Obama Going After Gunsmiths

Last week's eBullet included an article from NRA's America's First Freedom that detailed the effects of a new directive from the State Department that essentially means gunsmiths must now register as gun manufacturers and pay a fee of over $2000 each year.  On Monday, Frank Miniter wrote about the new directive in Forbes and how Obama is using the bureaucracy to target gun rights:

Imagine a gunsmith getting up from his bench, where he was busy tweaking a gun’s stock for a customer, to answer a call from the State Department demanding he pay $2,250 every year or face the legal consequences, and you see why this is outrageous.

As there is no known reason for burdening gunsmiths with this large annual fee, and because doing so requires a strange and expansive redefinition of the word “manufacture,” it seems clear this is just more gun-control politics from the Obama administration.

Miniter mentioned in the article that the National Shooting Sports Foundation is lobbying Congress to step in and fix this problem with legislation.   Larry Keane, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation appeared on NRANews.com on Monday to discuss the issue and how it is causing confusion for gunsmiths and gun owners, and what NSSF is doing to fix the problem.