Seen in latest Gun Week, 1 September issue

[alan]

According to a page 1 article in 1 September issue of Gun Week, DOJ's National Institute of Justice has issued a report that "poo-poo's" renewal of the assault weapons ban. Regarding the report's revelation that ATF "apparently overstated the use of these firearms, (the so-called assault weapons), during the 1980's and 1990's", could one take it that the NIJ describes ATF as LIARS? Seems that way, given that ATF had access to all sorts of data, as well as the facts of the matter. The title of the above mentioned report is An Updated Assessment of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban: Impacts on Gun Markets and Gun Violence, 1994-2003.

A page 3 article headlined ATF Letter Rulings Mystery, gets better or should I say worse. Given that ATF regulations and the above mentioned Letter Rulings have the force of law, the origin of these Letter Rulings and the basis for them are something that one assumes would prove interesting. Ms. Averill Graham, otherwise described as "team leader of the ATF Disclosure Division", whatever it might be that a so named division actually does, is quoted as offering, when asked about how these Letter Rulings were created replied, "They just make them up as they go along based upon current policy". Seems as if the basis for "current policy" was not stated.

Given that the article goes on at greater length, I suggest that readers obtain a copy for themselves, I do not have a scanner, so I can't post the text. Anyhow, respecting Ms. Graham's offering, assuming correct quoting, the level of bureaucratic arrogance implicit in the development of these Letter Rulings, and likely ATF regulations too, would likely transcend by a wide margin, the boundaries of the acceptable, compared with things that aren't remotely acceptable, other than in that proverbial police state. Have we really come to that, a Police State, a poorly operated one at that?

 

[Raccoon]

ATF is just a manifestation of a larger problem...

Actually, most states throughout history have tended towards a greater concentration of power in the hands of bureaucrats over time. This is an old story.
Our Congress has increasingly abdicated its responsibility to legislate and has (to many minds, unconstitutionally) given it over to the agencies under the deparments in the Executive Branch. The simplest solution would be for Congress to give the power it cannot effectively manage back to the elected state legislatures but the Federal government has never been big on observing the Tenth Amendment.
So yes, the gun control issue is especially implicated in this process of bureaucritization of lawmaking (and law enforcement for that matter) but it remains but one example.

The fact is that faceless bureaucrats can control just about every aspect of your life. Try opening a business and you'll see that you are subject to all kinds of laws that you're subject to all kinds of either very specific or at other times maddeningly vague requirements you'll never find in a statute book. And if these requirements are pernicious or even simply arbitrary there is seldom a single individual you can hold accountable.

I am not saying that regulatory agencies are useless or unnecessary. I am saying that they have intruded far too much into the legislative proccess (which should be the province of our elected representatives) and this has a corrosive effect on the rights of the people. Only special interest groups with lots of money and resources can navigate the regulatory proccess and have real input on the proccess.

It says a lot about the true nature of the gun lobby that the NRA seems to have little input into the rule making proccess at ATF. Maybe we should be likw the defense contractors and offer the rule-makers consultantships (which would be handsomely renumerated of course) as soon as they leave office. Naturally, we would expect the regulators to take the sort of actions that would "prove their expertise in handling firearms regulation."

The problem with this is that NRA members hate the ATF so much that few of them realize that most bureaucrats just want to be taken care of since government pensions aren't that great at least by the standards of the higher level decision makers. I know that the companies hawking their ballistic fingerprinting technology have not been above employing ATF regulators after they leave government service.

We need to return ATF to its proper role of enforcing laws related to alcohol, tobbacco and firearms and return the power to make those laws to Congress.

 

[mete]

Unfortunately the ATF has a long history of an agency that is out of control. You should also understand that government agencies are not usually run on facts - beaurocratic agendas of various types are a strong factor !