BATFE

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ATF Is On It!

March 31, 2023 by 2 Comments

I just received an automated call from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. It was to inform me that effective March 29th, the North Carolina pistol purchase permit was no longer acceptable as a NICS check substitute given the passage of SB 41 into law.

The message went on to say that existing permits issued before the date of repeal would no longer be accepted in lieu of the NICS check. I guess those prohibited persons who obtained a permit prior to becoming a prohibited are now out of luck.

I received this call because I hold a Curios and Relics FFL. However, as a collector, I am not required to fill out the Form 4473 for a sale nor am I required to do a NICS check. The ATF must have lumped anyone who held any sort of FFL into one big database for the call.

The bottom line is we can be assured that the bureaucrats at ATF are on it! That being said, they have not issued a revised letter advising FFLs that the pistol purchase permit is no longer qualifies as an alternative to a NICS check. The only “Brady letter” for NC on their site is from 1998.

UPDATE: BATFE is into the belt and suspenders approach. In addition to the phone call this morning, they also sent out this email.

This is an important message from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

On November 13, 1998, ATF issued an Open Letter to All North Carolina Federal Firearms Licensees advising them that the North Carolina pistol purchase permit qualifies as an alternative to NICS. On March 29, 2023, North Carolina Senate Bill 41 overcame the North Carolina Governor’s veto and became law that same day. North Carolina Senate Bill 41 repeals GS 14-402, which required the pistol purchase permit to acquire a pistol from an FFL. Additionally, the North Carolina pistol purchase permit is no longer considered an approved NICS alternate permit.

Accordingly, effective March 29, 2023 , North Carolina pistol purchase permits – regardless of when issued – may not be used as an alternative to the NICS background check requirement.

North Carolina’s concealed handgun permits are unaffected by Senate Bill 41 and will continue to serve as an alternative to a NICS check requirement. Please contact your local ATF office if you have additional questions.

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Firearms Business Conference – Zero Tolerance Inspections

February 21, 2023 by

I wrote last week that Montgomery Community College was holding a Firearm Business Conference. I had planned to attend virtually using Zoom. Due to some technical difficulties, I wasn’t able to catch everything. However, all sessions were recorded and now are up on YouTube.

One session that really caught my eye was on the zero tolerance inspection policy demanded by the Biden Administration. It was taught by Judy Ladeaux of NSSF. Prior to joining NSSF, she was the Director of Industry Operations in the ATF’s Columbus Field Division.

One interesting topic that came up around the 10 minute mark of the video below was where a state-issued CCW permit substitutes for a NICS check. As she made clear, a purchaser may still be in possession of a revoked CCW permit while being a prohibited person. That can very well be caught during the compliance inspection. While it will not be considered “willful” and result in a revocation of your FFL, it will still be a black mark. She said she had suggested to many FFLs while still with ATF that they could require a NICS check on all sales regardless of a CCW.

Listening to her you really get a feeling for just how nit-picky that Industry Operations Inspectors have been forced to become. While the goal is to make every firearm traceable – including your Polymer 80 type frames – the absurdity of it is that it only goes to the original purchaser in most cases. Firearms can change hands privately in most states without another background check. There is nothing requiring the seller to even get the buyer’s name, address, etc. Now I think you and I might think that would be a good idea to cover our asses but it usually isn’t required unless you live in an Un-Free State.

The last 10 minutes of the session are spent on the things that will get your FFL yanked by ATF and especially the “five deadly sins”.

For those of us who are not dealers, this is good background information. For those that hold a FFL, I would study this video and watch it multiple times. It could be that your livelihood depends upon it.

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Cartoon Of The Day

February 8, 2023 by 3 Comments

I found this on MeWe posted by a friend.

Reinterpreting regulations in such a way as to make possession of an item a felony is the modus operandi of the BATFE. They did it with bump stocks and they are doing it now with pistol braces.

It is now up to the courts to push back on this. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals did it with Cargill v. Garland. There are now at least four cases before US District Courts challenging the BATFE on their new pistol brace rule. Fingers crossed that the judges will do the right thing.

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BOHICA – Pistol Brace Rule

January 13, 2023 by

We knew it was coming. Some had speculated it would be released during the SHOT Show. However, the weasel running the Department of Justice, Merrick Garland, decided to release the new pistol brace rule on the Friday before a long weekend. This is usually the case when you don’t want to make a big splash with an announcement.

