Tangle - The Supreme Court takes up ghost guns.

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Garland v. VanDerStok, a case challenging a 2022 Biden administration rule that regulated unserialized firearms, also known as “ghost guns....” A group of firearms owners, gun rights groups and manufacturers challenged the rule, arguing that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) exceeded its authority in issuing the regulation. During arguments, a majority of justices on the court seemed skeptical of the plaintiffs’ case, indicating that they would uphold the rule when they issue their decision in summer 2025. Ad-free podcasts are here!For the last few years, we've been publishing a daily podcast similar to our newsletter and bonus content exclusively for our podcast channel. Many listeners (who also read this newsletter) have been asking for an ad-free version that they could subscribe to — and we finally launched it today. You can go to tanglemedia.supercast.com to sign up and get 17% off during our launch week special!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.Check out our latest YouTube video on misinformation about North Carolina here.Check out Episode 6 of our podcast series, The Undecideds. You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Help share Tangle.I'm a firm believer that our politics would be a little bit better if everyone were reading balanced news that allows room for debate, disagreement, and multiple perspectives. If you can take 15 seconds to share Tangle with a few friends I'd really appreciate it. Email Tangle to a friend here, share Tangle on X/Twitter here, or share Tangle on Facebook here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police
Starting point is 00:00:39 procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul,
Starting point is 00:01:03 this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about ghost guns and the oral arguments that occurred before the Supreme Court yesterday. For those of you who might not be in the know, the Biden administration has pushed some rules that I guess we could say limited the way ghost guns could be sold and distributed. These are kits that are sold to people and then they put them together to make a
Starting point is 00:01:51 gun. And sometimes these kits can avoid regulation and the ATF pushed a rule to address these ghost guns. And there's a challenge about whether they had the authority to do that that has landed before the Supreme Court. So we're going to talk about what happened during oral arguments in that yesterday. Before we do, though, I have two quick notes for you. First of all, those of you who listen to this podcast are likely people who love and enjoy other podcasts. So I wanted to give you a heads up that the team behind the very well-known, famous podcast S-Town, is doing a podcast about journalism. And they just did an episode about Tangle. I have to say, it's one of the more remarkable experiences I've had since I started Tangle.
Starting point is 00:02:36 I think it is a story and an episode in podcast format that captures our work and what we're trying to do and our mission in a more beautiful and powerful way than just about any other coverage of our work that I've ever come across. I was a little bit blown away by the fact that this podcast happened because S-Town is one of my favorite podcasts ever. I think it's super, super good. You should totally go listen to it if you haven't yet. But the host of that show, Brian Reed, and some of the producers on that show, which are, you know, people who've been behind stuff like Serial, put together this series on journalism, and they did this episode on Tangle. And it was just a little bit surreal because it's
Starting point is 00:03:20 some people whose work I really respect doing work about us, about Tangle. The podcast is called Question Everything. And the episode that is about Tangle just came out this morning. It's episode four in the series. And it is titled Can Journalism Save a Marriage? And it is about two Tangle readers who are married, and they talk about how Tangle basically helped them come back from the precipice of divorce because they were fighting over politics. It's incredibly moving. It's an awesome story. I just figure you guys would be interested in it. And, you know, at the risk of too much self-promotion, I encourage you to go check it out. And at the risk of too much self-promotion, I encourage you to go check it out. On that note, I also want to give you a heads up and a reminder that our deal to become a Tangle Premium podcast subscriber ends today. So after today, it'll be full price to jump to ad-free premium versions of Tangle, which will also unlock Friday editions.
