ATF Poking the Bear: Action Required

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has never been a guarantor of the rights of law-abiding Americans; but its most recent actions are some of the worst in its history.

We've all heard the jokes. ATF should be a convenience store, not a government agency. Hide your dog if they come knocking on your door. Insult them by calling them F Troop or the BATFE because they are all rejects from true three letter agencies. But the fact is that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is, itself, a cruel joke on the American people. Although it may feel like it these days, there is no tax payer funded Ministry of Truth with a mission to stomp on everyone's right to free speech (at least not yet). Nor is there an agency out there seizing private lands, with or without just compensation. There is, however, in the ATF a tax funded arm of the government diametrically opposed to protecting, enhancing and celebrating the God given right of law-abiding US citizens to keep and bear arms.

The Second Amendment has never been about hunting, biathlons or busting clay pigeons. It is an explicit restriction on the Federal Government to leave the People the heck alone. The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Full stop, without any qualifiers. Our Founding Fathers knew a thing or two about tyranny, government overreach and mortal threats. But if anyone needed a more recent example, look no further than what is happening in Ukraine. Despotic neighbor invades, government hands out guns and begs everyone to make Molotov cocktails. Do you know that you can legally make a Molotov cocktail in the US (at least in the free states)? But it is counted as a Destructive Device so you first have to ask permission on bended knee to the ATF, fill out a form, surrender your fingerprints and photo plus pay a $200 tax for the privilege. And, more often than not, ATF will deny the application because not all citizens are equal. How paying a tax on a fundamental right is compatible with "shall not be infringed" is beyond any form of sane logic but let's save that rabbit hole for another day.

Right here, right now there is a much more important issue that needs our attention and must be fought head on. Emboldened by a radical White House and a radical Congress in its twilight, the ATF are running a subversion campaign against law abiding gun owners. They smelled blood when, under Trump, they were allowed to ban by regulation bump stocks - without grandfathering or compensation. Overnight something that ATF had previously deemed legal was outlawed without any new law being passed. The fact that subsequently ATF is losing in court over this ban is woefully insufficient compensation for hundreds of thousands who were made felons in waiting and had to give up enjoying the use of a privately owned piece of property.

Under the Biden regime ATF have since gone all out against pistol braces, forced reset triggers and 80% parts for homemade guns: again, privately owned pieces of property which ATF have previously deemed totally within the law as passed by Congress. Knowing that Congress will pass no new laws, ATF have taken it upon themselves to change their interpretation of the law, push the Chevron Deference to the max – that is a Supreme Court principle that says courts may not question an administrative agency's "reasonable interpretation" of a law delegated to it by Congress - and regulate the legal to be illegal. This is bad enough: and we should all be contributing to legal defense funds, holding our politicians accountable and pushing for Wyoming laws which nullify not only new anti-Secondment federal laws but absolutely refuse to recognize any new "reinterpretation" of existing law by ATF.

BUT the very latest move by ATF against legally homemade suppressors takes their subversion to a whole new level. It is totally unacceptable, highly dangerous and a perversion of multiple laws. It cannot be allowed to stand: ATF must be stopped and individual personnel prosecuted for what they are trying to do. So, what are they up to? Here's a convenient summary from the American Suppressor Association:

And here is what is wrong with ATF:

- At a legal level they have fully dispensed with the law and the procedure for making rule changes, which involves them making a proposal, inviting public comment over a sufficient period of time and then publishing a final version of the new rule taking the comments into account.

- At a technical level, they are determining that anything anyone intends to use in legally making their own suppressor is already a suppressor and therefore illegal to own. An oil filter from Napa Auto Parts, a muzzle break that has quick attach threads, freeze plugs or a Maglite flashlight. If you intend to use it to make your suppressor, it is already a suppressor for which you don't have a tax stamp. Already absurd, their wording encompasses literally anything that is used in the process of making a suppressor: raw bar metal stock; a lathe; a drill press; a CNC mill.

- Notwithstanding this perfect Catch-22 situation they have engineered on anything that you intend to use as a suppressor (including a soda bottle, a potato or a pillow, given the wording of their threatening letters to hundreds of law-abiding citizens), they are particularly concerned about so called solvent trap kits. These are tubes with cups inside that thread onto a barrel and can be used, ostensibly, for cleaning it by catching the solvent to ensure it does not make a mess on your workbench.

- Solvent trap kits mimic the shape of some suppressor designs minus one glaring feature: none of the cups, nor the end cap have any holes in them to allow a bullet to pass through. Putting a solvent trap on your gun and pressing the trigger on a live round will result in disaster: catastrophic destruction of the trap and, maybe, the gun itself along with risk to life and limb. A solvent trap is, by any definition, NOT a suppressor: it in no way reduces the sound of a gun going off and any courtroom demonstration (behind ballistic glass and with ear and eye protection for all) would easily prove this.

