multi-long gun reporting requirement

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Reporting Requirement For Semi-Auto Rifles Originally Intended For More States

August 1, 2012 by 10 Comments

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released the first of three parts on its Final  Joint Report on Operation Fast and Furious yesterday. The report itself is 211 pages long while the three appendices comprise another 2,148 pages. To say it is detailed is an understatement.

It will take days before anyone can digest everything that is contained in the report and appendices. That said, a quick browse turned up a very interesting memorandum from then-Acting Director of ATF Kenneth Melson to Attorney General Eric Holder. (See Appendix III, page 173). The memo, received on March 26, 2010, was making the case to Holder for approval of a pilot project to use demand letters to Federal Firearms Licensees in certain states to force them to report multiple sales of semi-automatic rifles in a caliber greater than .22 and with the ability to accept detachable magazines.

This request was sent months before the Department of Justice Inspector General had released a report criticizing the effectiveness of ATF’s Project Gunrunner. Among the recommendations of the OIG’s reports was that reporting of multiple sales of long guns be explored. Melson concurred with this recommendation but said at the time “that this may require a change to the Gun Control Act which is beyond ATF’s and the Department’s authority.”

As we now know, ATF did get permission to do their one year pilot program to require reporting of multiple sales of certain rifles. It went into effect on August 14, 2011 in the Southwest Border states of Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas.

What makes Melson’s letter particularly interesting is that he was requesting authority from the Attorney General to not only request demand letters in the four border states but an additional eight more. These eight additional states included Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Washington State. The rationale given is that these (and the Southwest Border states) were the top 12 source states for firearms recovered and traced in Mexico in FY2009.

I think it has been assumed that the impetus for the multi-rifle reporting requirement was the Office of Inspector General’s report. As the Melson memo makes clear, ATF was pushing for this almost nine months earlier. Moreover, it was not limited to just states that bordered Mexico but major Mid-Western states such as Illinois and Southeastern states such as Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. When you add in a state like Washington which is as far from Mexico as you could get, it doesn’t take too much of an imagination to assume that the so-called pilot program was meant to be a predecessor to rolling this out nationwide even though the Gun Control Act of 1968 did not give ATF this authority. Perhaps this is what Obama meant when he said to Sarah Brady that they were working “under the radar” on gun control.

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There Are No Coincidences

April 27, 2012 by 1 Comment

Yesterday, the BATFE held a briefing for the media on the results regarding traces of firearms recovered in Mexico. Reporters that attended this briefing were not allowed any cameras, recording devices, or video equipment. They were only allowed pen and paper to take notes. Katie Pavlich of Townhall.com tweeted after the event that the moment they got into the briefing they were given a flash drive with the statistics.

The data released show that 68% of the guns submitted for tracing originated in the United States. Note that is only the guns submitted by the Mexican government. Moreover, as Larry Keane of NSSF pointed out in a tweet early this morning, no mention is made of the “Time to Crime” stat. Thus, you don’t know if the “recovered” firearms traced are ones from Operation Fast and Furious or from a burglary in El Paso in 1997.

The BATFE released this yesterday regarding the briefing on the traces.

ATF Releases Government of Mexico Firearms Trace Data

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) today announced the release of trace information for firearms recovered in Mexico and submitted to ATF for tracing. Trace information shows that between calendar years 2007 and 2011 the Government of Mexico recovered and submitted more than 99,000 firearms to ATF for tracing. Of those firearms more than 68,000 were U.S.-sourced. More complete information will be available on the ATF website.

U.S.-sourced firearms are guns determined by ATF to be manufactured in the United States or legally imported into the United States by a federal firearms licensee. Since 2007, trace data shows a trend in recovered and submitted crime guns from Mexico shifting from pistols and revolvers to rifles. Law enforcement in Mexico now report that certain types of rifles, such as the AK and AR variants with detachable magazines, are used more frequently to commit violent crime by drug trafficking organizations.

ATF is working with its law enforcement partners at every level and the Government of Mexico to keep firearms out of the hands of gang members and criminal enterprises. The Mexico trace data is the result of information provided by the Government of Mexico to ATF about crime guns recovered in Mexico and submitted for tracing.

Firearms tracing provides information on the movement of a firearm from its first sale by a manufacturer or importer through the distribution chain in an attempt to identify the first retail purchaser. This information provides investigative leads for criminal investigations.

