(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
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Biden Administration Approves Expansion of Background Checks on Gun Sales [1]
['Glenn Thrush', 'Erica L. Green']
Date: 2024-04-11
The Biden administration has approved the broadest expansion of federal background checks in decades in an attempt to regulate a fast-growing shadow market of weapons sold online, at gun shows and through private sellers that has contributed to gun violence.
Under a rule released on Thursday, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will require anyone “engaged in the business” of selling guns at a profit to register as a federally licensed firearms dealer. That means those sellers must run background criminal and mental health checks on potential buyers.
The new regulation, which is likely to face legal challenges, could add as many as 23,000 federal dealers to the 80,000 already regulated by A.T.F., an underfunded division of the Justice Department that already struggles to monitor sellers.
The rule, which drew more than 380,000 public comments, will take effect in a month.
President Biden, repeatedly blocked from enacting universal background checks by Republicans in Congress, is leveraging a provision of the sweeping bipartisan gun control law passed in 2022 to achieve an elusive policy goal that enjoys widespread public support: closing the so-called gun show loophole.
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/us/politics/biden-guns-background-checks.html
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