From the Desk of Bob Barr

Washington Examiner

With the Supreme Court recently expressing clear disapproval of many of the Federal Trade Commission‘s operating procedures, Congress must aggressively steer this key regulatory agency back to its original mission of protecting consumers.

When we served in Congress, we relied on the FTC’s challenges to artificial monopolies and predatory business activities to conduct our own legislative business. Its work and guidance helped us construct fair regulatory frameworks that worked for businesses and consumers alike, regardless of how wealthy, poor, big, or small they were and irrespective of how politically well-connected they might or might not have been.

Today, however, the FTC is placing its political policy agenda above the rule of law and the interests of the consumers it is charged with protecting.

It would be unfair and wasteful for people to wait years, or even decades, for challenges to further regulatory abuses by the FTC and other agencies to reach and be decided by the courts. The ball is in Congress’s court.

Congress still oversees the FTC, and the federal legislative body has an obligation to step in and reform the regulatory agency it created more than a century ago. Most importantly, Congress must roll back the FTC’s new enforcement policies and operational standards — standards that the commission itself has admitted do not necessarily represent the interests of consumers.

The real problem started two years ago, when the FTC rescinded its antitrust enforcement policy that properly had kept its actions “guided by the public policy underlying the antitrust laws, namely, the promotion of the consumer welfare.” Sadly, in 2022, the commission, under the leadership of Chairwoman Lina Khan, replaced that consumer-centric enforcement policy with new, anti-consumer, anti-business standards.

Khan’s revised policy allows the FTC to go after any company or business tactic the agency’s commissioners deem “coercive,” “exploitative,” “abusive,” or “restrictive” — all undefined terms.

Making matters worse, the commission also decided it could deviate from antitrust precedent when taking regulatory action. In short, it is rewriting the rulebook whenever it fits the Biden administration’s political agenda.

By annulling its long-standing consumer-welfare standard, the commission opened the door to target any business behavior it disfavored, including mergers and acquisitions that had the effect of reducing consumer prices.

More than 100 career attorneys at the FTC, and one of the presidentially appointed commissioners, have resigned in the wake of the commission’s politically motivated anti-business and consumer-harming policies.

Congress, however, still has oversight authority over the commission, and it is high time to exercise it.

First, the House should begin public oversight hearings to take a hard look at how Khan and her cohorts are mismanaging what historically ranked as one of the best midsized government agencies in terms of workforce satisfaction. Her politically motivated management of the FTC has resulted in the commission’s once stellar workforce ranking dropping precipitously.

In a series of recent decisions, the Supreme Court has provided Congress a veritable road map by which to reform federal regulatory processes.

In late June, the court rendered its decision in SEC v. Jarkesy, which invalidated the administrative state’s use of in-house administrative law judges instead of federal jury trials to handle certain proceedings. Earlier this term, the court’s Axon v. FTC decision specifically took aim at unfair administrative trials held by the agency.

More broadly, Congress should use the Supreme Court’s abandonment of the “Chevron” decision as leverage to rein in the FTC. Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce effectively ended the 1984 Chevron approach that long had permitted regulatory agencies to interpret vague regulatory standards in laws passed by Congress themselves.

It would be manifestly irresponsible for Congress not to seize this historic opportunity to review the agency’s rule-making powers and actually determine which ones are and are not consistent with congressional intent and Supreme Court decisions. This process hopefully will be followed by congressional action to repeal or defund regulations found to be beyond the scope of congressional intent or inapposite to judicial mandate.

These recent Supreme Court cases should serve as a wake-up call that no federal agency is above the law — not even the powerful FTC. The sooner Congress acts to restore the FTC to its proper role of protecting consumers, the better off America’s consumers will be.

Jason Altmire, a Democrat, represented Pennsylvania’s 4th District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2013, where he served as the chairman of the House Small Business Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation.

Bob Barr, a Republican, represented Georgia’s 7th District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003, where he served as a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee. He served as the United States attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s.

