Sipsey Street Irregulars: "Where did ATF common sense go?" Maybe we can get these guys to testify at the oversight hearings.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

"Where did ATF common sense go?" Maybe we can get these guys to testify at the oversight hearings.

Confession is good for the soul, right?

As much as I hate to admit it, I don't hate ATF..... But, I hate some of ATF's policies and decisions, and I hate some of the attitudes and arrogance.

Actually, I admire those good agents who have put your life on the line to put away really bad guys - and to those agents, I salute you. I stand beside you. I'd be proud to buy a round - and drink with you. And to those of you on this forum - who are standing up to be counted..... Damn, you make us proud.

But, do I admire the Firearms Technology Folks who rule that a piece of string is a machine gun? Or a muzzle break that reduces muzzle blast by 1db is considered a silencer? Or who manipulate ammo so a semi-auto AR-15 will double or triple? - and then put a man in prison because he sold it?

Do I admire the ATF employees who testify that the NFRTR is 100% accurate knowing fully well that it's riddled with errors?

Do I admire the Inspectors who have a chip on their shoulder, and announce they're here to shut you down? Or allow a 'bound book' practice on one inspection, then write it as a violation on the next? Most dealers aren't criminals and don't want criminals to have guns. Hell, the criminals will use the guns to rob us, or invade our homes. Why would we want that? And, what about the Inspectors who require an ordinary gunsmith to be licensed as a manufacturer - even though he manufactures nothing?

Do I admire ATF supervisors who abuse or slight their employees? Or any of the other unfair and unjust practices explained on this forum?

Do I admire those managers who lie to the American People? That 90% of the guns seized in Mexico come from the United States? Then manipulate the data (and the investigations) to prove it? (Does Gunwalker come to mind?) The eTrace System that gives our personal data to corrupt Mexican (or Columbian or El Salvador, or U.S. for that matter)Cops? No matter how innocent we are? Or the de facto registration system that ATF is pushing - asking cops to trace every possible gun? Why is every traced gun (no matter how innocent) a 'crime gun'? Why is every dealer with a lot of traces, a 'criminal friendly" FFL? Even though he's the largest dealer in the state and fully cooperates with Enforcement?

Or what about the agents who pursue normally law-abiding citizens for technical violations when a kind word might solve the problem?

Where did ATF common sense go? Some of you still have it (and I'm grateful to you for that) - but I think the agency has lost it. It's clear that a lot of senior management either lost it or never had it. Maybe it's the lawyers?

To those of you with clear vision, keep up the good work. To the rest, I hope you can see the light.....

Ok, it's kinda rambling - but I hope it gets the point across?

I think I need a drink......

"Beckroge" responds:

Mr. Ike; I think that the American expression that is used says to 'call a spade a spade.' The problems at ATF are the result of senior managers not adhering to the mission of serving the public. You could also say that things are complicated by the fact that your legislators send neurotic laws for ATF to enforce that are crazy, silly, or so narrowly tailored as to remove the ability for interpretation in anything but a stupid way. That has allowed senior managers to rule over the public instead of serve the public. When the police get to write their own mission with no oversight bad things will happen. Your ATF has no top leader and your legislators wash their hands of any responsibility as soon as the cameras are turned off. Ich bin ein berliner!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: Well, the agenda is driven by somebody and that somebody, clearly can cause very bad things to happen to very good people, without accountability or consequences.

We have seen this many times before only now we see it's obvious intent. Fortunately it is an easy trace. You see, if someone does or causes to be done an evil act, acts or omissions of actions that should be taken, and do them consistently, thereby creating a pattern, that pattern can be followed and analyzed. It should be obvious by now that the same people keep popping up in the middle of these things and always on the wrong side.

If someone, or some organization, refuses to embrace a term, refuses to phrase their public speech in the same manner as their private speech, can be found making overtures and pilgrimages to the Soviet Union, China, Cuba and Venezuela, and yet wave the flag here at home, it should require consideration. Does that flag mean the same thing to them as it does to me and more importantly, the two members of my family who fought for this country and were awarded the CMH?

I'm now very certain that the answer is no and I'm left with a dilemma. If these people aren't loyal to this country and her form of government, to freedom and liberty and do all they can to subvert and damage her, to what or whom are they loyal? Those loyalties are easy to pin down because they cannot be hidden only cloaked.

They serve Marx, and their own personal power. It's a plain as the nose upon your face or mine but no one save the blogs, will report it.; March 14, 2011 at 4:47 AM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Sunday, March 13, 2011

"Where did ATF common sense go?" Maybe we can get these guys to testify at the oversight hearings.

1 comment:

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