(courtesy theakforum.net)

Speculation is rife about President Obama’s post-Umpqua plans to further his gun control agenda – without Congressional support (obvs.). Obama Weighs White House Moves on Gun Control nbcnews.com reports. The article echoes the proposal making the rounds: changing the rules on gun sales so that anyone selling more than a certain number of firearms becomes a federal firearms dealer. They would then have to subject all sales to a federal background check (and fill out a mess of paperwork). As our man Leghorn pointed out . . .

the ATF already has rules in this regard. Rules that have already eliminated thousands of “kitchen table” FFL’s (Federal Firearms Licensees). Lowering the legal threshold defining a gun dealer would put a big old dent in gun show business, allowing Obama to claim he’s “closing the gun show loophole” – a longtime rallying cry for gun control advocates. And an almost completely irrelevant factor in firearms-related crime.

Changing ATF rules on gun dealers is doable. The political process of reversing Executive Order rule-making – lawsuits, new legislation and such – is onerous.

Four years ago, the ATF created a regulation to stem the “iron river’ of “assault rifles” flowing to Mexico (excluding illegal sales facilitated by the ATF and U.S. government-sacntioned sales that seep to the cartels). Gun dealers in four border states have to report purchasers who buy two or more semi-automatic weapons in a week with a caliber greater than .22 and a detachable magazine. Despite legal challenges, the reg still stands.

The Brits say it’s the bus you don’t see that kills you. This much-discussed rule change on gun dealers may not be the real deal. Here’s where American gun owners are vulnerable: the “sporting purposes” clause in the Gun Control Act of 1968:

The GCA created what is known as the “sporting purposes” standard for imported firearms, saying that they must “be generally recognized as particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes.” GCA sporting purposes includes hunting and organized competitive target shooting, but does not include “plinking” or “practical shooting” (which the ATF says is closer to police/combat-style competition and not comparable to more traditional types of sports), nor does it allow for collection for historical or design interest.

Earlier this year, Utah Congressman Rob Bishop introduced H.R. 2710. The “Lawful Purpose and Self Defense Act of 2015” sought to “remove BATFE’s authority to interpret or reinterpret the ‘sporting purposes’ clauses in federal law.”  It was referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations, where it died.

So there’s nothing to stop the President – save popular outcry by a bunch of cry-baby gun owners (/sarc) – from evoking the GCA’s “non-sporting” clause and baning the importation of foreign-made firearms, parts for same and milsurp ammo. Less guns/ammo = less crime dontcha know.

[NB: the President banned imported Russian AK’s with the stroke of a pen after the Bear invaded the Ukraine. They’re now made in Florida.]

What would a sporting clause clamp-down do to stop “gun violence”? Not a damn thing. But it would be a suitably grand gesture on guns for a president desperate to make a point. (And, ironically enough, a boon to domestic gun and ammo makers.)

Other than that . . . I don’t know. One thing’s for sure: the ATF is the one to watch. The law enforcement organization elevated to Agency status by Ronald Reagan is ready, will and able to help the current president make life miserable for American gun owners, any way they can.

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69 COMMENTS

    • Redefining dealer is unlikely and may require congress to have any teeth. Import ban is Uber likely, but then again why has t he already as he did a ban on ak s already? I’m not sure we will see much fun control orders. The democrats want the senate. They have NO chance at the house but a small chance at the senate and a good chance of reducing g the number of repiblican seats. Many swing states are gun states and gun owners vote gun issues when they are on the table. As bill Clinton said” support for gun control may run broad but it’s not very deep” in other words the people that want gun control don’t think it’s important or they gonna vote democrat anyway. The people opposed will vote and lobby and donate and make calls and knock doors and their votes are often up for grabs.
      Gun controls or the democrats is like gay marriage for the republicans . Good for the primaries and raising money. Vote killer in the general. Gun owners also have LONG memories and wlll punish a senator 5 years after he supports a gun control bill. Gun control lost the dems the senate under Clinton and it helped then lose congress under Obama. They been burned too many times. Plus barbers boxer one of the worst is retiring and im not sure but Diane fienstien ( or as I like to call her evil lying c@nt” may be retiring or hopefully having a change of heart and jumping off a bridge to make the world a better place and strobe for her evil deeds and lies. Then we have chuck shumer. Left and he’s not as bad. The antis are losing. The writing is on the wall, next to a reactive zombie target. They just can’t read it. New voters are much more libertarian they don’t believe in bans. Not guns not drugs not marriage. Gun control is a bad idea from a bygone era.

