The Justice Department announced today that gun shops in Arizona, Texas, California, and New Mexico will have to report all sales in which multiple “high powered” rifles are involved.
There are two problems with this. The first is that the horses have already run free. Lone Wolf Trading Company and the other dealers implicated in the Fast & Furious controversy were cooperating with the BATFE. The sales were done under the orders and direct supervision of the Bureau, the dealers were reporting them in real time, and those guns still got across the border into Mexico.
So, Justice wants to generate (by their estimates) an extra 18,000 reports per year, most of which will do nothing more than tie up payroll and manpower the ATF doesn’t have, and which will end up sitting in boxes and gathering dust in the Martinsburg office. How is an insignificant stopgap like this supposed to staunch the bleeding? Continued...