The Regulatory Review

In Garland v. Cargill, the U.S. Supreme Court held in a 6-3 decision that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) exceeded its statutory authority in issuing a final rule that classified bump stocks as machine guns.

Assessment of this common-sense opinion must start with a review of the National Firearms Act, which defines a “machine gun” as “any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.” The definition also includes “any part designed and intended solely and exclusively… for use in converting a weapon into a machine gun.”

In contrast to a machine gun, which can fire multiple shots when its trigger is engaged once, a semiautomatic firearm can fire only one shot per trigger engagement. There are shooting techniques, however, to increase the rate at which semiautomatic firearms can be fired.

One technique is “bump firing.” When bump firing, the shooter keeps his trigger finger stationary, while allowing the recoil energy from firing the gun to push the gun backward quickly and reset the trigger. Simultaneously, the shooter applies forward pressure on the gun with his non-trigger hand to “bump” the trigger into his still-stationary trigger finger, which fires a subsequent shot. When done effectively, bump firing allows semiautomatic firearms to fire at rates approaching machine guns.

A bump stock is a device that makes bump firing easier. Importantly, even with a bump stock, the Court noted that “as with any semiautomatic firearm, the trigger still must be released and reengaged to fire each additional shot.” Moreover, bump firing—with or without a bump stock—requires significant manual input from the shooter.

Reflecting these facts, in ten different letter rulings from 2008 to 2017, ATF concluded that bump stock-equipped rifles are not machine guns, for the simple reason they cannot “automatically” fire multiple shots “by a single function of the trigger.” In 2018, however, after the U.S. Congress declined to adopt legislation following a mass shooting in Las Vegas, ATF reversed course and promulgated a final rule classifying bump stocks as machine guns. The rule states that “the term ‘automatically’” in the NFA “means functioning as the result of a self-acting or self-regulating mechanism that allows the firing of multiple rounds through a single function of the trigger; and ‘single function of the trigger’ means a single pull of the trigger and analogous motions.” Furthermore, the ATF stated that the “term ‘machine gun’ includes a bump-stock-type device.”

Michael Cargill, a gun advocate and gun shop owner in Texas, challenged this rule, claiming that under the Administrative Procedure Act the ATF exceeded its authority because bump stocks are not “machine guns” under the statute. After an en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in Cargill’s favor, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.

The Court applied common sense to the question presented and held that a bump stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle is not a machine gun.

First, the Court noted that a firearm equipped with a bump stock “does not fire more than one shot ‘by a single function of the trigger,’” because even with a bump stock, “a shooter must release and reset the trigger between every shot.” Indeed, as the majority opinion reasoned, “a bump stock merely reduces the amount of time that elapses between separate ‘functions’ of the trigger.”

Second, a bump stock-equipped rifle does not fire “automatically,” because “the shooter must do more than simply engage the trigger one time.” Specifically, the shooter must “actively maintain just the right amount of forward pressure on the rifle’s front grip with his non-trigger hand,” requiring the shooter to exert manual input.

The Court also rejected the government’s nontextual argument that bump stocks should be considered machine guns because, otherwise, machine-gun restrictions would be rendered ineffective since offenders could instead acquire bump stocks: “A law is not useless merely because it draws a line more narrowly than one of its conceivable statutory purposes might suggest,” the Court explained.

It further remarked that “it is difficult to understand how ATF can plausibly argue otherwise, given that its consistent position for almost a decade in numerous separate decisions was that” bump stocks are not machine guns.

By invalidating ATF’s final rule, the Court reinforced the fundamental principle that executive branch agencies cannot create laws; they may only enforce them. As Justice Samuel Alito explained in a concurring opinion, the statutory text of the NFA is clear, so any change to the law must come from Congress.

In addition to invalidating the final rule restricting bump stocks, the Cargill opinion is likely to have other far-reaching implications.

By making clear that ATF cannot simply rewrite statutory language it wishes was broader, Cargill casts doubt on other ATF rules. In recent years, ATF rules have redefined unfinished frames or receivers as firearms, redefined what constitutes a short-barreled rifle, and redefined what constitutes being “engaged in the business” of dealing in firearms. All these rules, like the rule re-classifying bump stocks as machine guns, not only change but contradict Congress’s clear statutory language. The Cargill decision, therefore, signifies that ATF exceeded its authority by enacting those rules as well.

