ATF agents
(AP Photo/David Goldman)

Don’t believe for a minute that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms’ (ATF) ‘zero-tolerance’ policy isn’t real or is some “right-wing conspiracy.” The first nine months of statistics are in and the Biden administration is doing exactly what it said it would. President Joe Biden and his White House advisors are using the ATF as a blunt instrument to hobble the firearm industry.

So far in 2023, ATF has conducted 6,609 inspections of Federal Firearms Licensees – starting on Oct. 1, which is when the federal government’s fiscal calendar begins. That’s closing in on 2022’s annual total of 7,502 for the entire year. ATF inspectors are conducting an average of 647.33 inspections across the nation per month, topping 2022’s monthly average of 587.66.

At this pace, ATF is expected to complete 8,902 inspections before the end of its fiscal year. That’s a blistering pace. There are more sobering figures though.

Warning Conferences, or results of an inspection that warrant a meeting with ATF’s Industry Operations Inspectors, are at 111 for the first nine months. There were 136 for all of FY 2022. Revocations of federal firearms licenses are already at 122. They were just 92 for FY 2022.

In fiscal year 2020 (ending on Sept. 30), the year President Biden was elected, there were 5,823 ATF inspections of FFL holders. That year, there were just 40 license revocations with 96 FFL holders that went out of business or surrendered their licenses. The ATF inspections in FY 2020 resulted in 306 warning conferences and another 804 warning letters. Warning letters were routinely issued for minor clerical errors in record keeping, like misspelled names, dates recorded incorrectly or other administrative errors.

Weaponizing Inspections

Those have now become grounds for license revocation. NSSF warned the industry that this would happen when President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris both campaigned on the idea that they would employ the ATF as a weapon by which they would dismantle the firearm industry and hamper the ability for law-abiding citizens to lawfully-purchase a firearm.

Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Trump
(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

It started when President Biden took to the debate stage in 2019 and said, “Our enemy is the gun manufacturers, not the NRA, the gun manufacturers.”

Not to be outdone, Vice President Harris, when she was still vying for the top of the White House ticket, said, “I will require that for any gun dealer that breaks the law, the ATF take their license.”

President Biden adopted that notion into his gun control platform.

Since taking office, the Biden administration announced a “zero tolerance” policy when it comes to firearm retailer inspections. A single violation can be interpreted as breaking the law and the 1934 Gun Control Act allows ATF to revoke a federal firearm license for a single violation. Instead of using the ATF as a government bureau to assist the firearm industry to stay within regulations, President Biden and his Department of Justice (DOJ) have turned it into a steel trap by which they snare firearm retailers to run them out of business.

That’s evidenced by President Biden’s nomination of David Chipman to become ATF director. NSSF vehemently opposed his nomination. He was a paid lobbyist and advisor for both Everytown for Gun Safety and Giffords gun control groups.

Giffords David Chipman ATF
Biden’s failed ATF Director nominee David Chipman (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

This is the same individual who insulted gun owners and disparaged the firearm industry. That’s why NSSF opposed Chipman’s nomination and was pleased when his name was withdrawn, adding that anyone leading the ATF “should be someone wedded to the ATF’s legitimate mission, not to a gun control agenda.”

Not Criminals, Just Industry

The Biden administration’s zealous targeting of the firearm industry contrasted with its unwillingness to actually enforce criminal laws. The Biden administration is using the law to revoke licenses of firearm retailers for minor clerical errors yet ignores actual crimes.

The most appalling example is, of course, the DOJ’s deal for Hunter Biden. The president’s son was accused of – and admitted to – lying on a Form 4473. He was addicted to and used crack cocaine daily, yet attested on the FBI’s background check form that he wasn’t a user of illegal drugs. That’s a felony offense. His handgun was later carelessly and irresponsibly discarded in a trash receptable near a school.

NSSF criticized the DOJ for a plea agreement offer that would see these charges dropped to avoid prosecution for illegally possessing a firearm as an admitted drug user and plead guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses. NSSF noted in a press release that, “This agreement fuels Americans’ concerns that the Biden administration supports two systems of justice – one that protects the Biden administration, the Biden family and its political allies and another that doles out punishments for those who oppose the Biden administration’s policies.”

Licensed firearm retailers have had their lives destroyed for paperwork mistakes far less notorious than lying about being a crack addict to buy a gun. They are not serious about reducing gun violence, only scoring cheap political points.