  2. “…allowing Obama to claim he’s “closing the gun show loophole”…”

    And when nothing changes as we all know will be the case…?

    The long slow slippery slope.

    • “And when nothing changes as we all know will be the case…?”

      They’ll declare it a great success and go to the next step. Since the intentions were good, it MUST have worked as advertised.

      BTW, I still have shares in “Good Intentions Paving and Handbaskets, LLC” available for just above cost.

    • As we all know…….the “gun-show loophole” has nothing to do with gun-shows! It has to do with control the transfer of a legally owned firearm from one private citizen to another. Once that is achieved, registration comes next. After registration, confiscation. During confiscation; civil war. If we lose the civil war (which I doubt, there are more of us), slavery for the survivors.

  3. It is going to be more than this and our freaking heads will spin when it becomes law of the land . This clown Barry Hussein Lightning Bolt Obama has made my head spin so much I’m acclimated and I’m not even dizzy anymore . I have prepared for this time for 35 plus years .

    • Yup.
      And when he does manage something sweeping, it’s going to be in the courts for years before it gets overturned. If it gets overturned.

      • You legal experts can correct me on this if I am mistaken, but I’m pretty sure any Executive Order can be easily and immediately reversed by a simple Executive Order by the next president. Last time I checked there was no stone and chisel involved in creating these things.

        • The main obstacle to that approach, I think, is simple institutional inertia. As long as it isn’t creating a problem for him or her, the successor Pres is likely to just leave things as they are at that level.

        • The problem is with all the entrenchment that takes place with rule changes , paperwork and the details after these orders are implemented and the tangled web that is weaved in the period of time between institution and scrapping of it . Bureaucracy at it’s finest .

  4. If he does that those domestic ammo factories everyone keeps putting off building will get built, and the amount of background checks will continue to climb at an even higher rate. People don’t like being told they can’t have something.

  5. He has a pen and a phone, I have a phone and cash.

    Through the magic of technology and the free market I can usually have a weapon of my choice delivered to a location of my choosing free of paper work.

  6. And, its incumbent upon us to continually contact our Congress-critters and reel-in any such ATF regulation.

    The bureaucrats in the ATF know that Obama’s months in office are numbered; they have a career ahead of them. That career depends on the ATF getting funding and support from Congress. If Congress takes ATF to task for questionable rule-making the ATF will have to decide to: back-off; bite the hand that feeds them.

    Bureaucrats know better than anyone else how to drag their feet. They can stall the President and AG; but they can’t buck Congress.

    It’s up to us to keep those cards and letters coming into Congressional offices.

    • It’s encumbent upon us to develop and maintain well regulated militias. A well regulated milita being necessary to the security of a free state… After all, they are necessary to the security of a free state.

      Ultimately, individual rights are not secured with words alone.

  7. Why is it so hard for us to get people in office that will change this garbage and remove the useless red tape?

    • Because most of the voters are flat out ignorant about the political process. This is the reason Trump is so popular right now. He’s saying all the right things, but he has no record to prove any of it is real.

      • I’d be completely fine withTrump locking up the border, deporting violent illegals, balancing the budget, and firing worthless government employees. The man certainly has a reputation for firing people, and I’m not inclined to think he’d make such inflammatory statements about immigration unless he was indicating genuine intentions.

        And if we could get Ted Cruz in SCOTUS I would be incredibly stoked.

        • I’m afraid the Don would do whatever he wanted to do , Kadie bar the door and screw the Constitution . We can do so much better with a man that cherishes the Constitution . We have someone in there now that knows the Constitution and thinks it’s inherently flawed , we don’t need someone who thinks they’re above it and could give a shit about it and probably doesn’t even know it or the bill of rights and the other founding documents . We need , desperately need , Ted Cruz , to restore it , piece by piece . He truly believes our country was blessed by God and that our founders were inspired by God when they penned their words by Covenant with Him . The Don not only has never ask God for forgiveness ( his own words ) but doesn’t believe he has ever done anything that would require it and yet identifies himself as Christian . I don’t think he understands the significance of that quandary and that’s spooky .
          My money , my support and my prayers are for Ted Cruz in 2016 .

