This month, the Biden administration announced a rule that will permanently extend what was supposed to be a short-term “pause” on licenses for gun exports to nongovernmental organizations ( NGOs ).
On April 30, the Bureau of Industry and Security ( BIS ) of the Department of Commerce plans to release an interim final rule that will make it harder for American gun manufacturers that rely on foreign exports to conduct business.
In October 2023, the BIS announced that it would stop issuing new trade licenses for some ammunition and weapons. In response, it said it would review laws that it believed may cause “arms being deported to organizations or activities that promote local instability, abuse or violate human rights, or power criminal activities, including blackmail, and illegal trafficking of any kind.” The registration suspension was just supposed to last 90 days.
The company began working on an interval last law that extended the wait and revised what it thought were inappropriate registration and other trade requirements at the urging of congressional Democrats, who blame U.S. gun manufacturers for global death and destruction. Additionally, the new plan places a “presumption of neglect” on firearms exports to NGOs in dozens of nations.
BIS claims that the changes may “more effectively safeguard U.S. national security and international policy interests” by more preventing cartel and other criminal organizations from stealing or purchasing British weapons without authorization.
” The time of exporting military-style weapons to residents in fragile nations are over,” said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. It will be much more difficult to trade these weapons to civilians in nations where national security is at risk, according to our new evaluation process.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives ( ATF), however, found that firearms that were internationally traced and recovered between 2016 and 2020 made up less than 1 percent of the more than 2.7 million guns lawfully exported from the U. S. during those years.
In fact, the regulation appears to aggravate American gun manufacturers by creating bureaucratic blunders that did “intensify” the” significant losses” they suffered following the stoppage of October 2023.
Americans may have 60 days to submit comments on the principle, which becomes effective 30 days after it is published in the Federal Register.
The Biden administration and Democrats have already used the policy as another attempt to “turn the valves of state against a Constitutionally-protected business in order to warm up to special-interest gun control contributors,” according to advocacy groups like the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
According to NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Lawrence G. Keane, the supposed “temporary pause” to review firearm export policies was a farce. It was an effort to “buy the administration time to gin up policies that would strike at the heart of the ability of this industry to stay in business.” Since President Biden asserted from the Democratic debate stage that “arms manufacturers are the enemy,” this has always been the end goal. This is a direct attack on the sector that gives Americans the means to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
Jordan Boyd is a co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour and a staff writer for The Federalist. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordanian received her bachelor’s degree from Baylor University, where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
