NRA Show is Just Around the Corner
NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits Lands in Louisville May 19-22
Are you sad that you weren’t able to attend the industry-only 2016 SHOT Show in January? Cheer up, because the NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits (NRAAM) is just around the corner!
The 145th NRAAM will be held at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, KY May 20-22, 2016. The show, which is open and free to all NRA members and their immediate family, features over 650 exhibitors covering over 475,000 square feet of exhibit hall space and offers a terrific opportunity to meet with representatives from the manufacturers and vendors of your favorite shooting, hunting, and outdoor gear, guns, and more.
The NRA Show also features numerous educational seminars, celebrities, and fun filled special events for the whole family. Visitors can spend the day exploring products from every major firearm company in the country, book the hunt of a lifetime in the outfitter section, and view priceless collections of firearms in the gun collector area. There will also be no shortage of knives, wildlife art, shooting accessories, hunting gear, ATV’s, and much more. Continue reading
NRA First VP Pete Brownell Seeks Third Term on NRA Board
Editor’s Note: Pete Brownell, and Brownells as a whole, were among the first big established companies in the firearms industry to really embrace new media and recognize it as a valuable resource for firearm enthusiasts, industry members, recreational shooters and others to participate in the timely exchange of information. In addition to supporting new media, Pete has been an strong and unwavering supporter of Second Amendment rights. GunLink is proud share his announcement that he will seek a third term on the NRA Board and add our endorsement to the list of others supporting him. The NRA Board of Directors needs more members like Pete Brownell!
NRA First Vice President and CEO of Brownells, Pete Brownell, announced this week that he will seek a third term on the NRA’s Board of Directors. If re-elected, Brownell will likely become NRA President at the 2017 NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits in Atlanta, Georgia.
An NRA Life Member since birth, Brownell, 47, boasts proven NRA leadership experience and is a widely-recognized visionary in the firearm and outdoor industry. Brownell’s service to the NRA began in 2006 when he was nominated to serve on the NRA Membership Committee. Following his election to the board in 2010, Brownell began serving on numerous other committees, including:
- President’s Committee on Advancement
- Nominating Committee
- Sport Shooting Committee
- Finance Committee
- Law Enforcement Committee
- Meeting Site Selection Committee
- Publications Policy Committee
- Task Force on Industry Relations Committee
- Investment Oversight Committee
Proving himself as an ardent defender of the Second Amendment and a powerful voice for the NRA, Brownell was elected the NRA Second Vice President in April 2013. Two years later in 2015, he was elected NRA First Vice President, an office he holds today. Continue reading
Branco on Scalia – An Original
… And justice for all
Scalia’s passing is a great loss for the Constitutionally-minded SCOTUS. R.I.P.
BOHICA: 41F (nee 41P) is Here
Attorney General Lynch Signs Off 41P Final Ruling. It WILL Happen in as little as 180 days.
Included in the president’s inappropriately named “New Executive Actions to Reduce Gun Violence and Make Our Communities Safer” is the official harbinger of the BATFE’s 41P rule change.
Despite NFA owners being among the most law abiding gun owners who already have to jump through the most hoops, and despite the fact that – on average – NFA firearms are pretty much never used in crimes, the president’s edicts makes it more difficult to purchase what he calls “some of the most dangerous weapons and other items” through a trust, corporation, or other legal entity.
This change will require fingerprints, photographs, and background checks for all “responsible persons” of the trust or other legal entity. It is unclear what this change will do to the ability for legal entities to use the eForms system, which the BATFE claims to have been spending considerable time and resources on improving and getting the broken eForms Form 1 functionality working again, as the system appears to have no mechanism for accepting photographs or fingerprint or information.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch describes the change as “[closing] the ‘trust loophole’ that people have been using to avoid registering by going through legal trusts, corporations or other legal status.” And – in case this is confusing for some – by “loophole,” AG Lynch means “the law as written.”
Lynch signed off on the rule making and the official BATFE announcement is here. The release states that rule 41P “is effective 180 days after date of publication in the Federal Register,” which can be at any time now. It is unclear whether the BATFE will ever respond, as required, to the 9,000+ comments received regarding the rule change with anything other than “who cares, the president has a pen and a phone.”
