Here’s a question for you: Has Biden’s ATF finally gone too far?
I know, I know, the answer to that question is obvious to anyone who pays attention at all to the Constitution, to actual gun violence statistics (in context), to people who care about personal liberty and personal responsibility. Frankly, the answer is obvious to anyone who is even remotely rational about the issue of private gun ownership.
Of course, the answer is yes, Biden’s ATF has gone too far (they went too far a long time ago).
Having said that, though, what Biden’s ATF did recently got the attention of quite a few state attorney generals that all filed suit against the ATF. How many state attorney generals? Over half of them. Yes, over half of the states in the Union are suing Biden’s ATF. Michael Clements writes,
Attorneys general representing half of the country sued the Biden administration on May 1 over a new rule requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales, including private sales.
Lawsuits in Florida, Texas, and Arkansas are asking the courts to block a rule from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) that redefines “engaged in the business” of dealing in firearms.
Clements continues:
In the Florida case, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
According to the lawsuit Ms. Moody filed on May 1, the act was passed to balance gun owners’ rights against public safety concerns.
In the filing, Ms. Moody wrote that the BSCA’s sponsors assured voters that the law clarified that dealers were only those who earned their livelihood from selling guns. Ms. Moody claims that President Joe Biden is stretching the language of the act to fit his political agenda.
“Sensing an opportunity, the Biden Administration now seeks to exploit the minor changes to federal law enacted in the BSCA to implement President Biden’s preferred policies by executive fiat,” Ms. Moody wrote.
The other two lawsuits—filed in the Northern District of Texas and Eastern District of Arkansas—also decry the change as an unconstitutional infringement on Americans’ Second Amendment rights and an illegal attempt to circumvent the U.S. Congress and enact “universal background checks.”
Clements also notes:
Each suit asks its respective court to block the rule’s enforcement and find that it violates the U.S. Constitution and the Administrative Procedures Act.
There are also lawsuits filed by the States of Kansas and Texas with multiple states signing on to both of those lawsuits.
What’s absurd about this whole situation is that any of these lawsuits even needed to be filed. The Biden administration has no business getting into our personal business about who owns a gun or who buys a gun. That’s a violation of the 4th Amendment (unreasonable searches), and, technically, the Constitution doesn’t even give the Federal government the power to deal with gun crime (read the 10th Amendment) so that’s not a justification for the ATF’s rule in this matter either.
Thankfully, though, these attorney generals did file the lawsuits, and, if there is still any justice to be found in our legal system here in the U.S., Biden’s ATF will be defanged completely so that no one in the U.S. has to deal with this nonsense in the future.