After President Joe Biden's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) banned pistol braces earlier this month, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, is introducing a bipartisan bill to put a check and balance on "overzealous" ATF overreach.
Crenshaw's bipartisan ATF Accountability Act comes in the wake of the ATF's banning pistol braces, which Crenshaw called "shameful" and a slap in the face to veterans.
"For far too long, the ATF has trampled on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens," Rep. Crenshaw wrote in a statement. "It's sickening.
"My bill will establish an appeals process that brings ATF in line with most other federal regulatory bodies, and allows small business owners an avenue to fight these unconstitutional attacks — without having to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars challenging the federal government in court.
"Overzealous, anti-gun government bureaucrats shouldn't get the final say on blocking Americans from exercising their fundamental rights."
Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, is signing on to the bill and Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., will introduce a companion bill in the Senate.
The bill creates an appeals process for the firearms industry to challenge rulings made by the ATF and, as Crenshaw laments, "unelected bureaucrats at the ATF that could cost billions of dollars and impede on the Second Amendment liberties of law-abiding Americans."
Crenshaw's one-pager on the bill warns the ATF "has expanded the issuance of inconsistent and arbitrary classification letter rulings, leaving regulated small businesses guessing as to their legal responsibilities."
"These non-public letters, primarily issued by the ATF's Firearms and Ammunition Technology Division (FATD), are treated as binding by the agency and largely immune from public scrutiny or internal checks and balances," the one-pager continued. "In practice, the agency has given FATD experts" immense power to classify or reclassify products, sometimes owned by millions of Americans, without any public input or formal appeals process.
"These classification letter rulings have the ability to shutter small businesses, cost the industry billions of dollars, and create felons out of millions of Americans."
Crenshaw warns "ATF edicts" pressure businesses to fall in line with policies not passed by Congress and might be contrary to U.S. laws, particularly because legal challenges are costly.
"Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to challenge ATF's ruling in federal district court is untenable for most American businesses," Crenshaw's one-pager on the bill added.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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