Scary stuff

[Big D]

Got this Note from OGCA. (Ohio Gun Collectors Association) I suppose the next thing will be ATF clearance to go to a quilt show.

Send notes to your representative and senators

Dear Members and Collectors:

We need your help on or before December 7, 2023, to contact your US Senators and Representatives as well as The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (“ATF”). The ATF is proposing new regulations that change who is required to have a Federal Firearms License (“FFL”) in order to sell a firearm. These regulations have not been adopted and with your help the regulations may be rejected.



The proposal provides rebuttable presumptions of who is selling firearms to “predominately earn a profit” and thus are “engaged in business” and they are a dealer who must be licensed. What does all of this mean? The Proposal is that a person must be licensed if they sell firearms with intent to predominately earn a profit. In the Proposed regulations this is defined to include tagging a firearm with a sale price, renting a table at a gun show, or maintaining records regarding purchased and sold prices. Further, offering firearms of a similar kind or type for sale. These are rebuttable presumptions. What a “rebuttable presumption” means is that if ATF establishes one of these facts, such as renting a table at a gun show that offered firearms for sale, one is presumed to be a firearms dealer, who is required to have an FFL license. The burden to prove otherwise then moves to the seller to establish that they are not “engaged in business”. These presumptions are for civil, not criminal proceedings.



These proposed changes in the regulations have come from a directive of the President and the Attorney General. They are asserting that these changes are proper based upon changes in federal law enacted in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (the “BSCA”). The BSCA does not provide for these presumptions. BSCA was passed by Congress as law, the proposed regulations are being put forth by the administration through ATF as a “reasonable interpretation” of the BSCA. We disagree.



The proposal if enacted is not good news for gun shows or OGCA. Exactly how everything would fall out is not known.