Steven Dettelbach, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

It appears those wacky bureaucrats with guns and jackboots are at it again. That’s right, the ATF is trying to change laws and even the meaning of words to allow them to lord over even more of the U.S. citizenry who might have a desire to defend themselves or maybe just have a little fun shooting targets and such. Breitbart’s AWR Hawkins reported the ATF’s background check rule has expanded the definition of “sale” in gun transactions to include services or bartering, which could effectively require private sellers to use the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

As reported by Breitbart News, the rule aims to redefine what it means to be “engaged in the business of selling guns,” targeting those who sell guns for profit, frequently or through barter to ensure they go through background checks. This adjustment seeks to prevent individuals from bypassing licensing requirements through nonmonetary transactions. The rule was actually passed back in August 2023, but not much has been mentioned about this potential change in interpretation as changes in rules and laws under the Biden Administration would make a Native American shape-shifter jealous.

Here’s more from the article:

Much of the rule focuses on guns being sold for “profit,” using degree of profit and frequency of sales to categorize private sellers as persons who must go through NICS to sell/transfer guns.

However, pages 26-27 of the rule equates “pecuniary gain” with “profit,” opening the door for the ATF to redefine the word “sale” so as to require a NICS check when a private seller is “bartering” over a gun.

Beginning with the last paragraph on Page 26 and reading into the first paragraph of page 27, the reader sees clearly that the ATF is defining the terms:  “Defining these terms to include any method of payment for a firearm would clarify that persons cannot avoid the licensing requirement by, for instance, bartering or providing or receiving services in exchange for firearms with the predominant intent to earn pecuniary gain even where no money is exchanged.”

Second Amendment Foundation founder and executive vice president Alan Gottlieb commented on the ATF rule, saying, “This is a continuation of the Biden war on guns. It is another attempt to get around Congress to make new laws without congressional approval.”

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76 COMMENTS

    • We damn sure better start launching lawsuits to stop that crap cold.

      At no time deep in this nation’s past was there a requirement to make a record of a firearm transaction. Therefore, the ‘Bruen’ one-step-too-many test applies.

      The founding fathers would NEVER have allowed the government to have the tools to disarm them (gun registration), the SCotUS needs to make that plainly clear.

      They may be able to record new gun sales, after that, it’s hands fucking off.

      The POINT of the 2A was so the government could never pull a Lexington and Concord gun-grab part 2…

      • The atf recently stormed a home at the crack of dawn over a man selling some firearms not from the trunk of his car but from a table at a open to the public Gun Show. The involved atf needs to be charged with murder. And then there’s not a beep out of the atf for unlicensed, unqualified individuals dispersing money and handling firearms along with the people who profit big time by selling junk at Gun Buy Backs.

        As for gifting a firearm…Fine if the firearm is to family and remains on premises or goes to a known collector type where firearms are stored in a safe and seldom see the light of day, etc. Otherwise go to a FFL and use the 4473 to disconnect yourself from all legal ties with the transferred firearm. I gave a firearm to my sister and we transfered through a FFL just for the aforementioned reasons.

    • “I’ll trade ya this old pig for that shotgun you got there.”

      “Alrighty, yup, fair deal, just goin’ to need ya to fill out this form and run a background check, waiting period a couple days…”

    • That was my thought. Interest on money loaned was outlawed in Medieval Europe, but the Italians got around that by paying back the principal, and then “gifting” the person who loaned them the money (among other methods). It’s same way with book deals for politicians; these are almost always money losers for the publisher, but the book deals are payment for some favor the politician performed for an organization or prominent figure. The latter then pay the publisher for the book deal.

      Are ATF guidelines silent on gifts? Can I give a firearm to a neighbor??

      • “Can I give a firearm to a neighbor??”

        under federal law…sure you can, you can gift a firearm as long as they are not ‘prohibited persons’.

        • Not in WA state. Only immediate family members. Not neighbors, friends, BF, GF, etc.
          ————-
          RCW 9.41.113
          Firearm sales or transfers—Background checks—Requirements—Exceptions.

          (4) This section does not apply to:
          (a) A transfer between immediate family members, which for this subsection shall be limited to spouses, domestic partners, parents, parents-in-law, children, siblings, siblings-in-law, grandparents, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, first cousins, aunts, and uncles, that is a bona fide gift or loan;

        • well of course if there is a state law….but under federal law sure you can, you can gift a firearm as long as they are not ‘prohibited persons’.