41P Final Ruling Summary:
The Department of Justice is amending the regulations of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) regarding the making or transferring of a firearm under the National Firearms Act (NF A). This final rule defines the term “responsible person,” as used in reference to a trust, partnership, association, company, or corporation; requires responsible persons of such trusts or legal entities to complete a specified form and to submit photographs and fingerprints when the trust or legal entity files an application to make an NFA firearm or is listed as the transferee on an application to transfer an NFA firearm; requires that a copy of all applications to make or transfer a firearm, and the specified form for responsible persons, as applicable, be forwarded to the chief law enforcement officer (CLEO) of the locality in which the applicant/transferee or responsible person is located; and eliminates the requirement for a certification signed by the CLEO. These provisions provide a public safety benefit as they ensure that responsible persons undergo background checks. In addition, this final rule adds a new section to ATF’ s regulations to address the possession and transfer of firearms registered to a decedent. The new section clarifies that the executor, administrator, personal representative, or other person authorized under State law to dispose of property in an estate may possess a firearm registered to a decedent during the term of probate without such possession being treated as a “transfer” under the NF A. It also specifies that the transfer of the frrearm to any beneficiary of the estate may be made on a tax-exempt basis
ATF 41P Minor Update – Up to One Month Pushback
Two years to the day after the comment period – which received well over 9,000 comments – ended, there is still little news other than that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE) has amended the rule 41P status to reflect yet another pushback of up to one month.
The 41P status page has been again updated to reflect a mysterious final action date of 01/00/2016 from the previously noted and equally curious 12/00/2015 final action date. It should again be pointed out that this date is the date by which the BATFE will make a decision on whether or not to implement the changes set forth in the proposed rule, not necessarily the date by which the rule takes effect – if it is ever approved and takes effect at all.
Joshua Prince’s law blog posted on the topic last month with several important notes and some speculation about the potential future of the rule. Prince postulates that “ATF could move forward with a final rule prior to the end of this year or ATF could once again delay the final action date; however, if it is delayed further, it will likely be delayed in one month increments.” Further, he points out the following two important statements from BATFE personnel:
- The Agency Contact, Brenda Friend Esq., previously told Attorney Merting that the rule would not be retroactive and would only apply to new transactions.
- During the 12th Annual Import/Export Conference, I asked ATF howpending transfers would be treated, if a new rule was implemented. ATF responded that any new regulation would only apply to applications submitted after the effective date of the regulation. Attorney Merting confirmed that this was consistent with what Attorney Friend told him.
In essence, it is more of the same wait-and-see that we have had for the last two years.
As always, the GunLink Blog will post additional details as they become available.
BATFE 41P – No News is…. No News
As we get closer and closer to the theoretical “12/00/2015” final action date for the ATF’s Rule 41P – the rule that would make it more difficult to make or transfer NFA items to a gun trust – there hasn’t been much chatter about it. This includes the absence of a reply to the 9,500 or so comments that were submitted during the comment period that must be responded to. Prince Law reported in August that there were four reviewers working through those comments.
This year saw, once again, renewed pushes for more gun control that fell flat and served to do little other than rally support against such gun control measures. Anti-gun zealots were, once again, caught cooking the books to get false numbers that they spread as gospel and telling outright lies. This, along with mainstream media coverage of the danger of “gun free zones” this year may even be awakening some of the general public to the utter nonsense that is the gun control agenda.
That turning tide of Second Amendment proponents away from being “the silent majority” is a great thing to see. Some of the delay in 41P movement is said to have been a result of the government resources that had to be devoted to reading the more than 300,000 comments on the armor piercing ammunition regulations (which were ultimately scrapped because “we spoke, they listened“).
Note that this mythical zeroth day of December cited on the Rule 1140-AA43 page is not given as an effective date for 41P. It is the current “final action” date, upon which they will decide whether to scrap this ruling, as they did with the ammo ban, or go with it.
Public sentiment aside, there is also the question of political sentiment. Second Amendment rights are again becoming a hot topic that is finding its way into the media’s political spotlight, to include presidential debates. Add to that the fact that there is legislation introduced that will weaken the NFA’s grip on silencers rather than tighten it, as 41P would do. HR3799 is drawing congressional support with 17 Representatives from 14 states cosponsoring the bill.
In other congressional news, HR3799 co-sponsor Rep. John Carter (R-TX) proposed an amendment to the FY16 appropriations bill, HR2578, which would neuter 41P. H.Amdt 320, which prohibits funds made available by the appropriations bill from being “used to propose or to issue a rule that would change the Chief Law Enforcement Officer certificate requirement in a manner that has the same substance as the proposed rule published on September 9, 2013” was agreed to by a voice vote the day before the bill passed the House. However, H.Amdt 320 – as Sec. 548 in the 6/8/2015 version referred in Senate – appears to be struck from the 6/18 version reported with amendment to Senate.
In sum, nobody still knows when anything will happen or, if and when it happens, what it will be. Nobody knows if 41P will die on the vine, be dropped altogether, or picked up and run with. Nor, if it is the latter, does anyone know how such a scheme would be implemented, what would (or would not) be grandfathered, what would happen to submitted applications in the processing queue, etc. At least, if they do know, they aren’t telling.