- Tens if not hundreds of thousands of people have, over the last 20 years, followed the law and applied for an ATF Form 1 to manufacture their own suppressor using a solvent trap kit by drilling out the center hole in the end cap and the cups. Some of them already had the solvent trap kit in hand, others waited on the approval of the Form 1 and the receipt of their $200 tax stamp. Both options were perfectly legal, fully approved by the ATF. And they have been enjoying their completed suppressors, in some cases, for over 20 years.

- But now ATF are saying that any and all suppressors made by an individual law-abiding citizen in such a manner are now illegal, have to be destroyed or surrendered and are subject to criminal prosecution for commitment of a felony.

- If this were not bad enough, moving forward, they are requiring anyone wanting to apply to make a legal suppressor on a Form 1 to submit photographs of the parts and materials they intend to use along with a detailed description of how they intend to make every component. This is a very slippery slope which raises potential 4th and 5th Amendment violations: ATF are not telling people what constitutes an acceptable starting point, materials or methodology. So they are asking people to potentially entrap themselves by providing the evidence in advance of what they plan to do. If ATF, in their own self-licking ice-cream goldfish bowl believe what applicants propose does not match their deluded interpretation of the law, they now have the evidence to prosecute under already unconstitutional laws of criminal intent. This is, after all, the same agency that has ruled in the past that a shoestring is a machine gun, as it can technically be used to assist in the bump firing of a semiautomatic rifle.

Anyone who owns or has used a legal suppressor understands that they only take the edge off the noise discharge of a gun. Hollywood assassin movie quiet is a myth and suppressors are not a danger to the public good. In many other parts of the world, with much stricter gun laws that the USA, suppressors are considered mandatory and polite: they are more of an OSHA requirement for limiting damage to shooters' hearing and reducing noise pollution to third parties. They should never have been included in the 1934 National Firearms Act and should - as elsewhere - be available in bubble packs at the super market, three for $100.

Although we can continue to dream about our political overlords reaching such a common sense conclusion, we cannot afford a single iota of complacency and inaction on this new ruling from ATF. We must act en masse, together, to draw a line in the sand. Homemade guns and homemade suppressors, are non-negotiable, even with the affront to the Constitution and our God-given rights that the requirements for permission of the federal government and payment of a $200 tax represent. The ATF only have the power that we let them get away with. And it is time to cut them down to size. They should be forced to concentrate on real criminals breaking black and white laws. They should be forbidden from wasting time on making criminals out of law-abiding citizens. They should support, promote and enable the Second Amendment for all law-abiding citizens. At the very least, they must apologize for this misguided new interpretation, withdraw it completely and slink back to their miserable cubicles to find something better to do.

So, what do we need to do? Political activism, that's what. Call your representatives in Wyoming and demand they nullify any and all new rulings coming out of ATF. Call your senators and representative in DC and demand they take ATF to task. Withdraw their funding. Investigate how this came about. Prosecute those officials who broke the law and their oath. Let the politicians know that you are watching and expect them to honor their election commitments. They are there to represent you and your interests. Spread the word. Write an Op-Ed for the local newspaper. Take out an advertisement highlighting the issue. Organize a fundraiser for one of the lobby groups that ends up fighting this (i.e., not the NRA). Do something. And keep on doing it.

Above all else, write a personal letter to those senators and representatives - both in Wyoming and in DC. Don't use someone else's boilerplate cut and paste. A tiny bit of extra effort from you in putting the issues into your own words goes a long way registering on a politician's Richter Scale. Be polite, keep it concise and focus on the key issues. By the same token, don't settle for some patronizing, boilerplate response, the standard Second Amendment reply out of the appropriate filing cabinet drawer. Challenge them to understand what is going on, why it is wrong and why they need to do something about it. Force them to engage. And, if they don't, tell them that you will remember this come election time. And then back that up by finding their successor and doing whatever you can to get them elected.

For those who may suffer from writer's block, here are two sample letters for inspiration. And below this is a letter that some Congress critters have already sent in response to the ATF. Let them both help get your ink flowing!

Dear Representative or Senator,

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) surprised the public beginning on 2/28/22 with a series of radical changes to both their procedures and regulations. In violation of the Administrative Procedures Act, none of this was telegraphed, announced publicly, scheduled to be submitted to the Federal Register, or subjected to a public comment period.

Instead, hundreds of citizens who had submitted an NFA Form 1 application to lawfully make a suppressor received a blanket and categorical denial, one which was factually inaccurate as it claimed they had all intended to use what the agency now considered contraband parts. This was impossible, as the application form they completed neither asked nor allowed an applicant to state what materials they intended to use.