  8. F-“sporting purposes.” Sporting purposes have never been fully enforced except separately in the states, and the surrounding states have stepped up to counter ‘sporting purposes’ with hunting tags for the legislators of the sporting purposes states if they crossed state lines.

    Guns rights have only one purpose and that is to hunt your stupid neighbors needing jobs when they gang up on you and call themselves “government.”

    • There are how many million farrel pigs in the U.S.? What are the favorite weapons used in the hunting of these pigs? How does THAT not satisfy the unconstitutional “Sporting Purposes” rule?

      • Sounds like a great argument for replacing “sporting purposes” with “any lawful purpose”.

        Is killing vermin a “sport” or a “utility”? Is killing vermin a public safety – i.e., a militia – purpose?

        “Sporting purposes” was a poorly thought-out pretext that seemed to resolve the incompatibility between the .50 calibre definition of a DD and the commonplace shotgun. Now that the ATF has it’s regulatory teat in the wringer over the stock-less shotgun fiasco we out to be gracious in letting them off-the-hook by having Congress fix the “sporting purposes” exception.

        • I may be going Ben Carson one better.

          Congress gave federal bureaucrats in Washington D.C., the power to decide what kinds of firearms you can own. The framers of GCA ’68 borrowed an idea — that certain firearms are “hunting weapons” — from the Nazi Weapons Law (Section 21 and Section 32 of the Regulations, page 61 and page 73, respectively, of “Gun Control”: Gateway to Tyranny). The equivalent U.S. term, “sporting purpose,” was used to classify firearms. But it was not defined anywhere in GCA ’68. Thus, bureaucrats were empowered to ban whole classes of firearms.

  9. Most off the more than occasional settlers at gun shows who aren’t FFLs were FFLs before the BATF pulled their licensees because they “weren’t in the business”. Most of them would be glad to get their licensees back. But for that to happen the BATF would have to drop the zoning requirement.

  10. He (POTUS) is trying anything he an to preserve his “legacy” …problem is so far he has no “legacy”

    • B U L L S H _ T ! ! ! He has one hell of a legacy and I am going to tell my great grandkids about it. It’s the same legacy as satan’s evil liberal blue house of (D) has given us for the last two centuries, and it’ll be the cause of the next civil war.

      If you live in a blue state, you may be part of the problem. If you have a (D) after your name, are a liberal, or a rino, the problem is PART-OF-YOU. You are permanently broken and your mother, one of your five fathers who wears the dress more often, owes us an abortion.

  11. Banning imports will dry up the supply of offshore ammo, making locally sourced ammo more expensive, leading to the development of new facilities and manufacturers.

    Some foreign firearms manufacturers have already located their production here, and more will. For example, once sanctions were imposed against Concern Kalashnikov in Russia, the company worked to change over from an importer to USA-based manufacturer. Glock has a facility in Smyrna where at least some manufacturing takes place. In the meantime, I’m sure that S&W and Ruger will be thrilled to satisfy US demand until the foreigners can get the manufacturing and supply chain figured out.

    The more guns made here and the more jobs that depend on such manufacturing, the more power will be held by gun makers and their customers. That’s hardly what POTUS wants, is it? Ah, the Law of Unintended Consequences. Sometimes it’s a good thing.

    POTUS understands capitalism about as well as he understands the Constitution.

    • Good thoughts, offers some hope. What worries me is that they will work simultaneously to drown the US firearms industry in regulations. They’ve been doing their best behind the scenes in that regard already.

    • Except that “Kalashnikov USA” has as much to do with the real KC as FedEx does with the federal government, zilch. All they did was trademark the name stateside since they were the only and last importer of Saiga’s in their sporter format and will now fool ignorant gun buyers (because the vast majority of gun owners are ignorant about AK’s) into buying a real “Kalashnikov” instead of being what it really is, another marketing gimmick. They can’t even communicate with the real KC without running afoul of the sanctions. They have already been converting Saiga AK’s (which is all they are) under RWC Imports and they have been hit or miss and the same quality as someone who can DIY at home.

