Biden and ATF just created 29 million felons
Story by Paul Bedard, Washington Examiner, 6/9/23
In a national revolt that rivals the Boston Tea Party, all but a handful of gun owners targeted by President Joe Biden have decided to protest the administration’s sweeping rule to regulate one of the most popular and freely owned firearms ever made.
The owners of just 0.6% to 1% of AR-15-style pistols have complied with a May 31 deadline set by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to register their firearms. By failing to do so, the owners of an estimated 20 million-40 million guns could face 10 years in prison, a $10,000 fine, or both.
According to ATF spokesman Erik Longnecker, “As of June 1, 2023, ATF received 255,162 applications for tax-free registration.”
If you take the median number of guns in use, said John Lott Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, “you are still talking about 29 million people who are technically committing felonies at this point.”
That makes it the biggest pro-gun protest ever, bigger than the 4% who complied with a New York law to register AR-15-style rifles and pistols and the 13% in Connecticut who registered their semi-automatic weapons. It’s even bigger than the refusal by 98% in Connecticut to register bullet-holding magazines.
Still, said Stephen Gutowski, founder of the authoritative gun blog The Reload, “The low compliance rate shouldn’t come as a surprise. Americans have traditionally been very resistant to the idea of registering their firearms, especially those they already own.”
Justin Anderson, the marketing director for one of the nation’s largest gun shops, Hyatt Guns of Charlotte, North Carolina, told us, “There is also a large group of the gun-owning public that are of the ‘Come and Take Them’ philosophy, which, in the end, puts the Justice Department in a bit of a pickle. I wonder now how they are going to enforce it. Confiscating guns from now formerly law-abiding citizens is not a good look.”
Over the years, the ATF has signaled that the firearms initially designed to make it easier for physically disabled people to shoot AR-15s by including an arm brace built into the stock were legal. But Biden’s team, armed with two mass shootings in which the guns were used, decided to regulate them, requiring a $200 tax and fingerprints.
The ATF waived the tax until May 31 in hopes that would boost registrations. But it appears most owners were willing to roll the dice in hopes courts would overrule the ATF and Biden, as they did on the Trump-era decision to stop a ban on so-called bump stocks that can turn semi-automatic rifles into nearly automatic firearms.
So far, that’s been a good bet. At least three courts have imposed a stoppage on enforcing the ATF rule, which is likely headed to the Supreme Court.
“While those injunctions don’t cover all owners, they do signal the ban is likely to falter under constitutional scrutiny. Owners seem to be betting the ban will end up getting tossed,” said Gutowski.
Congress is also looking at getting involved and a House vote blocking the ATF rule is set for a vote.
Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America, which is involved in one of the successful injunctions, said his members are confident that their reading of the Second Amendment will best Biden’s and the ATF’s.
“Americans cherish their Second Amendment rights, so it’s not surprising that very few gun owners registered their pistols with the ATF. Americans know that registration is the first step to confiscation — hence the reason gun owners have a history of refusing to comply with unconstitutional mandates,” he said.
Pratt added, “Given the propensity for ATF leadership to lie or reverse their official positions, American gun owners simply don’t trust the agency with information about the guns they own.”