By Matt Manda

Among the 2,400 exhibitors and booths at the expanded SHOT Show 2022, none was busier than that of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). More than 43,000 attendees returned to Las Vegas for this year’s show and they crowded the ATF booth for education, compliance and resource materials from the bureau responsible for regulating the firearm industry.

ATF Acting Director Marvin Richardson joined NSSF’s Larry Keane for a discussion on SHOT TV to provide updates on the important partnerships between the agency and the firearm industry, as well as the critical work ahead.

Richardson noted that 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the creation of the ATF, which was spun out of the IRS in 1972. Keane complimented the work of the agency – especially under Richardson’s leadership – on such an important milestone.

“Through the history of ATF and the industry, and particularly through your leadership, the relationship between NSSF and the industry and the ATF has really grown stronger, through a lot of hard work on both sides,” Keane said. “To find common ground we don’t always agree, obviously, but when we disagree, we disagree in a professional manner and that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

Richardson agreed and highlighted the many programs in which the ATF and industry work together. That includes the Don’t Lie for the Other Guy™ initiative to educate firearm retailers and the public about penalties for attempting an illegal firearm straw purchase.

“This has been a partnership between us for the past twenty years now. It’s been a great partnership when we start talking about our efforts to combat diverting firearms from legal commerce to illegal commerce,” Richardson explained. “This partnership is really the first line of defense, when you talk about that person who works at the store counter. That retailer is the first opportunity to stop that illegal activity.”

ATF data released last year showing that another key partner program, Operation Secure Store® is paying off. The program exists to help firearm retailers know about voluntary security improvements that can be made to deter and prevent thefts and robberies. The ATF’s data showed a dramatic decrease in the number of crimes occurring at firearm retail locations.

Richardson also took the opportunity to speak about the ATF’s recent upgrade to the eForms for ATF Form 4, including new required extra security steps. NSSF’s efforts were critical to securing funding and increased Congressional direction to ATF to carry out the upgrades.

“This wasn’t just a lift-and-shift. This was a complete rebuild of the services platform technology. It’s like jumping from an iPhone 2 to an iPhone 13,” Richardson explained. “I like to give the credit where due, but the capacity and improvements for the industry when we talk about timeliness and everything it’s going to provide to the industry, and to us as the regulator, are just phenomenal.”

NSSF’s Larry Keane also asked Richardson about the timeline for final publication of ATF rules regarding stabilizing arm braces and also the proposed rules on redefining firearm frames and receivers.

Watch the full SHOT TV interview with ATF Acting Director Marvin Richardson here.

 

Matt Manda is Manager, Public Affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation. 

 

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43 COMMENTS

    • My one question for Mr. Richardson is…With all the signs of America’s racist past being removed from public view how can you justify keeping Gun Control afloat when History Clearly Confirms Gun Control is no different than slave shacks, nooses, Jim Crow, etc?
      Surely Mr. Richardson you and your staff of caring professionals can find something else better than an agenda that in any shape, matter or form is rooted in racism and genocide. Please advise.

  2. So, no free samples of explosives? No free stamps? Not even a raffle?

    So, people flocked to the booth for info on how to comply.

    I guess the ATF believes all that traffic means they are popular.

  3. The problem with all this mutual navel gazing and praise fest is the bloody history of the ATF. No other Federal agency can lay claim to as many screwed up, disastrous enforcement actions that ended up killing innocent people and even law enforcement officers both from the ATF and other agencies. Go back to the first, the earliest example of the raid on Ken Ballew’s apartment and the blood bath never ends. It only gets worse.

    Sure, we need enforcement against actual criminals. But this agency has been a disaster of death and destruction.

    Take away it’s police powers. Move the explosives experts into the FBI as technical and science staff. Dissolve the ATF SWAT team. Ban any and all from Federal employment who had anything to do with the Waco, Ruby Ridge and lesser known acts of grotesque agency incompetence.

    Short of all that, there is nothing much I care to hear about the wonders of the ATF/firearms industry partnership. When the toll is so many needlessly dead Americans, children and babies included, my ability to tolerate love and affection for the agency is nil.

