Mark Oliva, Managing Director, Public Affairs, NSSF

NSSF has long advocated with ATF and the DOJ that lying on the background check form to purchase a firearm is a felony, punishable by up to 15 years in jail and a potential $250,000 fine. In fact, just last week, NSSF’s President and CEO Joe Bartozzi stood alongside ATF Director Steven Dettelbach in Northern Virginia announcing a month-long public awareness campaign in the Greater Washington, D.C., area to warn those who might think about lying on the gun purchase background check form to commit the felony of an illegal straw purchase, which involves lying on the background check form.

NSSF has been a consistent supporter of keeping guns out of the hands of those who should not possess them, whether that be a prohibited individual, an unsupervised child or someone suffering a mental health crisis. Hunter Biden’s admission that he was illegally using controlled substances and addicted to illicit drugs at the time of his firearm purchase clearly demonstrates that he was a prohibited individual at the time he purchased the firearm and lied on the ATF Form 4473 when he attested he was not using illicit drugs.

Greater Washington, D.C., Campaign Targets Illegal Gun Purchases

Alan Gottlieb, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms thanks the jurors in Wilmington, Delaware for fulfilling their responsibility in what was a difficult case amid so much media attention and the political climate.

It is ironic that on the same day the jury found Hunter Biden guilty of three federal gun-related crimes, his father, President Joe Biden, is addressing victims and survivors of gun-related violence. Will the president remind his audience that strict federal and state gun control laws did not prevent his son from illegally buying a firearm?

At some point President Biden must reflect on his half-century of gun control extremism and acknowledge that none of the laws he championed prevented his son from illegally buying a gun and being convicted of the crime in a Delaware courtroom. Meanwhile, millions of American citizens who have committed no crimes are nevertheless penalized daily by the laws and regulations the president and his anti-run-rights allies have supported in the misguided belief they have the moral high ground. Today proved otherwise.

Randy Kozuch, Executive Director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA)

“The National Rifle Association has always stood for the lawful use and possession of firearms. Mr. Biden’s documented lifestyle choices at the time of purchasing a firearm made him a prohibited person under current law.”