In his press release, Garland said this:

“Keeping our communities safe from gun violence is among the Department’s highest priorities,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “Almost a century ago, Congress determined that short-barreled rifles must be subject to heightened requirements. Today’s rule makes clear that firearm manufacturers, dealers, and individuals cannot evade these important public safety protections simply by adding accessories to pistols that transform them into short-barreled rifles.”

SBRs were not added to the NFA by Congress because they “must be subject to heightened requirements”. Rather, the original proposed NFA would have banned handguns and the drafters wanted to make sure that cutting down a rifle didn’t make it into a pistol. When Congress said there was no way in hell that they would ban pistols, the bit about SBRs was forgotten.

ATF Director Steve Dettelbach who knows diddly squat about firearms added:

“This rule enhances public safety and prevents people from circumventing the laws Congress passed almost a century ago. In the days of Al Capone, Congress said back then that short-barreled rifles and sawed-off shotguns should be subjected to greater legal requirements than most other guns. The reason for that is that short-barreled rifles have the greater capability of long guns, yet are easier to conceal, like a pistol,” said ATF Director Steven Dettelbach. “But certain so-called stabilizing braces are designed to just attach to pistols, essentially converting them into short-barreled rifles to be fired from the shoulder. Therefore, they must be treated in the same way under the statute.”

More bullshit. Screw the disabled for whom pistol braces were designed.

The rest of the release includes some gems as “more easily concealable”, “more destructive power”, and “heightened requirements”. In other words, the more they can demonize pistol braces, the better in their minds.

I’m sure this will be a topic of conversation at the SHOT Show. Likewise, I am sure that the lawsuits are already prepared and ready to be filed. It also increases the importance of the 5th Circuit’s ruling in Cargill v. Garland. Under the doctrine of lenity, the ATF cannot just say something is what it isn’t and thus make it a felony to possess one unregistered. That is the job of Congress.

The rule which was released today goes into effect in 120 days.

Here is the full rule and the factoring criteria.

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Tongue In Check Comment Of The Day

September 6, 2022 by

Frankly, I’m not sure why the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives bothers to have a social media presence on Facebook. However, they do and it attracts a large number of comments. Most are of the “you need to be disbanded” variety.

Today ATF had a post celebrating Labor Day and thanking workers for the contributions that they have made to this country.

The post attracted this wonderful tongue in check comment from a Greg Kovats.

Thank you for working fast and furiously to keep us safe. If you don’t believe me just Google “ATF fast and furious”

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ATF Training Simulator

August 25, 2022 by 1 Comment

As you may be aware, the new rules regarding the definition of frames and receivers went into effect yesterday. Also in the news is that BATFE Special Agents are now showing up on the doorstep of people that bought the forced reset triggers from Rare Breed to confiscate those triggers. These “visits” are without warrants with the implied threat that if you don’t cooperate, they will be back with a search warrant and tear your house to pieces.

With this as a background, I found the Firearms Policy Coalition tweet a very good spoof and effective fundraising. Their social media manager is on top of his or her game!

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Remember Project Gunwalker?

August 12, 2022 by 4 Comments

Do you remember Project Gunwalker? It was also officially known as Operation Fast and Furious. I tend to prefer David Codrea‘s name for this scandal as it involved walking guns to Mexico in the hopes that they would then show up on crime scenes. It was an effort of the Obama Administration, BATFE, and the Department of Justice to build support for more gun control. Thanks to the efforts of bloggers like David, Dave Workman, and the late Mike Vanderboegh along with mainstream journalists Sharyl Attkisson and William LaJeunesse the veil of secrecy was removed.

One thing that was always a puzzle was how BATFE actually thought they could track the firearms after they left the gun stores. Thanks to Twitter post by gun rights attorney Stephen Stamboulieh we now know.

He also had a picture of these stocks all packaged up.

I have to wonder a) how long the batteries really would have lasted, b) how long would these rifles have taken to reach the cartels once they left the gun store, c) whether the tracking devices would rattle within the stocks, d) if they rattled would the cartels discover the devices, and e) whether the cartels upon discovering the tracking devices would have ended up killing the gun dealers.

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ATF Celebrates Anniversary Of NFA

June 26, 2022 by 9 Comments

Whoever is the social media specialist at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives is clueless. Their Facebook page is evidence of that.

Often their posts seem more like an effort to tee up negative comments than anything else. They go on about straw purchasing which tees up questions about Project Gunwalker aka Operation Fast and Furious. They talk about arson which tees up responses dealing with the raid on the Branch Davidian compound. Indeed, on February 28th, the anniversary of the ATF raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, they memorialize the agents killed in the raid. You can imagine the comments that engendered!