      The problem is American AK’s suck, period (at least one’s available to the general public at prices they are willing to buy at). I can count on my hand the number of American AK builders who made decent AK’s consistently and one of them stopped building AK’s years ago to focus solely on HK clones and Uzi’s leaving only one company, DDI. Now how they will hold up especially when the next gun buying panic comes around remains to be seen. Waffen Werks was touted as the “best” domestic assembler of AK’s until 1) they started manufacturing their own parts which turned out to be substandard crap and 2) the Gun Panic of 2012-2013 burdened them so much that they were putting out more lemons than decent guns so the company folded and its inventory taken over by…..DDI.

      I hope I am wrong but anyone who is in to AK’s and their history in the American consumer market knows we have a long way to go before our AK’s can reliably be up to Russian standards. Yes there have been some strives in some areas but we are still not there yet.

  12. I’ve long thought that imported ammunition and imported 11rd+ magazines are at the most risk and in the end will be felt be most.

  13. For the record that is a 5.45×39 rifle. The above picture would have made more sense on the posting about 7n6 last week than the 5.56 AK shown. Just in case foghorn is reading comments 🙂

    • I really think RF missed a great opportunity by not including at the first mention of BHO in this article: “President Obama (not shown)…”

      Would have been worth a chuckle. That and I think I would probably rather have the Russkaya as president.

  14. Israel is going to get into another brawl with the Arab world when it announces it is rebuilding the Jewish Temple directly beside the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount where the pine grove now stands . The Armies of Libya , Egypt , Ethiopia , Arabia , Syria , Iraq , Persia ( Iran ) Turkey and others will be emboldened by Russia now perched in Syria , and march against Israel and be nuked on their approached by ID . At some point in this exchange , the sea coast of the US will be nuked and America will be in anarchy . The merchants of the world will cry and wail and throw sand on their heads and say who will we be able to sell our goods to now that the great merchant city is a blaze . The Armies of China and the East will see their opportunity to take over the oil fields of the mid east , fill the power void and become the only super power and march toward Israel passing through the dried up Euphrates Valley and the remaining armies of the world will converge in the valley of Jehoshaphat ( Armageddon ) .
    These are the ravings of a mad man , right ?
    These are also the ravings of ISIL ( ISIS ) and most of radicalized Muslims .
    The one who prevails in these times is their Messiah and ironically , many Christians teach similar prophesy and the one who prevails is the Christian antichrist . Funny stuff huh ?
    May want to buckle up folks . The ramblings of a mad man may be on our doorstep . Prepare your soul and your cupboards for all possibilities and if everything works itself out you can always eat and shoot your preps .

    • Ethiopia is not predominantly Muslim by any stretch of the imagination.

      Coptic Christian, Christian, Eastern Orthodox and Sephardic Jews. Some Muslims.

      Forget Ethiopia.

      • I know you are correct in your remark but the country is rapidly becoming Muslim and I don’t know why , but they will turn their armies against Israel . Ezekiel 38

    • Eyes as a flame of fire-even so come LORD JESUS. And the Russkies are launching cruise missiles from Russia across Iran and Iraq-does anyone think Israel would not respond to an errant russian missile? BTW is Slow Joe Biden STILL Barry’s kryptonite?

      • I know from many of your previous post that you understand my remarks , and if you are as many of my friends are , experiencing the goose bump effect ( Holy Spirit ) when you contemplate these times , you may be interested in knowing that China has now sent several war ships to Syria to team with Russia and they should arrive there in a few months . Who would have guessed that one ? When SHTF they will definitely want to protect any interest they have there , right ?
        God bless FWW

    • Looks a bit like Jennifer Lawrence…with an AK. Absolutely lovely. I might print that out and frame it.

      • Seen the “Joy” trailer? Jennifer Lawrence [inexplicably] firing a “tactical” shotgun (extended tube, pistol grip). If you’re a fan, you might like it.

