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U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Md.-08) have introduced new legislation aimed at preventing the federal government from contracting with firearms dealers who are identified as having a history of selling guns that turn up as being used in violent crimes. The bill, known as the Clean Hands Firearm Procurement Act, seeks to address gun violence by limiting government contracts to responsible firearm dealers.

The proposed legislation builds on existing federal law, which requires federally licensed firearms dealers (FFLs) to report if they have sold 25 or more guns in a single year that are subsequently traced to violent crimes within the past three years. Under the new law, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) would identify dealers with a pattern of gun sales tied to criminal activity and render them ineligible for federal contracts.

“Far too often, lucrative federal contracts are inexplicably awarded to firearm dealers who have been linked to dangerous crime,” Senator Padilla said. “Our common-sense legislation aims to combat senseless, preventable gun violence by ensuring that gun dealers follow responsible business practices to keep guns from falling into the wrong hands.”

Representative Raskin echoed these concerns, stating, “With gun violence continuing to ravage America’s social contract and terrorize our communities, it is incumbent on Congress to act swiftly to pass common-sense gun safety policy like our Clean Hands Firearm Procurement Act.”

Note: They both use the standard Democrat buzzword to be used with every utterance of “gun legislation” and that is to precede it with the adjective “common sense,” though they are more often senseless in that they will do little to nothing to prevent crime.

The bill is also supported by the usual anti-gun organizations such as the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Mark Collins, the organization’s Director of Federal Policy, emphasized the need to direct taxpayer money to responsible gun dealers, stating, “The Clean Hands Firearm Procurement Act will ensure that the small portion of dealers that supply crime guns do not have the privilege of doing business with the federal government.”

In addition to Padilla and Raskin, the bill is co-sponsored the typical who’s who of Democratic lawmakers, including Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

The ATF’s Demand 2 Program, established more than two decades ago, currently works to trace firearms used in crimes by establishing their chain of custody from the manufacturer to the first retail purchase…a de facto gun registry if you will though federal law does not permit a registry of gun owners to be kept. Go figure! The new legislation would leverage this tracing system to target dealers contributing disproportionately to gun trafficking and violence.

Senator Padilla has been a vocal advocate for restricting gun freedoms and ownership, including voting in favor of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in 2022, which aimed to strengthen background checks and red flag laws.

30 COMMENTS

    • Well you see if we reduce the supply of firearms to civilians by making it too risky re losing lucrative government contracts via stolen firearms there will be fewer firearms to steal and over time less available for criminals. It will be a long process but it will ensure the safety of your government from criminals and will trickle down to you the citizen over the next few centuries ensuring job security and pension payments for those who matter.

    • They only want to help the gun dealer problem. View it in the context of the ATF making it their mission to shut down the mom and pop stores. They want to end up like Mexico.

    • The dems want nothing more than a monopoly on all arms including knives. There will be one gubmint manufacturer you see, problem solved under their plan.

    • Could we ban political parties linked to gun violence?
      It might be more effective. Oh wait, 1st amendment problem?

    • It’s a made up metric that cannot be quantified with any real accuracy.

      So what they’ll do is create criteria that manufacturers must adhere to to be eligible for government contracts. Kinda like how federal funding gets used as a stick or carrot to get states to accept or reject certain abuses of government.

      Naturally some of that eligibility criteria will be rooted in the discouragement of civvie arms ownership and healthy monetary donations to NGO’s supporting civvie disarmament.

      Sorta like what they did to the tobacco companies. They told us years ago strait up they wanted to treat gun makers like big tobacco. Here we go.

  1. Well that’s one way to lock out competition for Leo only companies via 3rd party stolen firearm crime. More accurately let’s make selling to the public risky if we are in any way dependent on government contracts.

    • Ya know years ago when I 1st legally gotta gat I quizzed some folks about gun ownership(at my local gym). Several black guy’s said their gat was stolen. And one or 2 guys only overheard me. The late great closed Westforth gats in rural Gary,Indiana had a lot of “crime” gunz but I observed folks getting turned away & denied after failing a 4473. They had a guy whose main job doing checks.Dim .gov hates you & wants to disarm you. But y’all know that😧

    • This was my thought also. Does the bill make provision for Fast & Furious 2.0 or later iterations? Legislated entrapment? That’s a rhetorical question, given the authors and sponsors.

  2. But we aren’t interested in banning immigrants linked to violent crime. Got it. Democrats are able to be this disingenuous because they’ve succeeded in indoctrinating half of the country. 1990s and previous Americans wouldn’t put up with this for a second. Propaganda works. It’s amazing how bold these liars can be now.

  3. “Far too often, lucrative federal contracts are inexplicably awarded to firearm dealers who have been linked to dangerous crime,”

    Well, there goes the firearms for the military and federal law enforcement.

    “…at preventing the federal government from contracting with firearms dealers who are identified as having a history of selling guns that turn up as being used in violent crimes.”

    This is like saying “at preventing the federal government from contracting with vehicle manufacturers who are identified as having a history of selling cars that turn up as being used in car accidents.”

    ’cause “vehicle manufacturers” are also ‘car dealers’ because they do sell their product to and through dealers.

    This is another ‘in the business’ false premise they can exploit to say ‘firearms manufacturers’ are also ‘firearms dealers’.

    A ‘firearms dealer’ or ‘firearms manufacturer’ can no more control or know what happens with the firearms when and after they sell them than a ‘car dealer’ can control or know that their cars sold will be involved in an accident or a ‘vehicular homicide’ or if the cars are being used by criminals for other illegal purposes.

    • Careful. Your logical thinking could be considered “thoughtcrimes”, even heresy.

      How far back does a dealer have to be? Manufacturers > Distributors > Wholesalers > Retailers. And how many former owners will be in the chain of responsibility?

  4. “Our common-sense legislation aims to combat senseless, preventable gun violence by ensuring that gun dealers follow responsible business practices to keep guns from falling into the wrong hands.”

    They already do, the very “business practices” the federal government places on ‘gun dealers’

  5. Democrats are very good at shoveling bullshit, hoping that if they shovel enough of it gun owners, dealers, etc. will drown or suffocate beneath it.

  6. Another BS bill trotted out to wave at the uninformed public to show “Look at us, we’re doing something!”. As if the DLA/GSA is going to solicit bids from some local dealers and not just issue a rider delivery order attached to the established open contract already in place. The vast majority of mom and pop dealers don’t even have a CAGE code to contract with the government. It’s like how every time a politician wants to show his public how much they “care” about a topic they rush out a new clause to attach to procurement contracts that nobody reads or enforces.

  7. Stupid dems, they aren’t even good at coming up with names for their stupid new bullshit anti-gun legislation.
    Shouldn’t it be the Clean ARMS Act, not clean HANDS… are they too lazy to go as far as elbows?
    … and it doesn’t even form their usual AI derived acronym. More election year tripe.

  8. How can we have federal gun dealers? Do we also have federally licensed bookstores and federally licensed churches?

  9. I would think that the Federal Government would buy guns directly from distributors or the manufacturers.

    Does ANY Federal Government Agency actually buy anything other than ammo from a local dealer ???

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