S.A. gun store sues ATF

Shop says agency has exceeded its authority.

jbuch@express-news.net

Updated 10:53 p.m., Thursday, August 25, 2011

 

A San Antonio gun shop is suing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, arguing the agency exceeded its authority by ordering licensed dealers to report some rifle sales.

The store, 10-Ring Precision Inc. on Blue Crest Lane on the North Side, is challenging a policy ATF put into place last month requiring firearms sellers in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California to report the sale of two or more of certain rifles over a five-day period in an effort to reduce gun smuggling to Mexico, where drug-related violence killed 15,000 last year.

In the lawsuit, 10-Ring states that unlike handgun reporting requirements, which are required by Congress, the requirement to report the sales of semiautomatic rifles with detachable clips and larger than .22-caliber outside the scope of a criminal investigation goes beyond ATF's authority.

The company also claims ATF is violating its customers' privacy by keeping a database of arms sales, which will discourage purchases.

“The rub for them is that first of all, it's going to cost them time and money to implement this because these forms have to be filled out, they've got to set up systems to keep track of sales of rifles,” said Richard Gardiner, a Virginia lawyer and former counsel for the National Rifle Association. “That's an expense. And then if they don't do it, they're subject to license revocation.”

Two Arizona gun sellers, one of which Gardiner represents, and an Albuquerque, N.M., gun store are challenging ATF's policy as well.

A spokesman for ATF said the bureau has authority under the 1968 Gun Control Act to collect data about firearms sales.

“ATF will vigorously defend its authority to collect information about multiple sales of certain rifles from (licensed dealers) in the four states along the Southwest border,” bureau spokesman Drew Wade wrote in an email.

Alex Hamilton, 10-Ring's president, said the lawsuit speaks for itself, but dinged ATF over the revelation that an investigation by agents in Arizona resulted in guns reaching criminals in Mexico.

“They're punishing dealers for their gun smuggling,” Hamilton said.

The ATF has reported that 70 percent of the 29,284 firearms Mexico submitted to the U.S. for tracing in 2009 and 2010 came from this country.

It's not clear how many more firearms were seized in Mexico during that time period.

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/SA-gun-store-sues-ATF-2141623.php#ixzz1W7ovbxqm