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Representative Tracey Mann, a Republican from Kansas, submitted legislation last week that would “protect small gun store owners” from a “weaponized zero tolerance policy” promoted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives under the Biden administration.
Mann noted in a press release from his office that the policy from the ATF has produced an increase in license revocations for “minor clerical errors like missing a customer’s middle initial or using a state abbreviation rather than the state’s full name.” That policy has caused the highest number of small gun stores to lose their federal licenses to sell firearms in twenty years.
The legislation filed by Mann would require the ATF to collaborate with license holders before revoking the permits and give them a “chance to comply.”
The measure would also allow federal firearm licensees to “appeal ATF determinations before an administrative law judge,” as well as receive reimbursements for legal fees incurred under the zero tolerance policy and establish a government website to handle reimbursement claims.
“President Biden did everything in his power to weaponize the federal government against gun store owners,” Mann said in a statement about the bill. “His zero tolerance policy undermined the Second Amendment and trampled on the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.”
Mann said the bill affirms “the Second Amendment rights of local gun stores” and restores “a degree of wholeness to individuals whose livelihoods were destroyed by this federal abuse.”
Aidan Johnston, the director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America, added that the zero tolerance policy “is still in full effect” and observed that “there are agents in the field right now shutting down gun stores to obtain out-of-business records for the illegal gun registry.”
Beyond the measure about the zero tolerance policy, other members of Congress have proposed legislation to entirely abolish the ATF, contending that the federal law enforcement agency has a history of “overreach, incompetence, and tragedy” as they enforce gun laws.
