ATF's Own Lawyer Admits Biden Gun Rule Did Nothing

The gun-control press handed gun owners a loaded weapon—and pulled the trigger on themselves.

The Trace, Bloomberg's flagship gun-control outlet, just published an interview with ATF General Counsel Robert Leider, a constitutional scholar and gun-rights advocate confirmed to the post last year. Their own analysis of 600-plus federal prosecutions found Biden's "engaged in the business" rule had "little measurable impact on federal charging patterns." The rule did not do what Biden promised. Those are The Trace's numbers, not ours.

So why is The Trace furious that the Trump ATF is repealing it? Because the rule was never about prosecuting traffickers. It was about building the regulatory infrastructure to treat private sellers like federally licensed dealers.

Leider told The Trace directly: existing law already covers gun traffickers. Prosecutors do not need a Biden executive rule to charge someone running guns illegally. What Biden's rule added was bureaucratic ambiguity—a gray zone where any private seller moving "too many" guns could face federal scrutiny with no clear legal standard protecting them.

That is the threat The Trace does not want you to understand. The rule's failure to produce convictions was not a bug—it was phase one. You build the regulatory hook first. Prosecutions come after the infrastructure normalizes.

Leider's appointment as ATF general counsel is the real story The Trace buried. He is a serious constitutional scholar who believes the Second Amendment means exactly what it says. The gun-control lobby despises him for it—which is why The Trace ran this interview, hoping to weaponize his candor against him. Instead, Leider confirmed the obvious: the Trump ATF is repealing a rule that failed, was never needed for legitimate trafficking prosecutions, and existed to expand federal oversight of private gun sales. That is not a scandal. That is accountability.

The Trace also buried its own critical data point: prosecution numbers for unlicensed dealing climbed after the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act—then fell before Biden's rule even took effect. Congress already gave prosecutors the tools. Biden's rule was regulatory overreach stacked on top of legislation that already worked.

The opposition's own research dismantles the case for keeping this rule. Screenshot Leider's quotes. Share The Trace's data. Every time someone claims repealing this rule endangers public safety, point them to the gun-control lobby's own analysis. They did the work for us.