Exclusive — Rep. Andrew Clyde: We’re Defunding ATF’s Universal Background Check Rule

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) exclusively told Breitbart News Wednesday that he has an amendment prepared to defund the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ (ATF’s) proposed universal background check rule.

On August 31, 2023, Breitbart News reported that the ATF was going around Congress to institute background checks that Congress has long refused to adopt.

In a press release that accompanied the announcement of the proposed rule, Attorney General Merrick Garland said:

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was passed by Congress to reduce gun violence, including by expanding the background checks that keep guns out of the hands of criminals. This proposed rule implements Congress’s mandate to expand the definition of who must obtain a license and conduct a background check before selling firearms.

ATF Director Steve Dettelbach said, “This new proposed rule would clarify the circumstances in which a person is ‘engaged in the business’ of dealing in firearms, and thus required to obtain a license and follow the laws Congress has established for firearms dealers.”

The proposed rule states:

Consistent with the Gun Control Act (“GCA”) and existing regulations, the proposed rule also defines the term “personal collection” to clarify when persons are not “engaged in the business” because they make only occasional sales to enhance a personal collection, or for a hobby, or if the firearms they sell are all or part of a personal collection. This proposed rule further addresses the lawful ways in which former licensees, and responsible persons acting on behalf of such licensees, may liquidate business inventory upon revocation or other termination of their license.

Rep. Clyde, constantly stressing his belief that the ATF seeks to put these rules in place to further its registration agenda, said an amendment to defund the rule is imminent.

“We’re going to defund it,” Clyde said.

He then read from the amendment itself, saying it “prohibits the use of funds to implement the ATF’s proposed rule entitled ‘Definition of Engaged in a Business as a Dealer in Firearms.'”

Clyde explained that the rule would be dead once funding is prohibited. By law, the ATF can not seek other funding sources because Clyde is “prohibiting any funds from being used to execute the rule.”

He is also putting forth another amendment that “prohibits the Department of Justice [DOJ] from purchasing firearms or ammunition until the department reports to Congress, and makes publicly available, annual data on firearms and ammunition in the department’s possession.”

“I think the public should know what kind of firearms and ammunition the DOJ has in its storage facilities,” Clyde concluded.

RELATED — AWR Hawkins: Universal Background Checks = Gun Registry

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AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.