President Biden doesn’t intend to stop washing over his administration’s unwillingness to confront crime and instead continue targeting the firearm industry. In his DOJ budget request, he tucked away plans to hire more inspectors than field agents for the ATF. That shows exactly where the Biden administration is prioritizing their efforts.

Zero tolerance doesn’t apply to stopping criminals. The Biden administration reserves that approach for the firearm industry.

 

Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

32 COMMENTS

  1. Something is wrong with that picture of Joe and Kamala. It doesn’t show him with his hand on her boob. Must have been photo-shopped or ‘AI-shopped’ to not show that.

    😁

    • Booger Brain the self-anointed expert on everything and what he does not know is not worth knowing. He laughably declared himself an expert on transgenders and intersex people calling them all crazy because of his bigotry and ignorance mandates that it is only he who knows who is sane and who is not. He never even bothered to read the link to the excellent NPR article on the subject because he has declared he has more knowledge than NPR does. See a shrink Booger Brain its you who need mental health therapy.

      • “declared himself an expert on transgenders and intersex people calling them all crazy because of his bigotry and ignorance”

        I never did any such thing. you lied again dacian. All I did was point out your lie then, and I’m pointing it out now too as your whole post is a lie.

        so you got caught on your lie…go throw your childish temper tantrum some place else.

        • to booger brain

          If you had any reading comprehension you would have known I was only quoting NPR so your claim you were correcting me is a falsehood.

        • oh also dacian, I was replying on that other article comments to your comment about what you think the NPR article said…and your comment was a flat out lie with trying to say that inter-sex and Trans are the same thing. Evidently you need to learn to read. The NPR article never said the lie you told. All I did was show you your lie by using the same article except I broke it down in easy terms and explanation for you because I know your reading and comprehension skills are very poor.

        • to booger brain

          I never said intersex and trans were the same thing. In fact I pointed out that NPR spelled out the differences. Again your reading comprehension is now non-existent.

    • If you know the History of Gun Control you can see that History repeating itself within the corrupt biden administration…And when snot nosed mealy mouth Gun Control History illiterates like aq, cato et al bark at bringing such History to light they do nothing but lint lick biden and his Gun Control…bad doggies.

      • Just shut up, we’re sick of you attacking the regulars here. Take your hate and go somewhere else, you brain-damaged moron.

        Now, prove me right by attacking me, you fat old hag.

  2. EVERYONE knows what the agenda is……..it’s accelerating because they know they might lose their momentum in 2024! The goal is to be like Australia or worse, anyone who claims anything different is a phukin liar!

  3. I’d like to see candidates promise to ban plea bargains for felon-in-possession (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)). And promise to veto any gun legislation until this is done. If they don’t enforce the laws they have, no new laws for them.

  4. “Our enemy is the gun manufacturers, not the NRA, the gun manufacturers.”

    Its pretty telling that tyranny is the plan when a candidate for president can declare a lawful and constitutional industry putting billions of dollars into the economy and providing multi-thousands of jobs, as the ‘enemy’ thus basically declaring war on them.

    How about DUI’s? DUI drivers literally kill multiple thousands annually with their cars annually, and ~90,000 kids age 12 and under are permanently disabled annually in car accidents, but you didn’t declare the auto-industry an ‘enemy’ or try to run them out of business and didn’t weaponize the government against them or try to hold them responsible for the misuse of cars.

    And nether did you declare the ‘glass table top’ industry an ‘enemy’ or try to run them out of business and didn’t weaponize the government against them and defective glass table tops kill ~27,000 annually.

    And you didn’t declare the tobacco industry an ‘enemy’ and their products kill ~400,000 annually.

    And you didn’t declare the medical industry an ‘enemy’ or try to run them out of business and didn’t weaponize the government against them and medical mal-practice kills about ~250,000 annually

    And you didn’t declare the pharmaceutical industry an ‘enemy’ or try to run them out of business and didn’t weaponize the government against them and their persxcribed products kill ~130,000 annually.

    And you didn’t declare a lot of other industries an ‘enemy’ or try to run them out of business and didn’t weaponize the government against them and their products kill over 2 million people annually.

    But because some criminals use guns to commit crimes with deliberate misuse, and compared to those other industries (collectively) the resulting death or injury is a drop in the bucket, the gun industry is the ‘enemy’ and you try to run them out of business and weaponize the government against them.

