GOP amendment strips funding for new gun-sale requirements

House Republicans on Wednesday voted to strip funding for a new Obama administration policy that increases reporting requirements for some gun dealers who sell semiautomatic rifles.

The rule from the Department of Justice requires dealers to report within five days multiple sales to the same person of semiautomatic rifles with removable magazines. 

{mosads}Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) sponsored the amendment to the fiscal 2012 Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies appropriations bill that would nix funding for the rule.

“For more than a decade, efforts to track rifle purchases and create a national gun registry have failed to gain support in Congress, so the ATF is working to implement these regulations using rules written by unelected bureaucrats,” Rehberg said. “I’m going to keep this government accountable to the people.”

Democrats vehemently opposed Rehberg’s measure, which was supported by the National Rifle Association. Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) said stripping the funding from the rule would be akin to “virtual wholesale slaughter.”

“The NRA is so afraid that the people who are really funding the NRA, the gun manufacturers, might lose some sales that we’re willing to sacrifice the lives of these people that are casualties of this gun war,” Moran said during the markup.

“And we’re promoting it. We’re enabling … that slaughter to continue,” Moran said.

The new reporting requirement focuses on gun dealers in Southwestern states with close proximity to the Mexican border. It comes amid a push from the Obama administration to strengthen security in the border region. 

The issue has received increased attention recently because of a congressional investigation into a controversial gun-tracking operation established by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Operation Fast and Furious authorized the sale of thousands of weapons in the border region to known and suspected straw purchasers for Mexican drug cartels. 

Rehberg’s amendment passed on a 25-16 vote. The measure garnered support from retiring Democratic Rep. Dan Boren (Okla.), who partnered with Rehberg earlier this year to successfully amend H.R. 1 with nearly identical language blocking funds for the heightened reporting requirements from the fiscal 2011 continuing appropriations bill. 

That bill later died in the Senate, and Democrats stripped the reporting-requirement provision from a subsequent measure. 

The requirement focuses on dealers in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. ATF estimated the rule would affect about 8,500 gun dealers in the area. 

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a leading gun-control group, said the ATF’s rifle rule would not put many, if any, new burdens on gun shops. The group’s acting president, Dennis Henigan, pointed to the nearly identical reporting requirement that has existed for more than 40 years requiring gun dealers to report multiple sales of handguns by the same person within a five-day period.

“It is a modest burden for gun dealers to have them fill out this form, but it is an enormous help for law enforcement to be able to identify as quickly as possible purchasers who are walking away from gun shops with five, 10 or 20 of these assault rifles,” Henigan said in an interview after the vote. 

Citing the severity of the gun violence in Mexico, the ATF in December asked the White House to fast-track the new reporting requirement, a request the administration promptly declined.

Deputy Attorney General James Cole said earlier this week that the requirement was aimed at curbing sales of high-powered guns to traffickers for drug cartels, not average citizens attempting to arm themselves for sport or protection. 

“This new reporting measure … will improve the ability of the [ATF] to detect and disrupt the illegal weapons trafficking networks responsible for diverting firearms from lawful commerce to criminals and criminal organizations,” he said in a statement.

Rehberg’s amendment was one of many offered during Wednesday’s markup that pushed a heated gun-rights debate to the forefront of the committee’s agenda, as Republicans soundly defeated a Democratic attempt to limit gun purchases by suspected terrorists and succeeded in inserting language to allow imports of more powerful types of shotguns.

This story was posted at 2 p.m. and updated at 8:10 p.m.