In a letter sent last week to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and ATF Acting Director Marvin Richardson, 20 Senators called out the ATF for its practice of passing internal guidance and then enforcing it on an unsuspecting public. The letter specifically discusses ATF’s recent crackdowns on solvent traps and forced reset triggers.

From the letter:

In light of the above, we respectfully request that the U.S. Department of Justice and the ATF provide the following no later than March 25, 2022:

• All internal instructions, directives, or guidance to any and all employees and/or contractors assigned to or working with the Firearms & Ammunition Technology Division containing criteria, factors, or “indicators” to be used to make the determination of whether a “solvent trap” is classified as a silencer subject to regulation under the National Firearms Act.
• All internal instructions, directives, or guidance to any and all employees and/or contractors assigned to or working with the Firearms & Ammunition Technology Division containing criteria, factors, or “indicators” to be used to make the determination of whether a “forced reset trigger” is classified as a machine gun subject to regulation under the National Firearms Act.
• Copies of all publications through which the ATF has made such guidance and criteria available to ATF Agents, including all Firearms & Ammunition Technology Division Technical Bulletins issued regarding “solvent traps” and “forced reset triggers”, including copies of each.
• An explanation as to how these bulletins are used by law enforcement.
• An explanation as to why documents with similar guidance have not been made available to the public.

The ATF is charged by law with enforcing the nation’s federal firearms laws and providing regulatory oversight of the firearms industry. ATF simply has no authority to conceal public guidance and then enforce it on unsuspecting Americans. The ATF must issue only those regulations authorized by Congress, provide notice of the proposed regulations, and then provide the American people with an opportunity to comment before a new rule goes into effect.

March 25th is just a week away. We won’t hold our breath on a meaningful response from the ATF, but we certainly hope this gains traction.

It’s entirely unacceptable that folks who intend to be law-abiding citizens keep finding themselves at odds with surprise new ATF opinions. The law is the law, and random bureaucrats in an office in D.C. shouldn’t be able to spring new and capricious interpretations, guidance, and “rulings” on an unsuspecting population often with post-ex-facto threats of criminal liability.

A press release from Senator Chuck Grassley’s (R-Iowa) office follows:

WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) joined Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and 19 of his colleagues in expressing concern over the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) use of internal guidance to enforce regulations that are unpublished and unknown to the public. In an alarming display of insufficient transparency from a federal agency, the ATF has used this secret guidance to justify the seizure of property. The senators raise concerns that these regulations – unknown to the public – could be unfairly used to target and prosecute law-abiding firearm owners and businesses.
“We write to express our grave concern over the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ (ATF) continued pattern of enforcing secret guidance. This secret guidance was brought to our attention by those who have received recent threatening letters where the ATF makes blanket threats based on the recipient allegedly purchasing and possessing various firearms accessories, none of which are illegal based on any statute or regulation,” the lawmakers wrote.
“Our government, including the ATF, has a duty to inform Americans what they must do to comply with federal law, especially when the conduct involves the exercise of an enumerated constitutional right and violations could result in a penalty of up to ten years in prison. The use of ‘secret’ law is anathema to our system of government,” the lawmakers continued.
Grassley and his colleagues request the Department of Justice and the ATF provide them with all “internal instructions, directives or guidance” pertaining to these regulations, along with an explanation as to why this guidance has not been made available to the public.
“The ATF is charged by law with enforcing the nation’s federal firearms laws and providing regulatory oversight of the firearms industry. ATF simply has no authority to conceal public guidance and then enforce it on unsuspecting Americans. The ATF must issue only those regulations authorized by Congress, provide notice of the proposed regulations, and then provide the American people with an opportunity to comment before a new rule goes into effect,” the lawmakers concluded.
Read the full letter by clicking HERE.

 

 

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40 COMMENTS

  2. “The law is the law…”

    No, the regulation is the regulation.

    We’re talking about regulations proposed and enacted by an unelected regulatory agency, doing the legislative work of Congress without having to answer for it to the citizens. Think ATF will come around when the President and Congress, along with the AG are tipped dramatically in the direction of more regulation and less freedom?

