. Out of the DOJs 21,916 contacts with prohibited individuals, 0.002% of the cases uncovered a firearm with no serial number. And, when reading the report’s citations, ghost guns data seems to be intermingled with stats about firearms that have had their serial numbers removed. It is difficult, therefore, to make an honest evaluation of the data when the data itself is not credible.

For all the fear mongering and mischaracterization of data, neither 3D printed gun files nor unfinished receiver blanks constitute “firearms” or “handguns” because they are not “firearms.”   Additionally, an unfinished receiver sold as a kit with other unregulated gun parts is not a “combination of parts from which a firearm […] can be assembled” because the unfinished frame must first be manufactured before it can be assembled.  And no amount of additional unregulated parts sold alongside an unregulated unfinished receiver blank can magically transform a non-firearm into a “firearm” or a “handgun.”

There’s a lot that can be said about any legislation to rid the state of gun shows, but it’s all driven by Boogey-man type rhetoric. Bad guys don’t follow the law.  That’s why they are bad guys.  We have our work cut out for us here, and GOC will continue to fight the good fight.

Federally, our sister organization Gun Owners of America is working overtime as well on the ghost gun issue, recently submitting a letter to President Biden about any prospective executive actions.  You can read the letter in its entirety as well as Ammoland’s commentary on this issue HERE. 

The U.S. House Representatives, with the urging and support of Joe Biden, passed two bills on Thursday – H.R. 8 and H.R. 1446 – that would usher in a sweeping overhaul of how firearms are bought and sold in the U.S. Neither would impede criminals, who overwhelmingly obtain their firearms outside normal channels of lawful commerce. But together they would transform the constitutionally protected right to obtain firearms into a privilege administered at the whim of anti-gun bureaucrats.

To understand why these bills are so consequential, it’s important to understand how retail firearm sales work under existing federal law.

Currently, the primary means by which the federal government regulates firearms is through a network of licensed dealers (FFLs) making commercial sales. Anyone who repetitively engages in firearm sales for livelihood and profit is required to become an FFL. Failure to do so is already a federal felony. So when the media mentions “unlicensed dealers,” they’re actually talking about criminals, not people falling into a legal “loophole.”

Anyone buying a gun from an FFL must first go through a computerized, point-of-sale background check administered by the FBI. This check, which is supposed to be instant, searches several national databases to determine if a would-be buyer falls into any statutorily-defined category of “prohibited persons,” which include such things as felons, people who have been committed to a mental institution, and illegal aliens.

If the search does not turn up a disqualifying record, the system notifies the dealer to proceed. Sometimes, however, the records are unclear, and a response cannot be provided immediately. This results in a delay of up to three business days to allow the FBI to conduct additional research.

If the FBI still has not resolved the check within that three business day period, the FFL has the option (but not a requirement) to proceed with the sale, provided he or she has no reason to believe the buyer is prohibited. This is known as a default transfer.

The system is structured this way not because of some inadvertent loophole but as an intentional safeguard to protect Americans’ constitutional right to obtain firearms.

As with any constitutional right, the burden is on the government to justify a restriction, which in the case of a background check means the FBI must be able to locate a disqualifying record before it blocks a sale. The three day default transfer window ensures the government maintains the burden of proof, provides a specific timeframe to resolve incomplete checks, incentivizes the FBI to administer the system efficiently, and ensures legal transfers are not subject to extended delays.

Without the automatic default transfer option, the FBI could block even legal firearm sales, simply by refusing to complete the check.

Private individuals who are not selling firearms with the principle objective of livelihood and profit can make occasional transfers, sales, loans, or gifts of firearms without becoming an FFL. They cannot, however, transfer a firearm to anyone who they have reason to believe is legally prohibited from buying firearms. Private individuals also have the option (but not the requirement) to process a private transfer using the services of an FFL, with the attendant background check and record-keeping required of the dealer for a commercial sale.

The bills passed by the House last week would – in the case of H.R. 8 – presumptively ban any private transfer of a firearm, including loans and gifts, as well as – in the case of H.R. 1446 – eliminate the automatic three day default transfer period for dealer sales.

This means that every time a firearm changed hands, the transfer would have to be processed by an FFL, which would involve fees, background checks, and government-accessible paperwork documenting the sale. Friends and neighbors could no longer freely loan, sell, or trade firearms amongst the people they know and trust. Even some family members could no longer share firearms with each other.

Handing a firearm over to someone without hiring an FFL to facilitate the exchange would be a federal crime under H.R. 8, unless you could show the situation fell into certain narrow and confusing exceptions. For example, you could loan someone a gun for self-defense, but only if the person was actually under attack at the time. You could not loan someone a firearm as a safeguard against danger that had not yet materialized.

Making matters worse, H.R. 1446 would empower the FBI to indefinitely delay a firearm sale or transfer, simply by failing to complete the “instant” check that would now be mandatory for EVERY non-exempt transfer. There would be no automatic default transfer window. Instead, it would be up to the intended recipient of the gun to appeal a delayed background check and ask – for the second time – for an answer from the FBI.

If the FBI failed to answer this SECOND request for a resolution to the background check, the dealer would have to wait an additional 10 business days before deciding whether to transfer the gun. So, at a minimum, H.R. 1446 would allow the FBI to arbitrarily impose an extended delay, even in the case where a person stood on his or her rights by appealing the FBI’s non-answer to the check. If the person did not appeal, there would be NO option for the dealer to transfer the gun, even though the FBI had not shown the transfer was illegal.

Taken together, these bills transform the right to obtain firearms into a privilege administered at the say-so of the government. They also set the stage for a universal registry of gun owners and the transformation of the current “shall-issue” paradigm for FFL transfers to eligible buyers into a “may-issue” system where the FBI can block sales on a case-by-case basis as they see fit.

Arch anti-gun Senator Chuck Schumer has already promised that the legislation will get a vote in the Senate, where the margin for victory or defeat is razor thin.

That is why every freedom-loving American must contact their senators NOW and firmly but respectfully demand that they vote NO on H.R. 8 and H.R. 1446.

Giving the government total authority to document and oversee the movement of every legal gun in America is a recipe for a crackdown on law-abiding gun owners, while leaving criminals operating outside the bounds of the law untouched.

Do not delay. Make your voice heard TODAY or suffer the potential loss of your rights tomorrow! Contact your U.S. Senators Now!