Free Republic

HOUSE PASSES ATF REFORM BILL . . . With a 277-131 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives last week passed HR 5092, the "Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) Modernization and Reform Act of 2006." The legislation, which represents a major advance in protecting the rights of firearms retailers, now heads to the Senate. Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have threatened to stall Senate consideration. The bill will bring consistency to ATF enforcement actions and provide ATF with additional compliance tools short of license revocation.

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   Pro-Gun Bills Make Way To House Floor!   Friday, September 22, 2006   The House of Representatives may act as early as next week on critical pro-Second Amendment reform bills.  These bills need your support today:H.R. 5092--the “Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE) Modernization and Reform Act of 2006,” by Reps. Howard Coble (R-N.C.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.) -- will curb the agency’s efforts to revoke dealers’ licenses for minor paperwork errors, improve the appeals process for dealers, and, establish new guidelines for BATFE investigations.  This bill was drafted...

The LA County Gun Task Force has served another search warrant on the home of another member of the fifty caliber community. On Monday September 18th, eighteen police cars swarmed the neighborhood where the FCSA member lives and served a search warrant signed by Judge Steven Kleifield of the LA County Superior Court. The officers were at the residence for several hours and confiscated all semi-automatic firearms belonging to the victim. The probable cause for issuing the search warrant was not available in the body of the affidavit so the reason for the search is unknown at this time. It...

JPFO began our campaign to "Boot the BATFE" (www.jpfo.org/bootbatfe.htm) in January of 2005. The instigating factor was a tape we received, a tape that indisputably showed BATFE agents attempting to frame an innocent gun owner, John Glover. That tape -- which we promptly copied and began distributing as _BATFE Fails the Test_ (www.jpfo.org/batfevideo.htm) -- was something the BATFE _never_ intended you to see. Thanks to it, the charges against Glover were dropped and all but one of his firearms returned. Eighteen months later, we offer you something else the BATFE was hoping wouldn't get out: John Glover's story, straight from...

PARKVILLE, Md. -- Sanford M. Abrams began selling guns from his shop in Baltimore County in 1996 and almost immediately started losing track of them. In 1997, he couldn't account for 45. In 2001, it was 133. In 2003, there were 422 firearms missing -- more than a quarter of his inventory -- including semiautomatic assault rifles, 12-gauge shotguns and Glock 9mm pistols, according to federal investigators. This year, a decade after he started losing track of guns, Abrams's store lost its firearms license. But he still intends to sell guns. Tale of Abrams and his Valley Gun Shop --...

LA County Gun Task Force Serving Search Warrants LAPD & LASO Might Be Knocking On Your Door Next! LA County Gun Task Force Serving Search Warrants Officers from the Los Angeles County Gun Task Force in CA have begun serving search warrants on residents in that county who are suspected of holding un-registered "Assault Rifles" including 50 BMG target rifles. If you or any of your friends have not complied with the provisions of AB-50 that require you to register any 50 BMG rifles you own, you may very well expect a knock on your door at any time. This...

SPRINGFIELD - A federal jury yesterday found Michael A. Crooker guilty of a firearms crime that will mean a 15-year mandatory prison sentence. The jury, made up of eight men and four women, delivered its verdict shortly after 2 p.m. yesterday after deliberating about 10 hours during two days. Crooker, 51, formerly of Agawam, had been charged with being a previously convicted felon "causing a firearm to travel in interstate commerce." Crooker was accused of trying to mail an air rifle and sound muffler to an Ohio man in 2004. Air rifles are not considered firearms under federal law, but...

SPRINGFIELD - When federal agents converged on Michael Paulus in Celina, Ohio, in 2004, he was chagrined, to say the least. The admitted air rifle enthusiast told an agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives he was shocked to learn four unregistered silencers he owned were illegal, according to testimony yesterday in an ongoing federal firearms trial. Paulus was never charged in the investigation with roots in Western Massachusetts. "My impression of Michael Paulus is he is an upstanding citizen who had no idea he was breaking the law," ATF agent Larry K. Ward Jr. told jurors...

June 8, 2006 BATFE RAIDS KT ORDNANCE! Yesterday we received word that KT Ordnance, manufacturer of incomplete (80%-finished) frames, was raided for the alleged "illegal manufacture of firearms." KT Ordnance has been a great asset to those who wish to purchase unfinished receivers with which to anonymously manufacture their own firearms -- a perfectly legal process, according to the BATFE website ( http://www.atf.gov/firearms/faq/faq2.htm#a6 ). You can see from photos of the AR-15 kit ( http://www.jpfo.org/kto1.jpg and www.jpfo.org/kto2.jpg) that the product cannot possibly be a functioning "firearm" -- it's simply a chunk of metal! So how can this happen? Early reports...