The House Appropriation Committee voted Thursday to adopt an amendment to next year’s Commerce-Justice-science appropriations bill that would prohibit the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from requiring gun dealers to report multiple sales of firearms.
The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), followed the announcement earlier this week by the Justice Department that the ATF would require gun dealers in the four state’s bordering Mexico to report multiple sales of high-caliber firearms within a five-day period.
The committee adopted the amendment on a vote of 25-16.
Deputy Attorney General James Cole said Monday that the department’s decision to strengthen reporting requirements stemmed from the need to combat increased violence and gun trafficking by criminal networks near the Southwest border.
But the move angered many Republicans, who see it as an unfair restriction on the rights of citizens living in border states.
“If the Obama administration is serious about preventing guns from being trafficked into Mexico, they simply need to secure the Southwest border, not restrict the rights of law-abiding citizens,” Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Monday in a statement.
This isn’t the first time Rehberg has tried to block ATF gun reporting by using his power over the purse strings. Last year, he joined with Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) to include a similar provision in that year’s appropriations bill, but their amendment was dropped at the last minute, after lobbying from several lawmakers and Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S.
Some have also called the new rules an attempt to detract from a congressional investigation into the ATF’s botched gun-trafficking operation known as Fast and Furious, which allegedly allowed thousands of firearms to be trafficked from Arizona into Mexico.
The National Rifle Association promised to sue the Justice Department over the new rules, and in a statement Tuesday, NRA Institute for Legal Action Executive Director Chris W. Cox called the measure “a blatant effort by the Barack Obama administration and ATF to divert focus of Congress and the general public from their gross incompetence in the Fast and Furious scandal.”
But Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has led the investigation into Fast and Furious, said he supported the measure and called long-gun sale reporting “a crucial tool to identify and disrupt Mexican drug cartels engaged in gun trafficking.”