          In states with a law against gifting outside the family there are other ways

      • you can also sell the firearm at no profit but charge a personal service fee for labor in selling the firearm.

        for example. you can sell a gun you paid $500.00 for … for $500.00 + $200.00 personal labor in selling the firearm. you did not sell the firearm for a profit, and there is no law against you charging for your personal labor nor are there limits set on what you can charge for personal labor. just do it in two separate payments.

  3. *ATF requires everyone to become an FFL to sell guns*
    *ATF continues to shut down FFLs in record numbers for minor clerical errors.*

    Yeah, this is some top tier bullschitski, all by design, with Mexico’s one gun store in the entire country as their ideal end-state.

    • Yes, this is a feature, not a bug. And if people don’t get licensed (or can’t) and still sell guns ATF can shoot them in the face.

      The SWAT team gets bored and needs some action!

  5. ATF: “You sold an AR firearm for profit.”

    Gun guy: “No, I didn’t.”

    ATF: “You bought the firearm for $500.00 and sold it for $700.00.”

    Gun guy: “I sold the lower receiver portion for $500.00, not a profit. Your ‘rules’ say that’s the firearm. The barrel and upper receiver and handguard and BCG I sold collectively for $200.00. That’s $700.00. I did not sell a firearm for a profit.”

    • You missed the bit where they shot you dead in a no-knock raid before asking any questions.

    • ATF: Tape the door camera so gun guy can’t see who it is and crash through the door an hour before daylight.

      Gun guy: phffff (air escaping from hole in head)

      ATF: “He shot 1st. Oh, and he sold a gun for a profit – we think.”

  6. Republicans are still playing by the rules rather than breaking them. They need to up their game or we’re all going to lose.

    • The Republicrats caved when they signed onto open-ended “common sense” legislation to pass the Democrap authored bill. Gee, who would have thought THAT would come back and continue to bite US in the ass ?
      I’m glad that those salvage divers paid me for a map of where my canoe (with my gunsafe in it) capsized in the middle of Lake Superior, which couldn’t possibly be construed as a “sale”

    • “They need to up their game or we’re all going to lose.”

      AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…*gasp* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

      Oh man, if that’s your plan, you’ve been fucked for decades. A proverbial chicken plucked and waiting for the pot.

  7. I foresee a massive increase in off the books transaction’s. We’ve been antique dealer’s for over 30 years. Off the books is the rule rather than the exception. Guns? What is a gun?🙄

    • … that’s someone born either with or without a pen is but identifies as a “man”
      and qualifies to have all important equipment installed at public expense to grant their wish.
      Oops, upon further reading you asked ” What is a gun “, not “What is a guy?”… my bad.

  8. How much did Biden profit from leaving behind so many guns?

    The ATF just needs to be disbanded, defunded, and wiped out.

  9. Refuse to cooperate & assert your fifth amendment rights.. On a bill of sale don’t use amounts or dates…Pay in cash only…FUATF!

  10. I guess since anything that Debby touched doubles or triples in value, shes gonna be in trouble with boththe ATF and the IRS… sucks to be Debby

  12. The joe biden atf mob cannot control their insatiable need to sneak up on sleeping citizens at the crack of dawn, burst into their home and murder them over what amounts zip, nada, nothing. What happened recently in Arkansas is the equivilant to being shot dead for an expired driver’s license.

  14. So in other words, if I give a woman a gum and she expresses her gratitude by having sex with me, I’m in the business of selling gums?

  15. The trend line of government tyranny against Americans is logarithmic not linear. It remains so because Americans are passive fools and believe they can vote their way back to freedom. Not on your life can Trump or any other President control the Deep State and restore the liberties we all believe we were born into. The truth is that we live in a Communist Tyranny and not until the People follow the Colonists as they did in their choice to prosecute a Revolution against King George and now against the Communist Regime of Biden and any that follow Americans will remain enslaved.

    Americans remain asleep. And the Communists know this. They are now killing gun collectors and hobbyists in midnight assaults on non violent and lawful gun collectors. Do Americans fight back or surrender ? Our heritage and history is to fight back and Revolt against Government Tyranny. Will you follow the Minuteman and Continental Army ?

    • It’s more of a step function than a logarithmic one.

      Repeated sigmoidal functions designed to take ground and then lull the victims to complacency.

      Give it a bit for the retirees to figure out how this was done with Social Security and Medicare. Then you’ll see some lamentations. Sure, they’ll be sound and fury signifying nothing, but damn will they be entertaining when the largest generation in history takes it right in the sack just before they find out that there’s exactly nothing they can do about it.

