"What always annoys me about the rhetoric by (mostly Republicans these days) politicians when they talk about "tax cuts" and "Americans pay less taxes" is that they never talk about the corresponding cut in spending. (Probably because there are none.) Hence, all that means is that the government borrowed more money this year that will eventually have to pay back (with interest). Guess where the government gets the money to pay back that debt and interest?"
Well lets pretend that interest is significant enough to note (hint, it isn't) if the cut is for working class citizens some are able to invest it and who couldn't before. Some are able to pay off debt and have more working capital. Some just blow it which generates both corporate and shareholder taxes and also stimulates jobs which may pay taxes.
These are not hard gains which are easy to quantify but that it is disingenuous to pretend they don't exist. They also quantifiable which means it is disingenuous to claim they magically offset the spending. Still, by and large tax cuts in the US go right back in the US economy which means that long term they are likely a wash outside a greater opportunity potential.
"In the US, the top 10% of households own 84% of the stocks"
Uh huh and you have to go to the top 1% to get out of the working class so what is your point?
"It's also disingenuous to call Trump's massive transfer of wealth to the 1% with a little fiddling for mere mortals a tax break for middle and low earners. A lot of Americans are getting a nasty and expensive surprise thanks to Trump:"
You are linking to a story about a change in withholding tables. As in people got lower refunds because they paid less overall tax and therefore paid less excess tax. They saw bigger paychecks all year because the withholding tables were changed! They paid the IRS less money overall!
And the states that are neither Alabama nor CA have a bone to pick about you just paying you fair goddamn share of the taxes because we dont leech like Alabama or dodge like CA.
Sorry, we may send our tech people to CA but you sent their goddamn share of the income taxes right back to pay for Ohio roads.
"You get to live in your "low tax" states because those high tax states are donor states for your leeching. High tax states get back far less from the feds than the put in"
But they've been paying in far less per dollar earned than those low tax states. They've been using high state taxes combined with a deduction to keep more money in the state and effectively become federal income tax evaders. Look, if your state programs are so expensive but so prosperous you should be able to pay an equal amount of federal tax to those in states with no state taxes. The benefits of your programs should be enough alone to make it a wash.
The states you are talking about which take more than they give in federal tax aren't at issue here and you know it. We aren't talking about a handful fo depopulated western states you'd use as examples or impoverished southern states. We are talking about roughly 47 out of 50.
"Trickle down economics is the idea that if you give a break to the people at the top"
Which is not what you do with corporate tax breaks. Bob the janitor at IBM benefits when you give corporate tax breaks even if IBM doesn't cut him in or lays him off and insteads pays a bg dividend to shareholders because bob has a retirement account and gets discounted IBM stock. Corporations are not the top, they aren't even players, the people who own them are players and may or may not be the top. Remember when Disney Corp was thwarted firing disney by sharholders? The people who own a company may be entirely composed of lower to middle class individuals and/or combined investment funds (mutual funds) representing that class of investor. Not just in theory, in the disney case it was true in practice.
"Taxes which are universal in application to all companies (like the corporate income tax) in a country with at least semi-free trade are primarily passed on to employees, then a little bit to customers and the even smaller remaining to shareholders."
Well you are quoting theory and for the most part across the fortune 500 the reality is they just paid most of it out to executives who while technically employees aren't exactly what anyone means by employees. You can point to a dozen exceptions and it won't change the reality of what just occurred. Theory is a poor substitute for demonstrated reality. IMHO the big problem is unbudgeted funds and greed. Trying to pretend capitalism works as well as it does for any reason other than greed is an attempt to mislead and there is little to no greed incentive to do otherwise. Second these were unanticipated and unbudgeted funds. If given a chance to decide how to invest them in their business companies might have chosen otherwise but they'd already chosen investments and this was free bonus money above what they already decided departments needed.
"taxes on profits are passed on to shareholders... but never to employees or customers, obviously."
The difference between what you said and what he said is that what he said is actually true. When it is time to offset costs corporations look to payroll an expenses, when it is time to pass profits they look to shareholders. Why? Because employees are liabilities and shareholders are the bosses. It is that simple.
