August 2024 | Volume 53, Issue 8
Our Out-of-Control Federal Law Enforcement Agencies
Ryan Cleckner
Businessman, Attorney, and Author
The following is adapted from a talk delivered on July 23, 2024, at Hillsdale College’s Blake Center for Faith and Freedom in Somers, Connecticut.
In March of this year, Bryan Malinowski, the executive director of the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock, Arkansas, was killed by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) during a pre-dawn raid of his home. It was an unwarranted and indefensible killing of a kind that should never, ever happen in a free country like the United States. Because we have a media that no longer serves in its traditional role as a government watchdog, this incident was not widely reported. Because too many members of Congress no longer take seriously their responsibility to protect the rights of those who elect them, the ATF has suffered no repercussions.
How and why did this killing take place?
Bryan Malinowski grew up as an avid collector of coins and, more recently, firearms. He took to displaying his coin and firearm collections at gun shows, where he would occasionally purchase and sell firearms.
Under federal law, it is perfectly legal to buy and sell firearms as a collector or hobbyist, even without a Federal Firearms License (FFL). An individual doesn’t need to obtain an FFL unless he is “engaged in the business” of selling firearms. Congress has defined “engaged in the business” to apply to those who deal in firearms “as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit” as opposed to those who make “occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby.”
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/our-out-of-control-federal-law-enforcement-agencies/
