Commerce Department Makes “Temporary” Export Pause Permanent

We’ve covered the Biden Administration’s firearms temporary export ban and how it is an unjustified attack on America’s firearms industry. Now, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is making that 90-day pause a permanent policy.

On April 26, the BIS published an Interim Final Rule that cements the supposed 90-day firearm export “pause” (it has been in effect for 180 days already) into permanent policy while also creating additional regulatory burdens.

In response to the announcement, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) said the rule entrenches the Biden Administration’s “whole of government” attack and “is intended to hobble the firearm industry’s ability to compete in the international market under the false pretense of advancing U.S. national security.”

“The enmity of the Biden administration against the firearm industry and Second Amendment rights is without parallel,” Lawrence Keane, NSSF senior vice president and general counsel, said in a news alert. “This is deeply troubling the lengths to which this administration will go to turn the levers of government against a Constitutionally-protected industry in order to cozy up to special-interest gun control donors.”

Keane said the supposed “temporary pause” was nothing more than a “farce” perpetuated by the administration.

“It was an effort to buy the administration time to gin up policies that would strike at the heart of the ability of this industry to stay in business,” he added. “This has been the end goal since President Biden said from the Democratic debate stage that ‘firearm manufacturers are the enemy.’ This is a wholesale attack on the industry that provides the means for Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights.”

According to NSSF’s analysis of the Final Rule, there will be three new Export Control Classification Numbers (ECCN) for semi-automatic rifles, pistols and shotguns. Licenses will be approved on a case-by-case basis that will consider foreign policy, national security risk factors, government corruption, diversion of firearms and human rights abuses among other criteria. BIS is stating there will be a presumption of denial for firearm export licenses to those countries arbitrarily identified by the State Department as “at risk,” which include 36 countries—mostly in Latin America, the Caribbean and Southeast Asian countries.

The NSSF further explained that all existing previously approved firearm export licenses to so-called “high risk” countries will be revoked 60 days after with the Interim Final Rule takes effect May 30, 2024. Those U.S. companies with existing firearm export licenses will be required to re-apply for new licenses.

The deadline for public comment on the Final Rule is July 1.

Of course, this is just one example of the Biden Administration attempting to make America’s lawful, heavily regulated firearms industry Enemy Number 1 . From encouraging lawsuits against gun companies for criminal use of their products to setting a “zero-tolerance” policy for retailers by which they can lose their licenses for small paperwork errors, Biden and his cronies have put pressure on this historic industry since the president took office.