(GunReports.com) — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld an earlier denial of a 2011 lawsuit filed after the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) sent demand letters to nearly 8,700 federal firearms licensees and pawnshops, including NSSF members in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas requiring them to report multiple rifle sales information.
The appeals court ruling means that ATF can require retailers in the four southern border states to report multiple sales of certain semiautomatic rifles.
“The firearms industry abhors the criminal misuse of firearms wherever it occurs. NSSF always encourages retailers — not just those along the border — to cooperate with law enforcement and report any suspicious activity to the ATF,” said Lawrence G. Keane, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). “We take pride in our longstanding cooperative relationship with ATF. In fact, retailers are considered by ATF to be a vital source of information for law enforcement in combating illegal firearms trafficking.
“While NSSF always understood ATF’s motivation was to try to curtail violence in Mexico, we had argued in our filing that Congress simply has not granted ATF regulatory carte blanche,” Keane said. “We also pointed out that criminals, aware of the ATF demand letter reporting requirement, could escape detection by going to several dealers, thereby making it more difficult for retailers to detect and report suspicious purchase patterns.”
There are currently two related suits supported by NSSF in federal court in Texas and New Mexico that are in the U.S. courts of appeal for the 5th and 10th circuits, respectively.
