ATF

29 posts
Civil Rights

It Looks Like Private FFL’s Are a Thing Again

4 comments

Once upon a time, you could order a gun through the Sears catalog and have it mailed to your door.  Contrary to much of the political rhetoric you may have heard, that’s no longer the case.  In fact, it hasn’t been since 1968, when the Gun Control Act mandated the requirement for a Federal Firearms License (FFL) to transfer firearms.  Essentially, one had to acquire the license to “deal” in firearms, and the licensee would act as a gatekeeper between manufacturers and the general public.

Many collectors acquired the license and used it to transfer firearms to friends and other collectors.  That was, until Josh Sugarmann of the Violence Policy Center decided he didn’t like that.  Among several of his odious initiatives, he successfully badgered the Clinton administration into wiping out non-profit, or “kitchen table,” FFL’s in the 1990’s.  Since then, common wisdom was that the ATF would not issue a Type 1 FFL to anybody who was not “engaged in the business” of selling firearms for a profit.

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Civil Rights

B. Todd Jones Resigns

B. Todd Jones has announced his resignation as director of the ATF, with only 11 days’ notice.  I don’t know if it has anything to do with the backlash from his plan to reclassify M855 ammunition as “armor piercing,” but the coincidence is hard to miss.  When he spoke to the Senate Appropriations committee last week, he had the look of a man who’d found himself dumped in the deep end of the pool.

To be honest, you couldn’t pay me to do his job.  Anyone taking the position inherits a plethora of troubles from an agency dogged by scandal.

Civil Rights

Sensenbrenner Wants to Shut Down the ATF

So, we’ve got a proposal on the table [pdf] to break up the ATF and fold its responsibilities into other law-enforcement agencies. The idea is to give the FBI authority to enforce firearms regulations while giving the alcohol/tobacco stuff over to the DEA.

I’d love to see it happen. Homer Cummings’ little post-Prohibition revenue collection agency has grown into the arbiter of our firearms laws, and it would be a gross understatement to say they’ve done a horrendous job of it.

This is the agency that funneled guns across the border to Mexico in the Fast & Furious operation, who distributed swag to their agents emblazoned with “ATF: Always Think Forfeiture,” and who were responsible for the debacles at Ruby Ridge and Waco.

Then there’s the problem of their “whites only” Good Ol’ Boys Roundup, which lasted more than a decade before being shut down.

Beyond the abuses lies the issue of gross incompetence.  

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Civil Rights

ATF Pushing Ahead with 41P

A year ago, the President advanced a number of regulatory proposals on gun control. One of the more esoteric ones involved changing the way trusts are handled in regards to NFA firearms.

The original action date was to have been last June, but the BATFE was deluged with comments. While action appeared to have been pushed back to 2015, the Bureau has recently published a draft form [pdf].

Essentially, any “responsible party” of a trust or corporation must now file this form and seek approval from local law enforcement. That approval is impossible to obtain in many areas.

The BATFE stands to gain nothing. They’re saddled with the paperwork, but it doesn’t generate any revenue. As such, I doubt they’ll hire on more examiners to address the workload. The end result will be an exponential growth in wait times for NFA approvals across the board.

There’s no saying when 41P might be enacted, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the administration wants to rush this one in before the midterms so they can show some success on gun control.

Civil Rights

Fast & Furious: Unexpected Progress

Two years ago, Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress. At issue was his refusal to turn over documents crucial to the investigation of the ATF’s disastrous Fast & Furious operation. The President invoked executive privilege and refused to turn over the information.

Shortly after, the website Judicial Watch made an Freedom of Information Act request for those documents. Nothing came of it, so they filed a lawsuit in September of 2012. That lawsuit was decided earlier this month by U.S. District Court Judge John Bates, who ruled that the Department of Justice must provide a Vaughn index of the relevant documents.

The Supreme Court established the concept of the Vaughn index in Vaughn v. Rosen. An agency that wishes to withhold information must provide a detailed index and description of the information, state the statutory exemption claimed, and they must explain how disclosure would damage their interests.

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Civil Rights

10th Circuit Upholds Multiple Long Gun Reporting

In 2011, the ATF began requiring dealers in Southwestern border states to report sales of multiple semiautomatic rifles to individual purchasers. The ATF doesn’t have the authority to do this.* As such, the requirement has been challenged in the DC and 5th Circuit courts, but it was upheld in both instances.

Today, the 10th Circuit issued a ruling [pdf] affirming them.

