Lefty Think Tank Bashes End to Biden Rule Treating Gun Owners as ‘Unlicensed Dealers’

While most pro-gun control groups have responded to the sweeping reforms outlined by the DOJ and ATF on Thursday with vague complaints about “weakening gun laws” and “aiding violent criminals”, the Center for American Progress has actually identified one proposed rule change to bitch about. 

To be sure, the group’s press release also contains the same fuzzy objections that we’ve seen from the likes of Brady and Everytown. CAP claims, for instance, that DOJ and ATF “unveiled 34 proposed rules to weaken gun safety regulations that have proved effective in preventing illegal gun trafficking while respecting the Second Amendment.” 

I’d love to hear from CAP how removing the requirement that importers of plastic explosives “submit the required attestation in triplicate when filing a Form 6 import application” is going to aid illegal gun trafficking. Will allowing married couples to file a joint application as makers and/or transferees of NFA-regulated firearms instead of forcing spouses to go through the hassle of creating a trust really benefit violent criminals, and if so, how? 

The only rule change that CAP could point to is the proposed repeal of Joe Biden’s “engaged in the business” rule, and even there the group plays fast and loose with the facts. 

The new proposed rule guts a key provision of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022—essentially getting rid of near-universal background checks. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche attempted to spin this as ‘the most comprehensive regulatory reform package in the history‘ of ATF, but this is really an irresponsible effort to strip away lifesaving protections in order to maximize gun industry profits. 

Here’s what the ATF has to say about repealing the rule:

ATF is revising regulatory changes it made to the definition of the ‘engaged in the business’ of dealing in firearms. The rule rescinds certain provisions of the definition of ‘engaged in the business.’ The rescinded changes have not produced the anticipated outcomes in terms of Federal Firearms License applications, administrative licensing actions, civil forfeitures, or other anticipated enforcement metrics. The rule retains the definition of ‘engaged in the business’ as specifically revised and codified by Congress in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), ensuring that ATF’s regulatory definitions reflect the statutory language Congress enacted.

That last sentence is crucially important, because the Biden-era ATF under Steve Dettelbach defined “engaged in the business” more broadly than Congress did. In fact, a federal judge ruled last October that the ATF under Biden exceeded its statutory authority when it issued the rule expanding the definition of being “engaged in the business” of “dealing in firearms.”

Under the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act (FOPA) of 1986 (which amended the Gun Control Act of 1968), someone is “engaged in the business” of dealing in firearms if that person “deal[s] in firearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms.” The 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) altered that definition by replacing “livelihood and profit” with “to predominantly earn a profit.” The BSCA did not alter FOPA’s exclusion for “a person who makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms.”

On April 19, 2024, the ATF promulgated the Final Rule “to clarify[] the criteria for determining when a person is ‘engaged in the business.’” The Final Rule provides that “there is no minimum threshold number of firearms purchased or sold that triggers the licensing requirement” and that “there is no minimum number of transactions that determines whether a person is ‘engaged in the business’ of dealing in firearms.” It explains that “even a single firearm transaction or offer to engage in a transaction . . . may require a license.” The Final Rule also excludes firearms acquired for “personal protection” from the firearms that may be sold from a personal collection without a license. The ATF’s Final Rule thus rewrites the law, contradicts Congress’ statutory language, and adds confusion rather than clarification.

The Center for American Progress is flat-out wrong when it claims the repeal of the Biden-era rule “guts a key provision of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022.” Instead, the proposed rule would bring the ATF’s definition of who is “engaged in the business” of dealing firearms in line with what Congress passed in the BSCA. 

It was the Biden administration that tried to use BSCA as a way to claim that virtually anyone who might offer a gun from their personal collection for sale is an “unlicensed dealer” who needs to conduct background checks on all firearm transfers, and it’s the Trump administration that is ensuring the ATF regulations follow what Congress adopted; a standard that still allows gun owners who make “occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms” to do so without having to obtain a Federal Firearms License or put every buyer through a background check. 

The Trump administration had already declined to continue defending the Biden-era definition of “engaged in the business” in court, so the rule change announced yesterday is hardly unexpected. And given that a federal judge has already ruled the ATF overstepped its authority by creating that overly broad definition, the rule wasn’t likely to survive even if ATF took no steps to formally repeal it.  

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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