Obama's Illegal ATF Assault
As Americans have ruefully discovered, the Obama regime never met a law it didn't hold in contempt. So it is with the BATFE's stealth scheme to illegally track the firearm purchases of law-abiding citizens without the consent and authorization of Congress.
Welcome to Obamaland. Under the guise of "emergency authority," the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) has proposed that it be allowed to surveil American firearms dealers and firearms purchasers in excess of the legal limits imposed under existing national firearms laws.
Specifically, the proposed action is as follows: For six months, beginning January 5, 2011, the BATFE will to require some 8,500 firearms dealers along the border with Mexico "to alert authorities when they sell within five consecutive business days two or more semi-automatic rifles greater than .22 caliber with detachable magazines." In effect, the regulation will require gun dealers to report directly to the BATFE the names, addresses, and firearms serial numbers for every purchase of two or more long guns within a five day period (already exists for hand guns).
Right about now, those of you with little regard for the Constitution or individual liberty are saying, "What's the big deal?" Those of you who cherish constitutional law are outraged. For those outraged, please read on. You others should visit with a kindred spirit.
Bogus problem
There is no law that prevents dealers from reporting suspicious transactions (or attempted transactions) to the BATFE; In reality, dealers often do so. Further, the BATFE is already authorized to inspect dealers' sales records, either through annual compliance inspections or during a criminal investigation. They may also legally perform unscheduled, on-premise inspections as frequently as they deem necessary.
So why this "emergency" to burden gun dealers and infringe upon the privacy of our citizens? In a word, Mexico. At least Mexico is the regime's excuse.
Our southern neighbor is under siege by drug cartels. Mexico's federal government is losing control of its northern districts, where kidnappings, assassination of officials, police bribery, and mass murder are rampant. The Obama regime and its anti-gun allies use anecdotal and manipulated statistics to disingenuously blame lawful American firearms retailers for supplying Mexican drug gangs with the bulk of their weaponry. Yet the regime correctly attributes unlawful American drug traffickers and users for supplying the cartels with billions in operating funds.
The first issue is false, the second true but the Obama regime cannot stop the tidal flow of drugs or their use in America. It is therefore easier, politically convenient, and more in line with the regime's anti-gun ideology to repress the liberties and lawful enterprises of Americans.
Bogus statistics
According to an analysis by the NRA, a draft report prepared by the Justice Department Inspector General last September called into question the BATFE's mega-million-dollar Project Gunrunner program. Established in 2007, the program sought to expand the agency's firearm tracing operation, relative to the still uncertain amount of smuggling of firearms from the United States to Mexico. This week, the report appeared in final form. The final report notes that:
"...Despite Project Gunrunner's lavish funding, the program suffers because the BATFE fails to coordinate with its own people, with those of the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, and with Mexican officials. There is no routine sharing of firearms trafficking-related information and techniques between BATFE intelligence personnel in Southwest border locations and in the ATF Mexico Country Office. ATF and ICE do not work together effectively on investigations of firearms trafficking to Mexico. ATF does not systematically and consistently exchange intelligence with its Mexican and U.S. partner agencies."
This same report noted that Mexican law enforcement officials view gun tracing as merely a tool that BATFE uses to further its own investigations. The Mexican officials did not see the long-term benefits of gun tracing in reducing the flow of illegal guns to Mexico.
Bogus politics
As the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) details, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has joined Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon, as a card-carrying member of the "Blame America First Club" - perverting the traditional economic model known as "supply and demand" - to fault the United States for supposedly "supplying" guns to law-breakers who smuggle the guns to Mexico, and for "demanding" the drugs that the Mexican cartels smuggle into our country.
This past May and to enthusiastic applause by a joint meeting of the Democrat Congress, many of whom are currently clearing their Capitol Hill offices, a straight-faced Calderon stated that the drug-smuggling problem's "origin is the high demand for drugs here and in other places. However, there is one issue where Mexico needs your cooperation, and that is stopping the flow of assault weapons and other deadly arms across the border."
The ILA added that since Calderon's hypocrisy got a free pass from the nation's anti-Second Amendment media, Hillary Clinton felt it safe to join in last month. During remarks to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Clinton said, "the United States shares the responsibility for the violence that is plaguing Mexico. Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs. Our unwillingness to crack down on thousands and thousands of weapons being trafficked across our border into Mexico."
There is no other way to say it. Excepting America's drug demand, none of this is true.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) opposes this proposal because it further burdens America's law-abiding firearms retailers with yet another onerous regulation that will do nothing to curb crime. Multiple sales reporting of long guns will actually make it more difficult for licensed retailers to help law enforcement as traffickers modify their illegal schemes to circumvent the reporting requirement, thereby driving traffickers further underground.
Bogus legality
Multiple sales reporting for long guns is an ill-considered mandate and one that the BATFE does not have the legal authority to unilaterally impose. In fact, BATFE has not specified under what legal authority it presumes to act. The decision as to whether it can move forward with this agenda-driven mandate will be left to Cass Sunstein, the nefarious head of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).
This is the same Cass Sunstein who in a 2007 speech at Harvard University said, "We ought to ban hunting, if there isn't a purpose other than sport and fun. That should be against the law. It's time now."
You don't have to be a gun owner to value individual liberty and the constitutional rule of law. Heed the NRA's warning: The threat of increased gun control originated by Executive Department bureaucrats, without Congress' participation, reminds us that increasing the pro-Second Amendment majority in the House and Senate earlier this month must be followed by not only expanding that increase in 2012, but by, at the same time, electing a president whose nominations and appointments to key Administration posts will underscore his own commitment to protect the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
America Held Hostage: 759 Days to Freedom.