United States – -(AmmoLand.com)- The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE, also known as ATF) needs a lot of reforming, to put it mildly. To be honest, the best use for ATF agents would be to have them stationed around the jails in places like Baltimore, Chicago, and other locales to pick up the criminals all too many Soros-backed prosecutors are willing to put back out on the streets and use the appropriate provisions of 18 USC 922 and 18 USC 924 to put them away for a long time.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen. Instead BATFE bureaucrats are all too often making rulings that affect our rights with no accountability or oversight, save for the possibility of litigation, which can still be hit or miss – see the bump stock situation. Then there is what the Biden Administration wants to do to AR-15 pistols.
Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), though, is working to fix that. HR 1961, also known as the ATF Accountability Act, establishes an administrative appeals process over ATF rulings. He is joined by Representative Henry Cuellar (D-TX) in pursuing this legislation. Cuellar is that rare House Democrat who has not turned on law-abiding gun owners, to the rage of Bloomberg’s stooges.
In a press release issued by his office, Crenshaw said, “This bill will bring ATF in line with most other federal regulatory agencies and create an appeals process so industry has more options to challenge rulings other than suing the federal government – which many businesses simply cannot do. This bill will help ensure that the ATF cannot unilaterally impose rulings that impede on Second Amendment liberties and hurt jobs within the firearms industry.”
The fact of the matter is that while it would be ideal to refocus ATF on prosecuting the misuse of firearms in violent crime and/or drug trafficking, that won’t happen under the Biden-Harris-Garland regime. This means that we will have to deal with this agency making rulings that primarily end up hassling law-abiding citizens for a while. The current situation is unacceptable, but what can be done about it?
The establishment of an appeals process – even one that relies heavily on administrative law – still represents a marginal improvement, and it is one worth pursuing, given the success that incrementalism has had over the last 30 years.
By no means is this a perfect solution but reining in ATF bureaucracy has to start somewhere.
Second Amendment supporters should contact their Senators and Representative to urge them to support HR 1961. They should also support NRA-ILA and NRA-PVF to ensure that the anti-Second Amendment extremists who control the House, Senate, and the White House are defeated at the ballot box in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
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