"A 100% tax on corporate profits would be ideal if it weren't for the need to encourage capital investment by shareholders for growth."
What a silly thing to say, corporate profits mostly feed retirement accounts and investors and stock increases go to major shareholders who certainaly have a say in how the company is run. Essentially the only time stock purchases help the company directly is the IPO after that you are just buying stock from other people who bought then, not the company.
"Shareholders have not earned money in the way in the way employees (and most customers) have, so they should only be allowed to keep it to the extent that proves beneficial to society as a whole (via a growing economy)."
If you mean sweat and personal effort you are right. It will never quite be the same. But they have risked losing their money, a wall street broker might be distressed but his family is likely fine since he profits whether his investor wins or loses but Grandma loses her retirement money she accumulated from working for 40years in the glove factory if the stock goes down. Is that your intention here?
"Why do you think you have to pay more because he pays less?"
Because the deficit has to be balanced somewhere.
"We don't have a balanced budget, so there is no zero-sum game."
But we do, it merely a question of where it is balanced. Is it at zero debt, no, but there IS a threshold before we miss a payment or drop in credit rating just as you can float far beyond someone who will accept no debt but will eventually hit a hard limit.
Noi that's fine. But what you pay your state shouldn't reduce what you pay the feds. Or else you are paying less than your fair share and expecting people in the other states to pay more to make up for it.
I'm actually all for the feds to get less and the state to get more but generally the politics in the states that want more indicate more federal power and initiatives, not less. People in other states should never pay higher taxes because you liver in a high tax state.
Corporations ARE the economy for better or worse. Cutting their taxes isn't trickle down, corporations use that money to build more profit generation which is economic growth. These are your employers, the producers of goods and services, and this is where your retirement money is invested. Even Amazon making a profit here will impact their share price, it'll make major stock holders like Bezos a little more rich on paper but it will grow people with Amazon stocks and bonds in their retirement mix directly. This doesn't so much boost the economy much right now but will have a huge impact on the elderly when they retire. It also has a positive boost on NASDAQ confidence which will help keep the US tech market afloat.
Don't get me wrong, it is ludicrous that Amazon didn't pay anything but pretending there are no large scale economic benefits for the middle class in something like this and especially in increasing capital in corporations on the whole is disingenuous. The flip side is that keeping their wealth invested in giant corporations and never cashing it in means this does grow the wealth of the uber rich on paper and they'll dodge taxes in near perpetuity as they avoid actually cashing in the stock. Instead they just trade stock around and even give stock to charity to dodge paying taxes on what they did cash in. This does need closed. It's why we should be taxing wealth instead of income. Wealth is where the money is hidden not income, attacking corporate income will just hurt middle class investments and small business (which are also corporations).
Trickle down is cutting taxes for the wealthy and your information is outright false here. Trump cut taxes on middle and low earners. He increased the standard deduction and the dependent credits. High earners don't file a standard deduction, they file itemized deductions, and the dependent credits are fixed amounts that are big impact for middle to low earners and nothing more than noise on high income filers.
There is a very notable exception for the wealthy in the form of changes to the death tax and ranches which combines with zero tax on real estate proceeds if you fold it back into a real estate investment but I have to go so people will just to have put two and two together on their own if they care.
Overall, it HAS been shown and now proven out in actual returns that the middle class will on the whole see a massive cut in taxes on their 2018 return.
"ITEP notes that its non-existent federal tax payment is a result of the Trump Administrationâ(TM)s corporation-friendly tax cuts."
Uh huh
"The think tank writes that the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act not only decreased corporate tax rates from 35% to 21%,"
It doesn't look at those Amazon paid either rate so that isn't it.
"but it also didnâ(TM)t close âoea slew of tax loopholes that allow profitable companies to routinely avoid paying federal and state income taxes on almost half of their profits"
So that isn't on the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act then, that is on the previous tax bills that introduced the holes Amazon exploited. It also still doesn't add up. Half their $12 billion profits is $6 billion and 21% of $6 billion is still about $1.26 billion. I certainly doesn't explain where they got paid $129 billion and made a profit on filing their taxes. At least part of that I'm sure will turn out be green energy incentives.
