Well, what do you expect?
That's like an IRS agent being baffled about his home being seized.
All that clipping BATF wings will do is make them meaner and sneakier. I don't believe they would ever hire anyone who is not opposed to RKBA.
make it simple. ATF demands 100% perfection. check their records, if ONE record of theirs is out of order, indict them all.
Lucky they didn't shoot him or his female friend.
Lucky the AFT didn't burn his home down with him and his family in it.
God help anyone that runs up against these idiots.
I sure hope the AFT don't have a budget review coming up soon.
Suggested? Suggested!? I thought Federal Agencies worked for Congress (which in turn are supposed to work for Us).
Silly me.
The ATF representative present at the hearing did not address Lara's case, but Kristen Rand, legislative director for the anti-gun Violence Policy Center, did. "Mr. [sic] Lara's situation sounds extremely unpleasant," Rand said, "but we should be careful not to just legislate based on one anecdote."
What a jackass. Someone should rip this idiot's livelihood out from under him and give it to the abused party.
It may not be defined in the law, but it is defined in the dictionary. Willful is an adjective meaning "obstinately and often perversely self-willed; done deliberately; intentional."
Thus, an error (such as a clerical error) is by definition not willful. On the other hand, the ATF's behavior as described in the article does appear to be willful.
After watching these SOB's for over 20 years I'm convinced the agency should be abolished, its staff fired and its responsibilities turned over to the FBI.
We need to have the next president come in and clean house at the ATF. Then tell the new people (reduced in number) that the rules have changed. They are to justify the expenses of any investigations, any cases they persue that are like what happened to the officer or the dealer and the investigators/agency will be punished, etc. Punishment will be swift and brutal.
Then turn to the IRS and do the same and so on down the line.
What an idiot! How can you then prosecute for something not defined by law? Jerks cannot have it both ways.
The sooner they are disbanded the better.
It's a corporate culture issue, IMHO, an assumption of "us vs. them" and it was fed by hirings especially during the notoriously gun-owner-hating Clinton administration. Many of these are now in positions of middle management and being federal employees essentially untouchable, and they know it.
One would not expect an inspector of the Bureau of Mines to hate miners and believe that there should be no mining done - he or she probably wouldn't get very far. A farming inspector who hated farms and farmers and wanted them all to go away probably wouldn't either. A BATF agent who hates gun owners and wants to make life as difficult as possible for them is, on the other hand, likely to be promoted. This is a pathological corporate culture.
Keep an eye on these people - remember the names. Should, God forbid, the Dems win big we're going to be seeing lots of them, and they don't like us.
Ever since ATF came into being one of its primary aims has been to restrict legal trafficing in firearms by making FFL licensing as close to impossible as it could while working to revoke as many existing FFL licenses as possible. Law abiding citizens are the targets, of course, as it is so much easier to nail people who are open and above-board in their dealings than it is to actually confront criminals. Also safer as they are less likely to open fire on you when you storm their business or residence.
What is likely to happen is that once the law-abiding get a load of what the ATF is all about many will decide that the law can go to he## and start dealing without informing the government of what they are doing. This will create a whole new batch of "criminals" for the ATF to chase giving them more cause to ask for even more draconian regulations and laws and so it goes round-and-round until they get what they want - a de facto repeal of the 2nd Amendment. I would not be in the least surprised that an underground firearms network consisting of otherwise law-abiding citizens already exists and is growing.
Disband the ATF. They have no use.
If you had an audit of the BATF internal and prosecutorial paperwork, I'd wager that they would do far worse than 90% accuracy. It would be interesting to see if the BATF could be found as nearly compliant as most FFL dealers.
