ThinkingAfield.org

BELLEVUE, WA – President Joe Biden’s new executive order on guns won’t reduce gun-related violent crime, nor will it make our communities safer, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Biden signed the executive order Tuesday in Monterey Park, California. He is bypassing Congress, “with the goal of increasing the number of background checks conducted before firearm sales,” and moving the country closer to so-called “universal background checks” as possible without additional legislation.

“Joe Biden is trying to sell this new gun control scheme the way he’s always done: by promising less violent crime and safer neighborhoods,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “But, this plan isn’t going to accomplish either goal, and he knows it. This sleight-of-hand maneuver simply makes it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to purchase firearms, while creating the impression gun dealers are crooks and the industry is unregulated.

“This is just another chapter in Joe Biden’s war on gun rights,” he continued. “It is a diversion to the Democrat failure to keep Americans safe from violent criminals who are released without bail and are free to prey on us all.”

Biden will encourage the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) “to issue a public report analyzing how gun manufacturers market firearms to minors and how such manufacturers market firearms to all civilians, including through the use of military imagery.” He will “Provide the public and policymakers with more information regarding federally licensed firearms dealers who are violating the law.” He will also direct the Secretary of Defense to develop and implement principles to further firearm and public safety practices through Department of Defense acquisition of firearms, consistent with applicable law.

“So,” Gottlieb observed, “Biden wants the Defense Department to buy more guns, he will blame crime on gun dealers and tell gun makers how to market their products. But he won’t tell the Justice Department to crack down on recidivist criminals, he’s not asking the courts to lock up armed felons and he’s continuing to treat the Second Amendment as a second-class right. Read more

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and its partners in a federal lawsuit challenging the prohibition of handgun sales to young adults have filed an appellant’s brief with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. The case is known as Reese v. ATF.

Joining SAF are the Louisiana Shooting Association, Firearms Policy Coalition and two private citizens, Emily Naquin and Caleb Reese, for whom the case is known. They are represented by attorneys David H. Thompson, Peter A. Patterson and William V. Bergstrom at Cooper & Kirk; George J. Armbruster, III at Armbruster & Associates; Joseph Greenlee, FPC Action Foundation; John W. Dillon at the Dillon Law Group; Raymond M. DiGuiseppe, DiGuiseppe Law Firm and Adam Kraut at SAF.

Defendants are the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, its director, Steven Dettelbach and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.

At issue is the ban on licensed handgun sales to law-abiding 18-to-20-year-old adults, because this prohibition is at odds with the Second Amendment, SAF and its partners contend.

“At the time the Second Amendment was adopted,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “there were no restrictions on the rights of 18-to-20-year-olds to keep and bear arms because of their age. Indeed, people in that age group, because as Americans they were in the civilian militia, were actually required to acquire firearms. Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, takes exception with President Joe Biden’s Executive Order to increase gun control measures. In the name of “doing something,” the Biden administration is chilling fundamental Constitutional rights and simply rehashing existing law, many of which were previously supported by the firearm industry.

“The Biden administration should demand that soft-on-crime prosecutors and lawmakers use the laws already in existence to lock up criminals that misuse firearms to prey on innocent Americans,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “Instead, this administration continues to scapegoat the firearm industry for its unwillingness to address crime. The failure of this administration to seriously address spiraling crime and instead focus its attacks on a Constitutionally-protected industry that works diligently to remain in compliance with laws and regulations and actively cooperates with law enforcement, especially ATF, exposes the lack of urgency Americans demand to curb rampant and out-of-control crime.”

The firearm industry worked with Congress to update the statutory definition of “in the business,” in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was passed last year and signed into law by President Biden. The update defined those Americans “in the business” of selling firearms as those “predominantly earning a profit.”

Further, The White House accused industry members, without evidence, of selling firearms without required FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verifications. This is disingenuous, at best. The firearm industry was the progenitor of the point-of-sale instant background check to ensure firearms are sold only to those the law has determined can be trusted to possess a firearm. Read more