In a move sure to draw the ire of Second Amendment advocates, the White House on Thursday approved the most sweeping changes to mandatory federal background checks on gun transfers in generations.
The move, the administration argues, is authorized under the aegis of the byzantine 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act which was rushed through Congress in near record time with a modicum of Republican support. The mechanism for the expansion of background checks is the 466-page final rule announced by the Department of Justice which would update the current definition of what is it to be "engaged in the business" as a firearms dealer.
The public comment period for the originally proposed rule, which ended last December, saw nearly 388,000 comments logged – 238,000 of which were channeled via cut-and-paste advocacy by the Bloomberg-backed Everytown anti-gun group.
"I applaud the hard work of ATF in drafting this rule and reviewing the hundreds of thousands of public comments, which overwhelmingly favored the rule announced today," said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco in a statement from the DOJ. "Because of that work, our communities will be safer."
With the White House terming the change, "the only significant expansion of the background check requirement since then-Senator Biden helped shepherd the Brady Bill over the finish line in 1993," the action, cites questionable research from Everytown to go after those selling as little as one gun without a current federal firearms license.
"The final rule clarifies that even a single firearm transaction may be sufficient to require a license if there is other behavior to suggest commercial activity," says the White House.
However, keeping the cherished tradition of Kafkaesque confusion that is a hallmark of nightmarishly complex federal regulations alive, the ATF notes reassuringly in the new rule that, "To make this clear, the final rule has been revised to state that certain conduct, including liquidating a personal collection or occasionally reselling firearms to improve a personal collection, is conduct that does not support a presumption that a person is engaged in the business."
Meanwhile the new legal definition of "personal firearms collection" just covers guns accumulated for study or a noncommercial hobby such as historical re-enactment or competition shooting, and excludes "firearms accumulated primarily for personal protection," which would seem to go against the most basic reading of the Second Amendment.
"The law is now clear: If you're selling firearms at a gun show or online, you are presumed to be engaged in the business of dealing guns and must obtain a license and run background checks on all customers," John Feinblatt, president of Everytown, said in a statement.
The Final Rule goes into effect 30 days after the date of publication in the Federal Register.
However, it may not hold up.
A spokesperson for U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), advised Guns.com that both Sens. Cornyn and Thom Tillis (R-NC) plan to introduce a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act to overturn this unconstitutional rule and already have other Senate Republicans signed on in support. This CRA has been endorsed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
This is a developing story, and Guns.com has reached out to numerous 2A and firearms industry groups for comments.
Banner image: An array of early-to-mid 20th-century handguns, which may (or may not) qualify as a "personal firearms collection" under the Biden administration's new rules.
