Point Click, Fire: An Undercover Investigation of Illegal Online Gun Sales

[DissedByBush]

315. The ATF clearly is failing

Mainly it's poor allocation of resources. They spent over a decade going after one dealer, Jim's Guns, because of incorrect paperwork. They revoked the license. They went to court.

Jim's had a documented history of constantly taking successful measures to improve recordkeeping to comply with the myriad complex laws, they had a documented history of internally stating to employees that they must follow the law. Yet the ATF still wanted to shut them down, claiming a willful violation of the law.

At the time of the store's worst performance, the error rate was less than one percent (and remember, the store improved considerably since that). The ATF still wanted to shut them down.

And then the judge asked an interesting question: ATF, do YOU have such a low error rate in YOUR paperwork?

The ATF had to admit they didn't. Jim's Guns won.

Perhaps if the ATF concentrated on unscrupulous gun shops, those who knowingly sell to strawmen, those who knowingly sell to ineligible people, then they could do their job better. Why the ATF isn't doing stings like this is a VERY good question. Instead, they tell gun shops to let straw buyers through so they can rack up more gun deaths in the Mexican drug wars.

The real problem is that the ATF is run by people like you. They do not want to see the current gun laws work. They prefer to harrass honest businesses and citizens to discourage legal gun ownership, while letting crime get by so they can lobby for even more strict and absurd laws.

BTW, about the ATF's error rate. Anybody who gets an NFA tax tamp weapon is told (not by the ATF, by others with experience) to put their original tax stamp in a safe deposit box and only carry a copy with the weapon in case local police ask questions. The reason is that the ATF is notorious for losing their copy, and you go to jail if you can't produce your original when asked, and the ATF lost theirs. This is the kind of "crime" that receives immense ATF resources to prosecute. It's easier than going after criminals, and it takes out another lawful gun owner who is willing to go through background checks in order to get a gun.