The National Rifle Association (NRA) has filed a lawsuit claiming that a new regulation intended to track certain guns sold at shops along the U.S.-Mexico border was implemented by the Obama administration using power is should not have.
The NRA lawsuit was filed on Wednesday on behalf of two gun dealers in Arizona and is asking a judge for an injunction to stop the implementation of the regulation that would require gun retailers along the Mexico border to report any bulk sales of certain semiautomatic rifles.
Executive Vice President of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre told the New York Times, “N.R.A. has always viewed this as a blatant attempt by the Obama administration to pursue their gun control agenda through back-door rule-making, and the N.R.A. will fight them every step of the way.”
However, the Dept. of Justice (DOJ) and Attorney General Eric Holder say the regulation is within the constraints of the law, and Holder, stated that it is “to stop the flow of guns from the United States into Mexico.”
Firearms dealers in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas would have five days to report sales of more than one semiautomatic rifle, guns like AK-47s, and any guns with detachable magazines and any that use ammunition higher than .22 caliber.
This regulation is to keep these types of weapons out of the hands of drug cartels in Mexico that have been finding it all too easy to come north and purchase weapons. U.S. weapons have been found at the sites of cartel shootouts. To date, roughly 40,000 people have died in cartel related violence since 2006.
