Tag Archives: Engaged In The Business

authoritarian swine, Constitution, gun control, Law, resistance, Rights

Engaged In The Business: The Shoe Drops

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The ATF’s rule redefining “engaged in the business,” and who must have a Federal Firearms License, has been released, but not yet formally published in the Federal Register. The Zelman Partisans has been warning you about this since 2022.

The rule document is 466 pages. Most of that is hundreds of pages of “responses” to public comment that amount to “We disagree,” and “tough shit.” The part where they claim that requiring everyone to have an FFL is BRUEN-compliant, because the feds briefly banned the export of cannons and gunpowder in 1794 is a classic.

Well, except for responses to the 250,000 identical form letter comments in favor of the rule. Those responses tend towards, “You’re absolutely right, and it’s a shame those stupid constitutionalists can’t see that.”

The actual final rule begins on page 452, and it’s even worse than the original proposed rule.

“Selling” a firearm includes swaps and barter, not just money.

A single transaction can make you a dealer, as I warned.

No firearm actually even needs to be sold. Whether the ATF thinks you intend to sell a firearm counts.

Buying a single firearm can make you a dealer, if the omniscient ATF magically foresees that you intend to resell it later.

It includes a presumption of guilt. If they accuse you, it’s up to you to prove — somehow — that, “No, I bought that for my own use; I’m not planning to sell it years down the road.” Good luck with that; if you win, you’ll still be bankrupted by legal expenses.

VP “Kneepads” Harris weighed in on the new rule. Sorta. With her usual display of her monumental intellect:

As the head of the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, I am proud to announce that all gun dealers must conduct background checks no matter where or how they sell.

This will save lives and keep our communities safe.

Poor confused moron. Dealers have been required to conduct background checks “no matter where or how they sell” for decades.

This rule simply forces universal preemptively-prove-your-innocence background checks by making everyone a dealer.

Almost universal, that is.

And while this unconstitutional action was directed by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, it would do nothing to make safer communities. Those dealing in black market and stolen firearms will simply ignore this rule; just as they have ignored the FFA for 85 years, and the Gun Control Act of 1968 for 55 years.

The only people who will be affected by this proposed rule are the honest folk, who would have to decide between following the criminals’ highly successful 85 year old example, or being compliant chumps.

Time to decide.

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Administrivia, authoritarian swine, gun control

ATF NPRM Commenting FUBAR As Usual

As I noted on September 8, the ATF is screwing up commenting on the “engaged in the business” Notice of Proposed Rule-Making.

In short, as dockets changed and vanished in a period of minutes, I found it desirable to comment six times; three times on behalf of TZP, and three times for myself personally.

Regulations.gov is now posting comments, so I checked the status of our comments. It ain’t pretty. I’m documenting the results so I have a public record of what is happening.

TZP Comment Tracking Numbers (in order submitted)

One lost, submitted after first that’s there, and before the other that’s there.

Personal Comment Tracking Numbers (in order submitted)

  • lma-m7xn-uqi0 (not found)
  • lma-nseu-zlmo (not found)
  • lma-p5qv-j9z4 (not found)

NONE of my personal comments can be found. Note that all were submitted after the first TZP comment appearing, and two before the third TZP comment that appears. My third comment was posted last. I see other people’s comment appearing that were submitted
days after mine. I have email confirmation that my comments were received (for two; I forgot to enter my email address for one).

I have now submitted a fourth attempt at commenting; Comment Tracking Number: lmg-ih6a-k2ww. I’m still waiting for the email confirmation.

Please let us know in comments below if you are also having difficulty commenting on the NPRM.

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Action, authoritarian swine, Constitution, gun control, Law, SCOTUS

[UPDATE 2] “Engaged In The Business”

UPDATE: As always, it appears that the ATF screwed up the NPRM. The links I posted earlier now go to a error page.

We’re sorry, an error has occurred
A general error occurred while processing your request.

Now the correct URL is https://www.regulations.gov/document/ATF-2023-0002-0001. For now.

This change, as in the past, probably trashed all comments that had been submitted. So I’ll comment again. And very likely — based on the ATF’s history of NPRM errors — a third time. We’ll see.

Update 2: The new second docket, AT-2023-0002-0001, briefly went dead, but now appears again. It’s unknown if the comments we submitted were retained. We’ll submit comments again just in case. But…

A THIRD docket, ATF-2023-0002, is ALSO live.

Live, but empty at this time. If you look at the “Browse Documents” tab, it does link back to the intermitteently visible ATF-2023-0002-0001.

So as of 9/8/2023, 10:20 AM EDT, we’ve had

  • ATF_FRDOC_0001-0051 (dead)
  • ATF-2023-0002-0001 (sometimes there, sometimes not)
  • ATF-2023-0002 (empty, but links to ATF-2023-0002-0001; it may be a “home folder” for 2023 NPRMs)

This looks very much like someone is deliberately interfering with commenting.

Original post follows.

Of screwing Americans. The ATF is that. As usual.

More than a year ago, The Zelman Partisans warned that the so-called Bipartisan Safer Communities Act changed the definition of “engaged in the business” of selling firearms. And not in a good way.

No longer would you need to be selling enough guns to make a living. Just a single sale, if your intent is to make money, suffices to require a Federal Firearms License. There is no exception for sales to friends or family. There is no exception for sales to pay off medical bills.

The ATF has published their Notice Of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRM) instituting this change. There is a 90 day commenting period. I encourage you to comment and point out the idiocy of the ATF and Congress. TZP has done so. Feel free to use this as a basis for your own comments.

This proposed rule, essentially requiring any person, selling a single firearm to pay bills, to first obtain a Federal Firearms License (FFL), is blatantly unconstitutional. It also would not work as advertised, and would even be counter-productive.

Allow me to explain.

The proposed rule is in absolute, direct conflict with Supreme Court rulings in HELLER, MCDONALD, and especially BRUEN.

There is no general, historical tradition that has required private citizens making private, occasion sales — as opposed to deriving a significant, ongoing income from regular sales — to first obtain an FFL. That is not “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Never before has such a thing been required.

In fact, even the FFL itself fails BRUEN’s general, historical tradition test as no federal license for those actually engaged in the business was required until passage of the Federal Firearms Act of 1938 (FFA). America got along just fine without any such law for its first 162 years.

And while this unconstitutional action was directed by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, it would do nothing to make safer communities. Those dealing in black market and stolen firearms will simply ignore this rule; just as they have ignored the FFA for 85 years, and the Gun Control Act of 1968 for 55 years.

The only people who will be affected by this proposed rule are the honest folk, who would have to decide between following the criminals’ highly successful 85 year old example, or being compliant chumps.

Should a significant number of America’s 100+ million gun owners decide they need an FFL, just in case they might be in a car accident and need to sell their collections to cover medical expenses, the ATF will be swamped with Form 7 applications. The waiting time will rise from the current two month estimate to — potentially — years, leaving said bills unpaid and the victims of unchecked bureaucracy bankrupt. I strongly suspect the Supreme Court would find that such delays themselves are an unconstitutional infringement of the Second Amendment.

Allegedly, this proposed rule would have the effect of instituting universal background checks. I think someone failed to consider the effect of 18 U.S. Code § 922(t)(1). With a significant percentage of the gun-owning population being new FFL holders, they could happily transfer all the firearms they wish amongst themselves anyway; be it a previously-private sale, or a conventional purchase in a gun store.

The number of gun purchase background checks would DECREASE.

My personal comment added this line.

Please extract your craniums from your rectal orifice before it’s too late.

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