In addition, both the majority and dissenting opinions in Cargill emphasized the difference between machine guns and semiautomatic firearms. Some lower courts have upheld prohibitions on certain semiautomatic firearms (repeatedly deemed “assault weapons”) by equating them with machine guns. Cargill, however, undermines this rationale by making clear that there are critical distinctions between such types of firearms.

Thus, while Cargill ensures that fundamental Second Amendment rights are not subject to the whims of unelected bureaucrats at ATF, the decision would appear to provide legal ammunition with which to challenge abuses of regulatory power by many other departments and agencies.

Daily Caller

On Monday, Kimberly Cheatle, the now-former Director of the U.S. Secret Service, “testified” (I use the term loosely) publicly before the House Committee on Homeland Security.  Unsurprisingly (to me, at least), the lengthy session produced not a shred of evidence not previously known to the public. The only surprise at the end of the day was that some members of the committee actually appear to have expected otherwise.

At least some members of the Committee on both sides of the aisle seem to be unfamiliar with one of the foundational principles on which governments (including our own) operate:  bureaucracies are designed and operate in such a way as to avoid accountability.

This is hardly breaking news. The National Academy of Public Service has published extensively about the “culture of unaccountability that hampers the government’s operations.” Congress has considered “reviving” the Constitution’s Appointments Clause to force presidential appointments to be more accountable. Yet the U.S. Supreme Court in recent years has tightened – not relaxed — standing requirements that must be met in order to hold government officials accountable by court action.

I learned this lesson in unaccountability in 1995, during my first term in the House. Nothing I have seen since has changed my opinion about government aversion to accountability.

The context in which the immutability of government un-accountability came clear to me was the series of hearings in which I participated in Spring 1995 to investigate the tragedy two years prior at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas; a tragedy of horrendous proportions during which four federal law enforcement officers and more than 70 civilian men, women, children, and babies perished in a completely avoidable fiery conflagration at the end of the nearly two-month long stand-off.

The Waco Tragedy occurred during the administration of Democrat President Bill Clinton, with Attorney General Janet Reno in charge of the Department of Justice. In an effort to learn why and how such a tragedy happened – and to try and assign a degree of accountability to those responsible – newly elected Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich directed that the House conduct a serious inquiry; which we did.

The hearings consumed many days, during which we questioned dozens of witnesses from several federal law enforcement agencies, the U.S. military, state law enforcement agencies, Branch Davidian survivors, non-governmental organizations, and others. The resulting, lengthy report detailed the many mistakes made by those in charge of the operation, including by the Attorney General herself, and which answered many – but not all – of the questions surrounding the tragedy.

At the end of the day, one fact stuck out like a sore thumb – not a single person at the FBI (which was the lead agency on the ground in Waco) or up the chain of command at the Department of Justice was disciplined (much less fired) for errors in judgment or for what to me were clear violations of federal regulations and law (such as the Posse Comitatus Act). In other words, zero accountability.

If the Attorney General, the director of the FBI, and the several heads of other federal agencies involved in the Branch Davidian operation can escape accountability for needlessly causing the deaths of dozens of men, women, children, and babies, it should surprise no one that the U.S. Secret Service can avoid being held accountable for a single missed sniper attack on one presidential candidate.

Most Americans have no idea of just how many layers of bureaucracy exist in any agency or department of the federal government, with every layer creating one more hurdle to overcome before any meaningful degree of accountability can be found for an unlawful or irresponsible action that results in loss, harm, or even death.

The Secret Service, is a component of the truly massive bureaucracy known as the Department of Homeland Security, currently led by Alejandro “the-border-is-secure” Mayorkas. The organization chart for the Secret Service itself reflects an even more complicated roadmap than that of the FBI, which historically has served as a model for an agency wrapped in unaccountability.