Among the lovely chestnuts of wisdom was this:

A review of Project Gunrunner conducted by the Office of the Inspector General (“OIG”) indicates that tracing guns seized in Mexico can provide “crucial” information in gun-trafficking investigations and generate intelligence regarding trends in gun smuggling. (…) [Assistant Director of Field Operations William Hoover] explained that trace information helps ATF “reconstruct the flow of weapons along the border, how and where they are being purchased, and who is purchasing them.”

Yeah, because that worked so well when Project Gunrunner was active.

* Here’s the multiple-handgun form [pdf].

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Humor

Proper Spelling

2 comments

So, this week is SHOT Show in Las Vegas. The ATF maintains a booth there, and someone thought it would be witty to do this:

ATF Sign Defaced

Of course, when one considers the fact that our tax dollars paid for that sign, the joke’s on us. I’m sure this brave and clear act of civil disobedience inspired a road to Damascus moment among the agents present. I wouldn’t be surprised if it made the entire agency consider a change in mission and philosophy, and…

Yeah. Um, no.

While we’re at it, the correct spelling is “Molon Labe.” Molon. Spelling and grammar really do count, children.

Civil Rights

41P on Hold for Now

The American Silencer Association met with the ATF yesterday, and this is what we know about the proposed rule change:

  1. There were 9500 comments, 1000 of which were rejected for “vulgarity, anonymity, or non-applicability.” (Thanks for the Obama Kenya Nazi thing, Joe Bob)
  2. The ATF has to respond to every comment in writing. This means, even if they decide to go ahead with the rule change, it will be at least six months to a year before it takes effect.
  3. We don’t know if Forms 1 and 4 already in process will be affected. Based on history, the ASA thinks not.

Nonetheless, wait times are averaging 9-10 months right now. It would be a good idea to get those applications into the pipeline sooner rather than later.

The NFATCA are the folks who got us into this mess in the first place, and they have a table at SHOT Show this week.

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Civil Rights

Fast & Furious: Censorship

Special Agent John Dodson was on the ground during the initial stages of the ATF’s botched Fast & Furious operation. When he came forward as a whistleblower, Arizona US Attorney Dennis Burke leaked an internal memo to the media in an attempt to discredit Dodson’s testimony to Congress on the operation.

He has authored a book covering his experiences, but the Bureau is attempting to block publication. Their rationale is that it “would have a negative impact on morale in the Phoenix [Field Division] and would have a detrimental effect on our relationships with DEA and FBI.”

Right. Because running over 2,000 guns to Mexican cartels, slandering agents who came forward, and lying to Congress did none of those things.

Info Dump

Proposed Changes to NFA Rules

One of the “executive actions” the President proposed last month has been submitted to the Federal Register as a rules change proposal. It involves changing the way NFA items are registered to trusts.

When paying the tax and registering an NFA weapon, one can register it to himself as an individual. However, if he wants to grant possession to someone else, it has to be transferred again, thus incurring another round of paperwork, delay, and remuneration to the ATF. He also has to secure approval from his local Chief Law Enforcement Officer (CLEO), usually a sheriff or police chief. Such approval is at the discretion of the officer, and many choose not to grant it.

The alternative is to register the weapon to a trust. In that case, local law enforcement need not be involved, and other parties may be granted access to the weapon by simply adding them as trustees.

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Civil Rights

Executive “Actions” on Guns

Todd Jones will be sworn in as new Director for the BATFE today. This marks the first time the position has been filled since Carl Truscott left in 2006.

The administration is using this as an opportunity to announce two new executive actions regarding guns. I know what an executive order is, but executive action is a new one for me. Apparently, I’m not the only one confused by this.

The White House has a “fact sheet” here. The first measure is a moratorium on the importation of military surplus guns for the civilian market. Apparently, this “will help keep military-grade firearms off our streets.”

The second is a change in the way NFA trusts are handled. Under the proposal, all individuals associated with a trust would have to undergo a NICS check and submit fingerprints. How this will be implemented, or how it will actually work in practice, remains to be seen.

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Civil Rights

Todd Jones Confirmed

Former Minnesota US Attorney Todd Jones has been confirmed by the Senate to be permanent director of the BATFE. Despite concerns over Jones’ record as US Attorney, the Senate voted 53-42 for confirmation. Among the “ayes” were Mark Kirk (R-IL.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Susan Collins (R-ME.), Lindsay Graham (R-SC.), John McCain (R-AZ.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).

