So now we have the "American Values Agenda," a predictable list of red meat for the red states designed to energize the Republican social conservative base for the 2006 mid-term elections. Among the 10 bills is H.R. 5092, innocuously described as "Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) Reform." With the National Rifle Association assuming the grassroots role formerly occupied by the Christian Coalition, a transparent sop to "Freedom's 2nd Army" -- as the NRA hails its members -- isn't surprising. For the the gun lobby, attacking federal law enforcement is a well that never runs dry. The bill's hoped-for inspiring message -- "let's show them 'jack-booted government thugs'" -- is neatly telegraphed by the inaccurate agency acronym contained in the plank's title. The agency's official acronym is ATF. You'd think Members of Congress might know this. Except the gun nut dictionary acronym for ATF is BATF, now BATFE with the addition of explosives. This coded lingo has an angry history that dates back to the 1970s and 1980s, when the gun lobby came close to disbanding the agency. Equally well hidden is the real world effect of the bill: to protect corrupt gun dealers and even illegal gun traffickers by making it virtually impossible for prosecutors to convict such criminals.
With one sentence, the bill seeks to overturn the Supreme Court's 1998 ruling in Bryan v. U.S. This ruling held, in essence, that ignorance of the law is not an excuse for those who violate federal laws prohibiting illegal straw purchases. In that case, a man who unlawfully acquired guns through straw purchases and re-sold them on street corners was convicted of "willfully" dealing in firearms without a license. The defendant argued -- unsuccessfully -- that the "willfullness" standard required prosecutors to prove that he was aware of the specific federal law prohibiting dealing in firearms without a license and actually intended to violate that law.
An "ignorance of the law" excuse -- a standard that currently only applies to violations of arcane, hyper-complicated tax laws -- for gun traffickers and corrupt dealers has been on the NRA's to-do list for decades. The organization believed it had accomplished its goal in 1986 when Congress passed the Firearms Owners' Protection Act (FOPA), which raised the burden of proof for prosecutors to include the "willfullness" standard. At the time, even the Reagan Department of the Treasury warned, "Willfullness may be interpreted to mean knowledge of the requirements of the law and the specific intent to violate legal requirements." Luckily for federal prosecutors, the Supreme Court rejected that interpretation of "willfullness" in Bryan. As a Reagan Treasury official pointed out in 1986, the interpretation of "willfullness" that the NRA hoped FOPA would mandate "would make it extremely difficult to successfully prosecute many cases, e.g. a nonlicensee's illegal interstate firearms purchases." Hence the NRA's renewed effort to re-write the law with H.R. 5092.
And the NRA may finally get its way now that protecting gun runners is an "American Value."