Hill Calls for Stricter Firearms Export Rules

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) are calling on the Commerce Department to beef up its new rule on firearms license requirements in order to prevent US weapons exports from contributing to violence and killings across the globe.  

The lawmakers are responding to an interim final rule issued in April by Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which strengthened Commerce’s exports licensing requirements and regulations.

But there are still critical weaknesses to the rule, the lawmakers said in a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. 

“We applaud and appreciate the recent steps taken to amend the Department’s licensing policy for exports of firearms, which recognized the serious and devastating consequences of US firearms exports to other countries,” the two Democrats wrote. “While these changes represent a promising step, we are concerned that the changes fail to include key reporting requirements and do not go far enough to prevent assault weapons from ending up in the hands of dangerous actors around the world.”

The lawmakers cited what they see as three shortfalls with the rules – they lack adequate oversight of the transfer of weapons to governmental end-users, fails to regulate or ban the commercial resale of assault weapons outside the United States and does not commit to releasing firearms licensing approval data.

Export controls authority over weapons exports should to returned to the State Department, because the dollar value of firearm export license approvals shot up by 30 percent, since Commerce took over the authority, the lawmakers said.

Commerce approved nearly 25,000 firearms export licenses for a 93.6% approval rate with a total value of $34.7 billion, as of 2023. That represents a more than $1 billion increase in the annual value of license approvals compared to the time period when the State controlled approvals.

“National security must come before commerce,” the lawmakers wrote. “The most recent BIS rule, despite making some progress, indicates that firearms exports still will not face sufficient scrutiny in the Department of Commerce’s hands. We continue to support returning all firearms export controls to the State Department.”

Previous congressional correspondence on the topic from the pair has included Democratic Reps. Adriano Espaillat (NY),  Ilhan Omar (Minn), Norma Torres (CA), and Daniel Goldman (NY).   None of them signed this letter.

August is National Shooting Sports Month, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearm industry trade association. 

[Letter to Sec. Raimondo]