Commerce Department Has Ended Biden Administration’s Ban on Small Arms Exports

.@NSSF has talked congressional leaders and w/ US Commerce Dept – Bureau of Industry & Security about BIS’s unprecedented export licensing “pause” (of all products) that started on Feb 5. Yesterday BIS informed #NSSF that the pause has been lifted Back to doing business! @BISgov

— Larry Keane (@lkeane) February 22, 2025

Well  that didn’t take long. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, was confirmed on Wednesday. This morning, the NSSF’s Larry Keane tweeted that Commerce will end its “pause” on small arms and related exports that the Biden administration enacted as a sop to the gun control industry.

To refresh your memory, whoever was really in charge during the Biden years had the Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security announce a “90-day pause” in small arms exports in October of 2023. Commerce claimed that the export pause was to “assess current firearm export control review policies to determine whether any changes are warranted to advance U.S. national security and foreign policy interests.”

That, of course, was a giant, steaming load of hoplophobic bullshit. The export pause was yet another shot aimed directly at an industry that the desiccated husk who was propped up behind the Resolute Desk had once described as “the enemy.” That 90-day pause lasted for six months until, in April of 2024, Commerce announced that the pause would be permanent.

Make no mistake, the Biden administration’s move hurt America’s gun makers, both large and small. As Jim Shepherd wrote almost a year ago . . .

[T]he effects of the pause and the new rule aren’t just about import/export numbers, they’re also about real people’s lives and livelihood.

Speak with the Chamber of Commerce in Celina, Tennessee and they’ll give you numbers from a totally different perspective. One of the companies that couldn’t survive the pause was located there. Despite what was described as a “great plan, excellent equipment and skilled workers,” Outdoorsman Precision Manufacturing is out of business. In a town with only 1,400 residents, every job matters. Ten jobs lost is a potential calamity.

Washington doesn’t see the impact of their regulatory decisions, good or bad. Celina, like many other small towns doesn’t just see the impact, they live with it.

With major manufacturers like Barrett, Beretta, and Smith & Wesson located in Tennessee, there is considerable attention being paid to Commerce and its planned rule change. Despite the Department downplaying any impact of their 180-plus day “pause” on industry, the latest export numbers indicate there most certainly was a negative impact.

That 90-day pause has now exceeded two business quarters. The January, 2024 Firearms and Ammunition Export numbers from the NSSF show a decline of 38.6 percent for the handgun category, a two-plus percent drop in rifle exports and a 23 percent decrease in shotguns over 2023. Ammunition (other than shotgun cartridges) dropped 7.8 percent and shotgun ammunition decreased 14 percent.

Compare that with significant increases in exports of telescopic sights, binoculars and sound suppressors and there’s a spread that simply doesn’t jibe with any assertion of the new rule having a “limited impact.”

Biden’s four year long war on guns is gradually being undone. Earlier this week, Attorney General Pam Bondi fired ATF’s chief legal counsel, Pamela Hicks. She was one of the primary movers behind ATF’s zero tolerance jihad designed to put as many FFL holders out of business as possible, not to mention the agency’s pistol brace ban and its frame and receiver rules, both of which have been slapped down by the courts.

Now Commerce is restoring lawful international sales of legal products made by American manufacturers. As someone once said, elections have consequences.

UPDATE: I’ve just been informed that the above isn’t exactly correct. There are actually two things going on here. There was the Biden export ban rule, the comment period for which had been continually kicked down the road. The ban hadn’t actually been fully adopted, though it had stopped many export applications under the 90-day “pause” put in place almost a year and a half ago.

The other piece of the puzzle is a blanket export ban announced by the Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security on February 5th. That’s what Larry Keane is referring to in the tweet above. That ban was put in place by Biden holdovers until the incoming Trump administration could get its people installed and establish policy. THAT is the ban that newly-confirmed Commerce Secretary Lutnick has removed.

The Biden pause and pending ban is being covered by Trump’s Second Amendment executive order of February 7 instructing the AG to review all agencies’ actions and policies regarding firearms and the 2A. The Biden ban will be included in that review and will be taken down as a result. In the mean time, Commerce has begun once again processing export license applications.

Yes, that’s all very complicated. This is the federal government we’re talking about, after all. The good news, though, is still that much of what the Biden drones did to harm the gun industry and limit gun rights is being deconstructed.