These things never have enough detail to judge anything though. For instance, if amazon paid out 10 billion in dividends those taxes still get paid, they just get paid by the people who got the money rather than by amazon. When a corporation is involved a lot of the loopholes that seem so terrible are really about avoiding taxing the same profit in two places because the corporation is just a piece of paper, the point is to make the human beings pay their taxes and not to make them pay them on the paper entity and then again on their own taxes.
Or for that matter if you find a loophole that lets you slip something through that shouldn't be illegal but certain authoritarian elements would want to paint as abuse. Do you want loophole closing ants? Because that's how you get ants.
"I think it'd be a much better use of local tax dollars to have a county deputy that spends his day going by gun shops to check this kind of thing out, instead of sitting in his car in the highway median clocking people and writing a ticket every 20 minutes."
I disagree. The fact is he'll save a hell of a lot more lives giving out those tickets. He could chase down felons seeking out guns everytime it happens for 10 years and not prevent the number of deaths and injuries that occur on a major highway in a month. Course, ticketing like that would be more likely to be a state trooper, Deputies are usually occupied with serving papers.
FakeNews indeed. That's called a strawman. We aren't talking about how many guns you own so nobody has raised the question of a federal law limiting the number you can own and it is meaningless whether or not there is one. We are talking about how many identical guns you can make and credibly claim are for personal use and the fact that a BATFE agent has the authority to determine they aren't for personal use without any need to prove it.
What determination do you think the BATFE agent is going to determine if a family of 1 has made ten identical rifles for personal use? Probably about the same as the DEA's determination about your 10 kilos of cocaine for personal use. Hell, you've got a better claim with the 10 kilos of coke, you could be stockpiling a lifetime supply and be a little overzealous. Yes, at this point they've passed laws codifying amounts of drugs they can automatically count at dealing with no evidence of dealing because those cases go to court. Not so with the BATFE and the IRS.
At the end of the day federal law enables the BATFE to largely have discretion over these things. It is them who decides the rules, if you've broken them, etc. Are you under the impression they leave it up to you? You just say personal use and the burden is on them to prove you are lying? Sorry, that isn't how it works with guns or taxes the BATFE agent decides if he buys it and your appeal higher up, still the BATFE just like with the IRS. Just like with the IRS maybe, maybe you can eventually fight your way past their administrative law judges and out to a federal court.
Now it that how it should be? No, the Constitution specifically denies the power to congress (and all branches of government) to regulate guns in the way the BATFE does and therefore denies them the power to create a BATFE but they have more guns than I do and don't give a shit what I or you think.
Having spent time as a teenager on the wrong side of all this I can attest this is all true.
The judge appoints you an attorney if you can't afford one. The phone call is at their discretion although they typically give one, often they'll allow you several especially for minor offences when you are trying to get one to bail you out. And as far as I know they don't deny you access to an attorney if your attorney shows up.
Also the police can and routinely do wholesale lie to you with regard to the law, before arrest, during questioning, etc. They can lie to you not just about what others said but also offer fake deals, including fake paperwork. They can show you their junk, they can tell you they aren't cops. You can also expect the public defender to mislead you into taking plea agreements. They have different arrangements but where there are dedicated public defenders they are overloaded and will lead you to accept a deal rather than fight a case you'd win. In other places they have rotations of local attorney's and that is a mixed bag depending on who you get but generally they are just looking to get out of it as soon as possible.
Oh and phone traces take time to get back the results but they don't require you to be on the phone for any amount of time, the record of the call is stored with the carriers who disclose whatever information they wish as quickly as they wish.
Registration of NFA firearms is a requirement under federal law, following that federal law is a requirement of texas state law and that is what the man was convicted of. So yes, it is what is most at issue here.
"It is having a firearm that there is no record of, no registration, no NICS background check....basically no part of the US government (federal, state or local) knows you have this weapon."
