Gun Activists Rail At Biden Admin For Punitive Crackdowns On ‘Law-Abiding’

• The Biden administration is cracking down on gun store owners who violate its “zero-tolerance” policies.
• Over 120 gun store owners had their licenses revoked since October of last year – a 350% increase from 2021, according to the New York Post.
• The crackdowns are “a blatant violation of the Second Amendment,” according to activists and experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation. 

The Biden administration’s escalating crackdowns on gun store owners and firearms dealers is “a blatant violation of the Second Amendment,” according to gun activists and experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

In an increasing effort to enforce “zero tolerance” policies, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) revoked more than 120 licenses from gun dealers since October last year for legal violations, according to Fox News and The Wall Street Journal. A number of dealers have reported they were shut down by the ATF over minor paperwork errors, highlighting a clear attempt by the Biden administration to “criminalize law-abiding gun owners and sellers,” according to gun activists who spoke to the DCNF.

“The Biden administration has failed in pushing its gun control agenda through Congress, so they will try everything they can to make it harder for Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights,” Chris Cox, former field general for the gun rights movement and president of Capitol 6 Advisors, told the DCNF. “Joe Biden himself has been for gun control for decades and I think this effort is being driven directly from the top… their real intent is to make it harder for law-abiding Americans to buy and own guns. That’s the threat to the Second Amendment.”

The ATF revoked 122 licenses from gun store owners since October of last year, up from 27 in 2021 – representing a 350% increase in license revocations, the New York Post reported. No more than 81 licenses were revoked during the Trump and Obama administrations, according to the WSJ.

“We’ve taken steps to hold accountable those few dealers who are engaging in these willful violations,” ATF Director Steve Dettelbach said, according to the WSJ. “They’re not going to have the privilege of being a gun dealer anymore.”

“We should call this new policy what it is – a blatant violation of the Second Amendment by the Biden Administration in another attempt to criminalize law-abiding gun owners and sellers,” Katie Pointer Baney, managing director of government affairs for the U.S. Concealed Carry Association (USCCA), said to the DCNF.

The ATF had previously issued warnings to gun dealers for minor violations as opposed to shutting them down outright, as they were a useful source for tips and information on suspicious gun buyers, according to Cox, and Amy Swearer, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

“In recent decades, ATF’s official policy has involved a much lighter touch and a general view that the agency is a partner with Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) —they’re working toward the same goal of keeping guns inside the stream of lawful commerce and out of the hands of prohibited persons,” Swearer told the DCNF. “Generally speaking, most violations—especially first-time violations and clerical errors that didn’t result in direct harm—were dealt with through an escalating process of warning letters and warning conferences with a goal of bringing the FFL into compliance.”

“This new policy ignores the fact that firearms dealers are the ATF’s first line of defense against gun trafficking,” Cox agreed. “By doing this, ATF is attacking the very folks who help them combat gun traffickers.  They should view firearms dealers as allies, not enemies.”

The ATF’s increasing “zero tolerance” policy is directed at gun dealers who make “willful violations” of the law, including failing to run background checks, falsifying records, failing to cooperate with ATF investigations and tracing requests or transferal of a firearm to a prohibited person, according to a document obtained by Fox News in February.

But a number of gun store owners report they were shut down by the ATF over minor paperwork errors, the WSJ reported. One owner, Anthony Navarro, said his Colorado shop was shut down by the ATF after he failed to keep record of a small number of transactions – a fact that Navarro previously reported to the ATF after discovering an ex-employee was responsible.

“We were making $1 million a year, now it’s less than $100,000,” Navarro said, according to the WSJ. “This policy is designed to be a backdoor violation of the Second Amendment.”

Swearer agreed, and noted that the ATF’s enhanced crackdowns are a scare tactic to keep gun store owners from ever operating their businesses.

“This policy is clearly designed to put the screws to the lawful gun industry in such a way that people are scared to operate gun businesses,…