Starting point is 00:04:23 Tomorrow, we're going to have a Friday podcast coming out about all the ballot initiatives that are happening across the country. Today, right now, you can go subscribe to the Tangle podcast by going to tanglemedia.supercast.com, and you'll see there's a discount on monthly and yearly subscriptions. If you are already a Tangle newsletter subscriber, you can check your email because you have a code to get a heavy discount on the podcast subscription because we want to be able to bundle newsletter and podcast subscriptions together. But tomorrow, this is going to go to full price. We're going to be in full launch mode. And going forward, if you want
Starting point is 00:05:00 to get premium podcasts or add pre-podcasts, it'll be a little bit more expensive. So if you want to get premium podcasts or add pre-podcasts. It'll be a little bit more expensive. So if you want to get that discount, I encourage you to go to tanglemedia.supercast.com. This will get you ad-free podcasts and premium podcast episodes, things like our Sunday edition episodes where me and managing editor Ari Weitzman chop it up on the news of the week and things like Friday editions
Starting point is 00:05:22 where we do deep dives or we interview people which are behind a paywall in our newsletter and will soon be behind a paywall in the podcast. and things like Friday editions where we do deep dives or we interview people, which are behind a paywall in our newsletter and will soon be behind a paywall in the podcast as well. All right, that's a long intro, so I'm going to pass it over to John for our main story, and I'll be back for my take. Thanks, Isaac, and welcome, everybody. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida as a Category 3 hurricane, weakening to a Category 1 storm as it moved across the state. More than 3 million people lost power and multiple localities have reported deaths. Number two, the Consumer Price Index for
Starting point is 00:06:02 September rose to 2.4% from a year prior, down from 2.5% in August, but higher than economists expected. The core CPI, which excludes food and energy costs, increased by 0.3% from August and 3.3% from one year ago. Nasir Ahmad Tahedi, an Afghan national who entered the U.S. on a special immigrant visa in September 2021 with conspiring to carry out a terrorist attack on election day on behalf of ISIS. Number four, the Justice Department is considering whether to break up Google following a judge's ruling that the company had illegally abused its search monopoly. And number five, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. called on Israel to make immediate steps to address catastrophic humanitarian conditions in Gaza. This week, the U.S. Supreme Court kicked off a new term with a major case today focused
Starting point is 00:07:04 on federal regulations of so-called ghost guns. Those are firearms that are assembled at home with a kit. They don't have traceable serial numbers and they don't require background checks. Ghost guns, or privately made firearms, are weapons that can be made at home with kits or 3D printers. That means they lack serial numbers, which makes them untraceable. They also are not sold by federally licensed firearm manufacturers. Police say untraceable ghost guns made from build-it-yourself kits sold online without background checks or showing proof of age led to an explosion in crime.
Starting point is 00:07:44 On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Garland v. Vanderstoke, a case challenging a 2022 Biden administration rule that regulated unserialized firearms, also known as ghost guns. A group of firearms owners, gun rights groups, and manufacturers challenged the rule, arguing that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, otherwise known as the ATF, exceeded its authority in issuing the regulation. During arguments, a majority of justices on the court seemed skeptical on the plaintiff's case,
Starting point is 00:08:16 indicating that they would uphold the rule when they issued their decision in summer 2025. While traditional firearms are manufactured by licensed companies and then sold through licensed dealers, ghost guns are sold in pieces, often as do-it-yourself kits that contain all the parts the buyer needs to assemble a gun on their own. Before the ATF's 2022 rule, a buyer did not need to pass a background check to purchase a ghost gun kit, and the guns themselves were not required to have serial numbers as traditional firearms are. The ATF's rule did not ban the sale of ghost guns, but it did regulate their sale to comply with the same standards as other commercial firearms. The agency justified the regulation under the Gun Control Act of 1968, which defines a firearm as any weapon which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive, including the frame or receiver of any such weapon. inclusive including the frame or receiver of any such weapon. The ATF said unfinished parts of a firearm like the frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun that would be included in a ghost
Starting point is 00:09:11 gun kit fall within this definition thus giving it authority to regulate them. The challengers however rejected the interpretation of the law and argued the ATF improperly stretched its authority to issue the ruling. They initially sued to block the ATF from enforcing the rule in federal court in Texas, where a judge sided with them. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals similarly ruled for the plaintiffs, but the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in August 2023 that the ATF could enforce the rule when it considers the challenge. During oral arguments, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said the rule was aimed at addressing a rise in criminal acts committed with ghost guns. She added that manufacturers market the gun kits as a way to evade federal gun laws, saying,
Starting point is 00:09:52 They've advertised the products, in their words, as ridiculously easy to assemble and dummy-proof, and touted that you can go from opening the mail to having a fully functional gun in as little as 15 minutes. No serial number, background check, or records required. Peter Patterson, representing the plaintiffs, argued the ATF's interpretation of the Gun Control Act was flawed, as the law did not define firearms, frames, or receivers as something that may readily be converted to function as a framer or receiver. Further, he said the ATF deviated from its past standards in formulating the rule. Numerous justices seemed unconvinced by Patterson's arguments, including Chief Justice John Roberts, pushing back on the suggestion that ghost gun kits were marketed for gun hobbyists.