  16. Just remember: BATF = Bureau for the Absolute Termination of Freedom, AKA the Amerikan Gestapo…

  17. Here in Wisconsin you can sell your used car as an individual, but if you sell too many in too short a time span you are in business, whether you thought so or not.

    Same thing could be said about gun transfers, that there’s a natural limit to a sportsman’s, collector’s, or hobbyist’s transactions in a year. Or a threshold of income so derived.

    Then you don’t need any new gun laws; just collect names at a gun show and sic the IRS on folks for back business tax. There’d be a piece of the pie for the state revenue departments too, so I’m sure they’d cooperate.

  18. Isn’t it great that when you have a dispute with the government you can only go to that very same government (federal judge) to resolve it?

    Who made up this idiotic system? What kind of society settles for it?

  19. “changing the rules on gun sales so that anyone selling more than a certain number of firearms becomes a federal firearms dealer.”

    Right. Okay. As Nick pointed out those laws already exist. A “dealer” is already partially defined as:

    The term “engaged in the business” as applied
    to a dealer in firearms means a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to dealing 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 difference is that it exempts the selling off of a collection you already own. It says dealing is buying and selling for profit. Sounds like Obama wants to get rid of the “why” and just say that it’s selling guns, period.

  20. Obama can tell ATF that they now have to redefine dealer to = x number of guns sold during a year, but this can’t occur over night. They will have to publish the proposed change and put it out for public comment, just like with the M855 green tip. That allows us to paper Congress and fill up their comment space with our protests.

    We won the M855 skirmish, but will continue to have to fight the battles of the ongoing political war with the banners for the foreseeable future.

  22. So…how do they propose to track sales? If someone in AZ where it’s legal for an individual to sell to another resident with no background check, and a normal guy who has give guns just wants to sell his Glock or something, how on Earth would they presume to track and enforce how many guns he sell before he reaches some arbitrary limit?

    All just sounds like smoke and mirrors to convince his insane, enslaved supporters that he’s doing something.

    Also, yeah, go ahead and ban imports. Make gun and ammo manufacturing a booming business in the US and give them more power. Please.

    • Since they are supposedly worried about the “gun show loophole”, I would expect them to concentrate on monitoring dealers at gun shows. But it sounds an awful lot like work to me; might not go down so well with the rank-and-file, counting customers at a gun-show table when they could be out shooting someone’s dog.

    • I’m suddenly reminded of the recent laws requiring private handgun transfers to go through FFLs in Washington and Oregon. It would seem to go hand in hand with this concept of lowering the number of sales to qualify as a dealer.

  23. If I remember my school days, isn’t the President’s job to enforce the nations laws? Doesn’t only Congress have the power to create new laws? Maybe I’m too old fashioned.

    • From your school days yes, you’re right. Go to a modern school, and the president is our lord and savior who must undo all the social injustice wrought by our racist founding fathers.

    • The president has the power to manage how his agencies run. These agencies have the power to enforce the laws as they interpret them. So if he orders his agencies to interpret anyone selling more than a single gun in a lifetime as a dealer, then they can legally do that.

      Until either the Legislative branch changes the law to explicitly define what a firearms dealer is, or a lawsuit gets brought to the Judicial branch that shows that the president’s interpretation violates the law, it’s all legal for the president to do.

      If Congress knowingly passes a law that violates the constitution, or the President knowingly makes an order that violates the law, it’s all technically still legal until we can prove that it isn’t, meanwhile we are oppressed.

  24. As expected, here it comes, truth gunners. Gird your loins. And your lions, if ya got ’em.

    On further reflection, girding your lions sounds like a bad idea. 86 that.

    Singe your beards, but not your lions’ beards, please. Let Obama do that.

  25. With elections coming up, he is going to have to act now or wait until after the elections. 2016 is a bad year for gun control issues.

  28. Any politician that has voted for gun control has committed treason and a breach of contract. He/she swore an oath to defend the Constitution. THAT is a verbal contract. By breaking that oath he/she is in breach of contract and can be sued in a tort action. Go for it, someone should get some money out of it and it will hurt him/her and maybe shut him/her up. No double standards put the DC politicians on Obamacare and SS.Thanks for your support and vote.Pass the word. mrpresident2016.com

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