By: Teresa Mull
While he was running for president, Joe Biden released an 11-page gun control plan, and now, he’s ready to act on some of it.
Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, said Biden would have “more to say” about gun control during a press conference tomorrow. Biden will also reportedly name David Chipman to head of the ATF and further target gun owners. Chipman has served as an advisor for Giffords, a notorious anti-gun group.
Psaki and the Biden administration have been vague and tight-lipped about specifically how they plan to trample the Second Amendment, but the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) reports Biden’s executive actions could include:
*** Banning commonly owned stabilizing braces,
*** Outlawing the sale and production of home manufactured firearms including 80% receivers and 3D printed gun parts,
*** Blocking the importation of firearms from foreign manufacturers like Glock and Springfield
Banning stabilizing braces could make millions of law-abiding gun owners criminals overnight. As NAGR has noted previously:
“…A stabilizing brace is a firearms accessory that makes a pistol more steady and safe to shoot. Braces have absolutely no effect on the functionality of a firearm, and in no way make a gun more dangerous. Firearms experts estimate that approximately 2 million stabilizing braces have been purchased legally in America in the past decade.”
As for 80% receivers and “ghost guns,” a group of manufacturers and gun rights groups sent a letter to the Biden administration, reminding officials, “[T]here is no federal prohibition on manufacturing non-commercial firearms for personal use. ‘Congress did not draft the GCA [Gun Control Act of 1968] to develop a categorical anti-gun approach to firearm regulation.’ Even the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) believes that the legal dispute over ‘ghost guns’ is, ‘at its core, a policy dispute.’”
What’s more, as GPM has reiterated, homemade guns have been legal for years. In an article chronicling the case between the Department of State and Defense Distributed, a nonprofit company from Austin, Texas, on the verge of publishing schematic designs online of how to make single-shot handguns and a variety of other firearms with a 3-D printer, GPM reported:
“It has always been legal for someone to make their own gun in this country,” Dave Kopel, adjunct professor of constitutional law at Denver University’s Sturm College of Law, told Gunpowder Magazine. “There’s no change there. Putting aside the Defense Distributed issue, there have been many sites that host this sort of information for years.”
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms (ATF) website:
“A license is not required to make a firearm solely for personal use. However, a license is required to manufacture firearms for sale or distribution. The law prohibits a person from assembling a non–sporting semiautomatic rifle or shotgun from 10 or more imported parts, as well as firearms that cannot be detected by metal detectors or x–ray machines. In addition, the making of an NFA firearm requires a tax payment and advance approval by ATF.”
GPM will, of course, have breaking news on Biden’s attack on guns as things develop.
Teresa Mull ([email protected]) is editor of Gunpowder Magazine.