It’s Time For The Firearms Freedom Act Of 2015

ATF agents in Phoenix supplied firearms to the Sinaloa drug cartel, apparently in hopes of causing enough bloodshed along both sides of the border with firearms originating from the ATF plot to justify a ban on the semi-automatic firearms they were delivering to narco-terrorists. To this day, not a single ATF agent involved in the plot has been fired, and none have been criminally charged. Instead of complying with congressional investigations into the plot, the ATF and the Department of Justice under Eric Holder have stonewalled investigators, resulting in Holder being held in criminal contempt of Congress.

The same agency has recently attacked companies for selling so-called “80-percent receivers,” (an unfinished gun part), and has attempted to claim that shouldering an arm-brace equipped pistol illegal “manufactures” a short-barreled rifle, making people a felon for how they chose to hold an otherwise legal weapon. They’re still battling with Sig Sauer over what Sig called a muzzle brake, but what the ATF insists is a suppressor.

Time and again, the ATF has shown themselves to be capricious exploiters of poorly written laws, using crafty lawyers to pervert legislation to be used as legislators never intended against gun owners, manufacturing felons out of good citizens for victimless crimes.

While others would like to defund or disband ATF—and idea that has been debated for decades—a much more practical approach would be to simply remove from their control a number of archaic and nonsensical gun laws that have been crafted since the mid-1930s that should no longer apply in 2015. By narrowing their scope, perhaps the ATF could aspire to become competent within a narrower range or responsibilities.