The Mexico trace data is not the result of any criminal investigation, or investigations, initiated by law enforcement in the United States.

ATF’s National Tracing Center (NTC) is the nation’s only crime gun tracing facility. The NTC provides critical information that assists domestic and international law enforcement agencies solve firearms crimes, detect firearms trafficking and identify trends with respect to intrastate, interstate and international movement of crime guns. The NTC traced more than 319,000 crime guns in calendar year 2011.

ATF is dedicated to reducing firearms trafficking and firearms-related violent crime on both sides of the border.

ATF will also release trace information for firearms recovered in Canada and the Caribbean and submitted to ATF for tracing between calendar years 2007 and 2011.

SayUncle had a post yesterday about how the multiple-long arm reporting requirement for the Southwest border states has now resulted in 123 investigations being started in south Texas. This came from an article on Wednesday in the Houston Chronicle. I don’t think it is any coincidence that the ATF emphasized the use of ARs and AKs “with detachable magazines” by the narco-terrorists in their press release.

Yesterday, Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) had an amendment adopted to the FY13 Commerce, Justice and Science House Appropriations Bill which “would prevent the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) from using federal funds to track the purchases of gun owners who buy multiple rifles within a certain time period.”

From Rehberg’s statement on his amendment:

“While President Obama and his allies in Congress continue to undermine the Constitution, and infringe on our gun rights, I’ll keep fighting to ensure those rights are upheld,” said Rehberg, a member of the Second Amendment Task Force. “The ATF continues the effort to implement new gun control regulations without the approval of Congress, and, tragically, those efforts have included breaking our own country’s laws with the ‘Fast and Furious’ program. My amendment tells the Obama Administration that Congress will not tolerate this.”

The ATF regulation, first proposed in December of 2010 and approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on July 11, 2011, requires federally licensed firearm dealers (FFLs) to file reports with ATF on all sales of two or more semi-automatic rifles within five consecutive business days if the rifles are larger than .22 caliber and use detachable magazines. The requirement applies to dealers in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, but could be expanded to other states using the same obscure regulatory process used to create the rule. Information gathered from the dealers will be kept in a federal database for two years. While Congress passed legislation in the 1990s to allow ATF to track multiple-sales of handguns, they did not intend to expand this regulation to include long guns.

I also think it was no coincidence that BATFE held their press conference as Rep. Rehberg was working to amend the appropriation for their agency which would remove their ability to force FFLs in the Southwest to make reports on certain gun sales. The congressional liaison for BATFE (or more appropriately, agency lobbyist) would have known of these hearings and of Rep. Rehberg’s intent to offer his amendment which did pass.

Nothing happens without a reason in Washington. The BATFE press briefing may be seen as a counter-attack on the critics of that agency for both Project Gunwalker and the Administration’s attempt to use regulatory fiat as a gun control measure.

UPDATE: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) had this to say in a release about the data given out by BATFE yesterday.

“Thorough gun statistics are hard to come by and tricky to interpret. The key to this data is that most of these guns can’t be traced to U.S. gun dealers. And, some of those would actually trace back to the United States because of the federal government’s own gunwalking scandal. We also have to remember that the only guns Mexico is going to submit for tracing are guns they know are from the United States, which clearly paints an incomplete picture of the firearms found in the Mexico.”

Katie Pavlich of Townhall.com who did attend the press briefing has a full report on it here. It seems some of her questions were not able to be answered (or they said they didn’t have the data).

UPDATE II: Larry Keane, General Counsel of NSSF, has a blog post up entitled “The Shrinking ‘Vast Majority’: NSSF Responds to ATF Mexican Trace Report.” It dissects the BATFE report and how some politicians and some in the media have played it up.

On the 90% myth:

But it shouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that many of the firearms recovered and traced come from the United States. That is because U.S. law requires markings on firearms precisely so they can be traced by law enforcement through commerce. It is sort of like tracing the VIN number on cars on a Ford dealership lot and be surprised to learn that most are Fords. What the 90 percent myth does not account for, and the media turns a blind eye to, and what yesterday’s ATF report does not shed light on, is the fact that you know nothing about the firearms recovered in Mexico but were never traced — like the firearms that the 150,000 or so Mexican soldiers took with them when they defected to go work for the drug cartels over the past several years.

