The Biden administration, with their takeover of the ATF, discontinued the publication of Firearms Commerce in the United States, without announcement. Firearms Commerce of the United States was last published in May of 2021, shortly after the Biden Administration took up residence in the White House. This correspondent, and many others, used the annual report as the basis of numerous articles about what was happening in the firearms industry. In January of 2023, at the SHOT SHOW in Las Vegas, this correspondent asked ATF representatives when the latest version of Firearms Commerce in the United States would be published. None had been published since 2021. This correspondent was assured the next version would be published in May of 2023. None was forthcoming.
As far as this correspondent has been able to determine, no official notice of the discontinuance of the report was ever made. It appears even people inside the ATF did not know the report was discontinued, as they told this correspondent it would be forthcoming shortly.
One of the important statistics published in Firearms Commerce of the United States was the number of National Firearms Act (NFA) tax stamps issued and the number of various application forms approved. The numbers were published in detail by state and the total for the United States. A particularly important number is the number of silencers and other NFA items. The report showed where the number of approved applications for Form 1 (to make an NFA item, as well as approved applications to purchase and transfer NFA items.
These numbers tell us how many officially approved silencers and other NFA items were recognized as legally existing. The number is important. There are several cases in federal courts challenging bans on the possession or ownership of silencers, and the constitutionality of the statutory framework on which the federal regulations are based. Occasionally, fragmentary information would be revealed. The numbers of legal NFA items in the United States are important as part of the argument to determine if silencers, short barreled rifles or shotguns, or machine guns are "in common use" in the United States for lawful purposes.
This correspondent attempted to find out numbers from sources which had excellent contacts with the ATF. Definitive numbers were hard to obtain and very limited.
Other entities were encountering the same problem. The National Shooting Sports Federation (NSSF) and others filed Freedom of Information Act requests in attempts to force the ATF to divulge what should have been public information. NSSF mentioned in October of 2024, the report of Firearms Commerce in the United States had been discontinued. From NSSF, bold and italics added:
The now discontinued ATF Firearms Commerce in the United States report displayed the number of silencers that were registered in each state. The May 2021 edition reported 2,664,774 silencers in the U.S., more than doubling the 1.3 million silencers disclosed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2017.
This correspondent co-hosts the Russ Clark radio show from Yuma on most Wednesday mornings. Russ is another person who routinely commented on how information which had previously been easy to obtain on the Internet, was now shrouded in web sites and procedures which made desired information difficult to find. It appeared the government was making it difficult to find data they did not want reported, or they wanted only their massaged interpretation of the data reported.
Analysis: The Biden administration has been one of the least transparent in the history of the United States of America. The Biden administration has been one of the most corrupt in the history of the United States of America. When the history of the Biden years is written, it will be noted the discontinuance of the ATF Firearms Commerce in the United States was one of many ways in which the administration managed, twisted, hid, and manipulated data in an attempt to use control of the information flow as a political weapon, against the people of the United States.
©2024 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
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