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In this case, Congress did define multiple times these terms explicitly in the 1934 National Firearms Act, the 1969 Gun Control act, the 1986 Hughes amendment,
by tomschlick 3y ago
In this case, Congress did define multiple times these terms explicitly in the 1934 National Firearms Act, the 1969 Gun Control act, the 1986 Hughes amendment, etc.
ATF's job in this case should be enforcing the existing law, not writing new law with no congressional approval and then enforcing it themselves.
I agree that congress did give them some limited power to adjust to changing times, however I believe that has been abused in recent years to enact backdoor legislation via Presidential order without going through the expected legislative channels. That power should be revoked.
- enragedcacti 3y agoI'm not really familiar with this specific case and you may very well be right that the ATF is overstepping. We already have multiple possible solutions to this problem. Statutory interpretation, congressional approval of cabinet members, or congress passing a new law that eliminates that interpretation are all solutions that are designed into our system. Elections are also a solution to this, although they're probably a bit too coarse to solve individual regulatory issues. It is impossible to have an executive branch that doesn't interpret the law because the law is just a piece of paper. Determining what level of interpretation is okay is already a part of our system. There is no way to just revoke that power without just collapsing the government.