A lot of people do, do this to have a rifle just the way they want it though.
The thing is, most everyone who wants these for the reasons you mention is just paranoid (unless it turns out they are after them) or wants to take the power out of the hands of authorities who aren't actually Constitutionally empowered to deny them the right to have it from passing a law and enforcing it via their right of might.
However, there is a huge portion of the population that believes in authority. When they hear:
"If that is important to you and it is to people out there, this is an easy way to do it."
That is exactly what they are afraid of. They think that if you are trying to hide, you've got something to hide like this guy. Risks like this guy are the price we pay for the security of knowing that government can't simply collude together and assume powers we didn't grant them or at least that we have some level of insurance policy.
People who think hiding something means you've got something to hide are a much larger pool than people who'd normally support illegal laws controlling or limiting firearms. So, it's probably more politically expedient to point out the still common, mundane, not "paranoid" reasons people do these things.
I have no problem with people preparing for the apocalypse and volunteer firefighter chiefs with cellars containing racks and racks of standard issue made for personal use rifles sitting in rows. Other people believe in the powers at be and just see those insurance policies as crazy.
Right, then he can build even more shoddy houses with wrenches instead. The point isn't a ban or lack thereof of hammers, the point is the misguided conflation of the tool and the problem. Scalise understands that and also understands that there can't be lasting democracy if the government doesn't ultimately have to fear widespread mass outrage. For instance, if the government begins rigging elections and sends in riot squads to stop peaceful protests.
Can 100,000 unified citizens defeat the US military armed with rifles? Not a chance. But they can certainly storm the White House, congress, or the supreme court to take out a rogue element before that rogue element can even attempt to mobilize that military. Thwarting a coup of the people's power isn't a rebellion, we already rebelled, this would just be us putting down rogue elements IF that were ever needed. The people can still do that, they can organize and move before it is detected and if it turned out to be wrongful, that would be a shame, they'd all end slaughtered or jailed and new representatives would be elected and life would go on. If they were right, luckily the same thing would happen because they themselves could never manage a coup. That is a nice balance of power. Don't let anyone convince you there is no hope of victory, there is always a hope of victory with the right plan and the willingness to pay the cost.
You also can buy an 80% lower and finish it will a drill for like $100. Even with a drill press it is cheaper than a 3D printer... and more likely to actually work.
"Today a man was imprisoned in Texas for the unlawful possession of an unregistered NFA firearm along with a list of potential targets which included lawmakers."
The 3D printed component isn't particularly notable.
"Producing a firearm (milling the receiver) is not illegal (https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/does-individual-need-license-make-firearm-personal-use) - but possessing one is. He was convicted of illegal manufacturing among other things. Why?"
He printed a lower and assembled it into a short-barrel rifle, an SBR can be made for personal use but does require a serial, registration with the BATFE and paying of a tax as an NFA firearm. He was nailed by Texas rather than feds because Texas has a statute requiring you to follow the NFA requirements and it explicitly mentioned the requirement for SBRs.
"By pure coincidence, a cop is nearby and despite this being Texas the gun-friendly state finds three shots somewhere in the woods noteworthy enough to investigate and despite this being Texas the big state also manages to find and arrest that exact guy."
That wouldn't really be that big a coincidence. Where I grew up in IL nobody cared too much about what farmers would do on their own land but if you were shooting off rounds there was still a good chance you'd encounter a sheriff or more likely a ranger who you will find out with a quickness is also a state police officer and can bust you for more than just hunting. In general rangers aren't as gung ho to bust everybody for everything (especially the ones who police wilds outside of actual parks) but they will get their panties in a twist rather quickly when it comes to being a jackass with a firearm.
Slashdot Mirror
"George Washington would've said corporations are what destroys an economy"
Woah boy, I didn't say it was a good plan. I just said it is where we are.
"What always annoys me about the rhetoric by (mostly Republicans these days) politicians when they talk about "tax cuts" and "Americans pay less taxes" is that they never talk about the corresponding cut in spending. (Probably because there are none.) Hence, all that means is that the government borrowed more money this year that will eventually have to pay back (with interest). Guess where the government gets the money to pay back that debt and interest?"