Yes, Kimberly Cheatle did resign Tuesday from her post atop the Secret Service. This is, however, a largely symbolic move and will not by itself solve the myriad problems within the agency she headed. Addressing these systemic problems will require something the Congress historically has not often displayed – a penchant for hard work and a focused effort over many months.

Bob Barr currently serves as President of the National Rifle Association. He represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Daily Caller

It has been two weeks since U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a public health advisory on what he declares to be the latest “public health crisis” in America.

An “Advisory” issued by the Surgeon General is supposed to be employed when, in the learned opinion of that official, the American people must be made aware that they face an urgent public health issue, in other words, an “emergency.”

Unlike his predecessors, who employed the bully pulpit of their office to crusade against arguably public health-related issues such as smoking and AIDS, Murthy’s June 25th “Surgeon General’s Advisory” has nothing to do with any reasoned or common sense definition of health. It does, however, have everything to do with politics; in this case, the one policy issue liberals invariably turn to as a way to rally their base — gun control.

Murthy dutifully declares “firearm violence” the latest and most urgent “public health crisis” facing our country; not heart failure, not cancer, not obesity, but guns. In doing this, he cheapens the role and responsibility of the nation’s preeminent public health official.

Much of the mainstream media was breathless in drawing attention to the Surgeon General’s call to action against the scourge of violence committed by individuals misusing firearms. CNN, for example, lauded Murthy at length for joining the gun control hallelujah chorus. MyChesCo called it a “Landmark Step.”

The partisan, political perspective unsurprisingly reflected in CNN’s article praising Murthy’s gun-control missive was obvious in the video placed atop the opinion piece – a photograph not of the Surgeon General but a video of President Biden.

There has been little public discourse spawned by the firearms violence advisory since its unveiling in June, for the simple reason it offers nothing new. Rather, it repeats the same talking points gun control advocates have urged for years — too many guns in America and the need for more laws restricting their availability and possession.

Despite the document’s veneer of approaching the “generational” public health crisis of gun violence, it is nothing more than the same, tired recitation of control measures pressed by the gun control movement for decades — including banning “assault weapons,” instituting “universal background checks” and mandating firearms lock boxes. Nothing, incidentally, about stronger and more effective enforcement of laws on the books against the criminal misuse of firearms.

The report employs a sleight-of-hand used by political advocates on all sides of any issue — using statistics to bolster their argument. At one point early in his discourse, Murthy declares that some 60 percent of adults “worry ‘sometimes’” about “firearm violence.” Wow – learning that a majority of people at some point in their lives “worry” about firearm violence really moves the public health debate forward. Perhaps equally insightful is Murthy’s unveiling to us that “[a]ttempting suicide by firearm is almost always an irreversible act.”

Suicide and “mass shootings” (to which Murthy also devotes significant attention) certainly are matters deserving of our attention and of taking steps to reduce, but placing such tragic events under the jurisdiction of the Surgeon General as the basis on which to advocate a political gun-control agenda adds nothing of positive note.

Perhaps hidden somewhere in the bureaucratic gobbledygook found throughout the Surgeon General’s Advisory, including his call for something he refers to as “behavioral threat assessment and management (BATM) teams,” one might discover meaningful solutions to firearm-related crimes (of which there in fact are far too many in contemporary American society). But my careful read of the 39-page report revealed none.

Not surprisingly, Murthy concludes his advisory by likening the war against firearm violence in this third decade of the 21st Century to those launched by his predecessors decades earlier against cigarettes and in support of safer automobiles; in other words, treat firearms as just another “consumer product” that can be restricted by regulations and laws.

Unsaid, of course, in making such a comparison, is the fact that nowhere in the Constitution are there to be found explicit prohibitions on government restricting cigarette smoking or forcing automobiles to be made safer.  There is, of course, such a limitation against government infringing the right to “keep and bear arms,” which may account for the Surgeon General’s advisory failure to mention the Second Amendment in his report, even as a footnote.

