Do yall not see this?!?!?!?! ATF KNOCKING ON DOORS!

[dicion]

I feel like going and buying 5 AR's from the same dealer, putting them in my safe, and waiting for ATF to show up.

ME: "Do you have a 401k, or other retirement plan"
ATF: "Uhm.. sure. In fact, it's so much better than yours it's not even funny. And you are paying for it"

Sad, but true :)

[boomerang]

It turned out two handguns, of a type drug gangsters prefer, were bought by a pastor for target practice.

That sounds like a couple of members of this forum.

[Liberty]

I wouldn't imagine that this is about keeping Mexican people disarmed. They can barely afford food let alone firearms. I don't think I would question BATFE tracing down original purchasers for weapons used in violent crimes, even if those crimes are committed in Mexico. I would hope that this is coordinated with an attempt to control drug trafficking & gang and cartel violence, which is a real problem and does affect us here stateside.

There is a growing middle class in Mexico, some of those folks would like the ability to arm themselves. Mexico has a lolng history of being represive to their people and keeping their citizens disarmed. The poverty found so often in Mexico can be blamed on the corruption of their government and the repression of civil rights. As these things improve life has gotten better for the people when they got worse the people got poorer.

The drug gangs terrorize the people, who are helpless to to stop the gangsters when they raid the mountain ranches use to kidnap the young males as recruits and the women as toys. These ranches and villages are in the mountains and without police protection. These folks live their lives in terror just waiting and praying these raiders will never come. The Mexican government won't bother to protect them, but will make it just about impossible to protect themselves. If the people were allowed to protect themselves the people wouldn't be so victimised by these gangs. If the citizens had real rights they wouldn't be poor. A repressed people will always be poor.

The irony is that the BATFE will deprive us of our rights as agents for the Mexican government so that they can deprive the Mexican people of their rights. What we should be doing is to be insisting that the Mexican people have the right to protect themselves, and helping the the folks in the mountains arm themselves against these thugs instead of working to keep them disarmed.

[Rex B]

I feel so sorry for those poor folks in Mexico who are at the mercy of these gangsters.
I bet some of them have armed themselves in secret. For hunting, of course.

[Drewthetexan]

I wouldn't imagine that this is about keeping Mexican people disarmed. They can barely afford food let alone firearms. I don't think I would question BATFE tracing down original purchasers for weapons used in violent crimes, even if those crimes are committed in Mexico. I would hope that this is coordinated with an attempt to control drug trafficking & gang and cartel violence, which is a real problem and does affect us here stateside.

There is a growing middle class in Mexico, some of those folks would like the ability to arm themselves. Mexico has a lolng history of being represive to their people and keeping their citizens disarmed. The poverty found so often in Mexico can be blamed on the corruption of their government and the repression of civil rights. As these things improve life has gotten better for the people when they got worse the people got poorer.

The drug gangs terrorize the people, who are helpless to to stop the gangsters when they raid the mountain ranches use to kidnap the young males as recruits and the women as toys. These ranches and villages are in the mountains and without police protection. These folks live their lives in terror just waiting and praying these raiders will never come. The Mexican government won't bother to protect them, but will make it just about impossible to protect themselves. If the people were allowed to protect themselves the people wouldn't be so victimised by these gangs. If the citizens had real rights they wouldn't be poor. A repressed people will always be poor.

The irony is that the BATFE will deprive us of our rights as agents for the Mexican government so that they can deprive the Mexican people of their rights. What we should be doing is to be insisting that the Mexican people have the right to protect themselves, and helping the the folks in the mountains arm themselves against these thugs instead of working to keep them disarmed.

Are you suggesting that the Mexican government is more concerned about illegal arms trade going to citizens with a desire to protect themselves than the gangs who use the weapons to run amuk? The thing I got from the article was that they were looking for weapons recovered from crime scenes, and perhaps it is folly to assume that means violent crime scenes and not otherwise law abiding people getting caught with weapons.

I'm not disputing that life in Mexico is horrid or that the government is a major factor if not the root cause. I am not disputing that BATFE is overreaching by questioning legitimate weapons sales and going to U.S. citizens' homes to verify that they have the weapons still.

