BELLEVUE, WA – In the wake of what can only be called a colossal blunder by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in its effort to ban popular rifle ammunition, ignoring the fact that the round was exempted from such regulation and the process may have violated the Administrative Procedures Act, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is today calling for the resignation or dismissal of ATF Director B. Todd Jones.
“I’ve put a lot more thought into this than the ATF apparently did when it suggested that the M855 ammunition should be re-classified,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “But when Jones took over the agency, first as an acting director in 2011 and then became the permanent director in 2013, the public, and especially the Second Amendment community, had high hopes that he would straighten out the ATF. This ammunition ban blunder clearly shows that he hasn’t.”
Adding to the fiasco was the revelation that language exempting M855 ammunition from the armor piercing definition had disappeared from the latest edition of federal regulations. Gottlieb noted that while Jones may not have been personally involved, this gaffe “happened on his watch, and the timing is suspicious at the very least.”
“Over the years,” he observed, “ATF has earned the reputation of being a rogue agency. Anti-gunners defended the agency through the Fast and Furious scandal by blaming the lack of a permanent director. When Jones was permanently appointed, there was at least a presumption that things would change. But nobody was fired over Fast and Furious, much less prosecuted.
“Now ATF tried to ban ammunition that was specifically identified in regulations as exempt from definition as armor-piercing at the same time the exemption vanished from the regulations pamphlet,” Gottlieb said. “You cannot run a law-enforcement agency by criminalizing legal products, or by deliberately attempting to change policies that only affect law-abiding citizens.
“This has happened under Jones’ administration,” he said, “and it cannot be allowed to continue. If the only way to shake ATF back to reality is to fire the boss, then B. Todd Jones has to go.”
With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is one of the nation’s premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States. The Citizens Committee can be reached by phone at (425) 454-4911, on the Internet at www.ccrkba.org or by email to InformationRequest@ccrkba.org.
