The symbiotic relationship. "The NRA did a quick 180, using its considerable lobbying weight to convince Congress to preserve ATF."

Since this link will not be accessible to everyone, I reproduce the article -- a rework of this article by favorite ATF press flack Dan Freedman -- in its entirety.

The ATF and the NRA: A shared history.

By Dan Freedman Hearst Washington Bureau

November 7, 2013

WASHINGTON — When ATF lobbyist Jim Pasco sought more agents and inspectors than Congress had authorized for his threadbare government employer, who did he call?

On several occasions, he took the bold step of negotiating directly with ATF's supposedly dreaded foe, the National Rifle Association.

Whether in congressional hallways, on the phone or over lunch, Pasco unabashedly laid it on the line with his NRA counterpart, Jim Baker.

“I'd say, 'I need 200 more agents, 100 more inspectors,'” said Pasco, who was ATF's assistant director in charge of public and congressional affairs between 1983 and 1995.

Pasco guaranteed the new hires would stick to chasing criminals with guns, not the gun owners and collectors who are the bulwark of the NRA's membership. After that, he said, Baker “would sign off.”

Baker, now the gun group's senior lobbyist, insisted that the NRA never had veto power over ATF budgets.

Those off-the-books negotiations two decades ago are emblematic of the troubled history of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — a federal law enforcement agency beset by constant resource struggles and forced into survival mode amid the ceaseless combat of gun politics.

ATF traces its roots to the Founding Fathers when Congress authorized a tax on spirits and directed the Treasury Department to collect it.

As an agent for the Treasury Department's Prohibition Unit in the early 1930s, Eliot Ness and his “Untouchables” busted up stills and wreaked havoc on Al Capone's legendary Chicago bootlegging operation.

The gangster era brought forth the first gun-control law, the National Firearms Act of 1934, which required registration and steep tax payments for machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and other weapons favored by mobsters.

In 1968, with urban violence escalating and the nation reeling over the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., Congress approved the Gun Control Act, which ushered in the modern apparatus of firearms-seller licensing and record-keeping, and a ban on sales to felons and mental “defectives.''

But ATF enforcement of these laws drew strident opposition from a nascent gun-rights movement. ATF agents were in the cross hairs of gun-rights activists for arresting firearms licensees on felony charges related to poor record-keeping, and for allegedly harassing gun owners with no criminal backgrounds for selling weapons without federal licenses.

When the ATF proposed funding for computerization and other measures to speed up gun tracing, the NRA and its allies on Capitol Hill struck. They accused ATF of secretly building a national gun registry, which Neal Knox, the NRA's chief lobbyist, saw as a precursor to firearms confiscation.

The NRA's “be careful what you wish for” moment came in the early 1980s. President Ronald Reagan, who promised in his campaign to abolish ATF if elected, zeroed out the bureau in his first budget. Reagan had the power to close ATF but not to abrogate the gun laws it enforced. The White House stated firearms enforcement would be delegated to the Secret Service. The NRA did a quick 180, using its considerable lobbying weight to convince Congress to preserve ATF.

The NRA ultimately got much of what it wanted in the 1986 Firearms Owners Protection Act (FOPA, nicknamed “Faux Pas'' by its opponents). The new law eased rules so individuals could sell weapons from private collections without possessing a federal firearms license. That opened what came to be known as the “gun-show loophole.”

The near-death of ATF and its rescue at NRA's behest put in place the dynamic that has governed the bureau since: growth in areas the NRA does not view as inimical to gun rights, and less growth in areas it views as threatening

.

The number of personnel involved in firearms dealer inspections has essentially remained stationary for decades, while the number of licensees peaked at 284,000 in 1993, dropped to 103,000 in 2000, and is now on the way back up, at a current level of 137,000.

The 1990s proved to be ATF's pivotal best-of-times, worst-of-times decade. The 1993 Waco confrontation re-energized the NRA against ATF, even though four ATF agents died in the initial confrontation with heavily armed religious zealot David Koresh.

And although the 1992 confrontation with Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge and the 1993 fire that consumed the Koresh compound outside Waco proved to be disasters for the FBI, it was ATF that bore the brunt of gun-rights vitriol.

By the mid-1990s, “the lack of funding had put them in pretty bad condition,” said former Rep. Jim Lightfoot, R-Iowa, a lifelong NRA member and chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversaw ATF.

With John Magaw, former head of the Secret Service who became ATF director in 1993 after the Waco debacle, Lightfoot and others in ATF and on Capitol Hill steered the bureau toward greater involvement in combating violent gun crime, backing up state and local police.

ATF's current strategy, targeting gun criminals through “intelligence-driven” investigative techniques, is only the latest iteration of previous initiatives, said Michael Bouchard, former ATF assistant director for field operations.

The strategies had the ancillary benefit of not offending the NRA.

While ATF still investigates gun dealers and owners when necessary, the retreat from these cases has come at a cost. ATF reticence on revoking the licenses of firearms dealers who supply criminals is partly a matter of ATF not having the resources or legal authority to do regular gun-store inspections.

But it also reflects ATF's penchant for conflict avoidance, said Jon Lowy, a lawyer at the Brady Center for Prevention of Gun Violence.

“The gun lobby has scared ATF,” he said. “That's not a resource question and it's not even a question of law. It's a cultural problem.”

I'm a bit busy at the moment with other projects, so if any of you would like to challenge Freedman on his facts or logic -- remember, no threats -- you may email him at dan@hearstdc.com.