Well lets pretend that interest is significant enough to note (hint, it isn't) if the cut is for working class citizens some are able to invest it and who couldn't before. Some are able to pay off debt and have more working capital. Some just blow it which generates both corporate and shareholder taxes and also stimulates jobs which may pay taxes.
These are not hard gains which are easy to quantify but that it is disingenuous to pretend they don't exist. They also quantifiable which means it is disingenuous to claim they magically offset the spending. Still, by and large tax cuts in the US go right back in the US economy which means that long term they are likely a wash outside a greater opportunity potential.
"In the US, the top 10% of households own 84% of the stocks"
Uh huh and you have to go to the top 1% to get out of the working class so what is your point?
"It's also disingenuous to call Trump's massive transfer of wealth to the 1% with a little fiddling for mere mortals a tax break for middle and low earners. A lot of Americans are getting a nasty and expensive surprise thanks to Trump:"
You are linking to a story about a change in withholding tables. As in people got lower refunds because they paid less overall tax and therefore paid less excess tax. They saw bigger paychecks all year because the withholding tables were changed! They paid the IRS less money overall!
And the states that are neither Alabama nor CA have a bone to pick about you just paying you fair goddamn share of the taxes because we dont leech like Alabama or dodge like CA.
Sorry, we may send our tech people to CA but you sent their goddamn share of the income taxes right back to pay for Ohio roads.
"You get to live in your "low tax" states because those high tax states are donor states for your leeching. High tax states get back far less from the feds than the put in"
But they've been paying in far less per dollar earned than those low tax states. They've been using high state taxes combined with a deduction to keep more money in the state and effectively become federal income tax evaders. Look, if your state programs are so expensive but so prosperous you should be able to pay an equal amount of federal tax to those in states with no state taxes. The benefits of your programs should be enough alone to make it a wash.
The states you are talking about which take more than they give in federal tax aren't at issue here and you know it. We aren't talking about a handful fo depopulated western states you'd use as examples or impoverished southern states. We are talking about roughly 47 out of 50.
"Trickle down economics is the idea that if you give a break to the people at the top"
Which is not what you do with corporate tax breaks. Bob the janitor at IBM benefits when you give corporate tax breaks even if IBM doesn't cut him in or lays him off and insteads pays a bg dividend to shareholders because bob has a retirement account and gets discounted IBM stock. Corporations are not the top, they aren't even players, the people who own them are players and may or may not be the top. Remember when Disney Corp was thwarted firing disney by sharholders? The people who own a company may be entirely composed of lower to middle class individuals and/or combined investment funds (mutual funds) representing that class of investor. Not just in theory, in the disney case it was true in practice.
"Taxes which are universal in application to all companies (like the corporate income tax) in a country with at least semi-free trade are primarily passed on to employees, then a little bit to customers and the even smaller remaining to shareholders."
Well you are quoting theory and for the most part across the fortune 500 the reality is they just paid most of it out to executives who while technically employees aren't exactly what anyone means by employees. You can point to a dozen exceptions and it won't change the reality of what just occurred. Theory is a poor substitute for demonstrated reality. IMHO the big problem is unbudgeted funds and greed. Trying to pretend capitalism works as well as it does for any reason other than greed is an attempt to mislead and there is little to no greed incentive to do otherwise. Second these were unanticipated and unbudgeted funds. If given a chance to decide how to invest them in their business companies might have chosen otherwise but they'd already chosen investments and this was free bonus money above what they already decided departments needed.
"taxes on profits are passed on to shareholders... but never to employees or customers, obviously."
The difference between what you said and what he said is that what he said is actually true. When it is time to offset costs corporations look to payroll an expenses, when it is time to pass profits they look to shareholders. Why? Because employees are liabilities and shareholders are the bosses. It is that simple.
"A 100% tax on corporate profits would be ideal if it weren't for the need to encourage capital investment by shareholders for growth."
