The Firearm Owners Protection Act has been on the books since the late 1980s, and while it serves an important purpose, the ATF’s interpretation of the law has left a lot to be desired in the past.
Under the current FOPA regulations, for instance, I can drive from my home in Virginia to the Sig Academy in New Hampshire with my firearms locked up and inaccessible, but if I deviate from my destination because of car trouble or even stop for a night at a hotel I’m breaking the law.
The ATF wants to update its rules regarding FOPA, but a group of Democrat senators led by Dick Durbin are calling on the ATF to keep the status quo in place.
“Congress enacted 18 U.S.C. § 926A to provide qualifying people with a defined safe harbor for the interstate transportation of firearms. The statute offers limited legal protection to a person transporting an unloaded firearm between places where that person may lawfully possess and carry it, provided that both the firearm and ammunition are not readily or directly accessible at any point during transportation. ATF’s Proposed Rule, however, would dramatically expand this protection to include overnight lodging, food and fuel stops, vehicle maintenance, medical treatment, transfers between modes of transportation, passenger pickups and drop-offs, and ‘any other activity incidental to the original transportation.’ It would also extend the safe harbor to a nonexclusive list of attachments, accessories, and other items, including: magazines, feed strips, stabilizing braces, weapon-mounted lights, optics, slings, holsters, and firearm cleaning kits. As a whole, the Proposed Rule would transform § 926A into a wider federal preemption regime than Congress ever intended, and, in doing so, would create serious risks to public safety both on its own and as it vitiates critical state and local gun violence prevention laws,” the Senators continued.
Preemption? Hardly. The proposed ATF rule is a common sense reading of the statute, but the agency doesn’t have the power to actually change it. FOPA spells out how firearms must be transported, and even under the ATF’s proposal guns have to be unloaded and inaccessible during transportation.
Durbin and his colleagues think that a gun owner on a cross-country drive shouldn’t be able to stop for gas or a bite to eat, or even to pull into an urgent care clinic. They’re okay with gun owners being punished for circumstances beyond their control, like a flight delay that leaves them stranded overnight in an anti-gun state like New Jersey.
Yes, the ATF’s proposal would treat firearm accessories the same as the guns they’re attached to. If a stabilizing brace is legal where the gun owner lives and where she’s going, she shouldn’t be charged with a criminal offense just because she drives through a state where they’re outlawed.
How on God’s green earth does the ATF”s proposal create “serious risks to public safety”? We’re talking about legal gun owners transporting their unloaded firearms in locked containers.
Durbin, Adam Schiff, Chris Murphy, and Richard Blumenthal have once again shown their utter contempt for gun owners by objecting to the ATF’s proposed rule. Hopefully the ATF will consider their objections and move forward despite their complaints. Of all of the regulatory reforms proposed by the agency, this one could have the biggest impact on lawful gun owners, and the howls of protests from Second Amendment-hating politicians shouldn’t derail the proposed improvements to FOPA.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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