Private Gun Sale Ban?

[Grouse]

• Private gun sale ban? In an effort to further infringe on Americans' Second Amendment rights, the Biden administration plans to soon roll out new ATF regulations that would effectively ban private gun sales. As Tristan Leavitt, president of the whistleblower organization Empower Oversight Whistleblowers & Research, argues, "Such an expansive rule that treats all private citizens the same as federal firearms licensees would circumvent the separation of powers in the Constitution, which grants 'all legislative powers' to Congress while requiring that the president 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed.'" The new regulations wouldn't merely require a background check for private gun sales; they also would create a new threshold for anyone selling a firearm, effectively requiring them to register as a federally licensed firearms dealer to legally sell a firearm. Of course, the question of what constitutes a firearms dealer is key, as it has previously been defined as the selling of firearms for "the principal objective of livelihood and profit." That definition of "dealer" would exclude the vast majority of individuals who have sold a firearm. Leavitt noted that the White House directed the ATF to create this regulation and that "whistleblowers say the rule is being drafted by Senior Policy Counsel Eric Epstein, who worked as the Phoenix Field Office's Division Counsel during Operation Wide Receiver (a precursor of Operation Fast and Furious)." Leavitt says that these ATF regulations would so blatantly infringe upon the Second Amendment that he believes the courts would quickly overturn them. Therefore, Biden's likely motive is political, making it a disingenuous gun control issue on which to campaign.