ATF Botches Another Operation

Looks like they botched another one. Dave Hardy notes: “ATF team wins first place in the competition for the most mucked-up sting operation in LE history.” A lot of folks want to get rid of the ATF. Certainly the FBI would likely be more competent at enforcing the laws on criminals, which would be a good thing. The problem is, the FBI will also be more competent at railroading the otherwise law-abiding on gotcha technical violations. They will also be more competent at petitioning Congress for more gun laws, and anti-gun Presidents would have more leeway to nominate anti-gun crusaders as FBI chief. Gun owners often call for the abolition of ATF, which is short sighted. As long as their are federal gun laws, someone is going to enforce them. Pick your poison.

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10 thoughts on “ATF Botches Another Operation”

  1. The problem is that as with F&F, we are about the only people in the country who care about it. If this becomes news at all, it will probably hold that status for about a week, at most.

    1. Yeah, as long as they had ‘good intentions’ it won’t matter how badly they screw up.

  2. You’re absolutely right about the FBI. They’re just as evil, but they are better at public relations. Nothing ever sticks to them. They murdered Vicki Weaver and no one was fired. They ruin Richard Jewell’s life by leaking his name as a suspect in the Olympic Park bombings and no one gets fired. They hound and defame Steven Hatfill about the anthrax attacks, only to later blame them on a dead guy and nothing happens.

  4. The idea of getting rid of the ATF is that they only have a few laws to enforce so must trump up business by going after petty violations and push for more laws in order to justify their budget.

    With gun laws enforced by the FBI they would be one set of laws out of many and so they would not (in theory) waste time and effort in prosecuting paperwork violations, harassing dealers, or other petty violations that the ATF is so fond of going after. In addition the biggest difference is that they would be less likely to push for more gun laws since they don’t need the extra work to justify their budget.

    1. I tend to agree with this. I doubt they’re going to push for more laws since they have plenty to enforce already. And on the topic of enforcing the stupid stuff, one of the best ways to get a stupid law repealed is to vigorously enforce it.

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  6. I understand the arguments Sebastian makes for keeping the ATF, but with botched operations like these, I can’t help but wonder if the ATF is deliberately sabotaging themselves. Even if they aren’t, it’s not hard to imagine the ATF imploding on itself.

    1. As I read that story, and how ATF *machine guns* were stolen, I can’t help but wonder what police are doing with machine guns. If they are only useful as weapons of war, then the police shouldn’t have them, if ordinary citizens are forbidden to have them.

      Of course, I am somewhat aware of how machine guns can be used in self defense, in which case, if the police see fit to have them for that purpose, they should be available for *all* law-abiding ciizens.

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