For Joe Biden’s weaponized ATF, homebased gun dealers are low-hanging fruit

Biden's war on gun dealers has put homebased FFLs at extreme risk.

Lee Williams
Jul 26, 2023


By Lee Williams

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is not regulating the firearms industry as required by statute. The ATF is choking the life out of it — tearing it down, one gun dealer at a time.

Before Joe Biden declared war on gun dealers, ATF inspectors used a five-percent rule. If less than five percent of a gun dealer’s paperwork contained errors, the ATF would take minor corrective action, usually a warning letter or a warning conference. If more than five percent of the transactions contained errors, sanctions could be more severe. But after Biden weaponized the agency, anything goes. Even a minor clerical error is now viewed as a “willful” violation of ATF rules, and the dealer’s Federal Firearm License is in jeopardy.

Today, the ATF is clearly on the hunt. The more FFL revocations they can gin up, the better. The more dealers they can intimidate into surrendering their FFL, the happier the White House will be. After all, Biden has ranted publicly about “rogue” gun dealers, so now it’s up to the ATF to deliver revoked licenses by any means necessary.
Easy pickings

ATF knows that high-volume gun dealers can afford to fight a revocation. They have compliance officers, attorneys and money. But an FFL is an FFL, so ATF is targeting homebased dealers. They’re easier, and they don’t have an extra $50,000-$100,000 to defend their FFL from revocation. The ATF knows this too, and they’re abusing the hell out of it.

Lately, the ATF doesn’t even bother to start a formal revocation process for homebased dealers. Instead, they cook up some violations and then threaten and bully the dealer, hoping to scare them into “voluntarily” surrendering their FFL. This abusive tactic worked with a homebased dealer in Oklahoma, after ATF hit his home with a SWAT team, but backfired when tried on a savvy Texas gun dealer.

The ATF is also employing new tactics, which violate their own policies. Before Biden took office, the ATF did not use gun shop inspections to further a criminal investigation. Now, that’s all changed. ATF inspectors are teaming up with criminal investigators — special agents. This unholy combo creates yet another mechanism to ensnare the unlucky dealer who has been targeted for revocation based on some agent’s whim.

One thing has become abundantly clear: ATF’s recent revocation spree has resulted in a pattern and practice of civil rights violations. Those are important words. They’re the bedrock of civil rights litigation — civil or criminal. Today’s rogue ATF agents may believe they’re immune from internal sanctions because they’re only following orders, but they can still be criminally prosecuted or found liable for violating someone’s civil rights. And to be clear, they’re violating someone’s civil rights on a regular basis.
Takeaways

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with ATF’s history that one of their core missions has been shelved because they’re preoccupied with revoking licenses for The Big Guy. The ATF is doing nothing to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, because they’re too busy turning law-abiding Americans into criminals. Shaking down honest, hard-working gun dealers does nothing to deter or prevent crime. It’s nothing but an obvious attempt to curry favor with the resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and it’s morally wrong.

I sometimes wonder whether there’s even a single honorable employee left at ATF. If there is, I’d love to hear from them. It can’t be easy working at such a hyper-political agency, surrounded by nothing but oath-breakers.

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Ann, I don’t see much purpose in posting such grifting op-Ed stories.

That piece lowers the SAF in my opinion as it’s a pure play for $$$ without any real fact reporting.

I’m not saying it’s wrong, just that it’s about getting donations from the believers.

Sell the fear . . . Ann’s a buyer.

Well, you are all gun owners and I would think these things would be of interest to read.

Is there a problem happening? It seems so.

And Jines, as far as selling fear, that's your game, masked vaxx man.

And if SAF wanted to inform, they would have specified dates and names and said how they were working on helping with the situation.

I have heard similar from other sources, by word of mouth but that’s hearsay even if I believe the folks telling me the information.

SAF is in a position to have hard information and statistics as opposed to vague statements.

That piece isn’t going to convince anyone who doesn’t already think it’s a concern.

It’s like the GOP sending me blurbs on the evils of Obamacare and neglecting to mention that when they had the opportunity they didn’t do anything… but send us money to fight this!!!

BATFE has disdained "home based" FFL's for years.
There have been several operational initiatives since the Clinton years.

They ARE more aggressive in this respect currently , both from commentary made to FFL's and other LEO types and from "leaked" internal memos.

Choose to disbelieve as you may wish.

Don’t get me wrong…

I believe that the ATF is pushing on trying to reduce FFL’s, and there was open reporting on Biden’s directive for zero tolerance with regards to FFL errors.

I do think that LE, especially at the federal level does tend to do things based on press coverage- a big raid is better than just picking the guy up. Is it absolute? No. Did the person involved have probable cause to be arrested? Usually. I’m just seeing way too much variation in how they are dealing with things in the public record to see any rhyme or reason to it.

Just to help Ann. The best way to put out a fire, when your hair is on fire, is to use water. That is according to ChatGPT.

You're welcome.

. . . let’s see, the ATF is out to get you, the FBI is out to get you, the CDC is out to get you, the NSA is out to get you, the DOJ is out to get you, time to hoard food and ammo, the banking system is corrupt . . . . but everyone else is a nut.

I think, questioning anything governments does is a good thing as it keeps them somewhat in line
Technically government is inherently against population by its own nature

Kitchen table dealers should unionize, that might put Joe in a bind. Join AFL-CIO, then stand back and watch...,

quote:

Originally posted by MJines:
. . . let’s see, the ATF is out to get you, the FBI is out to get you, the CDC is out to get you, the NSA is out to get you, the DOJ is out to get you, time to hoard food and ammo, the banking system is corrupt . . . . but everyone else is a nut.

If nothing else the FFL holders would be wise to get as many of their ducks in a row as they can then.