(RepublicanNews.org) – The ATF’s history of ruling by decree continued on August 31st with the agency publishing a new rule system for classifying who qualifies as a gun dealer. With no protest being heard from the Biden administration, the new changes will see background checks massively expanded to cover nearly all firearm exchanges.
Pro Second Amendment lobbying group, the National Association for Gun Rights, has been in a decade-old battle to ban universal background checks. President Dudley Brown says the ATF is “playing definition games” as part of the “U.S. code.” Their endgame is to ban person-to-person sales, he says.
Private firearm sales have historically been unencumbered barring certain regional and local restrictions. Classified listing sites for gun owners are not at all uncommon and exchanges are arranged and made at any number of locations without background checks being required.
What opponents of private sales generally refer to as “the gun show loophole” does not negate the fact that private sales in the parking lots of those shows remain legal. The ATF’s new rule seeks to force background checks on already law-abiding citizens by reclassifying a private gun owner as a gun dealer. Gun dealers are subject to certain transfer requirements, including the recording of serial numbers.
Opponents say that the filing of serial numbers into a registry will lead to bureaucrats in Washington having a list of who owns what. A future potential confiscation then becomes far easier to implement. The NAGR’s President calls the registry the “not so hidden” goal of anti-gun proponents in Washington.
Brown went on to reference the ATF’s 90-day comment rule, which the agency has a history of adding to any new decree they pass and which many view as hypocritical. He points out that regardless of any public or legislator comments, ATF bureaucrats are not obligated to change their policies and rarely do.
Brown said the NAGR is currently exploring legal options against the agency.
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