Exclusive: ATF Intimidates Gun Owners With Home Visits

[middlefinger]

Federal agency attempts to make firearms retailers spy on their customers under new illegal directive

Friday, July 29, 2011
Exclusive: ATF Intimidates Gun Owners With Home Visits 090519 gunstore ap 297

Even as it finds itself embroiled in a scandal that saw weapons being deliberately sent to criminal gangs in Mexico, the ATF has issued a letter ordering firearms dealers in border states to report sales of two or more semi-automatic rifles, and is following it up by harassing gun owners with intimidating home visits as well as threatening gun dealers to spy on their customers.

As the Justice Department announced earlier this month, “All gun shops in four Southwest border states (Texas, California, Arizona and New Mexico) will be required to alert the federal government to frequent buyers of high-powered rifles.”

However, what the media failed to report at the time was the most shocking part of the ATF letter, which orders gun dealers to also report to the feds sales of “two or more pistols or revolvers, or any combination of pistols or revolvers totaling two or more.”

The ATF letter, which was subsequently sent out to gun dealers and has since entered the public domain, orders firearms retailers to “Submit to ATF reports of multiple sales or other dispositions whenever, at one time or during any five consecutive business days, you sell to an unlicensed person or otherwise dispose of two or more semi-automatic rifles capable of accepting a detachable magazine and with a caliber greater than .22 (including .223/5.56 caliber).” The directive takes effect from August 14, 2011.

However, what the federal agency isn’t keen to make public is how its agents are using these reports to make threatening home visits to firearms owners, while ordering gun store owners to become de facto informants by telling them to spy on their customers.

According to several gun dealers in Austin as well as one of our own staff members, the ATF is visiting people’s homes, demanding to be allowed inside without a warrant, and implying that gun owners could be terrorists for purchasing two or more firearms at a time.

This is all based on a directive from the federal government that is completely outside of the law and unconstitutional.

The law that would have required gun dealers in border states to report sales of two or more semi-automatic rifles to the ATF was “stripped entirely from the text of the regulation” when it came up for a vote in Congress on April 15, but as part of the Obama administration’s dictatorial zeal to accomplish its agenda outside of the law, the program is going ahead anyway.

The federal government is enforcing a law that was never passed.

Read the letter the ATF is sending out to gun stores below (click to enlarge).

Exclusive: ATF Intimidates Gun Owners With Home Visits 29ATFs1 Exclusive: ATF Intimidates Gun Owners With Home Visits 29ATFs2

Americans who purchase guns are already forced to undergo checks against the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System to prove they are not a criminal.

The ATF’s new unconstitutional directive only adds an extra layer of bureaucracy, putting a further squeeze on second amendment rights while creating a logistical nightmare for firearms retailers.

The letter orders retailers to report each sale of two or more weapons before the end of the same business day, requiring them to fill in a form for each sale that takes over 10 minutes to complete.

This extra burden will create hundreds of extra necessary man hours for every gun store per year, and could even put the smaller ones out of business.

The ATF’s intimidation campaign directed against firearms dealers and gun owners is all unfolding while the organization simultaneously comes under scrutiny for the infamous Operation Fast and Furious, a BATF program that. “Sanctioned the purchase of weapons in U.S. gun shops and tracked the smuggling route to the Mexican border. Reportedly, more than 2,500 firearms were sold to straw buyers who then handed off the weapons to gunrunners under the nose of ATF.” Some of the weapons were later used to kill US Border Patrol agents like Brian Terry.

After being caught sending weapons to Mexican criminals that were used to kill U.S. Border Patrol agents, police and citizens, the ATF is now treating American citizens like criminals simply for exercising their second amendment rights, all under the guise of a regulation that was rejected by Congress and never became law.


The Obama administration and the ATF claim that the Fast and Furious program was part of a sting operation to catch leading Mexican drug runners, and yet it’s admitted that the government stopped tracking the firearms as soon as they reached the border, defeating the entire object of the mission, unless the mission was about pushing through gun control in the US and had nothing to do with the drug war.

As the evidence clearly indicates, Operation Fast and Furious was likely a plot on behalf of the administration to discredit the second amendment. While the feds were selling guns to Mexican drug gangs, Obama was simultaneously blaming drug violence on the flow of guns from border states to Mexico.

The ATF’s efforts to intimidate both gun sellers and purchasers also arrives months after President Obama told gun control advocate Sarah Brady that his administration was working “under the radar” to sneak attack the second amendment.

During a March 30 meeting between Jim and Sarah Brady and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, at which Obama “dropped in,” the president reportedly told Brady, “I just want you to know that we are working on it (gun control)….We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.”

The quote appeared in an April 11 Washington Post story about Obama’s gun control czar Steve Croley.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/exclusiv...me-visits.html
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[The_War_Wagon]

Tell 'em to pound sand. MY guns have killed fewer cops than the BATmens' have.

[Capt Quahog]

Another brazen example of, "need to prove one's self innocent of a crime yet to be defined."

These safety Nazi criminal bastards have turned the essential American principle of "innocence until proven guilty" inside out.

This makes one more valid reason to buy and sell rifles in private citizen to citizen transactions and staying off the grid.

[gnbrotz]

However, what the media failed to report at the time was the most shocking part of the ATF letter, which orders gun dealers to also report to the feds sales of “two or more pistols or revolvers, or any combination of pistols or revolvers totaling two or more.”

How is long existing law "shocking"?

Morons.

[Saber]

wish I had money to by 2 or more guns at the same time

[FJRMarty]

I wonder if this another part of that doing stuff "...under the radar..." that Obama was talking about?

[son of the revolution]

How is long existing law "shocking"?

Morons.

What are you talking about Greg ? AFAIK the only reporting requirement prior to this was FIVE or more to the same person in a 5 day period. I'd say thats a pretty big difference. I've certainly bought two pistols at a time, as Im sure many people have, especially collectors and competitors.

[gnbrotz]

What are you talking about Greg ? AFAIK the only reporting requirement prior to this was FIVE or more to the same person in a 5 day period. I'd say thats a pretty big difference. I've certainly bought two pistols at a time, as Im sure many people have, especially collectors and competitors.

I believe this originally took effect in 1968 via the Gun Control Act. Emphasis below added by me.

18 U.S.C. § 923 (3)(a)
(3) (A) Each licensee shall prepare a report of multiple sales or other dispositions whenever the licensee sells or otherwise disposes of, at one time or during any five consecutive business days, two or more pistols, or revolvers, or any combination of pistols and revolvers totalling two or more, to an unlicensed person. The report shall be prepared on a form specified by the Attorney General and forwarded to the office specified thereon and to the department of State police or State law enforcement agency of the State or local law enforcement agency of the local jurisdiction in which the sale or other disposition took place, not later than the close of business on the day that the multiple saleor other disposition occurs.

Just because people aren't aware of the law, and aren't aware that the dealer is complying with this law on the back end does not mean it's not occurring. Form 3310.4 is for the dealer's use, so the customer would likely never see it or be aware of its completion unless they are aware of the law or the dealer happens to inform them of the requirement.

[Ten*K]

I'm sorry, but this whole exercise is bullshit, seeing as the fucks at ATF have been letting true criminals buy car loads of guns so that you and I can get rubber gloved with a warrantless search.

Fuck that, fuck them, where's the Tylenol?

[The_War_Wagon]

I'm sorry, but this whole exercise is bullshit, seeing as the fucks at ATF have been letting true criminals buy car loads of guns so that you and I can get rubber gloved with a warrantless search.

Fuck that, fuck them, where's the Tylenol?

You'll need something stronger...