First of all, they don't care about Democracy.
If it doesn't bother you that it's the ATF trying to pass a policy that would land citizens in federal prison for ten years, rather than Congress, you really can't claim to believe in democracy.
The fact that the new rules are a couple hundred pages tells us that they really do want to confuse and scare gun owners into getting rid of their guns rather than take the risk of attempting to comply, and getting it wrong. It's a long standing tactic of totalitarians to create long, confusing laws to keep people afraid.
Finally, and this is something that we've known for a long time, the goal of possession laws is to punish law abiding citizens, and not criminals. It's just a way to throw people in jail who have done nothing but defend themselves.