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In lieu of a public hearing, a comment period has been established during which any interested person may send comments concerning these proposed rules. This comment period will end on August 1, 2014 at 12:00 p.m. Only written comments will be accepted and are to be mailed to the following address: WV Department of Agriculture 1900 Kanawha Boulevard, East Charleston, WV 25305

If you're lucky, you have never heard of the "International Trade in Arms Regulation" treaty, or ITAR. Administered by the State Department through something called the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC), this treaty is supposed to keep track of "defense" exports. Unfortunately, what you don't know is about to hurt you. Unintended Consequences DDTC's ITAR process hummed along out of the public view for years, focusing on the major international trade in firearms and military equipment until President Bush II moved to make the directorate 75 percent self-funding. In one fell stroke, he gave the agency the power to...

Dane von Breichenruchardt and Dick Heller are going to be on The Micro Effect radio show today at 3 pm EST to discuss the next Heller case. You can listen live at the site.

Below is a message from Delegate Craig Blair. He needs your help to get House Bill 3007, the Random Drug Testing of Welfare, Food Stamps, and Unemployment Recipients Bill, passed... It is with a heavy heart that I must report that Chairperson Carrie Webster believes that there is not enough public support to take up and consider House Bill 3007, the Random Drug Testing of Welfare, Food Stamps and Unemployment Recipients bill. In a recent article, she stated, "her office had not received no calls or e-mails on the issue". In the same article she stated, "If it is really...

I currently manage a medium sized hedge fund (long/short equity). The current populist uproar is absolute insanity. I don't know how else to say it. You are never going to legislate away greed. Period. It is part of the human psyche. That's all there is to it. You can either fight it, or use it. Incentives work. This is why. Let's step back a minute and think about why and how this happened: 1. Starting back in the 1970s Congress addressed discrimination in mortgage lending (which was really a serious problem) with the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975. This...

The Supreme Court's 2008 ruling in D.C. v. Heller was a constitutional earthquake, breathing life into the Second Amendment as a guarantee of an individual right to bear arms. But the aftershock of that decision is beginning to transform the constitutional landscape well beyond gun rights, in ways that have liberals cheering and even joining hands with one-time adversaries like the National Rifle Association. In a follow-on case pending before the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a progressive legal group and liberal law professors including Yale Law School's Jack Balkin earlier this month joined gun-rights advocates in urging that...

The attorney for former Northfield zoning official Stephen Goldstein - arrested last year on multiple weapons charges after police discovered an Uzi and what they said was a "sawed-off" shotgun in his house - said Friday that the reason prosecutors decided to offer a plea deal on lesser charges was that both guns were actually legal. Atlantic County Prosecutor Ted Housel, however, said the Uzi was not legal but that Goldstein might have honestly believed it was due to confusion over its registration status. As for the shotgun, "It fell (inside) of the legal parameters by an inch or so."

Santa Ana, CA – SureFire, LLC manufactures gun silencers (suppressors) and other related products for use with firearms. SureFire filed a Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1125(a), false advertising claim at the Central District of California (Santa Ana Division) against Advanced Armament Corp. (“AAC”). The lawsuit arises out of a comparative advertisement by AAC which features cutaway views of two side-by-side silencers. The advertisements have allegedly been published in magazines such as Combat Hanguns, Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement, and Tactical Weapons. The complaint alleges that although the pictured product is identified as a “Competitor Brand Silencer,” it is immediately...

Is there something in the water in northern Virginia? From Chantilly, VA: Blue Ridge Arsenal owner, on CBS News: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_jAyM2DD-4 Then there's a new range that opened in Ashburn, VA just a few weeks ago. The place is called the Silver Eagle Group. Pricey place, think country club atmosphere except there's an indoor range instead of golf course. http://www.silvereagle-group.com/ Here are the recent campaign contributions of SEG's owners: Marquez, Scott HERNDON, VA20171$400 05/12/2008 P HILLARY CLINTON FOR PRESIDENT - Democrat Marquez, Scott HERNDON, VA 20171MVM, Inc./Security Services$2,300 01/28/2008 P GERRY CONNOLLY FOR CONGRESS - Democrat (1) Marquez, Dario Jr. MVM...

The D.C. Council on Tuesday gave final approval to regulations governing guns in the District, six months after the Supreme Court struck down the city's decades-old ban on handguns. "It's been a pretty comprehensive effort, and I think we've got a good, balanced program that balances safety with the Second Amendment right to have a handgun for self-defense in the home," D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles said. The council unanimously passed legislation requiring D.C. gun owners to register their weapons every three years and go through a background check every six years.