Bob Barr currently serves as President of the National Rifle Association. He represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Daily Caller

With days and weeks filled with law practice, political goings on, serving as President of the National Rifle Association, and other issues relating thereto, I find myself, like many of my colleagues, with little time for matters of the mind. I was, therefore, extremely grateful to a friend who last week invited me to a celebration in New York City for the unveiling of one of the most beautiful works of religious art I have ever seen – the Ark of the Covenant constructed as close as humanly possible to its biblical criteria and dimensions.

Being able to view up close this astonishingly beautiful and gold-laden artifact was itself worth the visit to the Big Apple. It was, however, the speakers that made the evening event truly valuable.

Many of the presenters, including a number of Rabbis and biblical scholars, amongst who was Christian Coalition founder and current chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, Ralph Reed, were (at least in my experience) more inspiring and thought-provoking than any presentation or essay by a political leader in the modern era (with the possible exception of several speeches by Ronald Reagan, including his second inaugural address describing the “American Sound”).

It was truly invigorating to step back from politics and controversies of the day and cogitate for those few hours on matters of import that far transcend such current events in importance to each of us as individuals as well as to our country. The closest in oratorical proximity to politics that figured into last Wednesday evening’s celebration came in the form of thanksgiving to the United States of America, especially in its support for the creation of the State of Israel 76 years ago; support that has continued every year since then to the present, and particularly the bold decision by President Trump to ignore naysayers and doomsayers in his Administration and move the American embassy from Tel Aviv where it always had been, to Jerusalem.

More broadly and historically meaningfully, speakers offered heartfelt praise for the United States, primarily because of the uniqueness of our having been founded as a country in which civil power resides ultimately in the people. Indeed, as per the recipe for self-governance set out in our founding documents – the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights — the American people possess the power to change not only the participants in government, but the government structure itself if it is deemed to have failed in fulfilling its core mission to protect individual liberty.

Such positions were enunciated clearly and proudly by Rabbi after Rabbi, and seconded by a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and by Ralph Reed, whose 15-minute presentation illustrated why he remains, nearly three decades after founding the Christian Coalition in 1995, a highly sought after speaker at major events across the political and religious spectra.

As noted correctly by more than one speaker at this event, our Founders drew on their knowledge of civic, political, and government history in fashioning the tripartite and representative-based system under which the United States now operates, yet which too few of our countrymen fully comprehend. One of those early systems of civic and political engagement understood by the likes of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Thomas Paine, among others, was that of the Israelites is seeking their freedom from Egyptian despots, and establishing the norms whereby citizens could, and should, govern themselves according to ethical and moral standards established by their Creator.

That both the United States of America and Israel today — many centuries after the Jews carried the Ark of the Covenant into battles to preserve their freedom, and a mere 233 years since our Bill of Rights was ratified — remain true to that moral heritage is a continuing testament to the virtues espoused by our Founding fathers and to one of their mentors, Moses. Lest We forget.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Daily Caller

I recently returned from the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) 153rd annual meeting in Dallas, Texas, an event at which hundreds of retailers and manufacturers of firearms, firearms accessories, archery equipment and camping gear set up shop and attracted more than 72,000 visitors, including many families with children of all ages. As was the case at every NRA annual meeting I have attended since becoming a Board member in 1998, the overarching theme was safe and responsible use and ownership of firearms.

On Monday, May 20th, immediately following the annual meeting and exhibit hall, I was elected by the 76-member Board of Directors to serve as NRA President for the 2024-25 year. I accepted this honor at a time of great challenge and opportunity for the NRA and its more than four million dues-paying members — also recognizing that every year is one of challenge and opportunity for the NRA.

The fact is, when it comes to defending the Second Amendment (and indeed, all the rights guaranteed to us by our Bill of Rights), our opponents never sleep, and a win one day is guaranteed to be followed by another challenge the next. Thus it has been since the founding of our great nation.

Thankfully for freedom-loving and law-abiding citizens, just as our adversaries never sleep, neither does the NRA in confronting challenges in the legislative, legal and regulatory arenas. And, since the turn of this century, those challenges have come also from the United Nations and other international organizations.

