While the shooting at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School has prompted a national gun control debate, President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder will still push to allow immigrants to purchase firearms more easily.
Normally, the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) requires legal aliens to live in a state for 90 days before buying a gun. The ATF does this through a rule attached to the Gun Control Act of 1968.
In June, Holder’s DOJ proposed to eliminate that 90-day residency requirement rule.
“This rule would finalize the interim final rule published on June 7, 2012 by removing the 90-day State residency requirement for aliens lawfully present in the United States to purchase or acquire a firearm,” the proposal to eliminate that requirement reads in part. “The Department has determined that the Gun Control Act does not permit ATF to impose a regulatory requirement that aliens lawfully present in the United States are subject to a 90-day State residency requirement when such a requirement is not applicable to U.S. citizens.”
The move to allow aliens easier access to firearms is now in its final stages.
The new rule is expected to reach its final stages in April 2013. That means it will either pass or be discarded.