Bill_Rights
Member
I noticed this article (Obama administration forcing new gun buyers to declare race, ethnicity) in the Sept. 17, 2014 Washington Times newspaper. These blanks for race and ethnicity on Form 4473 have been on the form for a while (I have seen them & filled them out), but now the feds are enforcing that they be filled out. These items are to be filled out by the buyer of the firearm, not the seller/dealer.
The upshot seems to be that, if the buyer does not fill out this information, it is a “federal error” (whatever that is!) held against the seller, and is an ATF violation severe enough for ATF to shut the business down. Huh? I want a lawyer’s opinion on what a federal error is.
Meanwhile, these BATF forms 4473 are (still) not computerized, and the data is not reported automatically to BATF or any other federal database. (This is non-reporting and non-databasing a good thing and has been put in place by generations of Senators and House Reps, to protect the 2nd amendment rights of citizens from the government.) As always, the dealer is required to store the paper copies of the 4473s on premises in perpetuity. Theoretically, the forms can only be examined by law enforcement in case of a criminal investigation (presumably a gun crime), but BATF is allowed to make random spot-check audits of gun dealers. I have heard that this is very rare. So the race and ethnicity information goes nowhere. And the identity of the buyer has already been established by extensive required documentation. So there would be other ways to find out race and ethnicity.
The article goes on to give various theories of why the fed gov’t is doing this and the timing of it. You can read it. Various experts explain.
I have an alternate hypothesis. There has been for years a trend toward hyper-detailed laws, and lots of them. Note that agency regulations often have the force of law. Sometimes they are worse, since they do not require full due process in court, and the agency can impose the penalty first, then wait for the citizen to initiate court action to contest the agency action. The IRS and EPA are famous for this. Serious analysts have speculated that every citizen violates several laws every day, without even knowing it. Theoretically, every citizen is therefore subject to arrest, search, seizure (civil asset forfeiture), investigation, criminal charges, grand jury proceedings, etc. It only requires an officer of the law or a state’s attorney to write a violation or probable cause paper, then all these legal processes would kick into action. In the case of an executive agency, it only requires a far-away nameless/faceless bureaucrat to issue some paperwork. The suspicious and cynical among us speculate that enforcement-of-previously-unenforced-laws and regulations would be done selectively and for political reasons. Within this context, the new BATF rules fit as yet another regulation/rule that could ensnare 100s of thousands of people. My interpretation is supported by the fact that the rule and its consequences are not explained on BATF’s web site nor any other federal gov’t site (this was reported in the Wash Times article). Therefore, a “secret” rule will not be known by the populace and will be incidentally violated en mass. In fact, the government could be said to have a reasonable presumption that any and every person who has filled out a 4473 form has violated this rule. So this is a phony and crooked form of “probable cause” that could be invoked against a citizen at any time, causing a string of actions and consequences that would take months if not years to unravel and get clear of. By then, the damage, whatever it is, might be irrevocably done.
The upshot seems to be that, if the buyer does not fill out this information, it is a “federal error” (whatever that is!) held against the seller, and is an ATF violation severe enough for ATF to shut the business down. Huh? I want a lawyer’s opinion on what a federal error is.
Meanwhile, these BATF forms 4473 are (still) not computerized, and the data is not reported automatically to BATF or any other federal database. (This is non-reporting and non-databasing a good thing and has been put in place by generations of Senators and House Reps, to protect the 2nd amendment rights of citizens from the government.) As always, the dealer is required to store the paper copies of the 4473s on premises in perpetuity. Theoretically, the forms can only be examined by law enforcement in case of a criminal investigation (presumably a gun crime), but BATF is allowed to make random spot-check audits of gun dealers. I have heard that this is very rare. So the race and ethnicity information goes nowhere. And the identity of the buyer has already been established by extensive required documentation. So there would be other ways to find out race and ethnicity.
The article goes on to give various theories of why the fed gov’t is doing this and the timing of it. You can read it. Various experts explain.
I have an alternate hypothesis. There has been for years a trend toward hyper-detailed laws, and lots of them. Note that agency regulations often have the force of law. Sometimes they are worse, since they do not require full due process in court, and the agency can impose the penalty first, then wait for the citizen to initiate court action to contest the agency action. The IRS and EPA are famous for this. Serious analysts have speculated that every citizen violates several laws every day, without even knowing it. Theoretically, every citizen is therefore subject to arrest, search, seizure (civil asset forfeiture), investigation, criminal charges, grand jury proceedings, etc. It only requires an officer of the law or a state’s attorney to write a violation or probable cause paper, then all these legal processes would kick into action. In the case of an executive agency, it only requires a far-away nameless/faceless bureaucrat to issue some paperwork. The suspicious and cynical among us speculate that enforcement-of-previously-unenforced-laws and regulations would be done selectively and for political reasons. Within this context, the new BATF rules fit as yet another regulation/rule that could ensnare 100s of thousands of people. My interpretation is supported by the fact that the rule and its consequences are not explained on BATF’s web site nor any other federal gov’t site (this was reported in the Wash Times article). Therefore, a “secret” rule will not be known by the populace and will be incidentally violated en mass. In fact, the government could be said to have a reasonable presumption that any and every person who has filled out a 4473 form has violated this rule. So this is a phony and crooked form of “probable cause” that could be invoked against a citizen at any time, causing a string of actions and consequences that would take months if not years to unravel and get clear of. By then, the damage, whatever it is, might be irrevocably done.