The Bureau has been without a permanent director since Carl Truscott left under a shadow of ethics and budget violations in 2006. Despite the Bureau having to skimp on things like routine vehicle maintenance, he felt it necessary to spend $300,000 redecorating his office. He had served only 2 years.

Since then, the Bureau has had three acting directors. Former Acting Director Kenneth Melson resigned last year after an OIG report laid a great deal of responsibility for the Fast & Furious debacle at his feet. Jones has been serving in that capacity since.

The NRA opposed (and defeated) Andrew Traver’s confirmation in 2009, but they’ve been largely quiet on Jones.

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Civil Rights

Fast & Furious: Aftershocks

Jalisco chief of police Luis Astorga was shot to death by gang members in late January. The gun in used was a WASR-10, a cheap Romanian AK-47 sporter traced to Lone Wolf Gun supply in Arizona. In February of 2010, Lone Wolf sold it to Jacob Montelongo under the direction and supervision of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Like over 2,000 other weapons sold during this operation, it would be lost, and it would later resurface at a crime scene in Mexico. The death toll in from these weapons is over 170 now.

I can only imagine Andre Howard’s heart sinking every time he hears about this. He did what he was told to do by law enforcement. He cooperated with what he thought was a legitimate sting operation. He was lied to, and now his reputation is ruined.

For his part in this whole racket, Montelongo has been sentenced to a mere 41 months in prison. 

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Civil Rights

The Sequester and Gun Control

A whole slew of budget cuts took effect on Friday. I’m a little peeved that NASA’s losing another $970 million. The beleaguered ATF will be taking a $60 million dollar hit, which would conceivably hamper their ability to enforce all those new gun-control laws folks keep proposing. Additionally, the FBI is losing $480 million, at least some of which is going to have an impact on NICS background-check processing. Expect delays.

Frankly, the whole thing reminds me of Gingrich’s boondoggle in 1995, but I don’t think the current President has the savvy to turn it to his advantage in the manner than Clinton did.

It goes without saying that this is going to be the political headliner for the near future. As such, the push for gun control in Congress is going to fade from public view and lose momentum.

That doesn’t mean it’s over, though.

Civil Rights

You See, It’s a Long Story, But…

You may remember George Gillett. He was second in charge of the BATFE Phoenix field division during the Fast & Furious operation. A congressional committee found that he “failed to provide responsible supervision” during that little fiasco, which is putting it mildly.

This last Thanksgiving, Mexican beauty queen Maria Flores Gamez and five others were killed in a shooting in Sinaola. Guns from Fast & Furious were found at the scene. Interestingly enough, one of those was an FN 5.7 pistol, which was traced directly back to Mr. Gillett. Now, by “directly,” I mean directly.

Gillett purchased the weapon at Legendary Arms, a Phoenix gun store. On the federal form 4473 used to buy the gun, Gillett used the ATF office address, 201 East Washington, and said “Apt 940.” On subsequent purchase, Gillett used a commercial address, that of a strip mall.

Yep, he lied on the form.

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Civil Rights

Fast & Furious: Denouement

1 comment

The Office of the Inspector General has released its findings on the Fast & Furious debacle. The short version? Everybody short of Attorney General Eric Holder has egg on the face. The report finds that Holder himself was unaware of the operation until February of 2011.

In the wake of the report, former Acting Director Kenneth Melson announced his retirement, and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein resigned. Aside from the ATF Phoenix division staff, he seems to bear the brunt of the investigation’s ire.

And what of Holder? He fired back today about the “baseless accusations” leading to his contempt charge from Congress, and in the eyes of the public, he’s right. The Democrats claimed that Issa’s investigation was a partisan witch-hunt, and this report validates that assertion.

The report calls for a wide swath of disciplinary action, though I’m not expecting much. To this day, not a single government agent has been held responsible for Brian Terry’s death.

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Civil Rights

Holder Contempt Charge: Now It’s Official

1 comment

Sharyl Attkisson reports that the draft of a contempt citation naming Eric Holder is being circulated to members of the House Oversight Committee today. The citation addresses the Attorney General’s lack of cooperation in the investigation of Fast & Furious.

Resolved, That Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General of the United States, shall be found to be in contempt of Congress for failure to comply with a congressional subpoena.

Resolved, That pursuant to 2 U.S.C. §§ 192 and 194, the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall certify the report of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, detailing the refusal of Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, to produce documents to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform as directed by subpoena, to the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, to the end that Mr. Holder be proceeded against in the manner and form provided by law.

