Tuesday, November 23, 2010

ATF - Rogue Agency

Let's not let this one slip by us...


Anti-gun Zealot Andrew Traver Nominated to Head ATF

Look at some of the things he supports. 

- Establish a “best practices" protocol for voluntary gun surrender programs
- Destroy all firearms that come into the possession of any law enforcement agency (even if such firearms were initially stolen and then recovered)
- Track and follow all private gun sales in a national data base with a mandatory background check on the purchaser
- Limit the sale of “multiple handguns”
- Mandate a “ballistic fingerprint” for every gun that is sold
- Require that every gun come with a lock
- Require that every owner provide for a federally regulated “safe storage” for his weapons, and “prosecute those who fail to comply with [those] safe storage laws.”
- Enact legislation “to allow federal health and safety oversight of the firearms industry.”

Most chillingly, recommendation #22 was: “The federal government should increase funding to the ATF for personnel and technical assistance to combat gun violence.”  
"The bureau’s history reaches back to 1886 where the agency was part of the U.S. Treasury Department, but grew substantial legs in 1968 after the Gun Control Act was passed. Following the 9/11 attacks, the ATF was transferred to the Justice Department, where it “regulates via licensing the sale, possession and transportation of firearms, ammunition and explosives in interstate commerce.” The bureau has a budget exceeding $1 billion annually and employs 5,000 including 2,400 special agents.

Special agents have the broadest authority of any federal agency, with the power to “enforce any statute in the United States Code. Specifically, ATF special agents have [the] lead investigative authority on any federal crime committed with a firearm,” and while the agency may cooperate with other federal agencies, it is free to operate independently of any of them. " source

Do Not Forget Ruby Ridge



Ruby Ridge Siege
Lest you have forgotten, the ATF, which operates  independently,  was behind the framing of Randy Weaver for a weapons violation.  The Federal Marshals drove tanks up Randy's dirt road at Ruby Ridge to his remote cabin which just happens to be spitting distance from my home.  They shot his son, Samuel age 14, in the back, killing him.  They shot and killed his wife, who was standing in the door of their cabin holding their 10 month old infant daughter, Elisheba.  A friend of the Weavers, Kevin Harris, was also shot and wounded as well as Randy.  They even killed the family pet dog, Striker, and proceeded to drive back and forth over his body until he was a pancake.

On about August 24, 1992, the fourth day of the siege on the Weaver family, FBI Deputy Assistant Director Danny Coulson wrote a memo:
OPR 004477
Something to Consider

1. Charge against Weaver is Bull Shit.
2. No one saw Weaver do any shooting.
3. Vicki has no charges against her.
4. Weaver's defense. He ran down the hill to see what the dog was
barking at. Some guys in camys shot his dog.
Started shooting at him. Killed his son. Harris did the
shooting [of Degan]. He [Weaver] is in pretty strong legal position."


Fire at Waco
Approximately 6 months later the ATF spearheaded a seige on the David Koresh compound in Waco, TX.  When the ATF failed to serve a search warrant, they were joined by the FBI and initiated the siege.  Fifty days later, a second failed assault on the compound started a fire killing 76 people, including more than 20 children and two pregnant women.

We have a dangerous habit of believing that it "won't happen to us."  Well it could, and the way things are going it may strike sooner than you expect.  American citizens are being lined up at airports and frisked like common criminals and threatened with 11K fines if they try to leave - all to "keep us safe." How long before this takes place at the train stations, buses, and subways?

It seems to me the things that Mr. Travers supports should be applied to the ATF  and not to law obeying citizens of this country.

Update:

From Mind Numbed Robot:
and we thank him...
 Won’t you sign the petition to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in  support of Brian Aitken?
Thanks to Red for bringing this to our attention.
And please share this story with every freaking person in America.
 The Article:
Brian Aitken's Mistake 
A New Jersey man gets seven years for being a responsible gun owner.

9 comments:

Subvet said...

The item that caught my eye was: "Require that every owner provide for a federally regulated “safe storage” for his weapons, and “prosecute those who fail to comply with [those] safe storage laws.”

Now just how accessible would the guns be if in proper "storage"? The entire reason we have firearms at my house goes back to an incident a few years ago when some schmuck walked up to our house and tried entering the front door. The wife (outside the house & down the street) called 911. N-O-B-O-D-Y ever responded (the 911 operator designated it as a "confused senior citizen" call, in part because my wife was "so calm" during the call. She's a nurse, go figure if she's not trained for "calm" in emergencies)

We had a scare the other night when our front door alarm was activated (those damned cats!). By the time you could say "Annie Oakley" my wife had shucked the gun out of it's case and was aiming down the hall. Wonder how likely that is if it's "properly stored"?

For those of you with small children (like us) who think you can do as you please in the privacy of your home, think again. It isn't uncommon for pediatricians to inquire about firearms and their presence in a home. Wanna bet some public minded citizen won't call in any reports of improperly stored firearms in a house with kids after quizzing those same kids?

Sorry for taking up so much space Adrienne. At this rate I'll see you and the rest of the comrades in the reeducation camps, I'll be the fat guy with a tattoo on his right forearm and an attitude problem.

Adrienne said...

Sub - you can take up as much space as you want. Always!

Exactly what you said. What he heck good is a gun that's locked up? And..........you had better be prepared to kill before you point. That was the first lesson I learned in Texas. You do not point a gun at someone to "threaten" them. You point it at them to kill. Makes you think twice.

republicanmother said...

The Branch Davidians were charged with drug charges first. This was another example of how the drug war is used as a pretext for the government to use force. I had a teacher whose husbands grandma went to the slammer because her neighbors planted pot under the underpinning of her trailer, and called the cops on her. It could so easily happen to anyone.

Stogie said...

The BATF was a disaster at WACO, but I think it was more the FBI who crossed the line at Ruby Ridge, killing innocents in a gross abuse of power. The Clinton years were a dark period for personal freedom in the USA.

Subvet said...

Folks, don't forget the story of Elian Gonzalez. The boy's mother died trying to bring him to this country and what did Janet Reno & Co. do? They shipped his butt back to Castro's Cuba, ostensibly because a child belongs with his father if "Mom" gets killed. Noted.

"Mom" is probably still spinning in her grave and her son is now a well indoctrinated hater of his American relatives.

Charlene said...

I recall the Elian Gonzalez incident very well. Would Gov. Brewer have been interested in giving him asylum if he had come through the border via Mexico and his mom died in the dessert near Tucson?

Subvet said...

Charlene, thats apples and oranges. Elian's mother died escaping a Third World toilet ruled by a Communist thug. Last time I checked, there is NO legal means of emigrating from Cuba. Cubans who make it here are overwhelming productive and assimilate much more readily than their Mexican compadres.

The Mexican government, rather than address it's problems, encourages the poor to leave their nation. Thus we're used as a dumping ground for that nation's undesirables, all in the name of cheap labor pushed for by Big Business, heartily embraced by liberal loons who ignore the impact on our own poor minorities who are unable to find work and deemed as "compassion" by clueless clerics who don't have to deal with results of their endorsements of de facto open borders.

And FWIW, be careful in lumping Cubans and Mexicans together. Just because they share a history of Spanish conquest doesn't mean they're automatically sympathetic to one another.

Sarah Oldham said...

I had the same exact thought as Subvet on the federal gun storage . . . fat lot of good our guns would do us locked in a storage somewhere federally mandated. This government is too big for its britches.

robot said...

Thank you Adrienne. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving.