The Justice Department announced today that gun shops in Arizona, Texas, California, and New Mexico will have to report all sales in which multiple “high powered” rifles are involved.
There are two problems with this. The first is that the horses have already run free. Lone Wolf Trading Company and the other dealers implicated in the Fast & Furious controversy were cooperating with the BATFE. The sales were done under the orders and direct supervision of the Bureau, the dealers were reporting them in real time, and those guns still got across the border into Mexico.
So, Justice wants to generate (by their estimates) an extra 18,000 reports per year, most of which will do nothing more than tie up payroll and manpower the ATF doesn’t have, and which will end up sitting in boxes and gathering dust in the Martinsburg office. How is an insignificant stopgap like this supposed to staunch the bleeding?
Furthermore, exactly how does the multiple reporting requirement work, when 18 U.S.C. 923(g)(3)(B) explicitly mentions “pistols or revolvers,” but not rifles? Who has the authority to change that regulation on the fly?
A bill specifically barring the use of Federal funds for this purpose is languishing in committee. If your Senator is not co-sponsoring it, contact him.
At this point, token half-measures aren’t going to cut it. Acting Director Melson managed to sidestep the blowback by testifying to Congress on his own, and the fact that some of the “walked” guns are showing up in domestic crime scenes doesn’t bode well for the administration. The only option I see for them now is to come clean, and that’s not going to be pretty.