    Of course its likely that there’ll be some sort of suit filed by a gun rights org, but that’ll take years to come to verdict if it even gains traction.

    If there is a chance to comment to ATF, do so. That’s caused some hesitation and slow down to date. The biggest thing is to toss the legislative people up for reelection and hold the next Congress’s feet to the fire. Demand they do their jobs and not turn it over to agancies like ATF, OSHA, etc.

    • The Governmental Bureaucracy is the most dangerous enemy of Freedom and Liberty. For which both parties are guilty. It was put in place in order to get regulations enacted in the Darkness, that would never pass muster in the Light of Day. if required to be voted on by Politicians. In the face of their constituents. 95% of all the rules and regulations that the citizenry are required to adhere to, come from the nameless, faceless Bureaucracy that lives in the shadows of the Federal Government.

      • What a load of self serving bollocks. ALL Legislation passed by government o is subject to scrutiny. There is no such thing as ‘SECRET’ legislatiion Just because YOU have no perfsonal knowledge of any particular legislation simply because you may be too bloody illiterate to research it and thus provide very well paid employment to the Legal Profession does NOT mean there is anything ‘SECRET’ about itIf there was secret legislation how the elfin hell would YOU be aware of it in the first place.
        There are exceptions to this and they are the processes that would be invoked in case of war. Every nation has a WAR BOOK of LEGISLATION and I assure you that they would NOT remain secret for long in such an eventuallty. In fact they are NOT actually that secret anyway and they are known to hundreds of thousands of but few understand it’s implications.

        • What are you on about? He didn’t say secret legislation. He said to get around trying to pass legislation that will never fly and that’s exactly what every new ATF “rule” is. Look how many different types of machine guns they say there are: binary triggers, bump stocks, forced reset triggers yet none of them actually function in the manner of an actual machine gun – they make those rules with ZERO oversight from Congress and they are binding by law. They are effectively legislating outside of the elected legislative body. The EPA is no better. THAT is the bureaucracy need talking about. You’re worse than a fool if you can’t see that.

    • I find the statement “law abiding” as arbitrary as the ATF’s rules.

      Law abiding is meaningless if the laws continually take away more of our rights. This makes it seem as if abiding is the good and moral side. Clearly it is not when the “law” is changed overnight.

  4. I’m sure that respectful requests will be honored in a timely manner by a downright disrespectful agency.

    Which also brings up the question of who the Hell is in charge. This sounds an awful lot like the administrative state has the entirety of Congress completely cucked.

    It’s Congress that is supposed to be in charge and the executive agency is supposed to be enforcing the laws passed by Congress and signed by the POTUS. Congress shouldn’t be asking BATFE, they should be instructing the BATFE as to what it may or may not or shall or shall not do.

    • “Which also brings up the question of who the Hell is in charge. This sounds an awful lot like the administrative state has the entirety of Congress completely cucked.”

      SCotUS justice Thomas has made noises he’d like to put a lid on federal agencies pulling laws out of their asses ‘just because’.

      With the current high Court balance, we just might get an petition of cert. granted clipping the wings of that non-elected administrative state…

      • Much as I hate to say it, I’m not really that interested in SCOTUS at this point. IMHO, we have bigger problems. Much, much bigger problems.

        One of the points that I’ve tried to make here, as I said the other day, is to get people to develop pattern recognition in regards to both the 2A and their other rights. My attempt seems, from my perspective to have mostly been a failure.

        Maslow explained fairly well why people stop caring about lofty ideals like “rights” when things are going poorly. I foresee quite a bit of “things going poorly” in the near future.

        Very poorly. Across a host of fronts, if you bother to look for and recognize the pattern. But each of those topics is a book and I’m not going to hash out each one and how it threatens all your rights. If people don’t see the ties that bind then there’s no point because it’s a very long list of just what I’ve found so far.

        Here’s a fun fact. In 2019, pre-Covid, 26% of high school seniors nationwide were “at grade level proficiency” in math, and that proficiency for seniors is what we called “sophomore level” 20 years ago.