Here at home, the recent prosecution of former President Trump by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg illustrates the manner by which our heretofore “blind” criminal justice system has been employed as a cudgel to attack political opponents. The NRA was similarly targeted by New York’s state Attorney General Letitia James, who promised as a candidate in 2018 to go after the NRA, which she considered a “terrorist organization.” Ever since then, she has used the power of her office to wage a multi-year war against the NRA.

With the support of millions of NRA members and a team of crack lawyers, the Association has proactively and successfully withstood such legal challenges, even as we have managed to advance gun rights, self-defense laws and hunting opportunities in states across the country.

The NRA has led the way for passage of constitutional carry – the gold standard in self-defense laws outside the home — in 29 states. Perhaps surprising to some observers, most of those states passed constitutional carry since 2018, when the organized campaign to put the NRA out of business began in earnest in the New York courts.

Whether through landmark Supreme Court cases or strategic litigation at the state level, the NRA has consistently demonstrated its commitment to upholding the Second Amendment as a fundamental civil liberty. The NRA shepherded two major Supreme Court cases just in the last three years: the consequential 2022 Bruen decision and the very recent, seminal NRA v. Vullo First Amendment decision that showed clearly New York’s attacks against the NRA were indeed politically motivated.

The Vullo decision, by a unanimous Court, assures that organizations of whatever political stripe or mission are shielded from government officials abusing their regulatory powers to silence those it regulates because it disagrees with their viewpoint.

As I assume the presidency of America’s oldest civil liberties champion, I am reminded that the right to keep and bear arms remains always under threat by those in power seeking more of it by depriving the citizenry of vital individual freedoms.

When I was first sworn into the 104th Congress in January 1995, our Second Amendment rights were under direct assault by then-President Bill Clinton’s gun-control agenda, which had been supported by the previous Congress under Democrat rule. Now, one generation later, another Democrat president is using the power of that office to weaken those same rights through executive actions wielded both directly and indirectly.

When it comes to the Second Amendment, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Townhall

Will wonders never cease? The federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reportedly is considering moving marijuana from the most highly restricted class of “Controlled Substances” – Schedule I – where it has resided for more than half a century, to the far-less restrictive category as a Schedule III drug.

This reclassification, if actually implemented, truly would represent a sea change in federal drug policy, which since 1970 has been defined by the Nixon-era Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, of which the Controlled Substances Act is found at Title II.

As with much federal regulatory power, Uncle Sam’s control over drugs, including “controlled substances” and all manner of prescription medications, is implied – deriving from numerous laws passed by the Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court as legitimate under the so-called “commerce power” found in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

Despite the otherwise clear limiting language in that Section of the Constitution that congressional power to legislate extends only to “commerce” between states, ever since President Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” in the 1930s, all three branches of the federal government have eagerly gobbled up powers clearly never dreamed of by those who wrote and ratified that document.

The final bulwark against this deluge was essentially destroyed in 1942, when the High Court found constitutional under the Commerce Clause, the federal government’s power to regulate the price of wheat grown by a farmer in Ohio (Roscoe Filburn) even though none of his product was used or sold beyond the borders of the Buckeye State.

The tortured reasoning that underpinned the Supreme Court’s decision in Wickard v. Filburn, provided a bright green light for virtually every Congress and president since then to reach into every nook and cranny of life in America without fear of being circumscribed by the courts.

In 1970 this overreach found a home in federal drug policy and with marijuana being classified as among the most dangerous drugs in the country (right up there with heroin, LSD, and MDMA or ecstasy).

Congress justified this regulatory overreach by “finding” that since some, if not most marijuana, travels in interstate commerce, it is easier to lump it all together and consider it all in the context of “commerce” between the states.

So much for the idea of a federal government of limited and defined powers.

In a California case six decades after farmer Filburn found himself in Uncle Sam’s crosshairs, Angel Raich was the victim of similar regulatory abuse. Ms. Raich used small amounts of marijuana provided free of charge for her medicinal use by local caregivers – all fully compliant with that state’s “Compassionate Use Act of 1996.”

