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Dogs, Children Or Bureaucrats Its A Mistake To Reward Bad Behavior
By Jeff Knox
The Knox Report

FirearmsCoalition.org

Manassas, VA --(Ammoland.com)- Representative Darrel Issa (R-CA) referred to the activities of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) Operation Fast and Furious as “felony stupid.”

Others have suggested that the plan was intentionally designed and cleverly crafted to bolster statistics in support of stricter gun control laws. Whether the operation was just stupid or intentionally criminal, it was clearly bad behavior on the part of ATF and Justice Department (DOJ) and such bad behavior should not be rewarded.

Some members of Congress, Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Elijah Cummings (D-MD) in particular, want to reward ATF and DOJ’s criminal stupidity with increased funding and increased authority through tighter regulation of firearms dealers and lawful firearm purchasers.

ATF has introduced – and the Administration has now approved – and “emergency” regulatory change requiring firearms dealers in border states to report any purchaser who buys more than one semi-auto rifle greater than a .22 within a given week. The US House of Representatives promptly, and properly, rejected the new regulations by passing an appropriations rider prohibiting any funds from being used to enact or enforce the plan.

Proponents of the regulation argue that it gives ATF an important tool to help detect straw buyers and traffickers and that it poses little inconvenience to lawful gun buyers. Many on our side disagree , but usefulness and inconvenience aside, the fact is that Congress has looked at long gun reporting in the past and rejected the idea. For ATF and the Obama administration to now push forward, bypassing Congress, in order to do something Congress has previously refused to do is clearly overreaching and probably illegal. If Congress had passed a law setting auto mileage standards, but had specifically chosen to omit larger pickups from those standards, it would be outrageous for some bureaucracy to later enact regulations including trucks.

This case is no different except that it is questionable whether even Congress has the authority to regulate firearms sales. Unelected bureaucrats certainly don’t.

The regulation also creates a de facto registration system, something Congress has expressly forbidden on numerous occasions, and it puts additional burdens – and liabilities – on the gun dealers. ATF claims that the records will be destroyed after two years, but ATF and DOJ have long histories of reneging on such guarantees, even when they are spelled out in law.

Purchase of multiple firearms within a week is not particularly uncommon and doing so should not make a person a suspect, nor should it result in their personal information being stored in government systems. Also, if the regulation does go into effect, it will be no time at all until ATF will be demanding that the reporting requirement be expanded beyond the border states. It will become the “multiple sales non-reporting loophole” and they will insist that all states need to follow the reporting requirements.

Firearms dealers are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They want to honor and respect customers’ rights, but ATF controls their licenses and the laws and regulations hold dealers responsible for things they “should have known.” Dealers have to pass up business and/or alert ATF when they suspect possible criminal activity. Not doing so can have serious consequences. A New Mexico dealer is in jail today because the local police chief in the town of Columbus was allegedly trafficking guns to Mexico. The ATF says the dealer “should have known” so he is considered a co-conspirator. He could lose everything for selling guns to the Police Chief!

At the same time, gun owners can be very unforgiving of dealers who they perceive as “too cooperative” with ATF so dealers have to be careful about that too. Still, dealers don’t want to be selling guns to criminals as demonstrated during Operation Fast and Furious when dealers repeatedly expressed reservations about doing business with suspicious characters and ATF insisted that they go forward with sales. Mandatory multi-sale reporting increases dealers’ paperwork load, but relieves them of some judgment calls. It might make things generally easier on dealers in the short term, but it would probably make things worse for them in the long run.

Dogs, Children Or Bureaucrats Its A Mistake To Reward Bad Behavior

Perhaps the most important reason to deny ATF’s long-gun registration regulation is, as stated earlier, that whether you’re dealing with dogs, children, or bureaucrats, it is always a mistake to reward bad behavior. ATF and DOJ (including the US Attorney’s Office and possibly the FBI and DEA) behaved badly. They encouraged and forced sales of some 2000 firearms (that we know of) to known Mexican gun traffickers and then they turned their backs and allowed those guns to disappear into the black market and to crime scenes in Mexico and the US, including the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

They did this in violation of long-standing rules of operation and common sense as well as international law. They did not do this in response to weak US gun laws or a need for multi-gun reporting. These straw buyers were already known and under surveillance.

Politically motivated felony or just felony stupid, this was bad behavior any way you look at it and it should not be rewarded with increased authority, increased responsibility, and increased funding.

