HR 1105 : Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009

[John Q. Pirate]

Greetings all,

I've been a lurker for quite a while on this forum, and thought it prudent to bring up the above bill introduced today, which I'm sure some of you have already seen. With the heretofore debunked myth of buried gun-control provisions in the first stimulus bill, I thought I'd take a look at this one just to make sure. Since it's a pork-laden, $410B piece of tripe weighing in at over 1,100 pages, I curtailed my search to sections of the Bill I felt most likely to contain such provisions [although such could be anywhere]. All excerpts below are from the Department of Justice section found at this link

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.1105:

unless otherwise noted.

For necessary expenses of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, not to exceed $40,000 for official reception and representation expenses; for training of State and local law enforcement agencies with or without reimbursement, including training in connection with the training and acquisition of canines for explosives and fire accelerants detection; and for provision of laboratory assistance to State and local law enforcement agencies, with or without reimbursement, $1,054,215,000, of which not to exceed $1,000,000 shall be available for the payment of attorneys' fees as provided by section 924(d)(2) of title 18, United States Code; and of which $10,000,000 shall remain available until expended: Provided, That no funds appropriated herein shall be available for salaries or administrative expenses in connection with consolidating or centralizing, within the Department of Justice, the records, or any portion thereof, of acquisition and disposition of firearms maintained by Federal firearms licensees: Provided further, That no funds appropriated herein shall be used to pay administrative expenses or the compensation of any officer or employee of the United States to implement an amendment or amendments to 27 CFR 478.118 or to change the definition of `Curios or relics' in 27 CFR 478.11 or remove any item from ATF Publication 5300.11 as it existed on January 1, 1994: Provided further, That none of the funds appropriated herein shall be available to investigate or act upon applications for relief from Federal firearms disabilities under 18 U.S.C. 925(c): Provided further, That such funds shall be available to investigate and act upon applications filed by corporations for relief from Federal firearms disabilities under section 925(c) of title 18, United States Code: Provided further, That no funds made available by this or any other Act may be used to transfer the functions, missions, or activities of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to other agencies or Departments in fiscal year 2009: Provided further, That, beginning in fiscal year 2009 and thereafter, no funds appropriated under this or any other Act may be used to disclose part or all of the contents of the Firearms Trace System database maintained by the National Trace Center of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or any information required to be kept by licensees pursuant to section 923(g) of title 18, United States Code, or required to be reported pursuant to paragraphs (3) and (7) of such section 923(g), except to: (1) a Federal, State, local, tribal, or foreign law enforcement agency, or a Federal, State, or local prosecutor, solely in connection with and for use in a criminal investigation or prosecution; or (2) a Federal agency for a national security or intelligence purpose; and all such data shall be immune from legal process, shall not be subject to subpoena or other discovery, shall be inadmissible in evidence, and shall not be used, relied on, or disclosed in any manner, nor shall testimony or other evidence be permitted based on the data, in a civil action in any State (including the District of Columbia) or Federal court or in an administrative proceeding other than a proceeding commenced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to enforce the provisions of chapter 44 of such title, or a review of such an action or proceeding; except that this proviso shall not be construed to prevent: (A) the disclosure of statistical information concerning total production, importation, and exportation by each licensed importer (as defined in section 921(a)(9) of such title) and licensed manufacturer (as defined in section 921(a)(10) of such title); (B) the sharing or exchange of such information among and between Federal, State, local, or foreign law enforcement agencies, Federal, State, or local prosecutors, and Federal national security, intelligence, or counterterrorism officials; or (C) the publication of annual statistical reports on products regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, including total production, importation, and exportation by each licensed importer (as so defined) and licensed manufacturer (as so defined), or statistical aggregate data regarding firearms traffickers and trafficking channels, or firearms misuse, felons, and trafficking investigations: Provided further, That no funds made available by this or any other Act shall be expended to promulgate or implement any rule requiring a physical inventory of any business licensed under section 923 of title 18, United States Code: Provided further, That no funds under this Act may be used to electronically retrieve information gathered pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 923(g)(4) by name or any personal identification code: Provided further, That no funds authorized or made available under this or any other Act may be used to deny any application for a license under section 923 of title 18, United States Code, or renewal of such a license due to a lack of business activity, provided that the applicant is otherwise eligible to receive such a license, and is eligible to report business income or to claim an income tax deduction for business expenses under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.

Ok, perhaps someone can explain better, since my legalese is a bit rusty, but:

Provided, That no funds appropriated herein shall be available for salaries or administrative expenses in connection with consolidating or centralizing, within the Department of Justice, the records, or any portion thereof, of acquisition and disposition of firearms maintained by Federal firearms licensees:

...this doesn't seem so bad- they're unwilling to appropriate funds in pursuit of a centralized firearm database as concerns FFL inventory?

Provided further, That no funds appropriated herein shall be used to pay administrative expenses or the compensation of any officer or employee of the United States to implement an amendment or amendments to 27 CFR 478.118 or to change the definition of `Curios or relics' in 27 CFR 478.11 or remove any item from ATF Publication 5300.11 as it existed on January 1, 1994:

...this one I suppose is ok as well, but I'm curious as to why the list of approved C&R firearms specifically is of such particular note in this bill.

Provided further, That none of the funds appropriated herein shall be available to investigate or act upon applications for relief from Federal firearms disabilities under 18 U.S.C. 925(c): Provided further, That such funds shall be available to investigate and act upon applications filed by corporations for relief from Federal firearms disabilities under section 925(c) of title 18, United States Code:

...so, no more funding to investigate applications to restore one's eligibility to possess a firearm, if otherwise denied under 18 USC 925(c), unless one is a corporation? Does this "de-funding," as it were, take our option of recourse under such a denial off the table?


Additionally, under General Provisions--Department of Justice

Sec. 511. None of the funds appropriated pursuant to this Act or any other provision of law may be used for--

(1) the implementation of any tax or fee in connection with the implementation of subsection 922(t) of title 18, United States Code; and

(2) any system to implement subsection 922(t) of title 18, United States Code, that does not require and result in the destruction of any identifying information submitted by or on behalf of any person who has been determined not to be prohibited from possessing or receiving a firearm no more than 24 hours after the system advises a Federal firearms licensee that possession or receipt of a firearm by the prospective transferee would not violate subsection (g) or (n) of section 922 of title 18, United States Code, or State law.

Which I believe was already in force, or supposed to be, in theory, anyway.


My apologies to all if my reading of the above is flawed, and happens to not be cause for concern, but I thought I'd bring it up nonetheless in case others would like to have a crack at it. Perhaps some of you could better explain the ramifications of the foregoing excerpts, anyway.