    Yeah, tyranny is the plan.

  5. A serious question –

    Can we circuit-court shop for an judge who sees things our way? Like to force the ATF to go through clearly laid-out procedures for dealing with bullshit errors?

    Like using an FFL who got burned as a test case for standing?

  6. My favorite local FFL was shut down at the end of last year. The AFT got several of my 4473s out of the deal. He won’t talk about it, but it was nothing nefarious because there were no fines or jail. We’re from the gov’t, and we’re here to help, Merry Christmas!

    • the ATF tried their crap at an FFL here last year. Showed up for an inspection and the FFL told them they could come in and inspect all they wanted but could not bring in anything that could record audio or video. Some back and forth with the ATF outside calling their supervisor. Finally the senior ATF agent relents and they leave their cell phones in the car. So they do the inspection and are kinda pissed off some so they go into great detail, and everything is perfect except for one thing – one of the inspectors can’t tell if a letter in a name on a 4473 is an “a” or an “e”. wrote him up and threatens to revoke his license… during the hearing the FFL points put an ATF agent present and tells them “its his name, he wrote it, ask him how to spell it.” … case dismissed, that ATF agent bought a gun at that FFL store and that was his 4473.

      • Gee, did the ATF agent lie on the 4473?
        Should know how to spell his own name right?

      • Here in CA, my LGS made me go through an electronic 4473 online for my purchases.

        Yes…online…

        • Haz – yikes – online isn’t the least bit susceptible to being hacked or anything (insert eyeroll).
          The last few purchases I have made the 4473 has been done on the shop computer, makes it pretty hard to spell yer name wrong and any typos can be corrected before the form is printed so it can be physically signed. AFAIK that makes it pretty much idjit proof.

      • 40, that’s hilarious. And it was likely a stupid paperwork error that took my friend out, because he ran a clean shop.

        Rural King does the 4473 online, as do a few other of the bigger places around here.

        • we have the online thing here at LGS also, but some LGS still do paper forms.

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  8. All of the red states need to convene their legislatures and pass legislation to declare forms 4473 illegal in their respective states and declare the ATF a subversive organization and begin investigations of them.

    • No can do. Federal law supersedes state and local law, and feds are the ones issuing licenses to FFLs. Without a federal license, the dealer cannot legally transact business.

  9. This so-called “administration” is an Obama-driven puppet of the Useless Nations (UN), the UN gun-control agenda, and the the paranoid CCP communists that want the top slot of the world. Let them ALL come and take them.

  10. Boy I wish we had an opposition party to the Democrats that controlled the U.S. House and thus the purse strings of the ATF. Wouldn’t that ne nice.

    • Goodbye Dettelbach, ATF Director Position (possibly) Being “Defunded”

      In case no one realizes it the Republicans control the funds for ATF and other agencies by controlling the committee that controls that funding. They do not need presidential permission to control that budget to cut it off and neither Joe nor the Democrats can stop them if they use the Holman rule.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VGYS2obKiw

      • correction for: “They do not need presidential permission to control that budget to cut it off and neither Joe nor the Democrats can stop them if they use the Holman rule.”

        was supoose to be…

        “They do not need presidential permission to control that budget to cut it off and neither Joe nor the Democrats can stop them if they use the Holman rule. If they can bring it back, but to bring it back it has to go through the senate and be signed off on by Biden so that’s probably not going to happen right now. But, in the next election it could.”

        clarification note: if the Republicans keep control of the committee and have the Holman rule they don’t need permission to cut off funding. Also, there is a way to bring bring it back without going thru the senate and President.

  11. I got a freaky ole lady named Cocaine Katy.
    And upon visiting the White(powder) House a person wonders what’s with all the horizontal mirrors?
    With a needle and a spoon
    Take a trip, with a goon
    We are going to take your gunms away
    .
    As the third world countries laugh and laugh and laugh.
    .
    American Pride, you betcha

    • possum,

      You are one cynical marsupial – but you are not wrong.

      Good thing you lost all your gunms in that tragic canoeing accident, or you might have to do as DiFi said, and “Mr. and Mrs. American, turn them in!!”. Senile Joe will go there, if he thinks he can (what am I saying???? Senile Joe hasn’t had a thought in his life!!!) OK, if his handlers think they can get away with it. I invite them to try.

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