Now that the gun-control community has been blessed by Joe Biden, which means he expects every, single member of that community to  vote for him next year, I’m going to take it upon myself to pay close attention to what Gun-control Nation says about gun violence which continues unabated even though the last explanation for the 125,000 fatal and non-fatal gun injuries which occur every year – Covid-19 – seems to be fading away.

              So, today I received the email from Everytown asking me for some dough (which I give them every year, btw) and I notice that the ATF has evidently proposed a new standard for defining when someone who sells a gun is actually behaving like a gun dealer and therefore needs to possess a federal gun license and run a background check every time he or she wants to sell a gun.

              It used to be that someone had to register as a gun dealer depending on the number of guns sold over a given period of time – usually one year. As proposed by the ATF, the new rule would scrap any definition based on the number of gun sales and simply define a gun dealer as anyone who makes a profit by selling a gun. It doesn’t matter where you sell the gun – your house, a flea market, a gun show, the Walmart parking lot.  If you sell a gun with the intent to making a profit, you are a gun dealer and need to acquire and use a federally issued gun dealer license, a.k.a., an FFL.

          I have actually taken the trouble to read every, single word of the 108-page ATF filing which describes the new rule. I happen to know something about being a gun dealer because I have operated licensed, retail gun shops in three states (SC, NY, MA) and over some forty years have probably sold more than 10,000 guns to 7,500 retail customers and have also exhibited and sold guns at many local, regional, and national gun shows.

              Now don’t get me wrong when I say what I’m next going to say, because I happen to support any and all reasonable and workable efforts to reduce gun violence and I also send annual contributions to all the major gun-control groups. Be that as it may, if you believe these changes in gun regulations proposed by the ATF will do anything other than increase the revenue which the ATF receives for issuing dealer licenses, then you don’t know anything about the gun business and you have little or no contact with any law-abiding individual who owns guns.

              And before I explain what I mean by what I just said, please do me a favor and to quote Grandpa, don’t ‘hock mir en chinik’ (read: argue with me) about the 2^nd Amendment, because there’s absolutely nothing in this ATF proposal which has anything to do with gun ‘rights,’ okay?

              On the other hand, there’s also nothing in this new regulation that will do anything to reduce the endemic gun violence condition which claims more than 100,000 fatally and non-fatally injured Americans every year.

As long as the United States continues to be the only country which allows residents to own guns which are designed solely for the purpose of ending human life, I’m talking about the semi-automatic, bottom loading pistols made by Glock, Sig, Ruger, Smith, etc., enough of them will get stolen every year to keep a plentiful supply in the wrong hands.

              The FBI estimates that somewhere around 200,000 guns are stolen every year, and there is no federal law or regulation which requires any individual or police agency to report stolen guns to the ATF.  Some do and some don’t. But the bottom line is that these are the guns which are being used to commit gun violence, not the crummy old shotgun I sold at the local gun show for fifty bucks.

Go to a local gun show and you’ll see a bunch of people walking around who also walk around at the model train show or the computer show or any other place where they can get together with other folks who enjoy the same hobby which they enjoy and shoot the shit, have a donut and coffee, and maybe spend a few bucks.

If Everytown, Brady and other advocacy groups want to support a new gun-control regulation that will really make a difference, why don’t they start thinking and talking about a regulation to restrict the ownership of certain kinds of ‘killer’ guns rather than a regulation which imposes more useless paperwork on people who just like to buy, own, and play around with guns?