Starting point is 00:10:34 However, Justice Samuel Alito questioned the ATF's argument that various parts of a gun kit constituted a firearm. If I put out on a counter some eggs, some chopped up ham, and some chopped up pepper and onions, is that a Western omelet? He asked. Today, we'll look at the arguments about the case from the right and the left, and then Isaac's take. We'll be right back after this quick break. becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic
Starting point is 00:11:40 average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. All right, first up, let's start with what the right is saying. The right criticizes the ATF rule, arguing that only Congress can make such a change to the law. Some say the court should rein in the ATF's overreach. Others note that the court has been sympathetic to the left on gun issues despite its conservative majority. In National Review, Charles C.W. Cook said SCOTUS should strike down the rule. Nominally, the case revolves around so-called ghost guns,
Starting point is 00:12:36 firearms that, because they lack serial numbers, are more difficult for the state to trace. And yet, at root, Vanderstoke is but one more in a seemingly interminable line of judicially mediated disputes that are testing the integrity of our constitutional separation of powers, Cook wrote. Once again, the Biden administration has issued a rule that redefines a longstanding provision within federal law. And once again, the people on the wrong end of that redefinition have had the temerity to notice. Given its outright hostility to the right to keep and bear arms, one can comprehend why the Biden-Harris administration would covet this change. But that, as ever, is a separate matter from whether the law permits such a change to be
Starting point is 00:13:15 made. And much as the Biden administration might wish otherwise, the law does not, Cook said. Indeed, there is nothing in the Gun Control Act's references to receivers or frames in the ATF's previous definitions of those terms or in the way that the words receiver and frame have been used in common parlance that even imply that those words can be read to include devices that are not in fact either receivers or frames. In the Daily Signal, Zach Smith and Jack Fitzhenry wrote, the ATF once again seeks an expansive view of its own authority. At oral argument, Solicitor General Elizabeth Preligar, the Biden-Harris administration's lawyer, made much of the supposed ease with which criminals might buy ghost gun kits to avoid the background checks and serial numbers required for buying a fully assembled firearm. That summed up the administration's view of why the ATF's regulation was desirable as a policy
Starting point is 00:14:03 matter. But as Pete Pattison, representing the challengers, made clear, those policy concerns are for Congress to consider, not the ATF. At bottom, this case provides an opportunity for the court to consider whether administrative agencies like the ATF can grant themselves regulatory authority over new objects and items simply through their own reinterpretation and expansion of statutory terms. Here, the ATF has sought to use wordsmithing to exert control over gunsmithing in a way Congress never intended. In town hall, Tom Knighton suggested the Supreme Court is not doing gun owners a lot of good. For an anti-gun Biden administration, this regulation is par for
Starting point is 00:14:42 the course. However, the overall feeling from many is that the supposedly conservative Supreme Court agrees. That makes me ask, just what good is having a supposedly significant conservative majority doing for gun owners anyway, Knighton wrote. Barrett looks like she'll side with Roberts, who's always been squishy on gun issues, and the three liberal justices to basically hand the case to the Biden administration. So what's going on? Why is our supposedly conservative majority on the Supreme Court siding with gun control advocates here, Knighton asked? I'm sure you'll excuse me for no longer feeling a great deal of confidence where this court will land on any issue that actually matters, but especially on anything
Starting point is 00:15:18 related to guns. It's entirely possible that everyone is wrong and the court will actually smack down the ATF for yet another overreach. But I'm not holding my breath on this one. Alright, that is it for what the right is saying, which brings us to what the left is saying. The left is pleased that the court seems poised to uphold the law. Some say the court may finally establish a limit for the level of gun access it is willing to tolerate. Others worry that the court's ruling is far from certain. In Slate, Mark Joseph Stern wrote, finally, the bad guys had a bad day at the Supreme Court. Lawyers with bad arguments in defense of terrible causes are on a winning streak at the Supreme Court. The conservative supermajority often seems committed to laundering feeble and nutty arguments into plausible-sounding law on