What a silly thing to say, corporate profits mostly feed retirement accounts and investors and stock increases go to major shareholders who certainaly have a say in how the company is run. Essentially the only time stock purchases help the company directly is the IPO after that you are just buying stock from other people who bought then, not the company.
"Shareholders have not earned money in the way in the way employees (and most customers) have, so they should only be allowed to keep it to the extent that proves beneficial to society as a whole (via a growing economy)."
If you mean sweat and personal effort you are right. It will never quite be the same. But they have risked losing their money, a wall street broker might be distressed but his family is likely fine since he profits whether his investor wins or loses but Grandma loses her retirement money she accumulated from working for 40years in the glove factory if the stock goes down. Is that your intention here?
"Why do you think you have to pay more because he pays less?"
Because the deficit has to be balanced somewhere.
"We don't have a balanced budget, so there is no zero-sum game."
But we do, it merely a question of where it is balanced. Is it at zero debt, no, but there IS a threshold before we miss a payment or drop in credit rating just as you can float far beyond someone who will accept no debt but will eventually hit a hard limit.
Noi that's fine. But what you pay your state shouldn't reduce what you pay the feds. Or else you are paying less than your fair share and expecting people in the other states to pay more to make up for it.
I'm actually all for the feds to get less and the state to get more but generally the politics in the states that want more indicate more federal power and initiatives, not less. People in other states should never pay higher taxes because you liver in a high tax state.
Are you a middle income earner? You sure you don't live in CA or NY? Did you actually look at your taxes paid or did you look at the refund amount?
Withholding tables changed. For many they simply didn't overpay nearly as much so got a smaller refund but paid less.
Corporations ARE the economy for better or worse. Cutting their taxes isn't trickle down, corporations use that money to build more profit generation which is economic growth. These are your employers, the producers of goods and services, and this is where your retirement money is invested. Even Amazon making a profit here will impact their share price, it'll make major stock holders like Bezos a little more rich on paper but it will grow people with Amazon stocks and bonds in their retirement mix directly. This doesn't so much boost the economy much right now but will have a huge impact on the elderly when they retire. It also has a positive boost on NASDAQ confidence which will help keep the US tech market afloat.
Don't get me wrong, it is ludicrous that Amazon didn't pay anything but pretending there are no large scale economic benefits for the middle class in something like this and especially in increasing capital in corporations on the whole is disingenuous. The flip side is that keeping their wealth invested in giant corporations and never cashing it in means this does grow the wealth of the uber rich on paper and they'll dodge taxes in near perpetuity as they avoid actually cashing in the stock. Instead they just trade stock around and even give stock to charity to dodge paying taxes on what they did cash in. This does need closed. It's why we should be taxing wealth instead of income. Wealth is where the money is hidden not income, attacking corporate income will just hurt middle class investments and small business (which are also corporations).
Trickle down is cutting taxes for the wealthy and your information is outright false here. Trump cut taxes on middle and low earners. He increased the standard deduction and the dependent credits. High earners don't file a standard deduction, they file itemized deductions, and the dependent credits are fixed amounts that are big impact for middle to low earners and nothing more than noise on high income filers.
There is a very notable exception for the wealthy in the form of changes to the death tax and ranches which combines with zero tax on real estate proceeds if you fold it back into a real estate investment but I have to go so people will just to have put two and two together on their own if they care.
Overall, it HAS been shown and now proven out in actual returns that the middle class will on the whole see a massive cut in taxes on their 2018 return.
"ITEP notes that its non-existent federal tax payment is a result of the Trump Administrationâ(TM)s corporation-friendly tax cuts."
Uh huh
"The think tank writes that the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act not only decreased corporate tax rates from 35% to 21%,"
It doesn't look at those Amazon paid either rate so that isn't it.
"but it also didnâ(TM)t close âoea slew of tax loopholes that allow profitable companies to routinely avoid paying federal and state income taxes on almost half of their profits"
So that isn't on the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act then, that is on the previous tax bills that introduced the holes Amazon exploited. It also still doesn't add up. Half their $12 billion profits is $6 billion and 21% of $6 billion is still about $1.26 billion. I certainly doesn't explain where they got paid $129 billion and made a profit on filing their taxes. At least part of that I'm sure will turn out be green energy incentives.
