Everytown for Gun Safety senior firearms analyst Greg Lickenbrock has come out swinging against the Trump Department of Justice’s recent package of ATF reforms, including the proposed new Form 4473 and the rule allowing federally licensed firearms dealers to ship guns directly to verified buyers. The problem with his critique, published on Everytown’s The Smoking Gun website, is that several of his central factual claims don’t match the actual proposals.
Claim: The new Form 4473 is “significantly longer”
In his op-ed, Lickenbrock writes that the ATF “has also proposed a new, significantly longer version of the Form 4473.”
The actual draft form does the opposite. The current Form 4473 runs seven pages. The proposed revision runs four. That’s a reduction of more than 40% in form length, with several redundant or confusing questions consolidated or removed entirely. Anyone who has filled out a 4473 in recent years can verify this by comparing the current form to the draft published by ATF.
This isn’t a matter of interpretation. Lickenbrock either didn’t read the draft before writing about it, or he read it and chose to characterize it inaccurately. Either way, the foundational factual claim in his critique is wrong.
Claim: Direct shipping benefits the industry at the public’s expense
“In many of the proposed Rules, the ATF explicitly says that they are designed to benefit the gun industry,” Lickenbrock whines. “For example, the ATF estimates that 3.28 million gun buyers would take advantage of the agency’s most troubling proposals: allowing FFLs to ship guns directly to the buyer’s door without visiting a brick-and-mortar location, in what is known as a ‘non-over-the-counter’ (NOTC) transaction.”
What’s so troubling, however, with making it less onerous for lawful gun purchasers to do so? Nothing would change about the background check process, which gun-ban advocates like Lickenbrock want to see go “universal.” His beef with this proposal, apparently, is the fact that it would benefit gun purchasers—like TTAG readers.
Lickenbrock also has problems with the proposed new ATF Form 4473, which is required to be filled out by the purchaser prior to a gun sale.
Claim: The new form makes straw purchases easier to hide
“The agency has also proposed a new, significantly longer version of the Form 4473, the decades-old firearm transaction record, that dispenses with several questions used to stop illegal straw purchases and allows a gun dealer to determine if the customer can legally purchase the gun, to ‘make it easier and faster for respondents and licensees to complete the form,’” he wrote. “The updated form will also make it harder for investigators to determine that the FFL had a hand in the illegal sale.”
For one thing, Lickenbrock’s claims here are not only false but also preposterous. What he is referring to is a revision to the somewhat confusing question about the buyer’s intent. Since federal law has never outlawed buying a gun as a gift for someone who is legally permitted to own a gun, this question often causes problems for those wishing to do just that.
On the proposed new form, ATF focuses the question more on the problem of straw purchasers—those intentionally buying guns for others who are not qualified—than gift giving. The new question asks the buyer to indicate the purpose of the transfer as a transfer for the buyer themselves, a purchase the buyer is making with their own money as a gift for someone who is not a prohibited person, picking up a firearm being given as a gift or reward, or picking up a firearm that has been repaired for someone who is not prohibited from owning a firearm.
Again, Lickenbock’s problem with the change seems to be the fact that it will make it less onerous for prospective gun buyers to fill out the form. After all, making the gun buying process more complicated will squelch some gun sales. He has absolutely no proof that the change would somehow lead to more straw purchases or make it easier for gun shops to secretly partake in such federal felonies.
Ultimately, this latest “report” is more proof that nothing posted on an Everytown-sponsored website should be taken seriously by any gun owner. Likewise, nothing with Lickenbrock’s byline deserves thoughtful consideration.
Combine the two, and you have yet another piece of trash funded by Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire gun hater who has never seen an anti-gun proposal he didn’t support.
The draft Form 4473 is publicly available. The proposed rules are published in the Federal Register. Read them yourself.
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