April 1, 2026

Sen. Warren, Rep. Meeks Embark on Gun Control Fishing Expedition

By Larry Keane

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) might not be known for hunting, but they are casting wide nets on a gun control fishing expedition. They’re chumming the antigun waters with a new letter to the Commerce Department requesting data on semiautomatic firearms. They hope to sink their hooks into firearm manufacturers who lawfully export firearms in an attempt to blame them for crime in other countries.

The Senator and Member of Congress sent a letter to Under Secretary of Commerce Jeffrey Kessler demanding “a sweeping accounting of semi-automatic firearm export ​licenses approved since January 2025,” according to a Reuters report.

“The request covers semi-automatic rifles, pistols, shotguns and associated accessories, ​and asks the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security [BIS] to disclose the number of licenses approved, the countries receiving the exports, the types of purchasers cleared to receive them, and ​details of any monitoring conducted to prevent diversion into illegal markets,” the report noted.

The two antigun lawmakers claim U.S. firearm manufacturers “are responsible for almost 20 percent of crime gun traces in Central America and over 37 percent globally outside of North America,” according to the letter.

Same Tall Tale

The real goal is to lay the blame for crime in foreign countries at the feet of U.S. firearm manufacturers and the Trump administration. Except both Sen. Warren and Rep. Meeks have well-documented antigun track records to support any and all gun control that comes across their desks.

In fact, it was Sen. Warren who complained in 2022 that she couldn’t use her Senate post to block firearm exports. She was joined in that complaint by disgraced former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) who was later convicted of taking bribes for illegal international gun running. Sen. Warren cheered the Biden administration for “pausing” firearm export licenses for more than six months before publishing a policy decimating firearm exports.

President Donald Trump’s administration rolled back those punitive policies early in his second administration. That sent Sen. Warren into a fit, blaming the Trump administration for arming criminal drug cartels. Interestingly, Mexico wasn’t among the countries for which Sen. Warren and Rep. Meeks are seeking firearm export data, Bearing Arms noted. That might be because, as Bearing Arms noted, the majority of firearms traced to the United States were actually lawfully sold to Mexico’s military and law enforcement agencies.

What’s Really Happening

Here’s the truth about firearm exports. All firearm and ammunition exports are — and always were — subject to both Defense and State Department review, and either can halt the export if there are security or human rights concerns. This was the case for many years before the Biden administration throttled exports and remains the case today. Firearm and ammunition license applications undergo a 100 percent end-user check by the BIS Office of Export Enforcement (OEE), regardless of how long an exporting company has been doing business with that customer, regardless of how many times the buyer was subjected to an end-user check and regardless of whether BIS has no derogatory information on that customer, even if the end-user was recently approved.  At present, no other commodity is subject to the same 100 percent check.

Further, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) reported that 11 percent — or 18,749 — firearms recovered at crime scenes in foreign nations were lawfully exported from the United States and later recovered between 2017–2021. That’s not the entire picture, though. NSSF pointed out that these firearms recovered at crime scenes in a foreign nation and traced represent less than one percent of the total — or 2,793,002 — firearms that were lawfully exported out of the United States between 2016 and 2020, according to ATF data.

The problem isn’t the lack of safeguards around U.S. firearm exports. The problem is crime in foreign countries. If the end user in a foreign nation is found to be illegally trafficking firearms, the license is revoked. End of story.

More to the Story

This is just the latest salvo from Sen. Warren against the firearm and ammunition industry. She, and her antigun allies in Washington, D.C., are relaunching an attack on commercial utilization of ammunition production at Lake City Army Ammunition Plant. She recently introduced S. 4015, the Stop Militarizing Our Streets Act. Sen. Warren insists that U.S.-made ammunition is a source of criminal violence in foreign nations. What she’s really doing is attempting to choke off the proven funding model that ensure that today’s warfighters have ample ammunition through the commercial utilization of ammunition produced at Lake City for recreational marksmen.

Discussing the bill with GunsAmerica Digest, NSSF’s Mark Oliva said, “These attempts risk the military readiness of Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, to which the U.S. Army has credited for its ability to keep the warfighter supplied with necessary ammunition needed to defend our nation. Commercial utilization enables the Army to ensure the readiness of not just the machinery needed to produce ammunition but also the funds for the necessary skilled labor to keep the plant in peak operation so there are no gaps in military readiness.”

Sen. Warren and Rep. Meeks are posturing about their concerns for crime in foreign nations. They disguise their antigun angst as their oversight responsibility. They want their overtly political tool to punish highly regulated firearm exports to sink their hooks into firearm manufacturers. Their real anger is they can’t get over the big one that got away.

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