Today’s post was celebrating the enactment of the National Firearms Act on June 26, 1934. I am posting a screen shot of it below.

Umm. The NFA Handbook says on the length of rifle barrels, “A rifle subject to the NFA has a barrel or barrels of less than 16 inches in length.”

I think ATF’s Facebook page needs to have a disclaimer on it. Something like, “This page is for entertainment purposes only. Do not rely on it for regulatory or legal issues because we will get it wrong.”

I admit the primary reason I even pay attention to the page is to read the comments by well-known libertarian Spike Cohen. His comment today is representative of them.

88 years of doing nothing but violating people’s rights, criminalizing and murdering peaceful people, and government agencies trafficking guns to cartels and terrorists.

And all because, instead of just admitting that alcohol prohibition had led to massive gang violence, government decided to blame the guns. The same guns that had been available for sale at stores and in magazines by mail for anyone, with no regulation whatsoever, and with no previous massive violence.

Turns out government has a long, proud history of making everything it touches worse.

Happy Birthday. May it be your agency’s last one.

I don’t know how many of our tax dollars go to support the person or persons responsible for handling social media for ATF but I know that it is money wasted.

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Dettelbach – Never Owned A Firearm

June 19, 2022 by 2 Comments

Steve Dettelbach is the nominee of President Biden to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. It is both a regulatory and law enforcement agency. Part of its mission is to serve as the primary agency regulating the firearms industry. Another part of its mission is combating violent crime.

As I posted earlier in the week, the Senate Judiciary Committee tied 11-11 on whether to advance Dettelbach’s nomination. It still can go forward as the Senate Majority Leader can bring him up for a vote in case of a tie. Prior to voting on Dettelbach, the committee held a hearing as well as submitted written questions for the record.

You would assume that anyone charged with regulating an industry have some knowledge of it and its products. In this case you would be wrong.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) (among others) submitted a number of questions. The answers that Dettelbach gave somewhat astounded me.

Have you ever owned a firearm?
RESPONSE: No.

Have you ever been issued a firearm in a professional capacity?
RESPONSE: No.

As to whether Dettelbach has ever shot a firearm, here is his answer to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

Have you ever used a firearm? If so, when and under what circumstances?
RESPONSE: Yes. As a youth, I engaged in target shooting with rifles on numerous occasions. In my time as a Department of Justice employee, on several occasions I was hosted at federal and local law enforcement shooting ranges and afforded the opportunity to target shoot with different types of firearms. Finally, as an adult, I have taken my son to shoot targets with rifles several times.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the Ranking Member and former Chair of the Committee, asked a number of questions of Dettelbach including this one:

The Director of the ATF should be familiar with firearms. To that end, have you ever shot a firearm? How many times have you shot a firearm in the last five years?


RESPONSE: As a youth, I engaged in target shooting with rifles on numerous occasions. In my time as a Department of Justice employee, on several occasions I was hosted at federal and local law enforcement shooting ranges and afforded the opportunity to target shoot with different firearms. Finally, as an adult, I have taken my son to shoot targets with rifles several times. I am not sure of all the dates, but I believe at least one such occasion was within the last five years.

Sen. Grassley also asked if Dettelbach had any meeting or communications with Everytown, Giffords, or the Brady Campaign. He reports that he didn’t have any meeting with Everytown but did have one remote meeting each with people from Giffords and the Brady Campaign. Both of those meeting were about him giving his background and them giving a presentation of their goals and objectives.

My concern is not really that Dettelbach has not owned a firearm. That is his choice. However, his experience, if you read between the lines, seems to be with .22 rimfire rifles. His lack of experience with firearms makes him dependent upon the so-called experts at BATFE. The same experts who once upon a time defined a shoelace as a machine gun and that concerns me.

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Senate Judiciary Committee Ties On Dettelbach

June 16, 2022 by

The Senate Judiciary Committee held their business meeting this morning to consider a handful of nominations. Included in the list was that of Steven Dettelbach to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The vote of his nomination was an 11-11 tie.

Given that all the Democrats who “support the Second Amendment but…” are in line to vote for him along with at least one or two RINOs, I think he will be confirmed. While not as obviously bad as David Chipman, he does have an anti-gun history and will do his damnedest to screw over gun owners through regulation.

GOA released this Tweet on his nomination. While it may be a bit futile, it still might alert the Republicans who are capitulating on gun control that it is not that smart of a move after all.