The Biden administration has opened a new front in its battle against law-abiding gun owners. Leaked ATF documents reveal that the government plans to shut down gun shops across America following a “zero tolerance” policy for revoking federal firearms licenses (FFLs).
Gun Owners of America received documents earlier this month that show the ATF updated its federal firearms license inspection guidelines in January 2022. The Biden administration previously announced in July 2021 that they would update the guidelines established under the Trump administration
The new guidelines state that “ATF must establish willfulness” to proceed with license revocation, but the agency “does not have to establish a history of prior violations to determine willfulness.” Furthermore, revoking an FFL’s license is a “presumptive action” including violations.
Once the FFL is revoked, these records are added to ATF’s digital gun registry that contains nearly one billion gun and gun owner records. The new guidelines greatly expand the ability to criminalize law-abiding Americans and enact a backdoor national firearms ban.
Click below to read the full document:
624836022-2022-ATF-O-5370-1E-Federal-Firearms-Administrative-Action-Policy-Procedure
None of this should come as a shock to Americans. Gateway Pundit reported last month how the ATF banned millions of guns by reclassifying the pistol bracket. Violators can receive up to ten years for noncompliance.
Fox News Digital reported:
Internal documents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) show the agency is using “zero tolerance” guidelines to close gun shops.
The guidelines state that the agency has “zero tolerance for willful violations that greatly affect public safety and ATF’s ability to identify firearms recovered in violent crimes” and that “revocation” of FFLs’ licenses is “presumptive action” with violations.
“Therefore, Withdrawal is presumptive actionAbsent extraordinary circumstances, when violations are cited that include “transferring a firearm to a prohibited person who has reasonable cause to believe the transferor is a prohibited person,” failing to conduct a background check, and “making a false or fictitious A written statement on record required by an FFL or when applying for a firearms license,” the guidance reads.
The new guidelines state that “ATF must establish the will” to proceed with license revocations, but the agency “A history of prior violations need not be established to determine willfulness.”
Accordingly, the ATF will revoke a federal firearms license, absent unusual circumstances for the initial violation, if those violations demonstrate an underlying willful intent, such as transferring a firearm to a prohibited person; failing to conduct a background check before transferring a firearm to a non-license holder; falsifying records, or making false statements; Failure to respond to an ATF tracing request; refusing to allow the ATF to inspect; Or allowing a straw sale of a firearm to occur.
Aiden Johnston, GOA’s director of federal affairs, told Fox News Digital that “Joe Biden has weaponized the ATF against gun owners and the firearms industry in an effort to violate the Second Amendment and expand his illegal gun registry.”
“Instead of targeting those who demonstrate a clear disregard and disregard for the law, ATF now revokes licenses without warning upon discovery of a first mistake by honest gun dealers,” Johnston said.
“When federal firearms licensees are put out of business, ATF adds their records to its digital gun registry that contains nearly one billion gun and gun owner records,” She continued. “GOA is already working with Second Amendment champions like Representative Michael Cloud on Capitol Hill to address this troubling issue and eliminate this unconstitutional gun registry.”
GOA previously blasted the ATF for their “illegal gun registry” in their new report on the final rule requiring FFLs to maintain purchase records indefinitely.
The group’s report in documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) revealed that the ATF “maintains a digital, searchable, centralized registry of guns and gun owners in violation of various federal sanctions.”
The GOA wrote in their report that “ATF has reached the point where it has converted nearly a billion records (required to be kept by FFLs) into a single, centralized and searchable National Gun Registry, which is routinely searched by multiple data fields (allegedly, except for the gun owner’s name).“