By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
OPINION—Well into an Op-Ed by Larry Keane, senior vice president and general counsel at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, discussing testimony from a former director of Joe Biden’s “White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention” are a few paragraphs which underscore the grim reality of an administration which seemed determined to gut the Second Amendment and turn the right to keep and bear arms into a government-regulated privilege.
Keane is no stranger to the gun rights battlefield, and he’s done some homework.
When he was in the U.S. Senate, Joe Biden never saw a gun control measure he didn’t like. While he claimed to be a “Second Amendment guy” because he apparently owns a shotgun—similar to presuming one’s self to be an Indy 500 driver because you own a Honda Civic—Biden frequently boasted about how he “defeated the NRA” by pushing the Brady Act and other gun control legislation. He got it wrong about what the Second Amendment did and didn’t allow (“Nobody could own a cannon!”) and either he or someone in his inner circle of Barack Obama alumni came into office in 2021 determined to create havoc for gun owners by weaponizing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and literally re-writing the rules on who should be required to have a federal firearms license.
According to Keane’s narrative, “The Biden-era ‘Engaged in the Business’ Final Rule – since struck down – unlawfully redefined by edict that individuals privately transferring even a single firearm were to be considered as engaged in the business of selling firearms, requiring them to obtain a federal firearms license (FFL). The Biden-era rule was a transparent and unlawful attempt to impose ‘Universal Background Checks’ that has been rejected by Congress because it requires national gun registration.”
Anyone reading Keane’s short essay would either think, or say out loud, “Bingo!” at this point.
SAF Investigative Journalism Project editor Lee Williams has written about some of the abuses launched by the ATF against small dealers, and how the Biden White House directed a “war on guns.”
As described by Keane, “Under the Biden administration’s Zero Tolerance policy, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) was directed to aggressively target licensed FFLs for minor clerical and bookkeeping errors that were previously corrected to ensure compliance. That meant a single minor error could lead to license revocation or costly and timely consequences for the business, who often chose to give up their license rather than fight. Earlier this year, ATF officially put an end to the Biden-era ‘zero tolerance’ policy and essentially restored Administrative Action Policy that existed prior to the Biden Administration. This new policy prioritizes firearm traceability and public safety, while expressly de-emphasizing technical or non-national gun registration.”
A few lines later, Keane reveals, “ATF’s own data reveals the number of Type 01 firearm dealers (retailer) licenses over the past five years has gone down by about 7,000 (52,900 in 2021 to 46,100 in 2025). Among all types of FFLs for all licensees, the number went from 134,000 in 2021 to 127,400 in 2025.”
Today, under a new administration, the ATF is operating under the watchful eye of Attorney Geneal Pam Bondi, who earlier this year announced formation of a Justice Department “Second Amendment Enforcement Task Force.” Recently, the DOJ launched a lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for what it calls the “systematic obstruction of constitutional rights” by forcing permit applicants to wait “wait an average of 281 days—over nine months—just to begin processing their applications.”
The Trump administration has been in office less than a year, and there are three more years in which, if DOJ moves forward and the administration can take appropriate action, the Biden-Harris administration’s four-year crusade against gun owners, dealers and the Second Amendment might be reduced to an ugly stain on U.S. history. Time will be the ultimate judge.
