KANSAS (KSNT) – Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach said he’s looking forward to seeing the president’s lawyers in court after the Biden admin’s latest attempt to close the gun show loophole.
The gun show loophole is a legal situation where a person sells a firearm from their collection to another private person without going through a federal firearms licensee to conduct the transfer and background check.
Kansas State Rifle Association Executive Director Moriah Day said the Biden administration has been working to limit the sales of firearms for some time. He said when Congress passed the Gun Control Act of 1968, part of the negotiation was to avoid regulating private sales of firearms.
“Once its efforts to pass something through Congress had clearly failed, it has attempted to do an end-run around Congress and institute changes through federal regulations instead of through the passage of legislation,” Day said.
Kobach is leading 26 Republican attorneys general in the lawsuit challenging the ATF rule that would require individuals to have background checks and federal firearms licenses before selling firearms for a profit. The rule would broaden the definition of a person “engaged in business” as a firearms dealer.
“The ATF’s latest regulation is arguably the worst of all,” Kobach wrote in a Washington Times op-ed. “The recently established rule is an effort to do an end run around Congress and close the so-called gun show loophole without Congress having to pass a law.”
“It [the rule] would also clarify that a person must have a license to engage in the business of dealing in firearms even when the medium of payment or consideration is unlawful, such as exchanging illicit drugs or performing illegal acts for firearms, and that it is a distinct crime to do so without a license,” an excerpt from the ATF final rule published April 19.
The rule eliminates the requirement that a person’s “principal objective” of purchasing and reselling a firearm must include “livelihood and profit” and replaces it with “to predominantly earn a profit”. The ATF said it would deter business in firearms without being licensed.
“This is going to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and felons,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “And my administration is going to continue to do everything we possibly can to save lives. Congress needs to finish the job and pass universal background checks legislation now.”
According to Kobach, citizens who aren’t background checked and who don’t have federal firearms dealer licenses could face felony charges if they sell a firearm for a profit.
Unless the courts step in, the rule will go into effect on May 20. Day says the rule would allow for the prosecution of anyone who sells a firearm for a profit. He said the rule would impact tens of thousands of Kansans every year who sell firearms to friends, neighbors or family members.
“Everybody can see that people are not following the law in significant numbers,” ATF Director Steve Dettelbach said in an interview. “And it’s just wrong for public safety, it’s wrong for fairness when all these licensed dealers are out there following the rules, for people to think that they don’t have to all play by the same set of rules.”
“The new rule is not only unreasonable, it’s illegal. The ATF can do only what Congress empowers it to do,” Kobach said in the op-ed. “And Congress has already defined what it means to be engaged in the business of selling guns. The ATF has no legal authority to change that definition.”
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