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Will the BATFE be Fixed?
by A.X. Perez
perez180ehs -+at+- hotmail.com

Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise

Remember the late Seventies/early Eighties? Among other things this was when the ATF's behavior became so egregious that even supporters of victim disarmament wanted to break it up. Among other things the Bureau kept trying to establish a national database of gun owners in defiance of existing law. Congress finally threaten to cancel the ATF's budget to get them to settle down. At the same time the ATF engaged in "strawman stings" in which a person claiming to be ineligible to buy firearms would enter a shop and attempt to purchase a firearm. When refused they would leave the shop, described the gun in question to a confederate, then send them in to purchase the weapon, at which time the store owner would be busted on the claim that he knew the score.

The ATF also developed the trick of loading semiautomatic weapons with cartridges with inappropriately sensitive primers. This would cause the weapons to "double" (fire more than one round with a single pull of the trigger) and the owner would be charged with illegally converting the gun in question into a machine gun.

While the BATF settled down during the Reagan administration they went to town after Papa Bush became President, triggering the Ruby Ridge Siege and setting up the Waco Massacre. Specifically they set up the situations and left the Marshall Service and FBI to do their dirty work. After Clinton became President they executed the Raid on ranch Mount Carmel and went back to shutting down honest gun dealers and framing honest gun owners, a modus operandi they continue to this day. Meanwhile individual agents in Chicago were allegedly taking bribes to allow gang bangers who were abusing their right to keep and arms to terrorize honest citizens access to firearms. Honest citizens were blocked from buying weapons but ATF agents were making sure criminals had all the guns they needed.

The Declaration of Independence says the people have the right to alter or abolish any form of government that fails to protect their rights. Thomas Jefferson even admitted that we should wait to take this step until we were sure that there was a pattern of deliberate abuse and not one or two unfortunate incidents.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has established a pattern of deliberate abuse.

Let us see how the Congress and President to be sworn in this January deal with this. If they seriously try to fix the ATF or get rid of it they will show some good faith and hopefully can be trusted to try to protect the American people's rights. A Congress and President who allow the situation to stand or encourage the ATF to continue or even accelerate on its current course will show itself hostile or at least indifferent to freedom.

We shall see in January.

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