ATF Goes Around Congress: Publishes Universal Background Check Rule

Breitbart ^ | August 31, 2023 | AWR HAWKINS

[lowbridge]

President Joe Biden’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) announced a proposed rule Thursday requiring universal background checks, which Congress has rejected for more than 20 years.

On August 2, 2023, Breitbart News reported Gun Owners of America’s (GOA) warning that Biden was working behind the scenes to use executive action to secure universal background checks.

GOA’s warning came the same day Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) urged the Biden Administration to act under the auspices of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to “issue and [make] effective” more regulations on gun sales.

On August 5, 2023, Breitbart News noted that Gabby Giffords’ gun control group, Giffords, was cheering the anticipated executive action for universal background checks.

On Thursday, the Department of Justice/ATF announced the rule is being published for public comment.

In a press release that accompanied the announcement of the proposed rule, Attorney General Merrick Garland said:

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was passed by Congress to reduce gun violence, including by expanding the background checks that keep guns out of the hands of criminals. This proposed rule implements Congress’s mandate to expand the definition of who must obtain a license and conduct a background check before selling firearms.

[lowbridge]

ATF director Steve Dettelbach said, “This new proposed rule would clarify the circumstances in which a person is ‘engaged in the business’ of dealing in firearms, and thus required to obtain a license and follow the laws Congress has established for firearms dealers.”

The ATF’s rule will redefine language so that there is not simply a category of Americans buying and selling guns from and to one another — as they have done since 1791 — and a category of Federal Firearms Licensed holders (FFLs) selling guns at retail. Rather, every seller will have to prove he is not trying to make a profit, or he will be required to ensure the purchaser undergoes a background check before taking possession of the firearm.

For example, the proposed rule states:

Consistent with the Gun Control Act (“GCA”) and existing regulations, the proposed rule also defines the term “personal collection” to clarify when persons are not “engaged in the business” because they make only occasional sales to enhance a personal collection, or for a hobby, or if the firearms they sell are all or part of a personal collection. This proposed rule further addresses the lawful ways in which former licensees, and responsible persons acting on behalf of such licensees, may liquidate business inventory upon revocation or other termination of their license.

[Steely Tom]

The Left does what it wants. It knows the MSM will back it up, creating the illusion of moral superiority, the impression that whatever the Left wants is being done with the best of intentions, and anyone who objects is doing so from fear or bigotry.

This is what is meant by “the power of media supremacy.”

[packagingguy]

In our “precious democracy” we can’t let the people’s elected representatives make the rules.

[VTenigma]

Laws? We don’t need no stinkeen laws.

[Parley Baer]

So, the Biden administration is now making its own laws. Who needs Congress.

[Starboard]

No need for them to go around congress when they can just drive straight through it.

[BobL]

Who needs democracy when you have judges!

[rktman]

Who’s gonna stop them?

[Chad C. Mulligan]

“Rule by Decree is the only way to save our democracy”.

[Skywise]

Ok that’s it - shut this government down - NOW.

This is an outright unconstitutional action by a corrupt regime.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Impossible to enforce without a national registry. Nobody is going to adhere to this rule on private sales. I wouldn’t ever do it. 😏

[Tupelo]

Now that Biden’s puppet master has assumed control, all congress is there for is to rubber stamp executive orders. Congress or congressCritter objects, who cares.Is this constitutional? No one in Washington really cares. Supreme Court? How many divisions do they have?

[cowboyusa]

Sue immediately.

[SheepWhisperer]

can a seller include inflation to account for alleged “profit” from date of original purchase to date of sale?
...probably not. A man could get audited by one of the 87,000 new gun toting IRess agents for being reasonable.

[G Larry]

Under what authority?

[DownInFlames]

The end of congress and our republic.

[Boogieman]

Background check *this*.

[SpaceBar]

It's been a long slide folks. The post-Vietnam economic doldrums with Carter and cultural wasteland gave us Reagan which was an upturn in national vigor across the board. He handed the ball to Bush Sr who embroiled us in that hornet's nest called the middle-east at enormous cost which ushered in the era of Clinton. As bad as government was at that point, it became fully sinister and weaponized when Bill moved his miserable shrew lawyer wife into the White House. Bill capitalized on the end of the cold war and the software and later the dot-com revolutions, but the nature of the chief executive had been 'Clintonized'. Bush was supposed to bring some semblance of sanity back, but embroiled us yet again in the aforementioned hornet's nest, expanded the government in the spying/surveillance/espionage departments, then America voted in Hussein... twice with disastrous results and a further weaponizing of government, again Trump was supposed to right-the-ship back to sanity-land, the 2020 election was rife with flaws sufficient to throw it out and re-do it, but no, the deep state is the top criminal enterprise in the pecking order. So now under Joe The Absent, they float total stazi-like police state surveillance on all citizens with a shuffle of papers and a room full of muffled 'aye's. That should terrify any normal rational person and paradoxically nor should it really surprise anyone.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner.