The Biden era was a dark time in America, and not just because no one knows who was really running the country. POTATUS sure wasn't. That's obvious, and since the end of that administration, plenty of people have confirmed what our eyes clearly told us.
For gun rights, it was worse. Sure, the Bipartsan Safer Communities Act passed, and that was bad, but the administration did plenty via executive action that was arguably worse.
On Friday, I wrote what might be my favorite story of all time.
I wrote about Patrick "Tate" Adamiak being pardoned. I won't lie, I actually teared up a bit at the news, because that young man never deserved what happened to him, and neither did at least one other who had been pardoned.
The Sunday after he decided to accept a federal plea offer, in which he agreed to plead guilty to one count of selling ammunition to a prohibited person, Pastor Russell Fincher submitted his resignation to the board of his small Oklahoma church, but the board refused to accept his resignation.
“You didn’t change,” he recalls one board member told him. “The government changed.”
Pastor Fincher has continued to preach the gospel to his small flock ever since.
“They kept me going,” Fincher said Tuesday. “God told me the whole time: ‘You trust me.’”
Like Patrick “Tate” Adamiak and others, Fincher was the victim of Joe Biden’s ATF.
He recalls the hellish day in 2023 when a dozen ATF agents wearing tactical gear and carrying AR-15s stormed into his home.
In the end, Fincher entered a plea agreement where he pleaded guilty to two felonies in exchange for probation instead of prison.
Months later, a federal grand jury issued a three-count indictment charging Fincher with two felonies and one misdemeanor:
Count one: Engaging in the business of dealing firearms without a license, a felony.
Count two: Selling ammunition to a prohibited person, a felony.
Count three: Making false entry in records by a federal firearms dealer, a misdemeanor.
Count one makes no sense, considering he had an FFL.
The second makes no sense because, while that might be criminal to knowingly sell ammo to a felon, Fincher lived and operated out of his home in Oklahoma, where there's no background check required for ammunition.
I'm not sure about the third, nor do I care, because it was clear from what Fincher told folks after his arrest that the ATF had declared war on American gun dealers. They literally told him to tell his buddies they were coming after them; that they were going to shut down gun shows.
No wonder anti-gunners are so butt-hurt that the ATF isn't marching to their tune anymore.
Fincher was pardoned the same day as Adamiak, and he should have been. This is insane, and we all know it.
The federal authorities have long screwed the pooch over enforcing the gun laws that exist, and Fincher is really just lucky they didn't end up killing him like they did Brian Malinowski in Arkansas or Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge.
He's lucky his house didn't become the Branch Davidian compound in Waco.
Today, he's pardoned. The teachers' union that threatened to kick him out because he's a felon no longer has those grounds — though I do find it fascinating that they were going to kick him out, yet push for policies that ultimately protect teachers who engage in sexual misconduct. Weird, isn't it?
Luckily, that's over. That dark chapter is done, and Fincher has a new lease on, well, everything.
I respect the hell out of his church for refusing to turn its back on the man most in need of his church home. That is how you act as a Christian, made all the easier by the fact that it was clear he did nothing wrong.