On Time to Crime:

Perhaps what is most interesting about ATF’s report is the fact that it does not discuss the “Time to Crime” (TTC) for the Mexican traced firearms. ATF always gives TTC when it issues a tracing report (click here for an example). Why did ATF omit this piece of information? Because it knows that on average firearms (of all types) recovered in Mexico and successfully traced were on average originally sold at retail after a background check more than 15 years ago.

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NSSF Statement on Court’s Backing of Multiple Sales Reporting

January 14, 2012 by

Larry Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation released this statement today regarding U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer’s decision to allow the ATF to continue requiring multiple sales reporting for certain semi-automatic rifles in the Southwest.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) is, of course, disappointed by today’s ruling. We respectfully disagree with the court’s reasoning which places our industry on a “slippery slope.” Today’s ruling will allow ATF to demand whatever information it wants from any law-abiding retailer anywhere in the country for any reason ATF wants simply by sending a letter demanding information. While we understand ATF’s motivation is to try to curtail violence in Mexico, Congress simply has not granted ATF regulatory carte blanche. NSSF looks forward to having the Court of Appeals review the district court’s flawed decision.

Our industry abhors the criminal misuse of firearms, whether on the streets of El Paso, Texas, or in Juarez, Mexico. Notwithstanding our forthcoming appeal, NSSF is continuing to encourage all retailers — not just those along the border — to cooperate with law enforcement and report any suspicious activity to the ATF. Members of the firearms industry take great pride in their longstanding cooperative relationship with ATF. Retailers have long been considered by ATF to be a vital source of information for law enforcement in combating illegal firearms trafficking.

I think the key word in this is “appeal”. They are not going to just give up and let things lie as they are which is good. I think you will also a bigger push for Sen. Jon Tester’s S. 570 which would prohibit DOJ from doing this. It currently has 33 sponsors including a number of Democrats. However, it seems to be languishing in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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So Explain To Me The Rationale Behind The Multi-Rifle Reporting Requirement In The Southwest

August 17, 2011 by 3 Comments

Mike Vanderboegh pointed out a story from McAllen, TX this morning.  It featured comments by Special Agent in Charge Robert R. Champion made to the KRGV.com. In it he said:

“You have guys that are money man, one guy is in charge of getting the straw purchasers,” he says.

Champion says the ATF is now seeing a change in the way the cartel operates. Instead of buying weapons locally they’re getting them from all over the country and using the drug routes in reverse to get them back to Mexico.

“The straw purchasers will come back to the guy that gave them the money. He accumulates the firearms. Another individual comes as the transporter to pick up the firearms and move them to different locations,” says Champion.

Champion then adds that “the ATF can’t do much to stop the transport” once it is in the smuggler’s hands.

If the theory behind the new ATF reporting requirement for sales of certain semi-automatic rifles that went into effect on August 14th in the four Southwestern border states was that the straw purchases were happening there and the reporting requirement would let ATF intercept these illegally purchased firearms quicker, then doesn’t what SAC Champion has to say undercut the entire rationale?

I have been told by drug enforcement detectives working here in western North Carolina that most of the meth sold here comes from Mexico by way of Atlanta. They rarely find meth labs anymore. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that the same route drug traffickers use to bring the meth to the mountains can also be used to bring a truckload of AKs back to a safe house in McAllen or DelRio or Brownsville. With meth being an equal-opportunity drug, the traffickers could just as easily use Joe Bob or Earl or Bubba instead of one of the local Latinos to make the straw purchase at Pawn World.

Moreover, doesn’t concentrating so-called enforcement in one area or region just encourage the traffickers to spread out and get more discrete about it? In other words, by focusing on McAllen or Phoenix or other Southwestern areas, hasn’t the DOJ and ATF just pushed the crime to other areas of the country?

It would be nice if the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee brought SAC Champion in to testify about trafficking in his neck of the woods. He might have learned a thing or two about gun walking while he was a Group Supervisor earlier in his career in Phoenix. And while they are at it, they might want to ask him about his role in the botched raid in Waco.

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LaPierre: New Reporting Regulation Smokescreen To Cover Up Fast And Furious

August 8, 2011 by

Wayne LaPierre, Executive VP and CEO of the National Rifle Association, was interviewed on Saturday morning’s Fox and Friends. Among his contentions is that the new multiple rifle reporting requirement for firearms dealers in the Southwest is nothing more than a smokescreen to divert attention from what happened in Operation Fast and Furious.

