Spartacus is at it again. Senator Cory Booker from New Jersey couldn’t sit idle for too long without bringing forward some sort of an anti-gun proposal. In his free time, when he’s not embarrassing Garden Staters with his antics in Congress, or allegedly slipping out of the back door of his Newark home when he was mayor to head to his real home, Booker loves to trample on the fundamental right to keep and bear arms. Booker, who fancied himself a people’s mayor of sorts, with his publicity stunt living in a building scheduled for demolition in a high crime area, has no need for firearms when he has security to look after him.

Funny how Booker’s alleged experience did not set off any light bulbs on why the Second Amendment is so important. Had the then mayor and now Senator been paying less attention to allegedly slipping out back doors, and having guests come in through back doors under the cloak of darkness, he would have figured out quickly that a firearm is borderline a necessity in the city he managed to mismanage. On September 8th Senator Sparticus introduced a bill to limit how dealers that lose their licenses shall deal with their inventory.

The bill, S.4812 Fire Sale Loophole Closing Act has explicit instructions on how a dealer that loses their license shall dispose of their goods. The bill is not a new bill, with the first one being introduced by former Congressman Gary Ackerman, a Democrat from New York in 2010. Every session of Congress since Ackerman’s introduction of this bill has seen a bill of the same title introduced. This is a companion bill to the previously introduced House version, which Representative David Cicilline introduced December 9th of 2021.

What’s the bill intend to do? From the bill text we have:

To amend chapter 44 of title 18, United States Code, to restrict the ability of a person whose Federal license to import, manufacture, or deal in firearms has been revoked, whose application to renew such a license has been denied, or who has received a license revocation or renewal denial notice, to transfer business inventory firearms, and for other purposes.

Some select highlights from the bill include:

“(aa) (1) (A) It shall be unlawful for a person who has been notified by the Attorney General that the Attorney General has made a determination to revoke a license issued to the person under this chapter to import, manufacture, or deal in firearms, or to deny an application of the person to renew such a license, to—

“(i) transfer a business inventory firearm of the person—
“(I) into a personal collection of the person; or
“(II) to an employee of the person, or to an individual described in section 923(d)(1)(B) with respect to the person; or
“(ii) receive a firearm that was a business inventory firearm of the person as of the date the person received the notice.

Essentially, if a gun dealer loses their license, which is a very easy thing to do today with the ATF revoking FFLs over typos, transcription errors, and clerical errors, a person would be subjected to imprisonment of up to five years if their conduct was considered “willful”, if they do not dispose of inventory “properly”.

The crazy thing about this, why not a personal inventory? What’s the big deal? The loss of an FFL does not make someone a disqualified person, not in a world where the ATF is revoking left and right. Why not an employee of?

If there was ever a time when the relevance of such a measure would be lost, that’d be now. In the past, not that the ATF has a stellar record of doing what they’re supposed to, but in the past if a dealer would lose their license over some sort of an egregious infraction, I can see why we’d want to ensure the inventory would be ushered outside the control of any rogue dealers. But today? I don’t think so. Not how our current administration is dealing with things.

Understand that the requirement that a dealer even need to have an FFL in the first place can be construed as unconstitutional, further forcing said entity to dispose of their property in a manner different than the lawful owner would prefer is too close to the pinko’s dream of no private property.

It’s not likely that this measure gets passed in both chambers and makes its way to the Napper in Chief. It has been introduced and re-introduced every congress for more than a decade. Although, many laws were bills in waiting on the sidelines or advocated for many times over before they became law. We’ll be keeping an eye on the progress of this measure. With the midterms around the corner and the session ending in a few months, this is likely to gain little traction. Booker managed to wrangle in a whopping zero co-sponsors.