Bombshell: DOJ Considering Elimination of ATF

joeendris

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Always watch the other hand. It's just a diversion. I'm positive another division would be created in an existing bureau or, even worse, a whole new office would be formed to take it's place. It's not a move to make government smaller which would be my only reason to get excited about it.
 
Always watch the other hand. It's just a diversion. I'm positive another division would be created in an existing bureau or, even worse, a whole new office would be formed to take it's place. It's not a move to make government smaller which would be my only reason to get excited about it.

Ding
Ding
Ding
 
The need for this agency has always confused me.

Alcohol: People have been making and consuming alcohol for all of recorded history, and probably before. All of the enforcement efforts that I've seen ATF conduct have been more about tax collection than anything else. Simple revenue enhancement. In no way have the alcohol regulations done anything to improve public safety or quality of life.

Tobacco: See above.

Firearms: Well, I guess this does have a purpose. Unfortunately, that purpose seems to be more about abridging civil rights. In fact, with Fast & Furious/Gunwalker, it seems to do more damage to public safety than anything else.

Do I wish ATF would go away or become a chain of convenience stores? Yes. Do I think it will happen? No. It's actions are paraded out as a vital part of "Homeland Security." (I hate that name. It sounds just like something out of Orwell's 1984. [frown]) I'll keep my fingers crossed, but I won't hold my breath.
 
I hate the ATF, but they are pretty much incompetent. And they aren't particularly politically powerful in DC. That's exactly what I would want for an alphabet soup .gov org whose name should be the name of a convenience store. Their replacement could be worse.
 
Yeah, the atf will be replaced by a UN oversight commitee reporting directly to supreme overlord obama.

Devil you know > Devil you don't

I say eliminate both devils, unfortunately I can't see people in washington voluntarily giving up power.
 
The need for this agency has always confused me.

Alcohol: People have been making and consuming alcohol for all of recorded history, and probably before. All of the enforcement efforts that I've seen ATF conduct have been more about tax collection than anything else. Simple revenue enhancement. In no way have the alcohol regulations done anything to improve public safety or quality of life.

Tobacco: See above.

Firearms: Well, I guess this does have a purpose. Unfortunately, that purpose seems to be more about abridging civil rights. In fact, with Fast & Furious/Gunwalker, it seems to do more damage to public safety than anything else.

Do I wish ATF would go away or become a chain of convenience stores? Yes. Do I think it will happen? No. It's actions are paraded out as a vital part of "Homeland Security." (I hate that name. It sounds just like something out of Orwell's 1984. [frown]) I'll keep my fingers crossed, but I won't hold my breath.

Actually, the ATF has traditionally been a tax collection agency. It was only a few years ago that they changed from being a part of the Treasury Dept. to part of the DOJ.
 
Actually, the ATF has traditionally been a tax collection agency. It was only a few years ago that they changed from being a part of the Treasury Dept. to part of the DOJ.

True. They were transferred to DOJ after the 911 attacks. Ironically enough, their taxation duties were transferred to a new agency, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), which remained under Treasury. This makes me wonder exactly what benefit they are to the country as they are currently constructed. It was bad enough when their primary activity was collecting taxes, let alone giving them increased police powers. Now they seem to be looking for targets so they can justify their existence and funding, which leads to their recent acts of stupidity. I consider them a solution in search of a problem. They could be part of the Ministry of Silly Walks for all the good they do.
 
Always watch the other hand. It's just a diversion. I'm positive another division would be created in an existing bureau or, even worse, a whole new office would be formed to take it's place. It's not a move to make government smaller which would be my only reason to get excited about it.
'

I often ask with this kind of news "who needed a distraction?"

Unfortunately I agree.

"The Department of Homegun Security...."
 
I know they are notorious for relocating the workers involved with this case to other positions. Hopefully some get sent to the NFA branch so my paperwork gets processed faster lol.

.gov + atf = fail
 
There's an old joke that the "BATF" agents would complain that their raid jackets weren't cool enough because they weren't a TLA, had to use a smaller font to fit 4 letters on the jacket. So they'd bitch and moan, and would try to get everybody to call them "ATF" instead.

Eventually this complaint makes it up to the head of Treasury, and he decides to do something about it, and he thinks "Hey, they deal with Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, but they also handle arson and bombs", so he officially adds "Explosives" and changes the agencies name to "BATFE".
 
If they would eliminate the ATF's duties as well as the entity itself, then I'd get excited. There's nothing they do that is in fitting with the spirit of liberty.
 
LA Times article today
The term "gun walking" is central to the failure of Fast and Furious. Agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives purposely allowed licensed firearms dealers to sell weapons to illegal straw buyers, hoping to track the guns to Mexican drug cartel leaders and arrest them. But they lost track of more than 2,000 weapons, and the Mexican government says some of them have turned up at about 170 crime scenes there. Two were recovered at the scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent's slaying in Arizona in December.

Article from last year:
The Obama administration will seek to reinstate the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 during the Bush administration, Attorney General Eric Holder said today.

"As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons," Holder told reporters.

Holder said that putting the ban back in place would not only be a positive move by the United States, it would help cut down on the flow of guns going across the border into Mexico, which is struggling with heavy violence among drug cartels along the border.

"Some recent Mexican army and police confrontations with drug cartels have resembled small-unit combat, with cartels employing automatic weapons and grenades," the warning said. "Large firefights have taken place in many towns and cities across Mexico, but most recently in northern Mexico, including Tijuana, Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juarez."

From LA Times today
But congressional investigators said the memos suggested Holder had hedged what he knew.
According to the emails, Holder was told generally about Fast and Furious in the memos in July, October and November 2010, well before he told congressional committees he had first learned of the program.
 
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