These things never have enough detail to judge anything though. For instance, if amazon paid out 10 billion in dividends those taxes still get paid, they just get paid by the people who got the money rather than by amazon. When a corporation is involved a lot of the loopholes that seem so terrible are really about avoiding taxing the same profit in two places because the corporation is just a piece of paper, the point is to make the human beings pay their taxes and not to make them pay them on the paper entity and then again on their own taxes.
"For middle-income earners, congrats, Trump has fulfilled his promise of "closing loopholes" namely yours and yours only."
That's a nice rant but for those of us who have already done their taxes you'll be happy to find massive cuts.
Or for that matter if you find a loophole that lets you slip something through that shouldn't be illegal but certain authoritarian elements would want to paint as abuse. Do you want loophole closing ants? Because that's how you get ants.
"I think it'd be a much better use of local tax dollars to have a county deputy that spends his day going by gun shops to check this kind of thing out, instead of sitting in his car in the highway median clocking people and writing a ticket every 20 minutes."
I disagree. The fact is he'll save a hell of a lot more lives giving out those tickets. He could chase down felons seeking out guns everytime it happens for 10 years and not prevent the number of deaths and injuries that occur on a major highway in a month. Course, ticketing like that would be more likely to be a state trooper, Deputies are usually occupied with serving papers.
FakeNews indeed. That's called a strawman. We aren't talking about how many guns you own so nobody has raised the question of a federal law limiting the number you can own and it is meaningless whether or not there is one. We are talking about how many identical guns you can make and credibly claim are for personal use and the fact that a BATFE agent has the authority to determine they aren't for personal use without any need to prove it.
What determination do you think the BATFE agent is going to determine if a family of 1 has made ten identical rifles for personal use? Probably about the same as the DEA's determination about your 10 kilos of cocaine for personal use. Hell, you've got a better claim with the 10 kilos of coke, you could be stockpiling a lifetime supply and be a little overzealous. Yes, at this point they've passed laws codifying amounts of drugs they can automatically count at dealing with no evidence of dealing because those cases go to court. Not so with the BATFE and the IRS.
At the end of the day federal law enables the BATFE to largely have discretion over these things. It is them who decides the rules, if you've broken them, etc. Are you under the impression they leave it up to you? You just say personal use and the burden is on them to prove you are lying? Sorry, that isn't how it works with guns or taxes the BATFE agent decides if he buys it and your appeal higher up, still the BATFE just like with the IRS. Just like with the IRS maybe, maybe you can eventually fight your way past their administrative law judges and out to a federal court.
Now it that how it should be? No, the Constitution specifically denies the power to congress (and all branches of government) to regulate guns in the way the BATFE does and therefore denies them the power to create a BATFE but they have more guns than I do and don't give a shit what I or you think.
Having spent time as a teenager on the wrong side of all this I can attest this is all true.
The judge appoints you an attorney if you can't afford one. The phone call is at their discretion although they typically give one, often they'll allow you several especially for minor offences when you are trying to get one to bail you out. And as far as I know they don't deny you access to an attorney if your attorney shows up.
Also the police can and routinely do wholesale lie to you with regard to the law, before arrest, during questioning, etc. They can lie to you not just about what others said but also offer fake deals, including fake paperwork. They can show you their junk, they can tell you they aren't cops. You can also expect the public defender to mislead you into taking plea agreements. They have different arrangements but where there are dedicated public defenders they are overloaded and will lead you to accept a deal rather than fight a case you'd win. In other places they have rotations of local attorney's and that is a mixed bag depending on who you get but generally they are just looking to get out of it as soon as possible.
Oh and phone traces take time to get back the results but they don't require you to be on the phone for any amount of time, the record of the call is stored with the carriers who disclose whatever information they wish as quickly as they wish.
