During the current fiscal year, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives under the Biden government has been working harder to stop gun sellers.
The Wall Street Journal said that the ATF had taken away the licenses of 122 gun sellers across the country since October. This is the most licenses that have ever been taken away. The bureau took away 90 licenses this past year. Under the two former presidents, the number of licenses that were taken away never went over 81.
In 2021, the Biden government put in place a new strategy called “zero tolerance” for gun dealers. According to papers obtained by Fox News Digital, the guidelines said that the agency “has a zero-tolerance policy for intentional violations that have a big impact on public safety as well as the ATF’s ability to track down guns found at the scene of violent crimes.” The guideline further states that when infractions are discovered, “revocation” of licenses “is expected action.”
Last month, the ATF was sued by the Gun Owners of America. GOA said that the government was trying to “use ATF’s bureaucracy as a weapon against the whole Second Amendment sector.”
Anthony Navarro, a gun salesman whose business was hurt by the policy, informed the WSJ, “We used to make $1 million a year, but now we make less than $100,000.”
“This policy is meant to violate the Second Amendment in a sneaky way,” Navarro said.
Navarro’s license was taken away last year because he had broken the law three times since 2009. He said that the letters were sent out because customers made mistakes on background check applications that did not stop them from buying guns.
In 2020, inspectors discovered more problems, like not reporting multiple sales and not keeping records of some deals. Navarro says that he was the one who found out that an employee was concealing forms and told the ATF about the problems.
A former deputy assistant director named Peter Forcelli advised the WSJ that gun sellers are the ATF’s “first point of defense to stop gun trafficking.”
“Why are we now trying to force a friend to give up?” Forcelli asked.
Kristina Mastropasqua, a spokeswoman for the ATF, said, “Federal Firearms Licensees frequently serve as our initial line for defense toward gun crime, and they are commonly a source of important enforcement knowledge which helps law enforcement find straw buyers and stop plans to traffic guns.”
“FFLs that break the law on purpose, on the other hand, must be held responsible. ATF does inspections to make sure licensees are following all local, state, and federal laws and rules and to teach licensees about specific demands of these laws and rules,” said Mastropasqua.