Starting point is 00:16:08 behalf of right-wing litigants, Stern said. It was therefore more gratifying than it should have been on Tuesday to hear the court regain its sanity. These judges did not mask their irritation with the lower court judges who tried to save the ghost gun companies, along with their criminal clientele, by warping the law beyond all recognition. Tuesday's arguments revealed two things. Roberts and Barrett have zero sympathy for the ghost gun industry, and they are unmistakably sick of this never-ending case. Again, the legal question is not difficult. Under federal law, parts that may readily be converted to fire a bullet are a firearm, so the sale must comply with the usual regulations, including needing a serial number and background check, Stern wrote. A victory for ATF in Vanderstoke
Starting point is 00:16:49 will be the triumph for sane judging and common-sense gun safety laws. It will also literally save countless people's lives. In Vox, Ian Millhiser suggested the Supreme Court appears to have found a gun regulation it actually likes. Few things are as chaotic as this Supreme Court's gun cases. Just last June, the court's Republican majority legalized bump stocks, devices that effectively convert ordinary semi-automatic weapons into machine guns, Millhiser wrote. That ruling created a test so confusing that more than a dozen judges have published judicial opinions begging the justices to explain what exactly Bruin means. Yet while this court's approach to guns is frequently hostile to gun laws, a majority of the justices appeared to meet a gun regulation on Tuesday that they are actually
Starting point is 00:17:34 willing to uphold. The biggest wildcard in the case is Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who revealed that he voted in favor of ghost guns in 2023 because he was concerned that a gun seller who was ignorant of the law might actually sell an unregulated kit without realizing it was illegal to do so and then be charged with a crime, Millhiser said. But as Proligar told Kavanaugh, a gun seller can only be charged with a crime if they willfully sell a gun without a serial number or if they knowingly sell a gun without a background check. So Kavanaugh's fears appear unfounded. In Bloomberg, Noah Feldman said the Supreme Court ghost guns arguments were cringeworthy. Should so-called ghost guns,
Starting point is 00:18:11 assembled at home from kits in as little as 20 minutes, be counted as guns for purposes of federal law? If you have an ounce of common sense, the answer is obviously yes, Feldman wrote. The relevant law defines a firearm as any weapon which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive. The definition specifically includes the frame of any such weapon. And the undoubted purpose of the law is to protect Americans from untraceable guns being used in crimes, a purpose that clearly applies to any functional firearm, which ghost guns are. On Tuesday, the justices sidestepped discussion of the law's purpose. Instead, they spent the argument deep in the linguistic weeds,
Starting point is 00:18:50 arguing about whether the ATF was right to say that a partially disassembled gun frame is still, you guessed it, a gun frame, Feldman said. If this gives you a sense of horrified deja vu, that's because it echoes a case the court heard last term. In the case, the court had to decide whether the ATF was right to define bump stocks as machine guns. The absurdity of the bump stock decision is why I'm not confident that the court will get the ghost guns issue right. All right, let's head over to Isaac for his take. All right, that is it for it with the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So whenever we cover Supreme Court cases, we try to focus on two things separately,
Starting point is 00:19:43 the effects of the ruling and the legal arguments themselves. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm supportive of what looks to be the most likely outcome here, which is that ghost gun kits are going to be regulated like normal firearms. I've made my case on gun control enough times that I can summarize my views quickly. I'm not currently a gun owner, but I am a Second Amendment supporter who has been around guns and very much enjoys shooting them, respects the right to own them, and appreciates why so many Americans are concerned about restricting the right to buy them. The vast majority of legal gun owners in America are rule-abiding citizens with good reasons for keeping a firearm at home. And yet, I also think our gun rights are pretty well intact. We have more guns than people in our country, and 44% of Americans live in a house with
Starting point is 00:20:26 a firearm. It is not that hard to get a gun. This right is not being meaningfully restricted. We also have problems around violence and suicide unique to our country that are indisputably related to the massive proliferation of firearms, a corrupted gun culture, and mental health issues. Part of addressing this problem involves creating more friction to buy firearms, a corrupted gun culture, and mental health issues. Part of addressing this problem involves creating more friction to buy firearms, which we can also justify by weighing the rights of others to live free of violence as greater than the right to unfettered firearm access. So, amidst all this, I find it fairly ludicrous that someone can buy a quote-unquote gun kit, drill a couple holes, and in a matter of 15 minutes
