Posted on 08/12/2022 1:41:13 PM PDT by absalom01
Master gunsmith James Morrison founded JM Gun Repair 46 years ago, after doing gun repairs in his garage.
The gun shop has been a local institution ever since, offering firearms, black powder and reloading gear, ammunition including hard-to-find calibers and James’ incredible skills as a master gunsmith with 50 years of experience.
The business is perfectly located, straddling the county line between Sarasota and Bradenton, Florida. “This has been a family legacy for 46 years,” said James’ grandson, Noah Morrison. His father and uncle work at the shop too.
Noah, who just turned 21, dreamed of becoming the third generation of Morrisons to operate this family business. However, his dreams were dashed when George Hancock, an ATF Industry Operations Investigator, known as an IOI, walked into the shop, at around the same time Joe Biden announced his war on “rogue” gun dealers.
“During the audit, he found faults in our paperwork,” Noah said. “In in the past, for these types of minor faults, an auditor would have just handed us a pen and told us to fix them.”
Noah’s father Benwayne Morrison, agrees.
“These were clerical errors, but they changed the definition,” he said. “Under their new definition, they said our violations were willful. After 46 years we never gave a gun to someone who shouldn’t have it, but that didn’t matter. None of the violations were on Biden’s ‘rogue’ gun dealer list.”
Benwayne Morrison and his son, Noah Morrison. (SAF-IJP photo)
Joe Biden first announced his zero-tolerance policy in June 2021. Part of his scheme included five criteria, which he claimed defined a rogue dealer:
1.) transferring a firearm to a prohibited person
2.) failing to run a required background check
3.) falsifying records, such as a firearms transaction form
4.) failing to respond to an ATF tracing request
5.) refusing to permit ATF to conduct an inspection in violation of the law
However, the ATF is revoking licenses for the most minor of errors – errors not on Biden’s five-point list. As a result, a special report we published in May revealed that FFL revocations increased a staggering 500 percent.
Effective Aug. 23, JM Gun Repair can no longer transfer or sell firearms. The family intends to keep the shop open, selling ammunition, reloading and black powder supplies, gear and other accessories, but not guns or even gunsmithing services. They posted a note on their website announcing the changes.
“Our family legacy is gone,” Benwayne said. “My father started this business. A master gunsmith is a rare breed. He can tell you the details about a gun made 100 years ago. He’s still sharp as a tack. Our family was screwed over by the ATF.”
The worst part for him and his family is that there was no way to appeal the ATF’s order.
There was no due process.
Benwayne contacted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office, but was told since it was a federal matter, he should contact Florida Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott. Benwayne never received a response from Scott’s office. One of Rubio’s assistants told him to send more information, but he has not heard back.
Both Benwayne and Noah believe there is another, unspoken reason why the ATF is revoking hundreds of FFLs. Any time a gun shop closes or is ordered out of business, they must mail years of records to the ATF.
“They’re building a gun registry, and that’s illegal,” Benwayne said. “If you want to build a registry, the easiest way to do it is to have gun dealers supply their records. That’s the quickest way for them to find out who has what kind of guns. If they shut down a 46-year-old store that’s had thousands of sales, all of a sudden, they’ve got a lot of records.”
Neither Jason Medina, public information officer for ATF’s Tampa Field Division, nor Aaron Gerber, the Division’s Director of Industry Operations, returned calls seeking comment for this story.
It’s clear that the Biden-Harris administration believes if they eliminate all the gun dealers, they will eliminate all the guns. But since there is only a handful of actual rogue dealers out of the 50,000 licensed gun dealers doing business in the country, the administration had to devise another tactic. As a result, they came up with the “willful” scheme.
Now, even the most insignificant clerical error is a “willful” violation, which means the dealer is a rogue, and their license is quickly revoked. The ATF was happy to play along, since they’ve always been more than willing to bend over for the White House, regardless of the constitutionality of the request.
The two hallmarks of the Morrison family business have always been safety and family. Benwayne used to train Boy Scouts. His father taught hunter safety classes. They educate every first-time gun buyer before they leave the shop.
“My parents could have retired years ago, but they wanted to keep the business going for their children and their grandchildren,” Benwayne said. “It’s frustrating to me that now my son Noah is old enough to be part of the family business, but he can’t. We’ve always been a law-abiding shop. We’ve done our best for nearly a half century to educate the public and keep the public safe. So, if they can do this to us, they can do this to anybody.”
Destroy a Democrat today and everyday.
Any time a gun shop closes or is ordered out of business, they must mail years of records to the ATF.
Destroy the records..we are not supposed to have a Federal Registry.
” “The worst part for him and his family is that there was no way to appeal the ATF’s order.”
From the article you didn’t read.”
**************************************
Right, so give up, there’s no hope, the government is always right.
Right?
BS.
There might not be a formal appeals procedure within the framework of the ATF who is making the decision, but that doesn’t mean that as a matter of law, a federal court can’t find that the policies and actions of a given governmental agent/group are illegal, unfair, unconstitutional, overreaching, etc. The US Supreme Court just did rule on something similar, how congress was turning its legislative authority over to non-elected governmental offices and allowing them to make rules and laws, illegally. It might not be exactly the same situation, but the parallel is there. If nothing else, it is taking away something of value of a citizen without due process, and that sounds like a constitutional issue for sure! It is definitely something that needs to be attempted, an appeal to a federal court to step in and stop this action, beyond the other necessary step of voting good guys in so that the ATF and others can be reformed/controlled/replaced with a legal fair system.