Fox News does try to give gun rights a fair shake. However, I wish when they are doing a story on semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines that they not use video clips of people shooting pistols and handling a bolt action rifle. Jeez! At least it was better than their video interview of LaPierre from Friday when they used pistols and what looks to be a M-60 machine gun.

Watch the latest video at <a href=”http://video.foxnews.com”>video.foxnews.com</a>

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Attorney Stephen Halbrook On Multi-Rifle Reporting Suit

August 8, 2011 by 1 Comment

Stephen Halbrook, attorney and Second Amendment scholar, is one of the attorneys of record on the NRA’s lawsuit, J&G Sales et al v. Melson, challenging the new requirement for FFLs in the Southwest to report multiple sales of certain semiautomatic rifles. He did an interview with Cam Edwards for NRA News last Thursday. He notes that demand letters for one-seventh of the firearms dealers nationwide goes far beyond the law, the regulations, and what courts have ruled regarding demand letters in the past.

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NSSF Files Suit To Stop Multi-Rifle Reporting Requirement

August 3, 2011 by 1 Comment

The National Shooting Sports Foundation has filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia asking for preliminary and permanent injunctions against the ATF’s move to require the reporting of multiple sales of certain semi-automatic rifles in the Southwest border states. They are also asking for a writ of mandamus to compel the ATF to adhere to the operative language of the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986. This is the first time I’ve seen a writ of mandamus requested in any of the gun rights suits filed since Heller. A writ of mandamus is an order from a court to an agency, in this case, ordering them to perform their duties correctly.

Their release is below. I have a copy of the suit and will be posting on it later today if time permits.

NEWTOWN, Conn. — The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the trade association for America’s firearms industry, today filed a lawsuit challenging the legal authority of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) under the Gun Control Act to compel 8,500 federally licensed firearms retailers in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas to report the sale of two or more rifles.

Specifically, the regulation calls for reporting multiple sales of any semi-automatic rifle larger than .22 caliber and capable of accepting a detachable magazine that are purchased following an FBI background check by the same individual within five consecutive business days.

NSSF’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks an injunction to block ATF from implementing the reporting requirement. ATF has sent “demand letters” to firearms retailers in the four states to inform retailers they must begin reporting such sales by August 14.

NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Lawrence G. Keane pointed out that if ATF can require this record-keeping and reporting requirement of law-abiding retailers in these four states simply by sending a letter demanding the information, then there is no record or report ATF cannot require of any licensee, anywhere in the country, for as long as ATF wants. “This is the proverbial ‘slippery slope,’ and our industry is extremely concerned about it,” said Keane.

Keane added, “At the time Congress authorized the reporting of multiple sales of handguns, it could have required it for the sale of long guns, but it did not. Acting ATF Director Ken Melson himself has questioned ATF’s legal authority to impose this new requirement.”

Despite its lawsuit, NSSF is encouraging all retailers, not just those along the Southwest border, to continue to cooperate with law enforcement and report any suspicious activity to the ATF. “The firearms industry and NSSF take pride in having a longstanding cooperative relationship with ATF,” said NSSF President and CEO Steve Sanetti. “Retailers have long been considered a vital source of information for law enforcement in combating illegal firearm trafficking.”

Even if ATF had the legal authority to require multiple sales reporting for long guns, NSSF believes the policy would still be unwise to implement. “We believe the policy will make it more difficult for retailers to assist law enforcement,” said Keane. Illegal firearms traffickers will simply alter their schemes to avoid and evade the reporting requirement, making it more difficult for retailers to identify and report suspicious activity. For example, traffickers could simply recruit more “straw purchasers” and have them illegally purchase firearms from multiple licensees, or simply move their illegal trafficking activities to other states where the reporting requirement does not exist.

Sanetti pointed out that for more than a decade, the firearms industry has done its part to help prevent illegal straw purchases through the Don’t Lie for the Other Guy program. The program, a cooperative effort between NSSF and ATF, educates retailers on how to spot potential illegal purchasers and warns the public that it’s a serious crime to attempt such a purchase. The program is active in firearms retailer shops across the country. Over the last several years, the firearms industry has solely funded the rollout of Don’t Lie for the Other Guy in border-state areas to deter individuals with intent to illegally purchase firearms. See www.dontlie.org.

