BATFE, Firearm Importation & Federal Firearm Law Reform
Among its duties, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) monitors firearm manufacturers, importers and dealers for compliance with record-keeping requirements; conducts traces on the commercial paths of individual firearms at the request of law enforcement agencies; interprets firearm importation law; and administers transfers of firearms regulated by the National Firearm Act of 1934.
The BATFE was used by the Clinton administration to reduce the number of firearm dealers, and by the administrations of presidents G. H. W. Bush and Clinton to restrict “assault weapons” by misinterpreting firearm importation law. The agency’s tracing data, sometimes useful in identifying persons involved in illegally trafficking firearms, have been mischaracterized by gun control supporters in the context of their campaigns against “Saturday Night Specials” and “assault weapons,” and in favor of making state gun laws more restrictive.
BATFE has been widely criticized for its role in the “Ruby Ridge” and “Waco” tragedies, and Operation Fast and Furious, in which the agency knowingly allowed firearms to be bought by straw purchasers and other traffickers, and thereafter smuggled from the United States to Mexico, where they made their way to violent drug cartels.
Monday, March 7, 2022
On February 28, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (“ATF”) denied approximately 850 Form 1 applications ...
Monday, February 7, 2022
Gun owners were understandably concerned to learn this week that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ...
Monday, January 24, 2022
We all knew who the finger-pointers and tattletales were in junior high school. A disproportionate number of them, ...
Tuesday, January 18, 2022
On January 3, the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it would be finalizing a new rule on firearm storage ...
Monday, January 10, 2022
On December 23, ATF launched a new system for applicants to complete various forms that ATF is responsible ...
Monday, December 20, 2021
Since leading anti-gun researchers acknowledged no connection between the 2020 surge in firearms sales and violence, unscrupulous anti-gun ...
Tuesday, December 7, 2021
This is the season of holiday festivities, family gatherings, and retrospectives. We don’t operate on seasons, though. Gun ...
Monday, December 6, 2021
Last week, the Sixth Circuit failed to achieve the majority necessary to correct the ATF’s shifting classifications of bump ...
Tuesday, November 16, 2021
In recent weeks, Americans have rightly become concerned over a somewhat obscure ATF recordkeeping regulation that has a profound impact ...
Monday, October 4, 2021
Disgraced Biden nominee to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), David Chipman, seems determined ...
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