        But it’s funny, once you see the pattern, it’s everywhere and it’s not fucking good unless you want social instability (which is where all the patterns lead) that takes the country to the brink of a no-shit civil war where probably half of us are dead.

  5. Does the ATF pursue the Constitution per the Supremacy clause?

    No.

    Then they are null and void and anything they do.

  6. What’s this The Honorable merrick garland and The Honorable mervin richardson crap? Are we in the presence of living gods or what? The letter has as much teeth as a newborn and as expected dances all around the racism and genocide inherent with Gun Control rot.

    • it is a formality of speech you can’t call them authoritarian drones unfortunately if you are a congress critter. It is the layer of frosting on top of the message to go to hell.

      • “respectfully request” – BS Correctly would read “the U.S. Department of Justice and the ATF will provide”

      • It’s a delightfully sly method of expressing dis-respect…

  7. Bravo, Mr. Garland. What they do to people who are not intending to break any laws is not right.

  8. I know nothing will become of this but I hope they win back Congress and sweat these guys a bit for my entertainment.

  9. “…to be used to make the determination of whether a “forced reset trigger” is classified as a machine gun subject to regulation under the National Firearms Act.”

    I’m thinking along the lines of those type of ‘determinations’ be the basis of a class-action lawsuit seeking relief with the select-fire NFA registry being re-opened.

    After all, the Leftist Scum keep endlessly harping about a ‘universal background check’. I’d say passing an NFA background check is ample proof the citizen is law-abiding…

    • It’s really just a regular background check with a much longer wait and a $200 price tag. They query the same databases that the NICS system does.

      That’s part of why the NFA is such a fucking joke. But I’m sure that if they could the Left would take making all background checks take a year and cost $200 a stepping stone to their proposed utopia.

      • Yep, that’s correct. The NFA background check is just the same regular background check one gets when they purchase a non-NFA firearm. The only difference is its conducted from a different section ‘division’ of the ATF but its the same background check.

        Its the money that makes it take so long to get the approval back.

        The $200.00 has to be processed outside the normal accounting system by the treasury department because the ATF is not permitted to handle funds they collect so that $200.00 really ends up going to the treasury department. Its on the bottom of the ‘pile’ for processing and they do it when they get around to it when the ATF’s money intake is processed which is around 6 months (give or take some) and it depends on where in the Treasury department ATF money intake cycle it falls.

        • note for “The only difference is its conducted from a different section ‘division’ of the ATF but its the same background check.”

          The section of the ATF which does this also adds to the wait time for approval. Their internal processing after the background check is different. When they get to the application processing may be weeks, but the actual background check for an individual when they do it is the same background check. The ATF describes this step as ‘extensive background check’ because the processing is included as part of the background check, its really the processing that is ‘extensive’. But in reality the actual background check is the same yes/no/wait check one gets at a firearms store for an non-NFA item.

  10. “‘The use of ‘secret’ law is anathema to our system of government,’ the lawmakers continued.”

    That depends on which “our” you are talking about. If, when you say “our”, you mean Progressive government, then “secret” law is totally fine since, “The ends justify the means,” in the Progressive world.

    Remember, in the Progressive mind, whether or not something is right versus wrong is only a function of the identities of the actor and the receiver. If the actor is a Progressive and the receiver is not a Progressive, then by definition anything and everything the Progressive does is good. Similarly, if the actor is not a Progressive and the receiver is a Progressive, then by definition anything and everything that the non-Progressive person does is wrong/evil.

    I can distill that above concept with the simple illustration: Donald Trump could discover the cure to cancer and yet Progressives would still consider him evil because he is not a Progressive. (And to emphasize Progressive disgust in that example, Progressives would berate trump for causing thousands of people–cancer researchers–to lose their jobs.)

    • You should ask yourself why they do this.

      The answer to that is contained in where they focus such behavior. And then look at the inevitable outcome of their policies. From that, it’s not that hard to deduce why they probably engage in this behavior if you know anything about Marxism.

      • I know why “they” do that. They are evil and attempting to browbeat everyone into submission.