Also today lawyers representing the National Rifle Association filed a separate lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging ATF’s requirement for reporting multiple sales of rifles.

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Lawsuit Filed Challenging Multi-Rifle Reporting Requirement

August 2, 2011 by 1 Comment

J&G Sales of Prescott, AZ has joined the NRA in filing suit against the illegal requirement that FFL’s in the Southwest border states must report multiple sales of certain semi-automatic rifles to the ATF. J&G is also one of the gun dealers that was told during Operation Fast and Furious to allow sales to go through to obvious straw purchasers.

Here is their statement on the lawsuit.

BATFE lawsuit info – Monday August 01, 2011
As many of you may have heard, the BATFE has sent a demand letter to all the licensed firearms dealers in the four border states of Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Texas. This letter requires these dealers to report to the BATFE the names and addresses and serial numbers of all purchases of more than one semi-automatic rifle, with a detachable magazine, over 22 caliber, within a 5 business day period.

The BATF and Department of Justice has made this demand with no Congressional authorization and therefore, J and G Sales has filed suit in the Washington DC federal court challenging the legitimacy of this new regulation. We are being assisted in this law suit by the NRA as well. We hope the outcome of our challenge will be a reversal of this unconstitutional regulation for all border state FFL dealers. We appreciate our customers and your support of the 2nd amendment and will keep you all updated as this case progresses.

This new regulation goes into effect for all purchases that occur on or after August 14th, 2011. The BATFE has issued a new form 3310.12 that FFL dealers have to fill out and return to the BATFE starting on this date and going forward until this is hopefully reversed.

I’ll update this as soon as I get and read a copy of the suit.

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Report – Demand Letters On Multi-Rifle Sales To Start August 14th

July 27, 2011 by 3 Comments

Alan Korwin, who publishes a number of books on gun laws in the states, is reporting that August 14th is the start date for the demand letters from ATF to Southwestern FFLs. In an email alert sent out on Monday night (July 25th), he reports:

According to four BATFE agents familiar with the planned Fast and Furious
gun-smuggling “fix,” the bureau plans to release a “demand letter” by the
end of this week, insisting that gun dealers in the four Mexico-border
states begin reporting multiple rifle sales to the bureau.

All multiple rifle sales made to the same buyer within a five-day period
will have to be reported beginning on August 14, on a form to be announced,
according to the agents. The order will exclude rifles in .22 caliber, and
rifles without detachable magazines. The agents acknowledged that
congressional action, lawsuits, an injunction or other court orders might
forestall the implementation of the hastily concocted scheme. Such
preventive measures are already underway.

The rumored executive order to require gun dealers in California, Arizona,
New Mexico and Texas to begin reporting multiple rifle sales to BATFE will
not be issued. A previous Page Nine report that referred to the expected EO
now appears incorrect. It is possible that the uproar over the program
caused the administration to change its approach, and put all the heat on
BATFE to “enact” law without Congress. The EO was widely reported and
anticipated.

An exhaustive examination of statutory authority under which BATFE is
required to operate revealed no legitimate power to demand these records,
though the agents claimed they do have authority (two younger ones said
they have no control over the process, and were simply following along).
When questioned if they would consider resigning if asked to implement an
illegally introduced rule, the agents all either declined to answer or said
no, they would not resign.

Because a buyer will have to be identified to show that the sales reflect
purchase by one person, the record collections will be a gun registry tied
to gun ownership, which is strictly forbidden under federal law. No
requirement to destroy these records exists, since no authority to collect
the records exists. The BATFE agents said they would not be keeping the
records, because they “lack authority,” but could not identify a time frame
in which the registry information would be destroyed, or any audit trail.

When pressed, the senior official identified a statute that supposedly
conveyed authority for the daring plan. The citation is to 18 USC
§923(g)(5)(A) which states:

“Each licensee shall, when required by letter issued by the Attorney
General, and until notified to the contrary in writing by the Attorney
General, submit on a form specified by the Attorney General, for periods
and at the times specified in such letter, all record information required
to be kept by this chapter or such lesser record information as the
Attorney General in such letter may specify.”

