Where we should begin expending our political capital is to deregulate guns.
Start reading the gun laws and you rapidly discover that many of the things we comply with aren't illegal at all.
They're violations of regulations created by the agency in charge of enforcing the laws we aren't breaking.
The ATF Form 4473 is one we've all dealt with. What law requires this? 18 USC § 923 (g) (1) (a) requires that records be kept and 18 USC § 923 (g) (1) (b) and 18 USC § 923 (g) (1) (c) let the attorney general inspect them without a warrant and specifies when.
The 4473 is from a regulation standardizing the records. The law is satisfied by records being kept and doesn't require them to be standardized at all.
How much trouble stems from this standardized form? How many licenses revoked? How many arrests? For filling out a form wrong.
I'm learning NFA laws too.
Did you know there's no distinction in the law between a maker and a manufacturer? Did you know that ATF has never officially determined there's a difference? Did you know that they already treat them differently with regards to repairing a suppressor?
Most everyone has heard of 922 (r) compliance. The law doesn't mention parts counts or define parts kits or really much at all. Taken one way it can be read to mean that you can't use imported parts at all to make a firearm banned from importation in 18 USC § 925 (d) (3). Taken another way is the serialized part (ie the receiver) determines if it's a US made gun or not.
Heck, that serialized part bit is also a regulatory item. Go on, convince a person who's not into guns that your stripped lower is a gun. Go on. Try it. Now, once you've convinced them of that, convince them that an 80% lower isn't a gun.
"Once an MG always an MG" is an ATF determination too.
All of this stuff was just decided by members of the executive branch, who've been granted no legislative power by The Constitution.
We should demand that Congress take back the power they've unconstitutionally ceded to these agencies and render those regulations void.
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I absolutely agree, however I don't know how we will ever get the genie back into the bottle. Any suggestions? Congress doesn't seem to want to get their hands dirty with the details (I live in CT and our congressional delegation is a issue unto itself), and SCOTUS will definitely not rule the process unconstitutional.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more. Part of the problem is the whole system of letting a non-elected regulatory agency make rules which bear the force of law to begin with. BATFE has a problem with going rogue because there is little to no congressional oversight of them, and they actively resist when there are attempts at it. It is worse when presidents who fear Americans more than foreign powers are in the White House because BATFE is an agency it is easy for the executive branch to abuse. We've seen that recently with Obama, but it was much worse when Bill Clinton was in the Oval Office and I really fear what will happen with Hillary behind the big desk. Although too many people near them or that crossed them have died mysteriously for them both to be discounted, in my opinion she is by far the more ruthless and dangerous.
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