Posted on 08/11/2011 5:35:44 AM PDT by marktwain
Federal lawmakers are backing lawsuits against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) following the introduction of new gun registration requirements in several border states. The lawsuits, supported by the National Rifle Association, aim to stop the ATF from compelling firearms sellers to report multiple purchases.
“The ATF has no authority to track the purchases of law-abiding gun owners and the Second Amendment Task Force applauds the lawsuit to stop this effort,” Georgia Republican Rep. Paul Broun told The Daily Caller. The task force is a 13-member, bipartisan group of lawmakers established in 2009. Broun is its co-chair.
“Stopping ATF’s continued pattern of infringing on that right will certainly remain a high priority of our group,” said Broun.
In mid-July, the ATF instituted new registration requirements for gun sellers in four border states — New Mexico, Arizona, California and Texas — that have been at the center of the bureau’s Project Gun Runner and Operation Fast and Furious controversies. Under the direction of the White House, the ATF will now require the registration of anyone purchasing more than five long rifles within a five-day period, or the purchase of more than one high-powered rifle.
The ATF had been allowing so-called “straw purchasers” of such weapons to complete their transactions and transport the firearms to Mexico as part of a gun-trafficking sting operation. That operation was halted following the shooting death of a border patrol agent by drug traffickers, and after huge caches of guns were sent across the Mexican border.
Last Thursday, the nation’s most powerful gun lobby helped file lawsuits in several of those border states. Now, congressmen are rallying behind the suits and calling for the ATF to stand down or face financial penalties.
While the NRA attempts to halt ATF’s new requirements with a lawsuit, Broun said his task force has already laid the groundwork to curb the ATF’s budget. In February, Montana Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg and Oklahoma Democrat Rep. Dan Boren successfully amended the 2012 Commerce, Justice and Science House Appropriations bill to prevent the ATF from using federal funds to carry out the new requirements.
“The ATF has no legal authority to demand these reports,” said Boren after the successfully including the amendment. “[A]s recently as [fall 2010], ATF claimed that a reporting requirement for long guns ‘may require a change to the Gun Control Act’, and yet with this new regulation they are trying to circumvent doing just that. That’s because they know there is not enough support in Congress to approve this change to the Gun Control Act.”
Utah Rep. and task force member Rob Bishop told TheDC that the new requirements were “puzzling,” and echoed statements he made to The Daily Beast in July, when he said, “Going only through executive action is not good for [Barack Obama's] relationship with Congress…Those ideas are going to have a great deal of comments and can be abused especially if done by executive order.”
The appropriations bill featuring the amendment must be passed by September 2011 and would bar the ATF from implementing the new requirements in any way, shape or form — including volunteer efforts by the department — according to an aide familiar with the legislation, who said there have been few objections on Capitol Hill.
As for the lawsuits, NRA executive director Chris Cox called the ATF’s actions a “blatant” attempt to circumvent the lawmaking process.
“When the president wants to pass a universal healthcare bill, he goes to Congress. When he wants to raise the debt ceiling, he goes to Congress,” Cox told TheDC. “But when he wants to pass his gun control agenda, there’s no congressional support, so he does an end-run.”
Attorney General Eric Holder said the Department of Justice will “vigorously oppose” the NRA-backed lawsuits. The DOJ declined to comment further when contacted by TheDC.
As for the lawsuits, NRA executive director Chris Cox called the ATF’s actions a “blatant” attempt to circumvent the lawmaking process.It's SOP for the Obama regime.
This is why so many laws turn into millions of unforeseen regulations and the American people are sick and tired of the governments jack-booted thugs standing on their necks without any lawful authority, simply a memo put out by anti-gun zealots, and communist who want to disarm the American people and who hate this country and the people who made it the greatest country in the world!
In this case, the Constitution protects the American people's natural God given right to “keep and bear arms” and the government is maliciously circumventing and denying Americans that protected right in at least four (4) states that we are aware of! This denial is a crime and why those who are involved are not in jail and charged with denying Americans their protected rights reveals to us just how far out of touch the US government is and why it is so important we elect a President who will rein in this out of control government and bring it back under the limitations found in the Constitution!
The NRA is one of the best memberships available in the USA. They work for us and get things accomplished in the District of Corruption.
“...In this case, the Constitution protects the American people’s natural God given right to “keep and bear arms” and the government is maliciously circumventing and denying Americans that protected right...”
You stated the problem right there.
The libs don’t believe in God; don’t believe that ANY right is God-given. Therefore, government gives/grants/takes away etc.
We will never be able to change their thinking on that issue.
But what we CAN do, short of all-out war, is to stand together, and do everything humanly possible to prevent these lunatics from ever getting any kind of control over us and the country again.
And truth be told, it may already be too late to avoid all-out war. They’ve pushed and pushed and pushed, and we kept backing up, drawing a new line, compromising away bits and pieces of our rights that good men DIED for.
So we are we are because we, being tolerant, decent, fair-minded people who believe in giving the other guy the benefit of the doubt, let ourselves be pushed into the corner we now find ourselves in.
“...so important we elect a President who will rein in this out of control government and bring it back under the limitations found in the Constitution!...”
A single President won’t be able to do. It’s a start, but it takes Congressmen who actually have morals and principles and who aren’t afraid of being called “racist!!!” and who make the tough decisions concerning where and how money is spent; it takes judges with integrity who take a REAL, objective look at some of the stupid laws on the books and make it a mission to get rid of the onerous ones.
And lastly, it takes an educated, informed, civic-minded Citizenry that understands what is at stake - a Citizenry that isn’t staring at “American Idol” or Oprah, that isn’t half composed of a mass of drooling liberal idiots that think other peoples’ money belongs to them because it’s not “fair” that someone else has something that was earned.
I don’t think we can overcome that last part, at least not peacefully. It’s too far gone.
We have your back my fellow American always!
82nd ABN 1/508th BN
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