[Epoch Times] Amish dairy farmer Reuben King’s farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, was raided on Jan. 12, 2022, by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which charged King with dealing in firearms without a license and confiscated 615 guns.An undercover ATF agent bought five guns from King between October 2019 and March 2020, court papers filed by the ATF say.
Since Biden took office, there has been an uptick in FFL revocations, Mark Oliva, spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told The Epoch Times. Anecdotally, attorneys defending clients facing FFL revocations, or warnings to get an FFL, say they have seen more cases in the last two years.
"They are now revoking permits for what was previously listed as a ’finding’ during the inspection. And that could have been a minor clerical error, misplaced decimal, putting the date in the wrong column, something may have not been signed correctly," Oliva said. "Those are all minor findings that during inspections would have been noted as, ’you need to make these corrections.’ Now they are being termed as ’willful violations’ and are grounds for the ATF to revoke Federal Firearms Licensees’ license."
But King doesn’t need an FFL, his attorney, Joshua Prince, told The Epoch Times. He will argue the FFL itself is unconstitutional.
Written in 1791, the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms.
"You will not find any laws in existence around the time of the founding that required an individual to obtain a license to be able to sell firearms," Prince said. "It wasn’t until 1938 that the first Federal Firearms Act, requiring sellers of firearms to become licensed, was enacted." That was 147 years later.
The U.S. Supreme Court has said the understanding of the Second Amendment around the time of the founding is the best measure of what the founders intended.