More on the ATF at Richmond gun shows
The NRA has a nice round up, including some letters given to those who were investigated (possibly illegally). You should read it all and contact your representatives. A taste:
The BATFE representative failed, however, to fully answer far more serious concerns about the bureau’s tactics, such as the strategies it used to target some gun buyers for “discouragement” at the show, or the legality of the traffic stops and gun seizures off the show premises. He also did not explain how it could be legal—given the extensive privacy limits on use of licensed firearm dealers’ records—to turn over those records to local police for “residency checks” of hundreds of gun buyers. In point of fact, one of the local police officials testified that BATFE had never answered his department’s legal concerns about that.
May 5th, 2006 at 11:32 am
ATFAbuse.com
C.H.
May 5th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
1. BATFE was set up exclusively as a taxation authority (hence their status as a branch of Revenue) therefore any records kept on their behalf should be regarded as privileged, personal tax records. They could not be viewed by anyone other than fellow tax agents.
2. If we are to assume that they are a federal police force, their very existence is in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
3. If we want to be free of them, I say give each and every one them a nice, big retirement package, send them home, and eliminate the entire BATFE. It’s the best and most peaceful way of dealing with this disgraceful legacy of the socialist FDR administration.
May 5th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
Or we could reassign them to Guam.
or Iraq.
May 5th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
Or we could reassign them to Guam.
or Iraq.
May 5th, 2006 at 5:46 pm
No, we can’t have Iraq fouled up any more than it already is. Air drop them into IRAN.
May 5th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
The ATF is a rogue agency and has been since its inception. It seems that they go about with a legislative “blank check” doing as they please, and the congress goes behind them creating new laws to justify (or make legal) their illegal tactics.
I like Representative Coble (who lead the hearings) and believe he is an honest man. However, I disagree with him in the fact that the ATF is acting in the interest of the safety of the citizens. The ATF is acting to take guns out of the circulation of the populace, period.
I would like to see someone nailed to the wall over this, but I am doubtful. I don’t like the NRA’s position on this either. We don’t need to give the ATF anymore money or power (through new laws). We need to see the hammer come down hard on the ATF.