That exercise of freedom did not sit well with Alberto Gonzalez, at the time serving as U.S. Attorney General, whose Justice Department swooped in to stop Ms. Raich notwithstanding that she acted in full compliance with California law, and despite there being nary the slightest hint of “commerce” of any sort. A majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices allowed the DEA to confiscate the small amounts of medicinal marijuana obtained by Ms. Raich and prevent her from obtaining more.

The notorious Gonzalez v. Raich decision remains the law of the land, although in recent years the feds as a practical matter have largely backed away from prosecuting cases involving medicinal marijuana if in compliance with various state laws.

Despite this policy decision not to strictly enforce federal marijuana laws in states where medicinal use is lawful, marijuana remains a prohibited Schedule I drug with no acceptable medical use.

That may change in the coming months if reports are accurate that, on April 30th, Attorney General Merrick Garland sent the White House a formal proposal to move marijuana and its essential ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinols, to Schedule III, a move that under the Controlled Substances Act the attorney general can make without congressional approval.

Such a move, long championed by libertarians and many medical groups, would be welcomed not only by marijuana users, but also by businesses involved in the marijuana trade. As a Schedule III product, marijuana-related businesses could not only engage in transactions with banks and credit card companies without fear of legal retribution, but they could lawfully claim a wide variety of tax benefits now denied them because of marijuana’s high classification.

This historic policy change will be a boon to marijuana users and businesses. Whether it bodes well for our social culture is another question altogether.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Daily Caller

Forgive me if I do not view student agitators vandalizing buildings at Columbia University and other universities across the country as an existential threat to America. The goings on do represent a serious problem, but one that can be dealt with successfully if — and this is a big “if” — done quickly, forcefully, consistently and in coordination with the federal government.

In terms of the students, we’ve seen such behavior before (recall April 1968, if you will) and we’ll almost assuredly see it again – bored students nearing the end of the school year, along with assorted other troublemakers, seizing on an issue likely few of them truly understand and making unreasonable and implausible demands on the universities.

Damaging school property, holding hostages and resisting lawful efforts to be removed from trespassing on Columbia’s and other schools’ properties, are wrong and worthy of serious condemnation and significant legal punishment (sooner rather than later).

But let’s keep it in perspective. Take a deep breath, step back and consider the student-centric demonstrations at numerous universities, including Columbia and even my undergraduate alma mater, the formerly conservative University of Southern California (USC), for what they are — not the tolling of the “Doomsday Clock” by a bunch of spoiled students, but rather a serious but manageable incidence of organized chaos against civil society and American public policies by individuals and groups outside the education arena.

Viewing the student demonstrators as so powerful and feared as to present an existential challenge to the government of the United States will result in overreaction and almost certain long-term escalation and strengthening of the adversarial elements behind the violence.

Overestimating your adversaries actually emboldens them.

Addressing the obviously well-organized demonstrations as serious but beatable through swift, tough and consistent responses by the institutions and by law enforcement, sends the right message — that the adults remain in charge and will defend their interests and institutions, but without exhibiting such fear of the protestors that elevates them to a level of power and prestige to which they are not entitled.

It took less than 24 hours for Columbia University authorities to call in the NYPD to forcibly rid Hamilton Hall of the dozens of law-breaking student demonstrators. This was a far swifter response to the takeover than the week that elapsed 56 years ago in April 1968 between the time students upset over America’s involvement in Vietnam (and, yes, carrying banners supporting North Vietnam, a country with which we were engaged in a bloody conflict at the time) decided to occupy Hamilton Hall, and NYPD forcibly removing them.

At least in this instance, Columbia learned from its own history.

Classes are now ended, summer break has started and hopefully the students will stand down and consider doing what students are by definition supposed to do — study. Even more to be hoped, however, is that University administrators will follow through and press charges against those students — and others — who  violated not only university policies but criminal laws.

It is, however, highly questionable whether Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who so eagerly has pursued former President Donald Trump for six-year old misdemeanor false document filings, will actually prosecute individuals at Columbia University who committed far more serious and felonious violations. Have to hold our breath on that one.