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Civil Rights

Fast and Furious: Cummings Pushes Back

Attorney General Holder gets another chance to testify to the House Oversight Committee Thursday morning.  Just in time, Representative Elijah Cummings has released a report [pdf] in which he claims to clear the White House and Department of Justice of any complicity in this matter.  Of course, if they were already clear, then why is this unsolicited “report” even necessary?

He doesn’t go so far as to claim ignorance, only that,

[t]he Committee has obtained no evidence that Operation Fast and Furious was a politically-motivated operation conceived and directed by high-level Obama Administration political appointees at the Department of Justice.

Instead, Cummings settles for declaring that the administration did not conceive or direct Fast and Furious.  He seems to think that justification hinges on such semantic differences.

Entitled “Fatally Flawed: Five Years of Gun-walking in Arizona,” the report tries to lump Fast and Furious in with prior such schemes as Wide Receiver (“see?  

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Civil Rights

Circling the Wagons

Eric Holder testified before Congress today for the second time regarding the Fast & Furious disaster. Here’s the condensed version:

The allegations of impropriety began to circulate in April of 2010.  Terry died in December, and despite the widely distributed and reported allegations, Holder claimed in May of 2011 that he’d only heard them a few weeks prior.  He revised that estimate to “probably (…) a couple of months” today.

If that’s the way he’s running his office, Holder is, at the very least, wildly incompetent.

He’s calling an operation that provided weapons used in over 200 Mexican homicides a “failed response,” and he swears he’s taking measures to stop future lapses in judgement, but he’s taking no responsibility.

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Civil Rights

Sooner or Later

We know now that the ATF sat by and let straw purchases of weapons happen in Phoenix.  We know they reassured dealers that the weapons would be tracked.  We know that didn’t happen, and that those weapons have been used in dozens of homicides.

As of today, we also know that the ATF themselves purchased weapons and sold them to criminals.  Apparently, John Dodson was given authorization and ordered by Supervisor Voth to pick up a few Draco pistols and deliver them to suspects.

I’m not sure why Dodson didn’t bring this up during his testimony to Congress back in June.  Any risk of self-incrimination can easily be countered by the Nuremberg Defense, especially considering that his vehement resistance to the idea is well documented.

This whole thing is far worse than Watergate, and yet only two mainstream news organizations are actively following it.  I don’t know what it’s going to take to bring this to the front page, but Congressional hearings are largely toothless when the department charged with prosecuting the issue is complicit in the problem at hand.

Civil Rights

“A Perfect Storm of Idiocy”

Representative Issa and Senator Grassley released a joint report [pdf] on their investigation into the ATF’s Fast and Furious operation. It covers their recent interviews with ATF officials in Mexico.

Acting ATF Attaché Carlos Canino gave his thoughts on the situation:

You don’t lose guns. You don’t walk guns. You don’t let guns get out of your sight. You have all these undercover techniques, all these safety measures in place so guns do not get out of your custody or control. I mean, I mean, you could follow, you could do a surveillance for 1,000 miles . . . either use planes, trackers, you use everything under the sun, but at the end of the day, those guns do not leave your control. At some point those guns do not get into the streets.

Law enforcement is known to let drugs and other contraband “walk” from time to time if a minor infraction might lead them upstream to the bigger fish.  

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Civil Rights

Crossed Wires on Gun Control

I came home to two different emails tonight. The news is good, and unintentionally amusing. Both messages regard Monday’s Department of Justice announcement that gun dealers in the southwest would be required to report multiple sales of rifles to the ATF. The first is from the NRA-ILA:

House Committee Passes Amendment to Defund Illegal Obama Firearm Sales Reporting Requirement

Today, during consideration of the FY 2012 Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations bill, pro-gun U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) offered an amendment to prohibit the use of funds for a new and unauthorized multiple sales reporting plan proposed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The Amendment was passed by a vote of 25-16.

The Rehberg Amendment, which was strongly supported by NRA, will defund the Justice Department’s controversial and illegal move requiring federally licensed firearms retailers in states bordering Mexico to report multiple sales of semi-automatic rifles.

That’s good news, and my hat’s off to Denny Rehberg.

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Civil Rights

Closing the Barn Door

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?

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Civil Rights

Traver’s Back in Town

Rumor has it that Kenneth Melson, acting director of the ATF, will be removed from office amid the political fallout from Project Gunrunner.  Apparently, Andrew Traver is flying to Washington for a meeting with Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole next week.

The administration tried to get Traver nominated to fill the position of Director late last year, but failed.  The office has been vacant since Truscott’s resignation in 2006, and the Senate has been unwilling to confirm anyone as a replacement.

