Ken Paxton spearheads drive to block closure of ‘gun show loophole’ by Biden administration

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is spearheading a lawsuit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives over its rule change on the private sale of firearms.

The rule change, which is meant to close the so-called gun show loophole, centers on firearms sellers needing to secure licensing in order to conduct background checks on their potential customers. Failure to adhere to the Biden administration’s new ruling means that individuals could face criminal prosecution.

Louisiana, Mississippi, and Utah join Texas in the lawsuit that asserts that the rule change 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.”

The lawsuit argues that the ATF’s new restrictions surpass the authority granted to the agency by Congress.

“Yet again, Joe Biden is weaponizing the federal bureaucracy to rip up the Constitution and destroy our citizens’ Second Amendment rights,” Paxton said in a statement. “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.”

Gun Owners of America Senior Vice President Erich Pratt said the Biden administration largely draws its rule change from the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which Congress passed in 2022 a month after the Uvalde school shooting.

“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,” Pratt said. “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.”

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

A separate lawsuit was filed by Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin and Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, in conjunction with 19 other states, against the ATF regarding its rule change.

The ATF declined to comment to the Washington Examiner.