Originally Posted By: Der Ami
Has everyone forgotten that the Clinton admin. reduced the number of FFL holders by thousands and thousands( if my memory is correct, they were trying for 120000). They did this by withdrawing the FFLs, refusing to renew them, or harassing the holders, until they gave up. The reason they gave was that these FFL holders didn't have a Bona Fide business because they weren't selling enough to be a business, but were rather a hobby. Also if the Obama admin wants to keep guns out of the hands of people that shouldn't have them, they should talk to their friends in New York and Chicago and have them re-implement "stop and frisk".
Mike


Correct - Obama is undoing Clinton's earlier decision that expanding the universe of licensed dealers had become unwieldy. I look forward to hearing Billary's explanation of that decision during the general election (Was your husband wrong or is your former boss wrong?).

Keith - I agree with your fundamental point, but the sale of more than one gun will not automatically establish you as a dealer. There is a blog post on GunsAmerica stating that nothing really has changed. Similarly, an former ATF senior enforcement official was quoted in the NYT a few days ago saying essentially the same thing. The statutory and regulatory language is unchanged and ATF has always had and continues to have enforcement discretion to interpret "engaged in the business of dealing firearms."

The whole "dealer" issue is a lot smoke and mirrors to distract everyone's attention away form the fact that the real work - stopping illegal trafficking - has been ignored by Obama for the last 7 years, due in no small part to the "Fast and Furious" debacle.

Here is a great dissection of Obama's proposal: Reason Blog


Such a long, long time to be gone, and a short time to be there.