Congress shall make no law...prohibiting...the right of the people...to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.U.S. Const., amend. I.
We have the right to redress government.
Just more unconstitutional b.s. from the Left that the Right acquiesces to. Challenge unconstitutional government acts and laws anywhere and everywhere you can.
And use that argument to petition the Supreme Court where somebody's actually paying attention to the Constitution as written and originally understood and intended.
Note my screen name?
This has been going on ever since BATFE (ATF to most folk) got a big budget increase.
They also go after dealers for failing to adhere to new “Regulations” they were never informed of, “Regulations” that have been changed, and of course it seems many definitions are subjective.
Like the IRS asking for advice is futile, each agent asked will have a different answer.
Some agents see putting small dealers out of business as their primary mission.
Some are flaming anti-RKBA apparatchiks.
All the old time ATF agents who were sensible have retired or been kicked upstairs to make space for the new anti-2A drones.
Few noticed or cared about this unless it affected them personally.
Guess what?
Now that the IRS is about to become the largest Fed. agency in the US EVERYONE will get the same sort of treatment!
Welcome to the new Fascist America.
That will get you prison time.
Congress shall make no law...prohibiting...the right of the people...to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.U.S. Const., amend. I.
We have the right to redress government.
Just more unconstitutional b.s. from the Left that the Right acquiesces to. Challenge unconstitutional government acts and laws anywhere and everywhere you can.
And use that argument to petition the Supreme Court where somebody's actually paying attention to the Constitution as written and originally understood and intended.
Indeed. The Enemy is walking freely among us and we sit back and do nothing.
How much more do we tolerate?
The enemy has been trying to disarm us from the very beginning.
“Jim Crow” gun control, OK Corral was about gun confiscation, NFA-34, GCA-68, and all the trash pushed through since are ALL clearly unconstitutional infringements of our 2A.
For serious researchers I suggest NFAOA.ORG
Lots of ATF’s dirty doings are documented there.
He did.
Little Marco ignored him.
Rick Scott at least asked for more info, but they have not heard back.
Couple of problems with that.
First is that litigation is expensive. Not like buying a house expensive, but more like buying a small cull-de-sac expensive.
Second is that there isn’t, at present, a court that will hear the case as an appeal. This is a huge problem, and IMHO a violation of due process and the constitution, but my opinion and five bucks will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
Correct
“This unconstitutional Administrative State needs to come to heel”
I agree. This is most likely an illegal bureaucratic diktat that the fascist thugs made up. The diktat has no congressional authority, thus making it illegal. The gun shop needs to lawyer up.
Sell a gun to Hunter, did they?
What, isn’t freedom from unjust government tyranny worth it?
Our Founders sure thought so. Where are the freedom fighters today?
We can beat this guys with a will and determination to win that at least matches their determination to take us down.
“Congress shall make no law...prohibiting...the right of the people...to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
U.S. Const., amend. I.
We have the right to redress government.
Just more unconstitutional b.s. from the Left that the Right acquiesces to. Challenge unconstitutional government acts and laws anywhere and everywhere you can.
And use that argument to petition the Supreme Court where somebody’s actually paying attention to the Constitution as written and originally understood and intended.
Here’s how to make them heel.
“Congress shall make no law...prohibiting...the right of the people...to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
U.S. Const., amend. I.
We have the right to redress government.
Just more unconstitutional b.s. from the Left that the Right acquiesces to. Challenge unconstitutional government acts and laws anywhere and everywhere you can.
And use that argument to petition the Supreme Court where somebody’s actually paying attention to the Constitution as written and originally understood and intended.
Just more unconstitutional b.s. from the Left that the Right acquiesces to. Challenge unconstitutional government acts and laws anywhere and everywhere you can.
Totally agree. The open question is with regard to tactics and methods. It takes work, and to date, the RKBA movement has been marked by a small number of hard working, dedicated patriots, and a large number of people content to offer stern pronouncements of how folks should simply ignore the enemy's unconstitutional edicts. The January 6th defendants have found that the regime is more than willing to use the power of the state to force compliance with its agenda, constitution or no.
Still, there remains, IMHO, a political path that should be fully pursued. This November marks an unusual opportunity to send some RINO's packing, and lay the groundwork for regaining our God-given rights.
But it's going to be a long slog, and take a lot of work.
You got your senators ass-backwards...Rubio’s office asked for more info.
These poor souls are lucky the ATF didn’t just kill the whole family and call it a day.
(A repeat story)
When Obama announced “under the radar” gun control he sent his ATF goons out to all the machine shops in the region in which I live. This was when the 80% lower builds were getting popular. Some sketchy goon visited all the machine shops asking if they could “rent” machine time or pay to finish their lowers. After telling the person to leave, a few days later, a pair of ATF agents came to my shop and “wanted to have a look around” because they heard I was making guns. I told them hell no and threatened to call the sheriff for trespassing. They did the usual, “if you have nothing to hide you won’t mind. Why are you being so defensive?” I locked the door and eventually they went away.
All the other shops let these bastard enforcers wander around their shops. They never came back to my shop.
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