BATFE is executive branch. They don't need much encouragement, if any, to draw up and enforce ludicrous rules. FBI likewise. Their job is to round up and persecute people, the more the merrier.
Congress is happy to sit on the sidelines with one part of the chamber carping and the other part cheering. "Nothing we can do about it," and the courts like convictions as much as anybody in the thug government.
I have the feeling Democrats are trying to create the domestic terrorists they’ve already been talking about.