The BATFE's categorical refusal to accurately process NFA Form 1 applications for an entire category of popular firearms technology was a dereliction of statutory duty to process applications and collect taxes, and a gross abuse of authority. Further, it violates the Leary v US SCOTUS decision, in that the government cannot institute a tax, and then refuse to collect that tax when a citizen is attempting in good faith to comply with the law. In essence, the BATFE's refusal to accept the tax payment frees these citizens of any further obligation to comply with the National Firearms Act.

Emails by a BATFE representative named Rebecca Sinclair on 03/02/22 indicated that the agency had recently determined a number of parts that had previously been acceptable for years were now suddenly deemed contraband, and it had been assumed for some reason that all the applicants who received denials planned to use such parts. They received denials on Monday 02/28/22 if the agency "could determine it was a solvent trap or kit", she said. This was not the case for many, who would only use cnc machines, lathes and hand tools. Additional media posts and emails advised a questioner from the company Quiet Bore that all such kits and individual parts were unacceptable for future use, and a new application procedure would be announced shortly.

The next evening (03/03/22), emails were sent out to thousands whose applications had been pending since late December. The emails advised recipients of a new process to begin immediately, and informed them of a deadline of March 25, 2022 to submit the new information, or their applications would be canceled. The official website forms updated the next day (03/04/2022), requesting detailed photos of parts to be used, a description of the manufacture or assembly process, the names of the websites or stores where parts had been purchased, and the "product, model, or kit name, if any, of each device and/or part that you will use to make the silencer"

Neither the email notice nor the website advised applicants that the BATFE had adopted a new policy: that solvent trap kits and form 1 kits were now deemed contraband, and that applications including such kits would be categorically denied. That information was only provided to the few who received emails from Ms. Sinclair, saw them posted online, or read a question and answer conversation on either Facebook or the Quiet Bore website on 03/02/22.

These new and invasive parameters violate the 4th and 5th amendments, violating the privacy of, and legally endangering the applicants. The BATFE are effectively asking the applicants to incriminate themselves by admitting the use of solvent traps or form 1 kits, provide photographic evidence of the same, and submit details of the businesses that sold them these items, businesses which will presumably be investigated and potentially prosecuted for dealing in contraband. Contraband now, anyway, as they have been legal to purchase and own, and lacking an official notice perhaps still are? Applicants were pressured to provide these details, and instructed that failure to comply would or could result in the denial of their application.

These violations of citizens' civil rights and the blatant avoidance of the responsibilities under the Administrative Procedures Act must be addressed. Form 1 processing must resume as normal, and the new policies and procedures rolled back permanently. An investigation by OMB is in order.

Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.

(Your Name & Signature)

Dear Representative or Senator,

The BATFE is attempting to rewrite the law with proposed rules, creating felonies out of currently lawful behavior and violating our civil rights.

The bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives (BATFE) is moving forward on two proposed rules that unlawfully usurp Congressional authority by redefining language in the statutes you wrote. The agency presumes authority to redefine words such as "firearm, rifle, pistol, complete silencer, readily, receiver" and others. These apparently simple changes would turn millions of law abiding Americans into felons overnight!

BATFE will claim it is entitled to "Chevron Deference"* and is simply clarifying some issues left unaddressed by Congress, but it is not, since Congress has already clearly defined the meaning of these words in statute.

The rule changes by BATFE will criminalize what is currently lawful behavior, and make continued possession of legally purchased property a felony. In short, the proposed rules will turn 10-40 million Americans into felons the moment they hit the Federal Register (estimate by Congressional Research Service). Americans have manufactured, sold, purchased and used braced pistols as a direct result of opinion letters the BATFE issued, which will now make them criminals. The agency is revoking its own policies that have been in place for over a decade without providing any explanation, ignoring the fact that one is required by law.

The BATFE's revised definition of "readily" will even allow the agency to reclassify AR-15's and all other semi-automatic weapons as machine guns. Their reimagining of "receiver" will classify nerf guns as firearms subject to background checks, and force Lowes, Home Depot and Toys'R'Us to register as Federal Firearm Licensed dealers (FFL's). Any six-inch pipe will be grounds for arrest for an unregistered silencer, and presumed intent makes virtually anything a gun part according to the proposals.

These two proposed rule changes (2021R-05 and 2021R-08) must be cancelled, and similar actions blocked in the future.

Thank you for your attention to these pressing matters of 2nd amendment civil rights and the BATFE's unauthorized attempts to legislate in place of Congress. Please instruct the BATFE to cancel the two pending rules before they are finalized this summer, as they needlessly criminalize harmless law-abiding behavior and property, while doing nothing at all to diminish violent crime.

Sincerely/Best Regards/With Undying Devotion to Your Re-election,

(Your Name & Signature)