Kobach leads national crusade to protect shady weapons merchants | Opinion

When your state’s chief law-enforcement official is also one of the nation’s leading advocates for sketchy arms dealers, I guess all you can do is shake your head and say, “That’s Kansas.”

Today, I have in my e-mail box a press release from Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach congratulating himself for leading opposition to new rules, proposed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, that aim at narrowing the loopholes that allow widespread selling of guns without the benefit of background checks that legitimate dealers have to do before they can complete a sale.

The proposed rules have Kobach on his soapbox shouting about the 2nd Amendment, which is his third-favorite thing to do after telling scary fairy tales about election fraud and open borders.

His contention that the proposed ATF rules violate the constitution is spurious. They do nothing of the sort.

What they would do is crack down on unregulated sales of guns to all comers at gun shows, and require a dealer’s license for those who routinely flip firearms online for profit.

Kobach’s beef with ATF not only misses the target, it’s not even on the paper.

“For as long as this country has existed, individual law-abiding Americans have sold firearms to friends and family,” his press release solemnly claims. “Doing so would become extremely difficult if this regulation were to take effect.”

That’s sheer hyperbole. There are clear carve-outs for the occasional friends-and-family sale, as well as transactions among legitimate collectors and hobbyists.

So nobody’s going to come to arrest you if you sell Grandpappy’s shotgun to Cousin Claude or neighbor Mike to go hunt birds with.

The new rules are part of the implementation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, passed by Congress last year.

They were announced on the fourth anniversary of the Midland-Odessa shooting rampage in Texas. In that case, Seth Aaron Ator, disgruntled over being fired from his trucking job, murdered seven people and wounded another 25 with an AR-15-clone assault rifle. He bought it through a private sale after failing a background check at a local sporting goods store.

The new rules are narrowly focused on requiring licensure for those who repeatedly trade in firearms as a profit-making enterprise — which is essentially the definition of a gun dealer.

I think most Americans — including gun owners like myself — can agree that it’s a clear and present danger when a seller can set up a card table at a gun show and peddle firearms to any gang banger or militia wannabe with cash in hand. Or, when someone buys and sells guns repeatedly online to make money, claiming they don’t need to run background checks because they’re selling from their “personal collection.”

Kobach has a clear conflict of interest here. Ten years ago, he helped write a state law purporting to exempt guns and accessories from federal law if they were made in Kansas and didn’t leave the state.

A few months after, he partnered with a metal fabricator and a gunpowder maker to form a company called Minuteman Defense LLC., the stated aim of which was to make federally exempt assault rifles for the Kansas market.

I don’t know whether they actually did that or not, but the company remains active according to state business registration records and holds a federal firearms license.

Meanwhile, it didn’t go well for the notion that Kansas could exempt homemade firearms and accessories from federal law.

A Chanute gun dealer was convicted of making and selling illegal weapons and gear, and one of his customers was convicted for buying a silencer from him. They could have gone to prison, but the judge went easy, because they’d been so grossly misled by Kobach and the Legislature.

The truly stunning part of Kobach’s crusade against the new ATF rules is that he’s gotten 24 other states’ attorneys general and the Arizona Legislature to climb on board with him.

You’d think with his track record, they’d know better.