Posts Tagged ‘ATF’

Trade Group Aids Texas Gun Seller’s Suit Against Feds

Wednesday, April 4th, 2012

Original Story VIA:  The Texas Tribune

A national firearms trade association that boasts more than 7,000 members is helping finance a lawsuit in which a Texas gun dealer is challenging a federal reporting requirement for the sale of long rifles.

The Connecticut-based National Shooting Sports Foundation Inc., whose mission statement is to “promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports,” is helping finance a legal team for Golden States Tactical, a northern California firearms seller and NSSF member, in a lawsuit that was originally filed by San Antonio-based 10-Ring Precision Inc.

The company took action in August after the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives issued a rule last year requiring licensed firearms dealers in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California to report to the agency any time two or more long rifles are sold to the same buyer within a five-day period. The requirement pertains to rifles with calibers greater than .22 and capable of holding a detachable clip.

The bureau says the move is a good-faith effort to curb the illegal transport of firearms to violence-plagued Mexico. They point to a similar rule that has been in place for handguns as proof that the latest policy isn’t an assault on Second Amendment rights.

Sellers, however, say the requirement is government intrusion hurting their businesses and a power grab by the federal government, which invoked the rule without congressional approval.

“I am basically being asked to do something other than what is required by law by the ATF,” said Robby Betts, a licensed firearms dealer with Golden States Tactical. “I’ve got people not wanting to buy guns now.”