Tag: ATF

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crime and punishment local leaders Second Amendment rights

A Constitutional Sheriff

ATF, guns, Sheriff, 2nd Amendment

For residents of Klickitat County, Washington, it’s an easy two-​step process. 

Well, optimally, one step. Two only if necessary.

County Sheriff Bob Songer tells gun-​owning constituents that if agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives come to their door wanting to inspect their guns but have no warrant, they should tell the agents to go away.

ATF agents have started to make “surprise home visits of persons who have purchased two or more firearms at one time.” The sheriff was alerted by video of such a visit to a home in Delaware.

Republican Congressman Matt Rosendale of Montana has called for an investigation into the intimidatory practice.

Although Sheriff Songer knows of no such incidents yet occurring in the Evergreen State, he wants his county to be prepared. So he also provides a second step: if the agents don’t leave when asked, the resident should call Songer. He will then “make contact with the agents. If they still refuse to leave, I will personally arrest the ATF agents for Criminal Trespass and book them into the Klickitat County Jail.”

All other sheriffs, please make the same announcement.

Songer belongs to the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association and regards protecting the constitutional rights of his constituents as part of the job.

When it comes to respect for the Constitution, there really shouldn’t be more than one type of sheriff. But if there are going to be more than one, “constitutional sheriff” is the type you want to be.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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too much government

ATF Misfire

A machine gun is like obscenity: We can’t define what it is, but everyone says they know it when they see it.

Well, that appears to be the case with the agency of the federal government formerly called the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, anyway. According to a statement issued yesterday by the Gun Owners of America (GOA), “The Bureau has never published a manual detailing how they determine what is, or is not, a machine gun.”

If your main reason for existence is controlling weaponry like machine guns, shouldn’t the criteria for determining what a machine gun is be publicly known?

But the reason for the bureau itself is a bit iffy. Known (un)popularly as the “ATF,” it’s been in operation (in one form or another) since 1886. Ronald Reagan infamously dubbed it a rogue agency. Since then, the ATF has slogged through multiple scandals, and a major umbrella department change, moving from Treasury to Justice. And that iffiness has been exacerbated by recent investigations by the House Oversight Committee.

Indeed, in part based on the results of those investigations, the GOA now advocates getting rid of the agency— you can read the details in yesterday’s communiqué.

The group has a point. Recent ATF activity includes another of its weird attempts at entrapment, which ended up supplying a huge amount of guns to the Mexican drug cartels.

Another federal agency doing the opposite of its mission? 

Not unheard of. Call it a typical misfire.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.