    • Careful, there. Watch! The ATF screws up plenty, OK, but Waco and Ruby Ridge were only started by ATF, they screwed that up so bad they were almost immediately withdrawn, for the FBI to take over, after which it was the FBI who did the lion’s share of screwing up, including the sniping demonstrations (read; mass murder) by Lon Horiuchi, an FBI employee, not ATF. It was an ATF agent who murdered the Weaver’s son and his dog, true, but it was the FBI’s Horiuchi who shot an unarmed Vicky Weaver in the face while she was holding her infant child in her arms in the entrance to her own home.

      • You will get no argument from me that Horiuchi deserves life in prison at hard labor for his murder of Vicki Weaver.

        Point is that these disasters begin with the ATF leadership being incompetent, arrogant and bloodthirsty. The rule should be no different in any criminal prosecution where all involved in a crime are just as responsible for every harm done even if any one individual’s part in that crime was small. The ATF leadership is responsible for Vicki Weaver’s murder equally with Horiuchi, because they created the crime.

    • “Move the explosives experts into the FBI…”
      That’s crazy! Last thing that should be done is give the FBI more power and control. If they can do a silent coup against a sitting President, what do you think they will do to you?
      Don’t forget the real reason for the 2nd Amendment: last line of protection against an overreaching and tyrannical government.

      • There’s been plenty of news coverage and criminal prosecutions showing the explosives scientists and techs are worth having on staff. I just do not see any reason for them to be law enforcement officers with guns and badges. They should be civilian science staff, as in a crime scene or evidence tech.

  5. Well If I went someplace and seen an Alcohol Tobacco Gunms and Explosives I’d probably drop in for a visit too

    • For free samples my marsupial friend? I can’t believe they let satan have a booth. Oh well…😦

      • 4 sure free samples.
        Little bit a vodka, nice cigar,
        Like that gunm
        And enough boom to blow up a car.

  7. gun owners were within arms reach of Bidens ATF while the ATF is actively trying to come up with ways to confiscate firearms and do away with exercise of the second amendment, and no lynchings of ATF personnel?

    Lots of self control there.

    • Good point! If this had been any other type of trade show with any other unpopular agency presenting, the protests and probably riots would have been predictable. It serves to prove the settled science that gun owners are among the most agreeable on the planet – an armed society is a polite society!

      • So agreeable, it seems, that they’ll eventually agree to gut the 2A through *other methods* and then probably turn in their guns mutter something about following the law and how they’re going to sue after it no longer matters.

  8. How do “don’t lie for the other guy” and “operation safe store” compliment “fast and furious”?

  9. The Art of War translation, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Yes it makes me a little uncomfortable but Larry Keane is a straight shooter and represents us well.

  11. Yeah, let’s celebrate 50 years of screwing with the Constitution by the jackbooted thugs of the ATF.

  12. “To find common ground we don’t always agree, obviously, but when we disagree, we disagree in a professional manner wait for the agency to issue an opinion letter reversing previous opinion letters and then launch raids against businesses for their products as well as their sales records and that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

  13. I counted 45 “Recommended For You, Train more , Shoot Better blah, blah, blah before I could read the comments. What’s up with this nonsense?

    • avatar Geoff "A day without an apparently brain-damaged mentally-ill demented troll is like a day of warm sunshine" PR

      It generates cash for the folks that keep the lights on in TTAG, that’s what’s up…

      • Well now that Geoff the (vaxxed and boosted) Florida Pervert has given his perspective, can we hear from someone who * isn’t * a limp wristed fairy, fake patriot and pretend Christian?

  14. I assume this is just keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. Also, the ATF is a joke. There is no reason for it to exist.

  16. I ate some rotten meat the other day that had maggots in it and now my butthole itches.
    What’s this about the NSSF and the BATFE working together again?

  19. Why don’t they try actually prosecuting the straw buyers and gun runners to the gang bangers and stop spending energy on braces and modern triggers.

  20. Seems maybe the FPC needs to set up a booth right next to the ATFs booth with a banner stating, “The truth about the ATF” and “Why the ATF is an unconstitutional, treasonous, null and void agency”

Comments are closed.