Part of the Biden administration’s years-long war on guns, gun owners, and those who make and sell them has been the “zero tolerance” approach ATF inspectors adopted when doing their regular audits of gun store transactions. Before Biden, good faith mistakes such as writing the name of the county in the city box on a 4473 form, were noted by ATF agents. Only serious or repeated errors that were judged as willful were treated as violations of federal law that put an FFL’s license at risk.

Once Biden;s stormtroopers were issued new zero tolerance marching orders early in his administration, however, if a buyer mistakenly entered “USA” in the “county” box on the 4473 and it wasn’t caught by the retailer, that could and frequently was deemed sufficient reason to yank a gun seller’s license. This happened to hundreds of FFLs.

It’s that kind of bureaucratic lunacy that prompted Austin, Texas gun retailer Michael Cargill to sue ATF challenging the agency’s enforcement guidelines. The suit was filed with the help of the Texas Public Policy Foundation and America First Legal. Today we learn that ATF has backed down and has issued new guidance to its field agents withdrawing the zero tolerance standard.

Crucially, it also adds that “Not every repeat violation is per se willful. A single, or even a few, inadvertent errors in failing to complete forms may not amount to ‘willful’ failures even where the legal requirement to complete the forms was known.”

In light of his victory, Cargill has filed an unopposed motion to voluntarily dismiss the case, without prejudice, with the trial court.

“The Biden Administration’s zero tolerance approach to paperwork errors has been devastating to businesses. Many gun stores have been forced to close due to the illegal terms of the old enforcement order,” said Matt Miller, senior attorney at TPPF and lead attorney on the case. “The new order effectively restores the old enforcement guidance, which means gun stores don’t have to live in fear of honest mistakes.”

“Freedom wins today, and overreach has no place in a free society,” said plaintiff Michael Cargill. “Faced with defeat, the ATF decided to back down. With that my legal team has shielded all mom-and-pop gun stores in the country.”

“It’s encouraging to see the Biden Administration correct its policy after we filed this lawsuit,” said TPPF attorney Clayton Calvin. “The previous policy as written would’ve resulted in such a significant barrier to firearm access it would’ve impeded the right to bear arms.”

“The ATF seems to have looked at our lawsuit and revised its incorrect application of federal law just as the Court was about to decide this case, and I suspect it would not have gone well for the Biden Administration. This type of lawlessness cannot be permitted. The Biden Administration knew it wasn’t applying the law faithfully, and now that it is on its way out of office — after harming hundreds of FFL license holders, it changed course. This is intolerable to a society based on the rule of law,” said America First Legal counsel Nicholas Barry.

https://www.shootingnewsweekly...-of-ffls-nationwide/

About damn time. I'm thinking their will be quite a few changes coming up in the BATFE's near future...

The new sheriff is not yet even in town, and the rats are already playing nice.

quote:

Originally posted by flesheatingvirus:
About damn time. I'm thinking their will be quite a few changes coming up in the BATFE's near future...

I hope so

quote:

Originally posted by flesheatingvirus:
About damn time. I'm thinking their will be quite a few changes coming up in the BATFE's near future...

Really, really hoping for exactly this. The only thing that got better under that assclown Dettelbach is the priority processing of NFA submissions once they get a proceed from NICS. All the rest of it was abysmal.

My guess is the BATFE sees Trump and most importantly, DOGE as an existential threat. I used to think they should fold all their 'work' under the banner of the FBI. Now that the FBI has shit the bed, I'm not so sure.

But, if they're already stripping FBI down to the studs for a rebuild, it'd be a perfect time to make room for the actual useful parts of the former BATFE into a new hopefully trustworthy FBI.

They be scared over to the BATFE if you axe me.

100% Acceptance?

Isn't that the truth? More to come after Monday. The new President will clean up all of the alphabet agencies.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:
The new sheriff is not yet even in town, and the rats are already playing nice.

If I had my druthers, I'd make the ATF stop enforcing local zoning code for issuing FFLs. That has really jammed me up. Though I understand making FFLs easier to get is not going to be anyone's top priority.

no a bunch of FFL's that have had inspections, with just the typical minor violations, and no threat to loose the license

did hear of one IOI that had moved from one area to another recently, and when checking some FFL's , they suddenly had issues that did not have before,

just the way each IOI interprets stuff, so all was good,


also have heard that the IOI's were told to focus on traces, as in your FFL gets a pile of traces a month, you gonna get a look see,

I have two neighbors who have home-based FFLs and weren't made to go through the same zoning BS as I am dealing with. Just depends on your IOI.