Posted on 01/19/2013 10:38:52 AM PST by Oldpuppymax
Barack Obama’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) has sent an open letter to all Federal Firearms License (FFL) holders/licensed gun dealers in the United States, recommending they “…enhance public safety and assist law enforcement by encouraging and facilitating transfers of firearms between private individuals through their business.” In short, FFL holders are being told to perform background checks and keep records of private gun sales between American citizens, EVEN THOUGH federal law may NOT require that they do so! (1)
According to current federal law, gun sales between private individuals must be...
(Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...
Because the real goal is registration. They’ll use any sneak-around they can, because they know if the come out and state their objectives clearly, they’ll lose.
The true gaol is CONFISCATION! The Executive Orders from Obumbum is a “Data Mining” operation to locate and then place in the Feds new computer for tracking Americans Firearms and eventually CONFISCATION under another contrived crises.
The Feds cannot confiscate a firearm until they first find out where it is, what kind it is, and who has possession of it! The latest liberal fascist move is nothing more than an intelligence operation designed to locate American firearms for confiscation. Yesterday it was “machine guns,” then handguns had to have a serial number to prevent crime, today it is “semiautomatic” (assault) rifles with “military style” features and large capacity magazines, tomorrow it will be any firearm with a caliber of more that .22 or some thing similar. The idea is to get firearms out of the hands of Americans, liberals know they do that, they also have to find all other firearms and confiscate them or any true gun prohibition will be meaningless if all Americans have to do is go to their closets and pull out another firearm!
Americans had better wrap their heads around what is really going on or they will find out way too late to do anything about it!
Gun confiscation = making Americans subjects to their government!
Looks like there’s such a law regarding handguns in PA.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2979865/posts?page=32#32
And just how many mass killings would this have prevented?
GET REAL!
Checked with a friend who has a small gun shop here in Texas and he has not received such a letter yet.
So....kinda skeptical about all of this right now.
But, his response was kinda like yours....they could just pound sand
The Commerce Clause indirectly clarifies that Congress has no constitutional authority to regulate intrastate commerce. And I will substantiate my statement about the Commerce Clause with the following excerpt from Thomas Jefferson's writings. Using terms like "does not extend" and "exclusively," Jefferson had clarified that Congress has no business sticking its big nose into intrastate commerce.
“For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State, (that is to say of the commerce between citizen and citizen,) which remain exclusively (emphases added) with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes.” –Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson’s Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank : 1791.
So the federal government originally had no constitutional authority to regulate (interfere) with iintrastate agricultural products like alcohol and tobacco. In fact, the Supreme Court had clarified in United States v. Butler that the states have never delegated to Congress the specific power to regulate intrastate agricultural production, the Founding States having made the 10th Amendment to clarify in general that the Constitution's silence about things like agriculture automatically made it uniquely a state power issue.
"From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited. None to regulate agricultural production is given, and therefore legislation by Congress for that purpose is forbidden (emphasis added)." --United States v. Butler, 1936.
On the other hand...
Note that the states had ratified the 18th Amendment, essentially delegating to Congress the specific power to prohibit intrastate agricultural production, specifically the production of alcoholic beverages. So there had been a constitutional exception to the Commerce Clause.
The problem is...
While the federal Bureau of Prohobition (BOP), which evolved to become the ATF, had been established to support federal government enforcement of the 18th Amendment, I think that the BOP was wrongly ignored by Constitution-ignorant voters after the states ratified the 21st Amendment to repeal the 18th Amendment. In other words, instead of the constitutionally obsolete BOP being decommissioned after 18A was repealed, its shell arguably provided the perfect smoke-and-mirrors vehicle for the corrupt federal government to interfere with intrastate agriculture and gun rights.
Finally, problems with the intrastate firearms aspect of ATF has been addressed, imo, by the Supreme Court's clarification of the purpose of 2A in United States v. Cruikshank.
The second and tenth counts are equally defective. The right there specified is that of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose." This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow citizens of the rights it recognizes (emphasis added), to what is called, in The City of New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 139, the "powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what was, perhaps, more properly called internal police," "not surrendered or restrained" by the Constitution of the United States." --United States v. Cruikshank, 1875.
The movement is now an out of control avalanche and the ATF cannot keep up with the flood of records keeping, they are fully aware that for every registered gun there are several hundred unregistered private sales, and they are all wrought with concern that this will lead to millions of untraceable weapons should they be forced to search and destroy.
essentially its desperation on their part, and it sure smells good.
“I’m aware of statutes that make it illegal to knowingly do so. It’s a bit difficult to prove that someone knowingly did so or had reason to believe, etc. I’m not aware of any laws that would mandate background checks or make private sellers responsible for what they don’t know about a buyer. Maybe an attorney could tell us whether there’s such a law in some state.”
Yea, you’re probably right...if the guy is dancing to rap, has his baseball cap on backwards, and is making his fingers go into funny positions - and you still sell to him, you might have some explaining to do. But if it looks like the family from Father Knows Best, then you’re probably ok.
Anybody seen the actual “official” letter from ATF?
The source doesn’t show one. Maybe this is false and designed to make gun owners react.
You’ve jumped to the end game.
The immediate objective is a back-door registration, inevitably followed, at some date in the future, by confiscation.
But if you’re talking to anyone other than a fellow gun nut, hyperventilating about confiscation when the cover story is “closing the gun show looophole”, or “require a background check for every purchase” you lose your audience. Unless you only want to preach to the converted. In that case, your tactics are spot on.
never mind I just missed it.
And you can ignore their letter and execute a private sale as you and others have done before. Likewise, nothing in this letter compels the FFL dealer to do anything, just encouragement to do something already permitted.
The government encourages me to do many things that I choose not to do. Obama is trying to convince people that he issued executive orders that compel people to do what he wants. First, he did not issue a single executive order, they call them executive actions. Second, he has not compelled any private citizen do anything differently. He may try that in the future, but as for now this is alot of honking and coughing - he is trying to convince his supporters, the press, and the wackos that he has taken action.
I have not checked with my FFL but I know what he will say.
In GA we meet at somebody’s house and somebody hands somebody else some cash and gets a weapon. We talk about the weather and how’s your cousin’s apple orchard going and then we all go home. All legal like and the govt ain’t involved. Thats what’s got a bee in Barry’s bonnet. And that is not going to change anytime soon my friend.
GA’s state law on purchases:
http://www.nraila.org/gun-laws/state-laws/georgia.aspx
isn’t as restrictive as PA’s is:
http://www.nraila.org/gun-laws/state-laws/pennsylvania.aspx
““Do you really think we want those laws observed?” Said Dr. Ferris. We want them broken. You better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against - then you’ll know this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We’re after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick and you’d better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now, that’s the system Mr. Reardon, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, Part 2, Chapter 3, Page 404
Yes, a person can get spoiled by the freedom here. I work hard to never take it for granted.
F them and the horse they rode in on.
Private transfers were constitutional for 237 years, and they still are.
As far as “legal,” tell blacks they can’t sit at the lunch counter.
“Not legal.”
Yeah.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.