More important than what Mr. Bragg does, is whether the U.S. Department of Justice seriously investigates what appears to be a coordinated, multi-state (if not multi-national) effort to destabilize U.S. government policies in the Middle East by funding and fomenting disruptions, including violence, on American college campuses.

For example, where did the money come from that provided all those tents that sprang up on campuses from New York to Los Angeles? And what are the sources of the millions of dollars filling the coffers of pro-Palestine student-oriented organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)? What might be the connections between that “student” group and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and Hamas?

Members of the media are asking such questions. These are the far more serious queries than worrying about the sensitivities of the Little Darlings using their parents’ money to break windows and doors at expensive colleges. Are U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray seriously investigating such matters? They sure should be.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Townhall

Townhall

President Biden’s family, individuals within his Administration, and his political supporters will defend him aggressively when former President Trump and others in the GOP deride him for his many gaffes and policy blunders. Mainstream media pundits will continue to cover for him when presented with inescapable evidence of his advanced age.

There is, however, one trait exhibited repeatedly by the current President that is beyond dispute or defense even by his most ardent supporters – Biden’s utter disdain for the rule of law. This disturbing characteristic was on full display recently with the signing of a regulatory “rule” placing further limits on the Second Amendment without bothering to secure the legislative approval to do so as required by the Constitution.

Constitutional Law 101 reminds us that of the three branches of our government, only the Legislative is empowered to pass, amend, or change laws. In fact, the very first operative sentence of the Constitution makes this abundantly clear, vesting All legislative Powers in the Congress; not in the presidency and not in the Courts. Once the Congress has spoken by passing legislation, and once signed by the president, it becomes the law of the land and can be changed only by subsequent act of Congress.

It is black-letter law that a president cannot, consistent with the Constitution and the principle that America operates as “a government  of laws, and not of men,” simply change terms defined and codified in statutes to suit his policy preferences.

This is, however, exactly what the Biden Administration has done with long-standing firearms laws which provide that if individuals or businesses regularly and as a matter of course sell firearms, then such transfers must first be cleared through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (“NICS”). Importantly, neither the “Gun Control Act of 1968” (which set up the system of Federal Firearms Licensees) nor the “Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993” (which established the NICS system) required that every  transfer of a firearm be first cleared through the NICS system.

In making such a distinction between what might be considered “occasional” gun sales and those by a business or individual engaged in the regular commerce of trading in firearms, the Congress properly limited the reach of mandated firearms background checks to the scope of federal power under the Constitution; namely, “commerce.”

Gun control advocates cleverly over the decades have hijacked the term “loophole” to characterize sales at gun shows in such a way as to imply that such sales were intended by Congress to have been covered by the background check mandate. In fact, however, federal law is clear on this point – there is no gun show “loophole” (defined by Merriam-Webster as “an ambiguity or omission in the text through which the intent of a statute, contract, or obligation may be evaded”).

In recent years, there have been myriad legislative proposals to do what the Congress explicitly has declined to do – expand the definition of “engaged in the business” of selling firearms to close an imaginary “gun show loophole.” All such efforts have failed to gain a majority vote in the Congress – something that really chafes anti-Second Amendment advocates like Joe Biden, who believe the default for every transfer of a firearm should be a mandatory NICS background check.

Not only has there never been a “gun show loophole,” but even if such a thing existed, according to the federal government’s own data only a very small number of illegally trafficked firearms originate at gun shows (a mere three percent according to the just-published federal “National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment”).

Despite these facts, the Biden Administration on April 8th finalized its 466-page “rule” that changes the statutory definition of “engaged in the business” of  selling firearms so that, as accurately noted in an analysis of the new rule by the NRA, tens of thousands of lawful private gun sales will now be unlawful. The April 11th White House “Factsheet” proudly heralding the new gun control rule includes the requisite fearmongering about untold victims of guns acquired at gun shows without NICS background checks but who now will be saved by closing the “gun show loophole.”

The only true victim in this latest gun control maneuver, however, is the rule of law.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.