When the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability convenes Thursday to discuss alleged abuses by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), one of the people offering testimony will be attorney Matthew Larosiere, who serves as an adjunct scholar of law and policy for the Second Amendment Foundation.
The hearing may be watched here, beginning at 10 a.m. (EDT) / 7 a.m. (PDT) Thursday. It is headlined, “ATF’s Assault on the Second Amendment: When is Enough Enough?”
“We’re proud to have Matt offering insight to the House committee,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “Under Joe Biden, the ATF has been weaponized against law-abiding citizens, and his new budget proposal includes $1.9 billion for the agency to expand operations and increase regulation of the firearms industry.”
Larosiere will offer testimony regarding the threat ATF’s overreach poses to the American people. He will also focus on the ATF’s dramatic change in policy about pistol stabilizing braces, owned by countless law-abiding citizens including many disabled military veterans who have suddenly found themselves facing possible legal action for owning a shooting accessory, which is not a firearm, that the agency previously said was perfectly acceptable.
“ATF has been known for its institutional abuse of power throughout history,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “Now, more than ever, the agency is being weaponized as a means to punish peaceable gun owners and drive small businesses out of the marketplace by inventing creative statutory interpretations surpassing the agency’s authority and scrutinizing federal firearms licensees’ every action in a ‘gotcha’ manner.
“With the directives from the Biden Administration,” Kraut added, “a simple mistake such as transposing a digit or placing required information in the wrong field results in license revocation, rather than a warning, under the guise of a ‘willful violation’ of the Gun Control Act. This overbearing approach does nothing to support the government’s interest in compliance and destroys livelihoods over innocent mistakes.”
“Clearly,” Gottlieb said, “President Biden and Capitol Hill Democrats have decided American gun owners are their enemy. They are scrambling to restrict the Second Amendment rights of tens of millions of citizens, and create problems for the firearms industry, and they’ve unleashed the ATF to make it all happen.”
