You may have been following this story, but here’s a quick background.
Ares Armor is a California gun store owned and operated by a US veteran. They’ve been selling 80% AR-15 lowers, which are completely legal. They’re used by gun enthusiasts to build their own AR-15 rifles.
Ares Armor changed a billboard above their store to advertise their popular 80% lowers, and a local city councilperson didn’t like it, as reported by a local police officer. Code enforcement was used to selectively persecute them for the sign, demanding that the billboard be removed in three days.
Meanwhile, the BATFE (aka the ATF) didn’t like the way Dimitri was showing people the gun law loopholes:
Ares Armor: Legally Make your own Gun. 80 Percent Lower. (4:30)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30i_6awxEG4
… and was helping people to legally build their own AR-15 firearms:
Ares Armor: Machining AR-15’s with Ares Armor! Home of the 80 percent lower! (1:00)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqucbadfzNE
The BATFE claimed that the plastic AR lowers were not the same as the metal lowers and thus were not legal, which really makes little sense.
The BATFE often issues rulings, people sell products based on the rulings, and then the BATFE reverses the rulings and ruins a business and often goes after the customers as well. They’re schizophrenic and they act arbitrarily and are vicious and vindictive.
The BATFE demanded the customer list from Ares Armor. Dimitri said that he’d go to jail before turning over his customer list. Ares Armor appealed to a judge and received a 30 day restraining order, but the BATFE apparently convinced the judge to reverse her temporary restraining order.
The BATFE broke down the doors on Saturday, 15MAR14, and seized paper records, computers, etc.
Ares Armor Raid: National City, Ca (3:12)
The people who were showing up for a rally to support Ares Armor were not happy about the sudden change of events.
Ares Armor Raid: ATF breaks into Ares Armor in National City (1:20)
The video was shot Saturday, March 15th, around 12:50 PM at the Ares Armor store in National City, California.
“…mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”
Could this happen in Kentucky?
Several years ago, the BATFE employed a paid informant to try to catch a small family owned Corbin Kentucky gun store in a straw purchase – selling a firearm to someone while knowing that they were buying it on behalf of someone else. It’s difficult to prove, because it requires the BATFE to convince a jury what a gun store clerk was thinking. The BATFE spent millions of federal tax dollars presenting their case, and the gun store owner was found not guilty by a local jury of his peers. The legal fees to defend themselves financially ruined the family, and the stress and strain took their toll as well, but they did ultimately prevail in court.
All of our rights are under attack, but none more than the two that are the last two pegs from which our republic is hanging – the right to keep and bear arms, and the right to a speedy trial by a jury of our peers.
The BATFE’s Gestapo gun store raid is unlikely in Kentucky, but it’s happening first in places like California. They’re the canary in our coal mine, and we need to pay attention to these warnings and elect representatives to represent us and not the powers that favor big government. We need to remember that the bigger the government, the smaller the individual citizen.
I agree 100%: CA and MA are the canaries in our coal mines. Thank you.