The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives faces a lawsuit over its guidelines for firearms license inspections that could be used to shutter gun stores, the Washington Examiner reports.
Morehouse Enterprises, LLC, which operates the North Dakota gun store Bridge City Ordnance, has joined with the group Gun Owners of America in filing a lawsuit over the Biden Administration's 2021 requirement that the ATF "revoke the licenses of dealers the first time that they violate federal law."
According to the lawsuit, the Biden Administration stated in 2021 that the ATF can revoke a firearm dealer's license if they willfully sell a gun to someone who is prohibited from owning one, fail to conduct a background check, falsify records, fail to respond to a tracing request from ATF, or refuse to allow an ATF inspection.
The lawsuit contends that an algorithm, and not a human being, is used to determine "willfulness" when investigating whether to revoke a license.
"In other words, willfulness is no longer found by an individual based on facts, circumstances, and the exercise of human judgment. Rather, it is presumed by computer software, based on nothing more than the category of record-keeping violations that are discovered and fed into the computer system," the lawsuit argues.
Morehouse also contends that the ATF conducted an investigation on their store that found multiple violations after the company filed a lawsuit last year against the agency's rule on ghost guns.
"A short time after that lawsuit was filed, BCO [Bridge City Ordnance] was the subject of an administrative compliance inspection conducted by ATF in February of 2023. That inspection was the first compliance inspection ever conducted by ATF with respect to either of the BCO licenses," the new lawsuit reads.
"GOF is proud to be lending our support in defense of Bridge City Ordnance and all of those small businesses facing devastating consequences if this Administration's hostility towards firearms is permitted to go unchecked," GOA senior vice president Erich Pratt said in an interview this week.
"It also is just one more compelling piece of evidence to support gun owners' demands that Congress defund the ATF," he added.