ATF Reclassifies Nitrocellulose as a High Explosive, Then it Doesn't.

In it's June 2016 newsletter the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms said it would reclassify wetted nitrocellulose, which is used to make smokeless gunpowder, because when it is dried for use it is a high explosive. This is absurd. It is already wetted with water or alcohol for stability in transport and storage. The fact that it becomes an explosive again when dried is of no concern to public safety. Why does the ATF feel it has the right to regulate something that is, because of what it will become? There is no reason for it. The fact that it has never been a problem doesn't matter to the ATF. They see an opportunity, and they will seize it. Ammunition manufacturers decried the draconian descision as a backdoor ammo ban.

Here's the thing, wetted nitrocellulose has been stored and transported by ammo manufacturers for decades. It's not too hard to see why this action by the ATF was seen as overreaching, unnecessary, and burdensome. The new requirements for record keeping, and restrictions on transport and storage would effectively ruin ammunition manufacturers and drive ammo prices up.

Only one day after this news broke, the ATF did an about face and rescinded the reclassification, pending industry input. My theory on their change of heart is that the amount of backlash from the NRA and the public must have been huge! I know I personally fired off emails to my state senators and representatives calling for the defunding and abolition of the ATF, and the rest of the alphabet soup agencies for that matter.

You see, these government bureaucracies don't care about the public, or the public safety. They care about one thing, control. We don't need them in a free society. We never have, and never will. All they do is try to hamper our liberty, purposely or not. We would do well to shut them all down, save the taxpayers trillions of dollars a year, and have more liberty and prosperity.