Verifying Biden's 'rogue gun dealers cause crime' theory

The Second Amendment Foundation's Investigative Journalism Project sent a FOIA to the ATF to verify the President's most recent claims.

Joe Biden announced more executive orders Wednesday, in addition to a new zero-tolerance policy for “rogue gun dealers,” who he now claims are responsible for violent crime increases in five major cities historically controlled by Democrats.

The President’s five-point plan also includes additional money for police — who he previously said should be defunded.

“Rogue gun dealers” the President alleged, are those Federal Firearm Licensees who “willfully” transfer a firearm to a prohibited person, and/or who refuse to cooperate with a tracing request from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

To verify the Biden’s claims, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request Wednesday morning to the ATF, seeking the numbers of gun dealers, by state, who, over the past three years, have been prosecuted for willfully transferring a firearm to a prohibited person and/or for refusing to cooperate with a tracing request from the ATF. We will update this story when the agency responds.

While the President highlighted other areas, such as taxpayer funding of community violence intervention, reentry and summer jobs programs, guns were definitely the theme of his speech, which included calls on Congress to ban “assault weapons” and “high-capacity magazines.”

“No one needs to have a weapon that fires 30, 40 or up to 100 rounds, unless you think the deer are wearing Kevlar vests, or something,” Biden said.

During his 15 minute speech, Biden rambled when he tried to adlib — unable to complete sentences. He had difficulty reading from the teleprompter. At times he slurred his words. And once again he referred to the ATF as the “AFT,” although this time he corrected his mistake.

Takeaways

If you’re scratching your head in confusion wondering why the Biden/Harris administration would target FFLs — arguably one of the most heavily regulated federal license holders — you’re certainly not alone. Everyone in the firearms industry knows full well there are — maybe — a dozen or so “rogue gun dealers” out of approximately 60,000 FFLs in the entire country.

What Biden left out of his speech is also telling.

He never once mentioned gangs or gangsters — the root cause of violent crime in every major city whose mayor Biden now wants to prop up.

In Chicago alone there are more than 100,000 gang members. I’m sure each owns more than a few stolen firearms, so guns aren’t the problem. Gangsters are — as evidenced by the fact there were 54 people shot in the city last weekend.

Now, if he’s really trying to find ways to reduce violence, Biden only has to recall the words he used as a Senator in 1994: “Lock the SOBs up.”

As always, thanks for your time.

Lee

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