[Captain Matt]

Are you suggesting that the Mexican government is more concerned about illegal arms trade going to citizens with a desire to protect themselves than the gangs who use the weapons to run amuk?

Based on the ties between the cartels and the Mexican army and the historical corruption in Mexican law enforcement, I think that's the most likely reason they're making a big fuss over the guns. The second most likely reason is doing a favor for the Obama administration. Any other reasons are much less likely based on history and the actual facts.

The thing I got from the article was that they were looking for weapons recovered from crime scenes, and perhaps it is folly to assume that means violent crime scenes and not otherwise law abiding people getting caught with weapons.

If that was true they would be tracking specific guns found at crime scenes. They wouldn't need to go to gun dealers and ask who purchased multiple guns to start a fishing expedition. They wouldn't need to lie about the percentages either but that's another clue that it's not really about crime.

[Jeremae]

My understanding of the pertinent points:

1. Some of the guns they are investigating are ones recovered by the Mexican authorities during crime investigations. One of BATFE's long time jobs has been to trace such guns recovered by US police to try and determine where and how the criminals aquired them. Don't see a problem with that.

2. In other cases, BATFE is investigating "suspicious purchases", i.e. no crime gun and this is where I am troubled. As far as I can tell, the only ways BATFE can know about a suspicious purchase is:

A. An informant reports it to them. The most common informant turns out to be a licensed dealer who found nothing wrong with the buyer that proved it was a straw purchase (ID ok, NICS passed, didn't say or do anything to reveal purchase actually for another party, etc) but something just wasn't right (young hispanic wearing work class clothing buying 5 high dollar AR rifles with cash). Sometimes one criminal will inform on another to parlay a reduced sentence or to take a competitor out of the game. Like the article says, an angry ex-wife/girlfriend is another potential informant. As long as proper procedure is praticed (no warrantless searches etc) I see no problem with this either as it is pretty much standard police investigative procedure for all types of crimes. (But if a dealer I bought from turned me in, I would NEVER purchase anything from them again)

B. The multi Hand Gun purchase report mentioned earlier. This has been a reporting requirement that FFLs must comply with for some time now. I disagree with it but it is in place and all you have to do to avoid it is NOT purchase more than 1 handgun every 5 days to avoid it. Grey area that I see potential abuse but legal.

C. BATFE sends an agent to physically audit a FFLs records and said agent copies information about purchases that meet some criterea as "suspicious". These "audits' are supposed to insure the FFL is keeping complete and accurate records. This is a "fishing trip" technique to generate leads to people to investigate and is flat out wrong. In addition any information copied by the agent is now available to create a data base. Again flat out wrong.

D. NICS records of purchases meeting the "suspicious criterea are being sent directly to BATFE. This violates the laws that authorized the NICS system and is worng and illegal. It also gives BATFE records for creating a database.

In the OP, they are carefull to imply they are only checking on crime guns but that fact that one of the people they checked was a pastor who purchased 2 handguns for target shooting says they
are generating leads on "suspicious purchases" with no recovered gun in hand for probably cause.

[HankB]

Eventually, someone will have a video camera (even if it's only their cell phone) handy, and hopefully we'll see one of these incidents on YouTube.

Shining the publicity spotlight on behavior like this - and the public employees who engage in it - is exactly what the first response ought to be.

[texas1234]

Obama is messing with folks that wont stand down. Obama needs to get voted out of office. I am all for the poltical process and for everyone of you that wanted to teach the conservatives a lesson and not vote, guess what you screwed the hell out of us. Now get back in the voting booth and get rid of this thug.

[Liberty]

Obama is messing with folks that wont stand down. Obama needs to get voted out of office. I am all for the poltical process and for everyone of you that wanted to teach the conservatives a lesson and not vote, guess what you screwed the heck out of us. Now get back in the voting booth and get rid of this thug.

This is a Texas forum. We as a state voted for McCain. It wouldn't have made any difference if we as a state gave McCaine another 50 million votes. The result would be the same. McCain got all the Texas electoral votes, every single one. Those who did vote for Libertarian or stayed at home can at least hold their head high in that they didn't vote for a leftist. The ones who should feel bad are the people who supported McCain in the primary process.