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Immediate Action Needed – Window Closes Tuesday!!
Copy the text of the email below or rewrite it in your own words and email it to:
Barbara.Terrell@atf.gov
The comment period has been extended for the ATF’s proposed “temporary,” emergency regulation requiring firearms dealers to file reports every time someone purchases more than one semi-auto long gun, but that comment period closes this Tuesday, February 15.
The ATF claims the reporting is necessary to combat the flow of firearms across the border into Mexico, but recent revelations and accusations raise significant questions about ATF’s motives and the efficacy of such a reporting requirement.
In what has been dubbed “Project Gunwalker” ATF is accused of allowing hundreds of AR and AK- type rifles to be sold in questionable sales and smuggled across the border – including two rifles recovered after a shootout with bandits on the border in which Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed.
The implications of the Project Gunwalker scandal are that ATF has already been receiving significant, voluntary cooperation from gun dealers in the border states, but that the agency has used that cooperation more to build support for their Project Gunrunner interdiction program and justify the need for the emergency reporting regulation by inflating the numbers of illegally “trafficked” weapons tracked across the border.
Beyond the complications of Project Gunwalker, the idea of requiring reporting of multiple long gun sales is clearly in conflict with established congressional mandates and restrictions on ATF’s authority.
Back in 1968 when the federal Gun Control Act was passed Congress included a requirement that multiple sales of handguns be reported to ATF and local law enforcement. At that time, and several times since, Congress has had the opportunity to include multiple sales of long guns in the reporting requirements and they have chosen not to do so. Congress has also passed several resolutions and included language in laws restricting ATF and other government agencies from instituting any sort of registration program or collecting detailed information from firearms sales without a direct connection to a specific criminal investigation. By attempting to push through this major regulatory change without congressional approval, ATF is seriously overstepping their legal authority.
Here is a sample letter which we ask you to copy and paste into an email or use as a template for writing a letter of your own to email in response to this proposal.
To: barbara.terrell@atf.gov
Subject: Oppose Regulation Expanding Multiple Sale Reporting
I am writing to oppose the so called emergency regulation to register multiple sales of certain rifles with BATFE as described in FR Doc. 2010-31761 from the 12/17/2010 Federal Register. http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/2010-31761.pdf
This regulation is both illegal and unnecessary. Further there is no justification for any “emergency” implementation as reported by the Washington Post:
White House delayed rule meant to stop gun flow to Mexico, Washington Post, Dec. 17, 2010, On-line edition:
( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/17/AR2010121706598.html ).
* The regulation proposed is outside the statutory grant of authority to record information about multiple sales of firearms. Title 18 U.S.C. § 923(g)(3)(A) specifically grants the authority to collect multiple sale information on handguns and revolvers. Other firearms are excluded and there is no implied authority to extend this reporting requirement to rifles or any other type of firearm.
* “FFL” holders are already required by law to respond to BATFE requests for information on firearms distribution pursuant to criminal investigations: Title 18 U.S.C. § 923(g)(7).
* The regulation contains no provision for the destruction of information collected, which establishes a nationwide registry of “certain types of firearms” as proposed. Because of this the regulation as proposed is illegal under Title 18 U.S.C. § 926(a). “No such rule or regulation . may require that records required to be maintained under this chapter or any portion of the contents of such records, be recorded at or transferred to a facility owned, managed, or controlled by the United States or any State or any political subdivision thereof, nor that any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or disposition be established.”
There is a grave potential for this regulation to unduly burden citizens who are collectors or must obtain purchase permits at the local or state level to possess firearms. The proposed regulation does not say what the agency intends to do with the information but ostensibly it would be for criminal investigations. Subjecting law abiding gun owners to this type of investigation under the guise of “information collection” is an overt attempt to prevent them from exercising their 2nd Amendment rights to purchase and own firearms.
* This regulatory action has not allowed the public sufficient time to comment.
This regulatory action should not be approved.
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Whether you use this specific language, edit it, or compose a letter of your own, please take action immediately! Do not put off sending a comment!
Comments must be received by Tuesday February 15, 2011 and it would be better if they were received by Monday, February 14.
Let’s send ATF a Valentine’s Day present!
Please Send Your Comments Immediately!
Thank you for your Action!
Jeff Knox
Director, The Firearms Coalition
www.FirearmsCoalition.org