Starting point is 00:21:05 have a fully functioning firearm that does not fall under the same rules, regulations, and restrictions that already exist for guns. Therefore, I'm glad the Supreme Court appears likely to allow the ATF to regulate ghost guns like we can regulate other firearms. If you'd like to hear more about my perspective on gun regulation in general, I suggest a piece that we'll link to in today's episode description, which is one of the most popular things I've ever written. A warning, if you do go there, it is not very uplifting. As a brief aside, I'll add that the Supreme Court continues to defy ideological expectations, mostly from the left, but from the right as well. I've argued again and again that despite my frustration with a few of its most significant rulings, I think the ideological conservative
Starting point is 00:21:50 caricature of this court continues to miss. As for the legal argument, I'll concede that the answer is a bit muddier for me. Because I want this rule to be enforced, I also want it to be the case that the laws we have on the books clearly limit ghost guns. I'm not totally sure they do. The people who have created these kits have exploited a genuine loophole in previous rules, and there is a blurry line between using existing laws to limit these kits and infringing upon the freedom people have to create or build things at home, including gun hobbyists. Remember, this is not a case about the Second Amendment. It's a case about whether the ATF is exceeding the scope of the 1968 Gun Control Act. As I was reading about this case, I was reminded of when I was a kid, in the early days of the internet, looking up how to
Starting point is 00:22:37 make a potato gun online. They may sound silly, but these potato cannons can fire a potato 100 miles per hour and break a car window. They are genuinely dangerous, and they're also perfectly legal. So somewhere between a potato gun, which can do quite a bit of damage, and a genuine firearm is a line on what is legal to make at home and what isn't. I can't say that line is always perfectly obvious to me. At the same time, I also didn't hear a sterling defense of gun kits in the oral arguments or from the justices' questions. Justice Alito, for instance, made waves by asking, if I put out on the counter some eggs, some chopped up ham, some chopped up pepper and onions,
Starting point is 00:23:15 is that a Western omelet? The answer, quite obviously, is no. But the analogy is also pretty flawed. A more realistic question would be if I beat some eggs, chop up some ham, pepper, and onion, and then heat up some butter in a pan, and then put all those ingredients into the pan for you, hand you a spatula, give you instructions on how to mix those eggs up in the pan, tell you when you're done you'll have a Western omelet,
Starting point is 00:23:38 and then I ask you for $10, am I in the business of selling omelets, or are you a cook paying me for a service that teaches you how to make them? Even that analogy I don't think is quite right, so here's a more apt food analogy. When I get a frozen TV dinner, the instructions are pretty simple. All I have to do is rip open a corner of the packaging, place it in the microwave for a few minutes, and then mix the ingredients up. Are we really arguing that I wasn't sold mac and cheese because I had to open part of the container and put this frozen food in the microwave? Of course not. Ghost guns,
Starting point is 00:24:10 according to the very advertisements used to sell them, aren't much more difficult to put together. As Prelogger repeated throughout oral arguments, the challenger's primary case is that a single undrilled hole is enough to exempt a product from regulation. The ramifications of this are genuinely tough to wrap your head around and rather absurd to ponder. So, yes, the ATF's rule may be an obvious evolution to address gun kits, but I don't think the agency is overreaching in its interpretation of how Congress defined the objects of its 1968 legislation. These kits are firearms for all intents and purposes in the same way a disassembled couch I order from Ikea is still a couch, and they should be regulated, tracked, and addressed by the law in the same way. The ATF is simply doing its job in a reasonable way to create rules to enforce
Starting point is 00:24:57 laws that are meant to regulate guns. We'll be right back after this quick break. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season?
Starting point is 00:25:45 Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCcellvax.ca. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one's from Cliff in Colorado. Cliff said President Trump has stated that he would reduce energy
Starting point is 00:26:25 costs by 50%. Is that even possible? Has he mentioned how he might do it? I've not seen any details. All right, to catch people up here, former President Trump has said on the campaign trail that he will reduce energy costs by 50% within 12 months of taking office. He has not released specific details about that ambition, other than to say he'll call a national emergency to increase fossil fuel production. But no, it is not achievable on that timeline, especially when you consider that energy costs have only been rising over the past few decades. In that sense, it's easy to dismiss this claim as fanciful, but I want to give it the best possible read and you can see how it holds up. A common defense of Trump is that some of his more bombastic language is that of a negotiator. He starts high to get a deal short of what he says, but somewhere around where he wants it to be.
