FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 1, 2024
Washington, D.C. — Gun Owners of America (GOA) and the Gun Owners Foundation are thrilled to be partnering with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a lawsuit challenging the Biden ATF’s new rule to require background checks on the private sales of firearms. The States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Utah also joined in the filing, along with the Tennessee Firearms Association and the Virginia Citizens Defense League.
As argued in the suit, the Biden Administration’s rule goes well beyond the changes made by Senator John Cornyn in his “compromise” gun control package, which passed in 2022. This rule would subject “hundreds of thousands of law-abiding gun owners to presumptions of criminal guilt for all manner of activities relating to the innocuous, statutorily authorized, and constitutionally protected private sale of firearms.”
Simply by selling one firearm, individuals could be required to obtain a Federal Firearms License and conduct a background check or face criminal prosecution.
Erich Pratt, GOA’s Senior Vice President, issued the following statement:
“We warned the American public that this legislation brokered by Senator Cornyn was no small compromise, and here we are today filing our second lawsuit challenging a major policy derived from that anti-gun law.
“Criminalizing untold numbers of Americans for simply selling a firearm in a private party transaction is wrong, unconstitutional, and must be halted by the courts. Anything less would further encourage this tyrannical administration to continue weaponizing vague statutes into policies that are meant to further harass and intimidate gun owners and dealers at every turn.”
Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, added:
“Yet again, Joe Biden is weaponizing the federal bureaucracy to rip up the Constitution and destroy our citizens’ Second Amendment rights. This is a dramatic escalation of his tyrannical abuse of authority. With today’s lawsuit, it is my great honor to defend our Constitutionally-protected freedoms from the out-of-control federal government.”
GOA spokesmen are available for interviews. Gun Owners of America is a nonprofit grassroots lobbying organization dedicated to protecting the right to keep and bear arms without compromise. GOA represents over two million members and activists. For more information, visit GOA’s Press Center.
-GOA-