Registration of NFA firearms is a requirement under federal law, following that federal law is a requirement of texas state law and that is what the man was convicted of. So yes, it is what is most at issue here.
"It is having a firearm that there is no record of, no registration, no NICS background check....basically no part of the US government (federal, state or local) knows you have this weapon."
A lot of people do, do this to have a rifle just the way they want it though.
The thing is, most everyone who wants these for the reasons you mention is just paranoid (unless it turns out they are after them) or wants to take the power out of the hands of authorities who aren't actually Constitutionally empowered to deny them the right to have it from passing a law and enforcing it via their right of might.
However, there is a huge portion of the population that believes in authority. When they hear:
"If that is important to you and it is to people out there, this is an easy way to do it."
That is exactly what they are afraid of. They think that if you are trying to hide, you've got something to hide like this guy. Risks like this guy are the price we pay for the security of knowing that government can't simply collude together and assume powers we didn't grant them or at least that we have some level of insurance policy.
People who think hiding something means you've got something to hide are a much larger pool than people who'd normally support illegal laws controlling or limiting firearms. So, it's probably more politically expedient to point out the still common, mundane, not "paranoid" reasons people do these things.
I have no problem with people preparing for the apocalypse and volunteer firefighter chiefs with cellars containing racks and racks of standard issue made for personal use rifles sitting in rows. Other people believe in the powers at be and just see those insurance policies as crazy.
Right, then he can build even more shoddy houses with wrenches instead. The point isn't a ban or lack thereof of hammers, the point is the misguided conflation of the tool and the problem. Scalise understands that and also understands that there can't be lasting democracy if the government doesn't ultimately have to fear widespread mass outrage. For instance, if the government begins rigging elections and sends in riot squads to stop peaceful protests.
Can 100,000 unified citizens defeat the US military armed with rifles? Not a chance. But they can certainly storm the White House, congress, or the supreme court to take out a rogue element before that rogue element can even attempt to mobilize that military. Thwarting a coup of the people's power isn't a rebellion, we already rebelled, this would just be us putting down rogue elements IF that were ever needed. The people can still do that, they can organize and move before it is detected and if it turned out to be wrongful, that would be a shame, they'd all end slaughtered or jailed and new representatives would be elected and life would go on. If they were right, luckily the same thing would happen because they themselves could never manage a coup. That is a nice balance of power. Don't let anyone convince you there is no hope of victory, there is always a hope of victory with the right plan and the willingness to pay the cost.
You also can buy an 80% lower and finish it will a drill for like $100. Even with a drill press it is cheaper than a 3D printer... and more likely to actually work.
A better headline would have been:
"Today a man was imprisoned in Texas for the unlawful possession of an unregistered NFA firearm along with a list of potential targets which included lawmakers."
The 3D printed component isn't particularly notable.
"Producing a firearm (milling the receiver) is not illegal (https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/does-individual-need-license-make-firearm-personal-use) - but possessing one is. He was convicted of illegal manufacturing among other things. Why?"
He printed a lower and assembled it into a short-barrel rifle, an SBR can be made for personal use but does require a serial, registration with the BATFE and paying of a tax as an NFA firearm. He was nailed by Texas rather than feds because Texas has a statute requiring you to follow the NFA requirements and it explicitly mentioned the requirement for SBRs.
"By pure coincidence, a cop is nearby and despite this being Texas the gun-friendly state finds three shots somewhere in the woods noteworthy enough to investigate and despite this being Texas the big state also manages to find and arrest that exact guy."
That wouldn't really be that big a coincidence. Where I grew up in IL nobody cared too much about what farmers would do on their own land but if you were shooting off rounds there was still a good chance you'd encounter a sheriff or more likely a ranger who you will find out with a quickness is also a state police officer and can bust you for more than just hunting. In general rangers aren't as gung ho to bust everybody for everything (especially the ones who police wilds outside of actual parks) but they will get their panties in a twist rather quickly when it comes to being a jackass with a firearm.
I believe it was the being killed while allegedly shooting a congress critter part which led to search. I could be wrong though.