This does not confer the needed authority, because “all record information
required to be kept by this chapter” does not include multiple sales of
long guns to the same person in a five-day period. The agent disagreed. In
fact, Congress specifically excluded such information when it enacted, by
due process, a statute requiring similar information for handguns in the
same law, in 18 USC §923(g)(3)(A):

“Each licensee shall prepare a report of multiple sales or other
dispositions whenever the licensee sells or otherwise disposes of, at one
time or during any five consecutive business days, two or more pistols, or
revolvers, or any combination of pistols and revolvers totalling two or
more, to an unlicensed person.”

In addition to the creation of this illegal reporting requirement, illegal
gun-owner registry, with unknown details and no public control over the
rule-making process, it amounts to record keeping specifically banned under
the Firearm Owners Protection Act, 18 USC §926(a)(2):

“No such rule or regulation prescribed after the date of the enactment of
the Firearms Owners Protection Act [5/19/86] 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.”

Like so many laws the federal government writes, this one declares that
these acts cannot legally be done, but provides no specific punishment for
perpetrators, such as those running this scheme inside BATFE. Laws could be
written with teeth, to control bureaucrats. Instead of saying, “No one may
collect this information,” the law could say, “Anyone who collects this
information shall go to prison and pay a fine.” Given the common abuses now
prevalent in government, such laws have been needed for a long time, on a
state and local level as well as federally, some legislators say. Any
legislator unwilling to draft laws that way, allowing “officials” to do
whatever they please without consequence, deserve to be removed from
office, according to leading experts.

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NSSF Rips Jim “Virtual Wholesale Slaughter” Moran A New One

July 25, 2011 by

In the debate over stripping funding from the ATF’s new multiple rifle sale reporting requirement in the Southwest, Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) said removing the funding from the rule would be akin to “virtual wholesale slaughter.” His comments, as reported in The Hill, go on:

“The NRA is so afraid that the people who are really funding the NRA, the gun manufacturers, might lose some sales that we’re willing to sacrifice the lives of these people that are casualties of this gun war,” Moran said during the markup.

“And we’re promoting it. We’re enabling … that slaughter to continue,” Moran said.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation did not take Moran’s comments lying down. They responded with a blistering 3-page letter which took him to task over his comments. The full letter is here.

First, NSSF General Counsel Larry Keane points to Moran that ATF was never given the authority by Congress to impose the reporting requirement.

We are filing the lawsuit on behalf of our members challenging ATF’s new record keeping and reporting requirement because Congress never gave ATF the legal authority to impose this requirement. In 1986, Congress amended the Gun Control Act to require the multiple sale reporting of handguns. Congress could have, but did not, require reporting of long guns.

Then, the NSSF reminds Moran that it is the NSSF that speaks for the firearms industry.

Please allow me to correct another misunderstanding. The people who are really funding the NRA are its 4 million members. The NRA does not speak for the firearms industry. The National Shooting Sports Foundation is the trade association for the firearms industry – we, not the NRA, are the voice of our industry

Next, Keane points out that the new reporting requirement will make it harder for FFL’s to spot straw purchasers and proactively report them to ATF.

..the policy is ill-advised as it will actually make it more difficult for firearms retailers to cooperate with law enforcement, as illegal firearms traffickers quickly modify their schemes to circumvent the new reporting requirement. They can simply send a straw purchaser to multiple dealers, recruit more straw purchasers, spread out the purchases beyond five business days, or acquire firearms in non-border states. America’s firearms retailers, the very people ATF identifies as their “partners” and the first line of defense, will no longer be able to detect suspicious purchases and alert the proper authorities.

Finally, he discusses the decade-old “Don’t Lie For The Other Guy” program that NSSF has funded to the tune of $5 million dollars and then reminds Moran they sought his help for more funding to expand the program.

About a year ago, we visited your office to seek your help as a member of the Appropriations committee in securing grant funding for the Don’t Lie program so we could grow and expand the program and deliver its message throughout the country. Unfortunately, you did not provide the bipartisan leadership we had hoped for.

In other words, Jim Moran is not just an ignorant tool of the gun banners but a hypocrite as well. When he had the chance to help expand the Don’t Lie program, he took a pass.

Lest it be forgotten, during Operation Fast and Furious, firearms stores in Arizona reported the suspicious sales of firearms, requested that the sales be denied, and were specifically told to go through with the sales by ATF to what were obvious straw purchasers. The guns didn’t walk to Mexico because of FFLs; they walked under orders from ATF and DOJ.