“It’s the administration’s latest effort to combat the scourge of gun violence across the country,” a Thursday Associated Press opinion piece (or better yet, in-kind Biden campaign advertising contribution) masked as news assures readers. “But in a contentious election year, it’s also an effort to show voters — especially younger ones for whom gun violence deeply resonates — that the White House is trying to stop the deaths.”
The “effort” in question is a rule change to alter the definition of “engaged in the business” to stymie private firearms sales and move closer to a goal the executive can’t (yet) get the legislature to buy into: so-called “universal background checks.” Now, instead of the criteria being “with the principal objective of livelihood and profit,” an arbitrary “to predominantly earn a profit” could mean, as Gun Owners of America warned during the rule comment period, “ATF might lock you up for being ‘engaged in the business of dealing in firearms’ if you merely offer to sell a single firearm!”
The assumptions AP imparts to its readers reveal none of this.
We’re told there’s “a scourge of gun violence across the country,” with no regard to several relevant truths: “Gun violence” is a political term designed to create fear and loathing of the objects while deflecting responsibility from those abusing them. It’s not “across the country,” it overwhelmingly occurs in specific and known Democrat urban districts. As economist John Lott demonstrates, “Murder isn’t a nationwide problem. It’s a problem in a small set of urban areas, and even in those counties, murders are concentrated in small areas inside them…” Those doing the “scourging” don’t obey gun laws and won’t be slowed down by this.
A 2019 Bureau of Justice Statistics prisoner survey confirmed:
“An estimated 287,400 prisoners had possessed a firearm during their offense. Among these, more than half (56%) had either stolen it (6%), found it at the scene of the crime (7%), or obtained it off the street or from the underground market (43%). Most of the remainder (25%) had obtained it from a family member or friend, or as a gift. Seven percent had purchased it under their own name from a licensed firearm dealer.”
And as ATF’s own National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment admits:
[T]he NFCTA numbers show only 3.2 percent of ATF intrastate trafficking cases involve “trafficking in firearms at gun shows, flea markets, or auctions.” Moreover, only 4.3 percent of ATF interstate trafficking cases involve “trafficking in firearms at gun shows, flea markets, or auctions.”
So, naturally, the go-to guy for a self-serving quote is ATF Director Steve Dettelbach, of I-can’t define-“assault-weapon”-but I want -to-ban-them “fame,” who, with a straight face, tells AP:
“This final rule does not infringe on anyone’s Second Amendment rights, and it will not negatively impact the many law-abiding licensed firearms dealers in our nation. They are already playing by the rules.”
Clearly, if he believes prior restraints and government permission are required to own a gun, he can’t define “infringe,” either — or he can, and he’s just lying again. And, as reality shows, those “playing by the rules” will be the only ones negatively impacted, which, going back to that GOA rule warning could include such scenarios as:
Don’t like the way the gun you ordered feels in your hand? Shouldn’t have purchased that new firearm on an impulse? Need cash more than the safe queen collecting dust? Wife tell you to sell a gun before you can buy that new one?
There are plenty more Big Lies the public isn’t being told about, such as a key admission from the National Institute of Justice’s 2013 “Summary of Select Firearm Violence Prevention Strategies”:
“Effectiveness depends on the ability to reduce straw purchasing, requiring gun registration…”
If they truly were only interested in background checks instead of compiling a registration/confiscation database, they’re just an appropriations deal away with “compromising” Republicans from making, more Americans would have heard about the Blind Identification Database System, which could validate that a gun purchaser was not a “prohibited person” without creating a record of who he is or what he bought—if anything. (It’s still a prior restraint, and it would still have no effect on the way criminals get their guns, but it is useful in exposing how the “background check” mask hides true intent.)
And then there’s the biggest “background check” lie of all, that they are consistent with the Bruen standard of text, history, and tradition at the time the Constitution was ratified. The Gun Control Act of 1968 that paved the way for the 1993 Brady Act was ramrodded through by Democrat Sen. Thomas Dodd, who candidly asserted:
“I would be for abolishing all guns.”
Curious how much less “gun violence” there was in this country before Democrats started imposing all this “progress.”
They’ll continue to take what they can get incrementally, through Republican “compromises,” and use ground gained to launch their next incursion on the long march to a totalitarian monopoly of violence. And their fellow travelers along the way will include Republican “compromisers,” like the odious Vichycons who crossed party lines and voted for Biden’s “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act” to make this latest assault on freedom possible (Thank a Senate and House Republican traitor today!). And, of course, the “real reporters” of the AP and the rest of the DSM (Duranty/Streicher Media), that has reversed its watchdog of government role to that of alternating lap and attack dog for government…
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