Installing Traver is a way of getting him close to the top without the pesky confirmation process, but it’s also a tacit admission of guilt.  They wouldn’t be throwing Melson out (and failing to promote from within) unless they felt that the information showing up in the Congressional hearings was something truly worth worrying about.

If that’s the case, let’s hope it doesn’t end with one scapegoat.

Civil Rights

Blowing It

The reputation of the ATF has taken a beating over the years.  Longtime members of the gun culture are well aware of the Bureau’s disastrous actions in the early 1990’s.  During the last decade, the ATF seemed to have reformed their strategy somewhat, and their credibility was slowly being rebuilt.

That all changed with the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry late last year.

On December 14th, Terry was gunned down in a firefight near Rio Rico in southern Arizona.  The following day, Arizona law enforcement recovered two of the rifles used.  They were WASR-10 semiautomatic AK-47 clones, purchased by Jaime Avila at a shop in Glendale the previous January.

Avila had been identified by the ATF the previous January as a participant in a vast conspiracy to transport weapons and narcotics across the border into Mexico.  Both Avila and the rifles were in their database as “suspect.” Yet Avila was not arrested or questioned until the death of agent Terry.

Civil Rights

Andrew Traver and the New Math

The ATF hasn’t had a director for almost four years.  Former director Carl Truscott’s reign was marked by numerous complaints about misappropriation of funds and poor treatment of employees.  Following his resignation in 2006, the parameters were changed, and Senate confirmation is now required for a nominee.

In the meantime, former prosecutor Michael Sullivan served as Acting Director, but was blocked from nomination for the permanent position.  Sullivan resigned January 20th, 2009, the day President Obama was sworn in.  Presumably, the idea was that the new President could find someone capable of passing confirmation hearings.

Andrew Traver isn’t that person.

Civil Rights

ATF v. the 10th Amendment

The ATF has fired its first shot across the bow (pdf) regarding the Firearms Freedom Act that passed last month in Tennessee.  In a letter recently sent to Tennessee Federal Firearms License (FFL) holders, they stated:

The passage of the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act (…) has generated questions from industry members as to how this State law may affect them while engaged in a firearms business activity. (…) However, because the Act conflicts with Federal firearms laws and regulations, Federal law supersedes the Act, and all provisions of the Gun Control and the National Firearms Act, and their corresponding regulations, continue to apply.

The remainder of the brief memorandum simply reiterates the basic responsibilities of FFL’s.

So far, it’s just a “friendly” reminder. What happens this winter, when the Act takes place in several states, remains to be seen.

Ordnance

USC § 922(b)(1)

I got several questions about this today, and I thought I’d clarify.  As of November, you must be 21 years old to receive a frame or receiver for a firearm.  It doesn’t matter if it’s to be used to make a rifle or a handgun; it’s now treated in a similar manner as a handgun.

Congress didn’t pass a law while we weren’t looking, nor did the ATF sneak a regulation in under the radar.  This is simply a clarification and enforcement of a clause buried in Code section 922, which states:

[It shall be unlawful for any licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector to sell or deliver] any firearm or ammunition to any individual who the licensee knows or has reasonable cause to believe is less than eighteen years of age, and, if the firearm, or ammunition is other than a shotgun or rifle, or ammunition for a shotgun or rifle, to any individual who the licensee knows or has reasonable cause to believe is less than twenty-one years of age

Receivers were never explicitly targeted previously, but as per a letter sent out last week (pdf):

A frame of receiver is a type of firearm “other than a shotgun or a rifle” and the transfer by the dealer to an individual under 21 years of age would be prohibited by Title 18, U.S.C.,

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Civil Rights

The November that Never Ended

In September of 1993, America Online (AOL) granted Usenet access to its subscribers. The infrastructure was crippled by the sudden, overwhelming influx of new users, none of whom knew the protocols or cared to learn. These were the days when a 28.8k modem was considered screamingly fast, bandwidth was precious, nobody had the time to sift through countless “me too!” posts.

In early 1994, Dave Fischer referred to this period as the September that Never Ended, and the name stuck. Usenet was, for all intents, dead as a medium and would never recover.

11/05/08 will go down in history as the gun industry’s version of this phenomenon. I have seen more lunacy in the last six months than I’ve seen in my entire life. I’ve heard conspiracies that would make Art Bell chortle, and trust me, that guy believed in everything. I thought it would die out, but it hasn’t.