There really isn’t any line that anti-gun politicians won’t cross in order to undermine the Second Amendment. None.
I remember several years ago when I was working for U.S. Senator Bill Roth (R-DE) – yeah, the Roth in Roth IRA – in his Wilmington office there was a proposal to tax ammunition. This wasn’t the 11% excise tax we’re all familiar with, and never really see.
No, this was a tax designed to punish gun owners and hurt them, significantly, in their wallets. A couple variations of this kind of tax were being considered or floated. If I remember correctly, the one during this time was either a 25% tax on handgun ammunition, or even a $0.25 per round tax.
I asked Senator Roth his opinion on an ammunition tax, and his reply was quintessential Bill Roth. He looked at me and said, “It’s a tax. I’m against taxes.” He wasn’t concerned about the tax as a Second Amendment attack. He saw it as an attack on taxpayers.
Taxation is the primary weapon for politicians looking to take something away from citizens. The problem, however, is that new tax bills are harder and harder to pass as the majority of taxpayers are kind of tired of paying more and more and receiving little to nothing in return.
Knowing this, the Biden Administration sought to impose its ‘gun grabbing’ agenda through an overly aggressive regulatory approach that they marketed as ‘zero-tolerance.’ By taking a zero tolerance approach to even the smallest clerical mistake the Biden Administration would use the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – the ATF – to strip Federal Firearm Licensees (FFLs) of their licenses.
While it was pitched to the media and the public as zero-tolerance what they really should have called it was zero-chance, as in there’s zero chance we won’t be taking your FFL today, because we’re going to find something. And that’s exactly how many retailers viewed it.
Fortunately, not every ATF agent doing an FFL audit was hellbent on pulling the license and was willing to see simple clerical errors for what they were, and that’s an unintentional minor mistake that’s easily rectified. In other words, they made a ‘no harm, no foul’ call.
Unfortunately, though, there were AFT agents who were more than willing to be weaponized against FFLs lawfully conducting business. Maybe they saw this as a pathway to promotion within an Administration that placed great value on blindly following orders while not asking too many questions of the, er, Autopen-in-Chief.
On Monday news came that the era of zero-tolerance was over. The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) heralded the announcement from the Trump Administration in Monday’s edition of Bullet Points.
“NSSF praises the announcement today by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) that the agencies are doing away with the Biden-era “zero-tolerance” policy that punished lawful and highly-regulated Federal Firearm Licensees (FFLs) for minor clerical errors.”
The Administration’s announcement also noted that the Biden-era regulatory policies on “Engaged in the Business” and “stabilizing braces” would be reconsidered. Both of which were viewed – rightly – as regulatory overreach by the ATF on issues that should have been addressed legislatively by Congress.
Where exactly we go from here is hard to predict, but Monday’s announcement is a very good sign that Government of the People, by the People, for the People hasn’t quite given way to the Biden-era’s alternative of Government of the Bureaucrats, by the Bureaucrats, for the Bureaucrats.
For right now it’s good riddance to bad bureaucratic overreach. But we all know that bureaucrats are going to bureaucrat because that’s the only thing they know how to do. And their turn will no doubt come again. Here’s hoping the Revenge of the Bureaucrats doesn’t hit theaters anytime soon.
— Paul Erhardt, Managing Editor, the Outdoor Wire Digital Network