Starting point is 00:27:14 So if he comes out and says, cut energy costs by 50%, we shouldn't interpret that literally, but more as an ambitious goal that will light a fire under the energy sector and get us moving in the right direction. And we have a good idea of how he'd try to do it. First, he'd declare a national emergency to cut regulations for energy manufacturing and to increase supply. Second, he'd push for more natural gas and oil production. Oil production's already at an all-time high in the U.S., but it could go higher. And that's all within the 12-month window. Looking further out, he planned to explore more areas to drill and more sources of energy to harness, namely nuclear energy. No industry is more regulated than nuclear energy, and while in office, Trump clearly showed
Starting point is 00:27:56 that unleashing nuclear is a big priority of his. If he becomes president, can he make meaningful progress in the availability of nuclear energy in 12 months? Not really. But he could get the ball rolling. And if he sets a high bar, it's possible he can at least make energy prices start to go down, which would be a new trend that would have enormous ripple effects throughout the whole economy. So 50%? No. Is he going to do some stuff that might reduce the cost of energy, though? Yeah, I think he has a track record of doing that. All right, that is it for your questions answered. I'm going to send it back to John for the rest of the pod, and I will see you guys for
Starting point is 00:28:33 our Members Only Friday edition tomorrow. Have a good one. Thanks, Isaac. Here's your Under the Radar story for today, folks. Major U.S. companies have paused or abandoned programs intended to support Black and Hispanic-owned small businesses launched in response to the George Floyd protests and the COVID-19 pandemic. of the roughly 60 small business grant programs that in 2023 included race or ethnicity in their criteria no longer exist or are defunct, while an additional 27% no longer use race or ethnicity in making awards. The exact nature of the changes vary, but a multitude of legal challenges is driving companies to rethink their corporate diversity and equity initiatives. Tanisha Boye
Starting point is 00:29:21 Robinson, founder of an impact investing and advisory firm, said, people have changed behavior because they're afraid of being sued. If you lead with race, if you lead with gender even, and sometimes if you lead with sexual identity, you will be attacked. The Wall Street Journal has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The average price of a ghost gun kit is $500, according to an ATF estimate. The number of ghost guns seized by U.S. law enforcement in 2016 is 1,758. The number of ghost guns seized by U.S. law enforcement in 2022 is 25,785.
Starting point is 00:30:07 enforcement in 2022 is 25,785. The approximate number of ghost guns recovered at crime scenes in 2018 is 4,000 according to Justice Department data. The approximate number of ghost guns recovered at crime scenes in 2021 is 20,000. The percent increase in the number of suspected privately made firearms, defined by the ATF as an unserialized firearm that has been recovered in a criminal investigation submitted to the ATF for tracing between 2017 and 2021, is 1,083%. The number of reports of suspectedly privately made firearms recovered by law enforcement in homicide or attempted homicide investigations between 2016 and 2021 is 692, and the number of unlicensed manufacturers of ghost gun kits that would go out of business if the ATF's rule goes into effect is 42 of 43, according to attorney Peter Patterson. And last but not least, our Have a Nice Day story. When Nashkote was undergoing
Starting point is 00:31:02 chemotherapy to treat a rare form of cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma, he decorated his radiation mask to resemble Deadpool from the Marvel movie franchise. It just so happened that Nash's mom, Angie Poirier, an Ottawa TV broadcaster, and Ryan Reynolds, who plays Deadpool, follow each other on X. And when Poirier sent Reynolds a picture of Nash in a Deadpool mask, Reynolds said he wanted to meet. They organized a surprise get-together at Nash's hospital in Boston, which included a call with Wolverine actor Hugh Jackman. National Post has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always,
Starting point is 00:31:44 if you'd like to support our work, please go to readtangle.com and sign up for a membership. And don't forget that today is the last day for our 50% off discount for newsletter subscribers who want to sign up for premium podcasts. So if you've been on the fence at all for signing up for the newsletter or the podcast, this is the best day to do it.
Starting point is 00:32:02 You'll get the daily newsletter, Friday editions, the Sunday newsletter, as well as ad-free premium podcasts, which include the daily podcasts, Friday editions, Sunday editions with Ari and Isaac, bonus content that's going to be coming out, new podcasts, you name it. We're going to have it on our premium podcast platform, and it's all going to be ad-free. So again, if you haven't already, you can go to readtangle.com to sign up for a newsletter membership, and then you'll get your code for the premium podcast membership. And for those of you who are just interested in just the podcast alone, we do have a deal on that too. So you can head over to tanglemedia.supercast.com and you can sign up for a membership there and get our launch discount. But again, it's the last day. So hop on it, folks. Premium listeners will
Starting point is 00:32:44 get to hear Isaac tomorrow for the Friday edition. They'll hear Isaac and Ari together for the Sunday podcast, and I will return on Monday. For the rest of the crew, this is John Wall signing off. Have a fantastic weekend, y'all. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by John Wall. The script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. If you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check
Starting point is 00:33:25 out our website.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.