Time for Congress to Defund the President’s Anti-gun Agenda

The Second Amendment Takes Another Hit … Thanks to Obama


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Obama’s War on Gun Owners Continues

Barack Obama is at it again.  

In July, his Justice Department set out to use the military and law enforcement as an experiment in gun control.

Then, his State Department recently moved to put gunsmiths out of business.

He knows that his days in office are numbered.  

So he is using every conceivable opportunity to screw gun owners and impose greater firearms restrictions before he leaves office.

“Dumb Guns” Make People Less Safe

The American people don’t want so-called smart gun technology.

The military and police certainly don’t either.

But the President’s Justice Department issued proposed regulations in July that aim to arm our “men in blue” with politically correct weapons that could very well get them killed in emergencies.

We are talking about weapons that are rigged with some kind of recognition technology that would jeopardize lives when batteries fail or when a fingerprint doesn’t unlock the firearm.

This is a horribly stupid idea — and it is going to cost innocent lives.

As GOA states in our comments to the Justice Department in opposition to these regulations:

There’s no question that Barack Obama has shown contempt for men in uniform — both in law enforcement and in the military. 

At a police funeral in Dallas where five officers where tragically murdered, Obama blamed the anti-police violence, at least in part — amazingly enough — on the police who were killed! … 

In an effort to turn the military and law enforcement into experiments in gun control, Obama now, through the current Justice Department effort, proposes to arm them with experimental, politically correct weapons which may or may not fire in an emergency — and which will unnecessarily endanger the lives of America’s police and fighting forces. 

The bottom line is:  Good guys use guns because they save lives.

But using law enforcement or military as experimental pawns in a gun control experiment is not only ludicrous, it will cost innocent lives.

And gun owners should take note that forcing military and law-enforcement to carry these unsafe guns is only the first step.

Average gun owners will be next — as the ultimate goal is to outlaw all guns currently on the market.

TAKE ACTION by contacting your Representative and Senators.  Urge them to support a total and complete ban on President Obama’s latest round of illegal and unconstitutional restrictions on gun rights!

Driving Gunsmiths Out of Business

On July 22, Obama’s Department of State issued a public letter which regulates gunsmiths. 

The letter is not addressed to anyone.  The letter is not signed by anyone.  But the letter claims to be “[i]n response to questions from persons….”  

Yeah, right…

What the letter purports to do is create new and onerous burdens on gunsmiths across the country, requiring them to register with — believe it or not — the State Department and pay thousands of dollars every year in fees for the privilege of doing so.

Gunsmiths are already regulated by the ATF.  Since when did Congress give the State Department any authority to do the same?

Clearly, they didn’t.

The State Department’s letter purports to be nothing more than “guidance” for gunsmiths, but in reality, represents a significant policy change that the Obama Administration took without following the administrative rulemaking process of giving the public notice and an opportunity to comment.  

The State Department’s letter claims that many gunsmithing activities constitute “manufacturing defense articles” — such as using special tooling or equipment, producing firearm parts, machining or cutting firearms, threading muzzles, and rechambering firearms for different calibers.  

State’s letter implies that this list of covered activities is narrow, but in reality, it would apply to just about every gunsmith in America.  After all, what gunsmith does not offer barrel threading as a service?

As GOA states in our comments to the State Department in opposition to these regulations:  

Notwithstanding the Obama Administration’s protests to the contrary, the clear intention of this regulation is to effectively make gunsmithing illegal.

The State Department claims that it applies the “ordinary, contemporary, common meaning” of “manufacturing,” but the opposite is true.  

The letter creates a definition out of whole cloth — one intended to further its end goal of driving gunsmiths out of business.  

The letter claims that barrel threading constitutes “manufacturing,” and that any FFL who threads the barrel of an AR-15 to accept a muzzle device has just “manufacture[d]” a “defense article.”  

But in reality, it is the barrel manufacturer who “manufacture[d]” the barrel — and who no doubt registered with the State Department and paid it hefty fees.  

Of course, the gunsmith did not “manufacture” the barrel, he simply “modified” it.  The same reasoning applies to many of the letter’s other categories of activities that it classifies as “manufacturing,” but which are simply nothing more than mere modification or repair.

Even beyond the threat of bankrupting many gun businesses, the State Department’s letter would ban many ordinary services that a gunsmith provides.

As GOA says in its opposition to this State Department edict, many gunsmithing activities are now illegal if they

improv[e] the “accuracy … or other aspects of firearms operation.” For the record, unless the replacement part improved some aspect of firearms operation, the previous part would not have been replaced. Even the assembly of firearms kits would be illegal if it were more than “occasional” — a term that is not defined by these regulations.

State’s letter claims that barrel threading constitutes “manufacturing,” and that any FFL who threads the barrel of an AR-15 to accept a muzzle device has just “manufacture[d]” a “defense article.”  

But in reality, it is the barrel manufacturer who “manufacture[d]” the barrel — the gunsmith simply “modified” it.  

This same faulty reasoning applies to many of the letter’s other categories of activities that it classifies as “manufacturing,” but which are simply nothing more than mere modification or repair.

Congress never intended that small mom-and-pop gunsmiths would be subject to the State Department’s overreach.  

Indeed, Congress specifically enacted the Gun Control Act to regulate dealers and manufacturers (including gunsmiths), and authorized ATF to charge them a modest fee of $200 for the first three years, and only $30 per year after that.  

Now the State Department comes along, and wants to tack on another $2,250 per year (minimum) — holding a small local gunsmith to the same requirements as Colt Firearms and Lockheed Martin.

For a large commercial gun store which also offers gunsmithing services, $2,250 in fees per year might not break the bank, as these costs would simply be passed along to customers.  

But applied to a small shop, or someone working part time out of his home, this new State Department letter no doubt will drive many small gunsmiths out of business, furthering the Obama agenda of disarmament of Americans through denying them access to arms.

Remember, all these gun control regs come after the Social Security Administration’s plan to ban hundreds of thousands of senior citizens from owning guns — thus, jeopardizing the gun collections they would pass on as inheritance.  

You can see GOA’s previous comments on this matter here.

President Obama’s tenure in office is almost at an end, but his hatred for the Second Amendment burns as hot as it ever has.  

TAKE ACTION by contacting your Representative and Senators.  

Urge them to support a total and complete ban on President Obama’s latest round of illegal and unconstitutional restrictions on gun rights!