A BILL 17-843 IN THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA To amend the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 to revise the definitions of the terms firearm, machine gun, pistol, and sawed-off shotgun, to add definitions for the terms assault weapon, intrafamily offense, magazine, and place of business, to provide a self-defense exemption for temporary possession of a firearm registered to another person within the registrant's home, to provide for the registration of pistols for use in self-defense within the home, to prohibit the registration of assault weapons and certain designated unsafe firearms, to increase the time period for...

The Outdoor Wire has confirmed from confidential sources that the "transition team" for the Democratic candidate has already begun looking into the current approval system for firearms transactions. It seems the digital recordkeeping approval recently granted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) has piqued their curiosity. With a virtual Form 4473 in existence, we should be on the lookout for a new record-keeping initiative that will "simplify" the hassles of off-site digital record storage by allowing FFLs to, say, store the information on secure governmental servers. Of course, the government will never access the information.

The new ATF 4473's are arriving at gun dealers around the country. The new yellow forms are supposed to be used no later than November 15. There is an important difference between the new forms and the old forms. The old forms only differentiated between "Long Gun" and "Handgun". The new forms have another category "Other" which covers stripped receivers. From the instructions that go with the new form: If a frame or receiver can only be made into a long gun (rifle or shotgun) it is still a frame or receiver not a handgun or long gun. However they...

The ongoing Nordyke case being heard in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has very favorable chances of getting the 2nd/RKBA "incorporated" under the 14th Amendment. This is the case that brings Heller out from just D.C. This case wpn't just be about California: it's a key step to 'locking in' the 2nd nationally. Some Law Enforcement associations - or at least their political leadership - will be opposing Incorporation of the 2nd Amendment. We suspect that isn't the position that most line officers, deputies and chiefs actually support. Thus, in support of the Nordyke appeal, we urgently need members...

WASHINGTON - The ATF lost 76 weapons and hundreds of laptops over five years, the Justice Department reported Wednesday, blaming carelessness and sloppy record-keeping. ... "It is especially troubling that that ATF's rate of loss for weapons was nearly double that of the FBI and DEA, and that ATF did not even know whether most of its lost, stolen, or missing laptop computers contained sensitive or classified information," he added. ... Compared to weapons loss rates for the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration, the ATF misplaced almost twice as many guns. ... The Justice Department's report can be found at:...

Today Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, joined by members of the Council of the District of Columbia and Acting Attorney General Peter J. Nickles introduced new emergency and temporary legislation to further amend the District’s firearms laws. “This new legislation is the second step in the process to do all that we can to minimize handgun violence in the District,” said Mayor Fenty. “These actions will continue to protect our citizens from gun violence while respecting the Second Amendment.” “We believe that any legitimate concerns by Congress on District gun laws should satisfied by the new laws,” said Acting Attorney General...

Lawyers who won the historic Second Amendment gun rights case in the Supreme Court — District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290) — on Monday asked a federal judge to award them more than $3.5 million for attorneys’ fees, plus $13,215.30 for expenses and court costs. In a motion and memorandum filed with U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, the attorneys said that they had achieved “one of the most profound and important victories available under our system of justice.” Their argument also suggested that this was a David vs. Goliath clash, with the attorneys on their far side far outnumbered...

Attention Firearm and Ammunition Manufacturers and Exporters! The State Department has proposed raising the annual ITAR registration fee to $2,250. If you have *any* export activity, the minimum fee will increase to $2,750. If you apply to export items more than 10 times, the fee will be $2,750, plus $250 per export application over 10. In the final coup d' grace, State is proposing that the annual registration fee equal 3% of the total annual value of a company's export. If Dillon Aero exported 10 M134's and the export totalled $1.3M, the annual registration fee for the following year would...

Mugshot released of Boy Scout leader accused of sending porn to 14-year-old Man accused of sexual text messages to child. Stewart Moore reports. ELGIN, SC (WIS) - An Elgin man is under arrest after officials say he sent sexual text messages to a 14-year-old boy. Elgin Police Chief Harold Brown says Russell Spitzer "had given him some porn sites, mostly gay porn sites, had discussed sexuality with him." An investigation started in late 2007, when Chief Brown says the boy's father returned from his military service overseas and learned that a relationship had started with his then 13-year-old son and...

RESULTS IN BRIEF We found that since 2004, the NFA Branch has improved significantly the timeliness of both processing NFA weapons applications and responding to customer inquiries. However, continuing management and technical deficiencies contribute to inaccuracies in the NFRTR database. For example, NFA Branch staff do not process applications or enter data into the NFRTR in a consistent manner, which leads to errors in records and inconsistent decisions on NFA weapons applications. In addition, the NFA Branch has a backlog of record discrepancies between the NFRTR and inventories of federal firearms licensees that were identified during ATF compliance inspections. Further,...