    • I’m afraid if America has another revolutionary war I’ll lose my food stamps, SS check, and Medicaid.
      .giv

  16. If a picture was ever need to define the word bureaucrat it would just be Steven Dettelbach.

  17. George Orwell warned of this in the book ‘1984’ it’s called Newspeak and Liberal democrats have been doing it for decades.

  18. “…bartering or providing or receiving services in exchange for firearms with the predominant intent to earn pecuniary gain even where no money is exchanged.”

    Damn, they even end-ran the ladies of the night!

  20. I’m more concerned about this fiction being glibly thrown around about “private sellers required to use the NICS”. There is no such animal. There can be no such animal, as private sellers are not allowed to access the NICS. It is (or at least was) a well-established touchstone of basic law (and logic) that a person cannot be legally required to do what they are legally prohibited from doing.

    If you mean people who are required to obtain an FFL, then say that. If you mean people who are required to sell through existing FFLs, then say that.

  22. I think most perceptive people know what all this and other nonsense is about with this Democrat administration. We as American Citizens are a last thought before criminals, illegals, and the elite who are trying to replace us and impoverish us while we simply sit here and take it. Every person in this Country is going to have to decide at some point to either be enslaved or a free person. You can be absolutely assured Democrats will cheat in the next Presidential election. At some point each individual will have to make a decision to acquiesce or stand and fight. You should start thinking now about just how important your freedom is to you and what you are willing to sacrifice for it, or lose without it.

  23. My favorite “We the People” in U.S.A. apparently most of you do not understand that there is NO government today. UNITED STATES (the FED) is a bankrupt insolvent de facto corporation impersonating the Lawful government of The United States of America, the Republic. The Constitution the “FED” is operating out of is the 1934 constitution created after the bankruptcy of 1933 by Frankly Delano Roosevelt (a known communist). There is a difference between having the Right to bear “Arms” – vs – the privilege/rights to bear “firearms.” If you use a S.S.N., use 31 USC 5103 debt note obligations (federal reserve notes), have credit cards, driver’s license, insurance, permits, marriage license, i.e., any privileged activity – you have a duty, obligation, and responsibility to pay your extortion fees on the 15 of April every year. Welcome to AMERICAN’T… If you want to know how things actually work, contact me at: [email protected] ask for Reif Steele Dolus… May God bless you all in your search for truth and how to act on it.

  24. The Left has been changing the meaning of commonly used words since the days of FDR. They believe that if they control the language, the can control the people.

  25. Taxation without representation. We can’t vote in or vote out a bureaucrat. They act as if their rules are laws. Delegating law making to bureaucrats is not found in the Constitution. The delegated responsibilities in the Constitution do not include most bureaucracies.

  26. They (BATFE) feel. as all other government agencies and departments do, that they are above the law and as such can re-write/ interpert anything that they want. Rule by consent of the governed went out the window many years (and tears) ago.

  27. Those Wacky ATF Folks: Changing the Meaning of Words

    “When I use a word, Dettelbach said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’.

  28. If we are going to discuss ‘the meanings of words’ then I would like to call into question the idea of “Constitutional Carry” that STILL has limitations beyond The Constitution. I would also like to call out “Survival Rifle” and the fact that we still have a very large number of people on the right that are all too happy to continue referring to AR15’s as ‘assault rifles’. While at the same time no one on the right can stomach the notion that AR15 ABSOLUTELY ARE being used by the left as weapons in their war against America. Yet we hear all the time how few lives are taken by these things and that in itself confuses people as to why the left focuses so much on them.

    The American left has declared war on America. They have done so openly and plainly. Yet far too many people still need an official decree made by Congress.

    Let’s talk about what words mean!
    The process of getting a concealed carry license DOES NOT include ‘training’.
    Training does NOT mean (para) military.
    The point is NOT to arm teachers. We have to stop disarming them. But just what is the point at all in this if our children are going to continue to be taught HATE? THIS must stop!

    • The words I find interesting are more commonly spoken by lower federal courts who are anti-2A…”suitable for military use”. Somewhere along the line came the concept that the Second Amendment is limited to firearms not “suitable for military use.”

      The “militia clauses” of the US Constitution delegate Congress the responsibility for equipping militias, and states the responsibility for training militias. How is it federal courts decide that weapons suitable for military use are not covered by the words, intent, or meaning of the Second Amendment?

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