ATF on employee possessors of explosives

I also ran across this in the updated ATF bulletin, Safety and Security Information for Federal Explosives Licensees and Permittees:

Please Note: An employee possessor must be an employee of the licensee or permittee.  Volunteers are not employees.

I need to look into this some more to verify. It sounds as if the ATF doesn’t have a requirement for Boomershoot volunteer staff to do the paperwork to be an “Employee Possessor”.

That would be really nice.

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3 thoughts on “ATF on employee possessors of explosives

  1. Knowing the ATF it wouldn’t surprise me is volunteers couldn’t handle explosives at all. I hope that isn’t the case.

    Kafkaesque seems to describe most govt agencies…

    Earl

    • “Kafkaesque seems to describe most govt agencies…”
      Of course! If the agencies did not constantly explore ways to effect function creep, people would learn the regulations, and adjust to them, doing what they and their customers want, working around the regulations, as for so many years designers and builders worked around California’s Assault Weapons regulations. Only by making vague regulations and issuing “explanatory” statements and reversing them can the administrators justify an increase in budget, headcount, and title and pay level for themselves.

  2. Earl has the proper perspective on how to interpret a rule that seems to allow something, but in fact forbids it – without explicitly saying so. This passive-aggressive approach to regulation upends the traditional understanding under US law that if something is not prohibited it is allowed.

    ATF might not have the authority to tell an employer exactly who must be hired and used for a given activity involving explosives. But by forcing the employer to use only permitted, certified employees for a given task, all other possibilities are most likely not just excluded but absolutely verboten.

    It is by such simple linguistic tricks that individual rights are destroyed, entrepreneurial efforts are quashed, competition is stifled, political opponents are neutralized, and corruption flourishes.

    Here’s hoping that your letter from ATF will show me completely wrong. Here’s me betting ATF won’t do that.

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