Gun Owners of America sues ATF over ‘zero tolerance’ shutdown of gun stores

By
Suzanne Downing
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15

Gun Owners of America, a prominent Second Amendment advocacy group, on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives over its controversial “zero tolerance” policy aimed at shutting down gun stores.

The lawsuit, titled Morehouse Enterprises v. ATF challenges the ATF’s rigid inspection guidelines for federal firearms licensees implemented in January 2022, which make it easy for the agency to pull a gun store’s federal license.

The gun-rights group argues that the ATF’s zero tolerance policy infringes on the rights of law-abiding citizens and is a weaponization of federal agencies for political purposes.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, GOA Senior Vice President Erich Pratt criticized the Biden administration’s approach: “This zero tolerance policy towards lawful commerce guaranteed by the Second Amendment is just the latest example of this Administration weaponizing federal agencies against their political enemies.”

Pratt called for defunding the ATF, asserting there is an immediate need to protect the rights of gun owners.

Sam Paredes, a board member of the Gun Owners Foundation highlighted the detrimental impact the ATF’s policies have on small businesses, saying “It’s ridiculous that good people trying to make an honest living are facing this assault on their livelihoods simply over inconsequential paperwork errors.”

The lawsuit came after the ATF targeted a North Dakota gun store, Morehouse Enterprises. Morehouse had already filed a lawsuit against the ATF, after which the agency conducted a surprise inspection of Morehouse, and found five violations — out of 5,000 gun sales or purchases by Morehouse. Before Morehouse filed its lawsuit, it had never gotten a visit for the ATF, which is now trying to suspend Morehouse’s gun store license.

15 COMMENTS

  1. There are thousands of tiktok videos where people are showing off illegal glock switches yet not a peep from the atf.

  2. IS such a facile “pulling” of a license an infringement, a gradual encroachment and usurpation? ?

    • Lets say you’re a coffee stand owner in Anchorage. The Assembly passes and enacts an ordinance that coffee stands may not serve coffee after 8:00 PM. However, you had a small rush of coffee orders come in at 7:50 PM. You take the orders and prepare the coffee. You serve all but two of the orders before 8:00 PM. By the letter of the ordinance, you are in violation of the ordinance. The penalty for violating the ordinance is you lose your license. You are now out of business until you somehow make it right. But the Assembly doesn’t tell you how to make it right. Out of 2,000 cups of coffee, you have 1 tenth of 1 percent that were sold outside of the allowed time to sell. Now let’s look at the gun shop. They have what are minor clerical errors in the paperwork of 5 out of 5,000 transactions, 1 tenth of 1 percent. Both examples are egregious examples of the long arm of overreaching bureaucracy destroying small business.

  3. Ha – and where is the Eastman gun rights group run by McClure. Absent as ususal. They don’t do anything except attack republicans for BS things they make up, that they claim to find in bills. It isn’t about gun rights for them it is about beating up on Speaker Tilton and others who support and file 2A bills. I wish I had never donated to Alaska Gun Rights. What a scam. They do NOTHING with your money except print flyers to attack conservatives. Liberal gun grabbers have never heard of them. No wonder republicans are such a bunch of babies. They are being lead by the nose by groups like this.

  4. ATF and the FBI were heavily involved in the Waco, Texas debacle, among many others. Neither organization has contributed to the safety of Americans except in their own minds, and both must be closed down.

      • Never mind due process, never mind excessive force, and never mind threats to non-suspects.

        The ATF and FBI had all the time in the world at Waco and you don’t set fire to a building to save victims.

        They were embarassed and impatient. They had a terrible idea and ran with it.

  5. The democrats would take your guns and your land and put you in a gulag if they could. They’re working on it every day.

    • There is a fundamental human right to self defense against threats, both personal and political. Guns, fists, or harsh language, it does not matter. Whatever tool is required to equalize the force in a defense situation is part and parcel of that fundamental human right.
      .
      Any law that prevents a human being from being able to stand on equal force footing with a potential threat is an infringement on that fundamental human right of self defense.

  7. By countless examples of the most stunning failures in the criminal justice system – particularly the failures to vigorously prosecute and punish armed felons – one might reasonably conclude that the so-called ‘progressive’ actors in American politics (J. Biden, Gavin Newsom, and so many more) are intent on causing ‘the people’ (the 2nd Amendment’s sole concern) to despise their expressed right to keep and bear arms. At the same time, the so-called ‘progressive’ Main Stream Media and like-minded groups in public education have embarked on a steadily unfolding strategy of vilifying the practical applications of the 2nd Amendment by ‘the people,’ who are the law-abiding citizens and lawful resident aliens.

    One “progressive’ political actor, the governor of the failing State of California (previously the mayor of the failed city of San Fransisco), is now proposing to amend the Constitution of the U.S.A. to constrict the 2nd Amendment’s right of the people. Good people, there can be only one response to the malign governor. “No, never!”

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