Senator Group Wants Government
Agencies to Enact 'Gun Control'

By Charles C. W. Cooke. Dec 4, 2022

Congress did some damage to the Second Amendment last June, but anti-Second Amendment legislators did not manage to push through any of the more-draconian agenda items for which President Joe Biden (D) so often calls. Congress did not pass a ban on so-called “assault weapons.” It did not prohibit the sale or possession of standard-issue magazines. It did not allow the federal government to superintend each and every firearm transfer in the country. It did not manage to make the ownership of guns contingent upon the receipt of a federal license.

And so, having failed to achieve their grand ambitions, anti-gun legislators have changed tack: Now, they are trying to circumvent Congress completely.

Since he took office last year, Biden has often tried to get his way via executive orders and through administrative fiat. Now he is being encouraged in this behavior by members of Congress. In September of this year, 12 Senators—all Democrats—sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) demanding that the executive branch go after legal gun sellers. The FTC, the group insisted, must “undertake an investigation and consider regulation of the unfair and deceptive advertising practices used by the firearms industry.” Why? Because, in their view, gun manufacturers are engaged in “false and misleading safety-related claims” that “target and endanger children.” “The tobacco and e-cigarette industries,” they proposed, “are perhaps the paradigmatic example.”

Which is nonsense. The question in the tobacco industry case was whether the product those companies were selling was harmful to those using the product. No such question obtains here. .....