Lots of good advice out there on how to comment against ATF 41P, which will change the way NFA trusts work and generally make it impossible for many people to get NFA items like suppressors. I feel bad that I haven’t been harping on this issue, but as loathe as I am to be fatalistic, I don’t think there’s any stopping this. I certainly would never discourage anyone from writing, but I wouldn’t feel too bad if you didn’t get around to it.
They put this out for public comment because the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) requires them to do so. If an agency wants to change a regulation, Congress has prescribed a certain song and dance has to be gone through, including a public comment period. But they aren’t required to listen to any of it if they are intent on the change. The fix is in, in other words. The Administration intends to use this regulation change to punish us for thwarting his agenda. It’s one of those “elections have consequences” things.
And I’d note this will make it very difficult to ever get suppressors out from under the NFA, because it’ll mean fewer people have access to them, and with fewer people having access to them, there’s less of a constituency to drive political change. This will mean the first thing we probably need to drive for are either eliminating the LEO sign-off requirement through Congressional action, or passing more sign-off laws at the state level, like Tennessee has done.
The way I like to think of the benefit of commenting is that people in Congress can use it as evidence to limit their funding and perhaps ultimately it can be used as evidence at their trials. They were explicitly told not to do something, and why, and they did it anyway. They cannot claim ignorance.
Done, thanks for the links!
Your comment will be viewable on Regulations.gov after the agency has reviewed it, which may be an indefinite amount of time. Use your tracking number to find out the status of your comment.
Do any of you guys remember the ATF Shotgun ban proposal? How many of you guys think these scum-bucket, communists at ATF will try that next?
This rule will clearly violate several other laws and regulations which require additional hoops to be jumped through if the economic impact is sufficiently large (which it almost certainly will be).
Of course, nobody will have standing to sue according to the courts. There is no remedy short of either (A) winning the executive branch with a president that will overturn this (HAH!) or (B) electing a veto-proof majority in the legislature, or (C) torches, pitchfolks, feather pillows, and tar. The administration has already demonstrated that it can literally make up the law as it goes along with issues that affect a lot more people and there are zero consequences.
ETA — that said, of course, I still commented. And other readers should too. If you don’t wrestle, you don’t get to bitch about the outcome.
I think this largely sums up my thoughts on the matter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATGcA_Y_zUU&t=40s
There are four boxes availiable to us with regard to influencing the direction of our government: Soap, ballot, jury, and cartridge. We have so far had little success with the first two, largely due to the stranglehold the other side holds on both traditional media outlets and our school system. The third has many of the same issues, and largely derives from the first two.
If we cannot turn this around with the first three, we will be faced with a choice: Open the fourth box, or get in the cattle cars.