A key part of the Biden proposal to curb gun violence in cities focuses on the pipeline that brings guns into high crime areas.  There are a lot of components to it, from community programs to jobs creation plans to what will be the most impact thing.

Biden intends to go after gun dealers, who are responsible for about 70% of gun sales in the United States.  Previously, federal gun selling licenses had rather weak requirements:  you submit to  a regular audit of inventory that was supposed to happen every other year, but because of staffing shortages at ATF, it was more likely one in every five years.

There were no punishments if you had guns that were supposed to be in your inventory missing.  You could be punished if you knowingly sold to a strawman purchasers or someone using a fake name.  If you sold to someone on the banned list, you got hit with a fine.

If your store in, say, Virginia, sold 15 guns to a guy every week, and all 15 of those guns were used in crimes in the following weeks, you wouldn’t be punished because the buyer was legal even though you thought he was selling the guns further along the line. 

So Biden’s policy stops the problems at the gun shops.  More regular audits of the inventories and the books of gun shops.  Mandating cooperation about turning records over on gun sales. Requiring participation in straw purchase investigation.  Requiring cooperation in gun tracing investigations.

The middle man–the gun store–is the weak link in this sales chain.  Most are privately owned.  They’re all licensed by the federal government.   And they have the most to lose by not cooperating.   The gun shop is where the gun sale records are kept.  The shop owner is responsible for keeping those records and, in that role, would be the one who would immediately notice irregularities in sales patterns.

And that’s what Republicans will hate:  having owners responsible for the business their company undertakes is a cornerstone of traditional republicanism.  But Republicans don’t want their members to be responsible for their businesses.

Biden’s going right after what counts:  their ability to do business.  Don’t cooperate with a federal investigation?   They lose their license.  Refuse to turn over records?  Lose your license.  Lose sales records or inventory?  Lose your license.

Keep going, Joe.  Strengthen the enforcement agencies that haven’t been inspected in years.  Find the ones who let guns slip through the cracks.  Make the NRA defend sloppy practices.

And then sweep in and say you’re there to clean up their sloppiness with a whole new string of shops that have inventory tracking, sales records, top of the line security, and full background checks.