Fox News reports that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has proposed a new regulation for the sale of rifles in border states (i.e. Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California). The regulation would cover any rifle larger than .22 caliber that also has a detachable magazine, which is almost every rifle ever made.

According to an ATF spokesman:

the agency is pushing for this new regulation now because since 2004, there’s been a 100 percent increase by Mexican drug cartels using rifles, which are not covered by any reporting requirements.

This quote is misleading at best. The spokesman is implying that gun runners for the cartels are coming into the United States and buying semi-automatic rifles off the shelf. There have been many claims that most of the guns found in cartel caches are from the United States. Most of the guns that can be tracked are from the U.S., the U.S. military. The automatic rifles that we send to Mexico are stolen from the army and police and used by the cartels. The distinction between semi-automatic and automatic is key, because for the most part no one is this country is allowed to purchase a fully automatic rifle.

Later in the article a spokesman for the Brady Campaign is quoted:

“It makes sense that law enforcement should be alerted if someone is buying five, 10 or 100 assault weapons, when it’s likely that those guns could be headed to drug cartels in Mexico,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign.

“It will give ATF the same amount of information about people who buy military-style assault weapons in bulk that they already have had for more than 40 years about people who buy handguns in bulk,” he said in a statement. “It’s the kind of crime-fighting information that our law enforcement officials ought to have if we want to reduce the number of assault weapons being trafficked illegally to Mexico, as well as to American cities.”

This quote is also misleading and full of exaggeration, meant to scare people who don’t know any better. There maybe a few cases of gun owners buying five rifles at a time, but it is very unlikely to occur not to mention ten or a hundred at one time, which is ridiculous. I don’t know anyone who owns a hundred guns and if you are reading this I bet you don’t either. As I said before cartels are not purchasing their guns from U.S. gun shops. This regulation will, if passed, inevitably make it harder for law-abiding citizens to arms themselves while doing nothing to deter criminals and the drug cartels who are already breaking the law.