ATF, DOJ, the US Attorney’s Office, and any other agency involved in this fiasco need to be slapped down, not rewarded, and responsible individuals should be prosecuted.

Copyright © 2011 Neal Knox Associates – The most trusted name in the rights movement.

About:
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement. The Firearms Coalition is a project of Neal Knox Associates, Manassas, VA. Visit: www.FirearmsCoalition.org

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The Power of One Gun Voter
By Jeff Knox

FirearmsCoalition.org

Clarksville, TN --(Ammoland.com)- What can I do? I’m just one person.

I don’t know anything about campaigning and I don’t have much money.

How can I impact an election in which thousands – or millions are going to be voting?

I hear that a lot and the simple answer is: Pick your candidate and then do your very best to make sure that everyone you know, and everyone you meet, knows why you have picked that candidate.

To further illustrate exactly how much influence one person can have I’d like to present a real-life, fictional story.

I have a good friend by the name of Jim Tomes who is running for a seat in the Indiana State Senate. Jim is a modest, common sense, working class guy who works hard for the things he believes in and who gets things done. He is in a very tough campaign against a woman who is better known, better connected, better educated, and much better funded. Jim’s greatest asset in the campaign, besides his devoted wife and work-mate Margie, is his wide network of friends who are actively supporting him.

That is the real-life part of the story. For the fictional part I am going to create a character – a Jim Tomes supporter – and tell about some of the things he did to swing the election to Jim. My fictional character’s name is Larry. Larry is a short-haul truck driver, a registered Democrat, and a member of the Teamsters Union. Larry met Jim and Margie through a group they have run for several years called the Second Amendment Patriots. Larry wanted to help Jim in his campaign, but he doesn’t have much money to spare so all he has to offer is his time and energy – which Jim gratefully accepts.

Larry figures that he can help a little by recruiting friends and getting them to recruit friends the way they do in network marketing. He started by talking with his wife and putting a “Jim Tomes for Senate” sign in his front yard. Then he put signs in the yards of his two daughters and his son and elicited promises from each to vote for Jim. He also asked them to ask their friends to vote for Jim and spread the word. Then he enlisted several of his buddies to help him put up signs. They and their families became committed Jim Tomes supporters. Jim’s commitment to the Constitution and the Second Amendment was what really sealed the deal for them.

Every day Larry made it a point to talk with folks at work. He told them what a good guy Jim is and how much he respects him and he asked each person he spoke with to please vote for Jim Tomes. Then he asked if Jim could count on them to vote for him and to ask others to do the same. Larry was amazed by how easy it was to get people to agree. He knew that many wouldn’t follow through on the commitment, but he was sure that a lot would.

Larry expanded his reach by writing a very brief letter to the editor of the local paper. In it he told a little about himself, that he was a registered Democrat and Teamster, and that he was voting for Jim Tomes because he knew him personally, knew what Jim believed in, and knew Jim would be a great Senator for the people of his district and all of Indiana. As in his verbal pitch, he asked people to vote for Jim and to encourage their friends and family to vote for him too.

In just one week Larry spoke face-to-face with nearly 100 people and got voting commitments from at least 75 of them. He didn’t argue with anyone, but asked everyone to keep an open mind and really look at the two candidates. The paper published his letter and he and his buddies put up nearly 100 yard-signs and turned 3 of their trucks into rolling billboards. Meanwhile Larry’s wife was emailing and calling her friends too, as were his kids, and his daughter printed a bunch of small signs for store and car windows which she and her siblings were actively spreading around town. The family called it their “Vote Jim – Tell a Friend” campaign.

By Election Day several thousand people who had been touched by Larry’s efforts cast votes for Jim – many just on a vague notion that they had heard he was a good guy – and those votes resulted in a slim victory.

In this work of fiction, Larry, just one guy who didn’t know much about politics or campaigning, but who wanted to help a good candidate get elected, actually swung the election. Everyone has the power to influence – if they care enough to try. But this is a work of fiction. The election hasn’t happened yet and Larry might still be sitting in front of the TV convinced that he can’t really do anything that can actually help.

Politics is personal and personal politics is the most powerful. If you believe in a candidate, the most important thing you can do is tell someone – tell everyone – and ask them to do two things:

About:
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement. The Firearms Coalition is a project of Neal Knox Associates, Manassas, VA. Visit: www.FirearmsCoalition.org

Filed under: Gun Rights News by Ammoland No Comments »