        And when I say that “they” are evil, I am not saying that because they are not members of my “tribe”, because I don’t like them personally, nor because I don’t like their policies. I say that “they” are evil because their objectives produce profound levels of needless misery and suffering. And I say that “they” are evil because they are using deception, manipulation, fear, coercion, and force to achieve their goals much the same way that an abusive husband uses those very same methods to control, use, and abuse his wife.

        • “I say that “they” are evil because their objectives produce profound levels of needless misery and suffering.”

          Leftists are fine with it, because they understand you have to break a few eggs (mostly us) to make that yummy utopian omelette they crave. Our goal should be to make that the most un-appetizing plate possible, and force them to clean the plate before they get up… 🙂

        • “I say that “they” are evil because their objectives produce profound levels of needless misery and suffering.”

          IMHO, that’s the point. When you screw up systems badly enough there’s a .66 correlation with people demanding authoritarianism to fix the problems and keep them “safe”.

          Create problem –> increase suffering –> people ask for a police state –> give the people what they asked for.

  11. Just like with the IRS hearings and the revelations around Spygate, unless there are prosecutions and agency budget cuts this is just kabuki. Don’t be taken in by kabuki.
    I suggest any readers in the districts/states of the signatories take a minute to call and ask their offices what they intend to do if the agency blows them off, and what they intend to do to insure this never happens again.

  12. “It has been observed by an honorable gentleman, that a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved, that no position in politics is more false than this. The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.

    —- Alexander Hamilton, Speech to Congress, June 21, 1788″

    And this is where and how the ATF thrives, in that tyranny and deformity of government.

    • “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and tran-sient causes … but when a long train of abuses and usurpations … evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.” – Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence

      The BATF&E has shown they thrive and operate with “a long train of abuses and usurpations”

      Campaign and protest for the abolishment of the BATF&E. Resist and rebel against the BATF&E.

      The BATF&E needs to be held accountable for their abuses and usurpations of power. Start writing, emailing, calling your congress representatives and demand they hold the BATF&E accountable and abolish this BATF&E perversion of government.

  13. Those fearless champions of the Second Amendment, the Republicans, have released a strongly worded letter…

    Keep those donations coming as we tirelessly fight for your rights!

    • Actually a SLIGHTLY cogent comment, MinorIQ – now do the Dimocrats, who are busy trampling as many of our rights as they can.

      How about recognizing that ALL politicians are out for their own power and personal benefit and re-election, and that is about the limit of their so-called “principles”? Nah, that would require you to engage in actual ratiocination, as opposed to partisan diatribe. F*** off, MinorIQ, or else grow the f*** up and act like an actual thinking adult.

  14. So, in this age of immediate information and a backround check that takes literally minutes to complete, why, Oh why, does it take 9 months or more for a approval for an application for a suppressor? Why does it take more time for a suppressor approval that it takes to conceive and give birth to a human snot gobbler?. Just asking, Why?

  15. Pretty soon everything will be illegal so you might as well ignore the bullshit and do whatever you want.

  16. The NFA, GCA and all subsequent legislation Congress has passed, in short, amended the 2nd Amendment. No ifs, ands or buts about it, and in word and deed violated Article V of the US Constitution. All Amendments, thus all modifications to Amendments, must be ratified by the requisite three fourths of the States Legislatures. Congress is not granted the right to deny the States Suffrage, which they unconstitutionally did by the passing of any and all Gun Control Legislation.

    Congress has repeatedly taken it upon themselves to amend the Second Amendment. Taking authority they are not granted. “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” It doesn’t get any plainer than that.
    SCOTUS be damned for upholding any aspect of Legislation that infringes that right, regardless of case history and precedence, which should have never applied due to the unique and first recorded legislation affirming and protecting the citizenry unique and unimpeachable rights. Screw English Case Law.

  17. Time to shut down all of these lawless lettered Agencies. Everyone of them. The Constitution never stated any of them as needed ,therefore Congress pulled the regulations out of their collective arses and need to start over

  18. In case the populace hadn’t noticed, The Congress, in it’s August Wisdom, or what passes therefor, funds the antics of the BATFE, aka The ATF. For readers of the above, when was the last time you contacted your elected representatives about the antics of the ATF or anything that you might be concerned about?

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