This egregious action also greatly expands the number of people who will need a Federal Firearm License (FFL) to sell weapons.
And it’s under the auspices of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), which was supported by many lawmakers who should have known better. It has acted as a Trojan Horse for the administration to interpret as broadly as humanly possible to strip away Second Amendment rights.
Amazingly, many lawmakers supposedly committed to gun rights fell in line with this legislation. It’s as though they did not believe that an administration that loudly proclaims its opposition to gun rights would take advantage of the new law to go after those very rights.
Part of the BSCA changed the definition of a firearms dealer from “with the principal objective of livelihood and profit” to the murkier “to predominantly earn a profit.”
The White House press release attempted to define who will be determined to be “engaged in the business” and thus require an FFL. These are the same FFLs that the administration is currently revoking for the flimsiest of paperwork errors.
The criteria are as follows:
“Offer for sale any number of firearms and also represents to potential buyers that they are willing and able to purchase and sell them additional firearms.”
“Repetitively offer for sale firearms within 30 days after they were purchased.”
“Repetitively offer for sale firearms that are like new in their original packaging.”
“Repetitively offer for sale multiple firearms of the same make and model.”
“As a former federally licensed firearms dealer, sell firearms that were in the business inventory and not transferred to a personal collection at least a year before the sale, addressing the so-called “fire sale loophole.”
A major proponent of the proposed rule is that an individual would be determined to intend to “predominantly earn a profit.” This would apply to those who have a website or business cards, maintain records, purchase insurance or rent space at a gun show.
The administration, among other things, is clearly intent on closing the mythical “gun show loophole” or “internet loophole.”
And the potential penalties are draconian.
If the proposal is adopted by the ATF after the 90-day comment period, it will set fines for violators up to $250,000 and a federal prison sentence of as much as five years.
Second Amendment advocacy group Gun Owners of America immediately came out against the ATF proposal. Senior Vice President Erich Pratt issued a statement blasting the egregious overreach of the agency.
“First, they said five guns, but now, anyone who sells a single firearm in a given year and makes even a penny of profit will be subject to dealer requirements, including a background check. People need to realize this is just the next step in the anti-gunner’s longform playbook to enact backdoor universal registration of firearms, and eventually, to confiscate all firearms. They will not stop until that day.”
Pratt could not be more correct. The endgame is the same — to strip away gun rights and ultimately guns from law-abiding American citizens.
It is under the auspices of attacking violent crime, but all this new rule will do is create a new class of criminal. Those who violently prey on the innocent will not be deterred by yet another federal regulation, nor will a single one now be subject to a criminal background check.
Instead, it will be business as usual for those the government should be targeting. Only those who obey the law will suffer.
