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Dennis The Menace 
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Posted on: Dec. 20 2012, 5:04 pm |
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http://www.columbiatribune.com/news....hostage
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if you first punch someone and then that someone punches back and then you complain to
someone else that you were punched, then you're a silly fool
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Ben2World
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Posted on: Dec. 20 2012, 5:07 pm |
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How much are you really going to regulate if you are counting on lucrative director (or at least consultant) positions in the industry after your government stint? ATF is hardly unique. 
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The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page. -- St. Augustine
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Dennis The Menace
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Posted on: Dec. 20 2012, 5:32 pm |
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To my knowledge what is unique is a federal government agency being without a director for 6
years because a lobbying organization so wants to keep that government agency from having
any power to regulate the industry the lobbying organization represents.
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if you first punch someone and then that someone punches back and then you complain to
someone else that you were punched, then you're a silly fool
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Ben2World
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Posted on: Dec. 20 2012, 5:38 pm |
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Veering off a bit...
No system is perfect. Critical flaws in two systems that I generally cherish:
Capitalism - inability to price future costs.
Democracy - inability to prevent entrenchment of powerful special interests.
Of course, voter apathy and herd instincts don't help either.
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The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page. -- St. Augustine
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Dennis The Menace
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Posted on: Dec. 20 2012, 11:20 pm |
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No one is asking for a perfect system.
Pointing out that a director for the ATF hasn't been appointed in 6 years hardly implies that
the person pointed this out is demanding perfection.
if perfection is the goal then there would be no reason to pass any law.
Bottom line is there NO valid reason or excuse why the ATF STILL doesn't have a director.
This is just pathetic.
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if you first punch someone and then that someone punches back and then you complain to
someone else that you were punched, then you're a silly fool
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Ben2World
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Posted on: Dec. 20 2012, 11:28 pm |
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Dennis:
Did you read my first line -- "veering off a bit..."? I was just sharing my thoughts with you -- in very general terms.
Why do you always have to read 'everything' as some kind of counter arguement directed personally at you?
Makes it hard to carry on any conversation with you.
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The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page. -- St. Augustine
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Dennis The Menace
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Posted on: Dec. 20 2012, 11:37 pm |
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This is forum Ben
Expect responses and I could just as easily extrapolate from your responses and say something
like "Why do you always have to take offense" or something along those lines
I was too sharing my thoughts in this thread I started as it related to your most recent post
in this thread(up until this most recent one)
I don't see what the big deal is
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if you first punch someone and then that someone punches back and then you complain to
someone else that you were punched, then you're a silly fool
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Ben2World
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Posted on: Dec. 20 2012, 11:38 pm |
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I give up. Over.
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The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page. -- St. Augustine
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Dennis The Menace
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Posted on: Dec. 20 2012, 11:45 pm |
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LOL
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if you first punch someone and then that someone punches back and then you complain to
someone else that you were punched, then you're a silly fool
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kyle2193
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Posted on: Dec. 21 2012, 9:52 am |
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Their actions in the 1980s, Ruby Ridge, Waco, the Jay Dobyns mess, Fast and Furious, etc. Their track record speaks for them. Their budget has doubled since since 2000.
If they weren't so godawful at their job, I imagine they would have more support.
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If I cannot swear in heaven I shall not stay there.
-Mark Twain
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Dennis The Menace
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Posted on: Dec. 21 2012, 2:37 pm |
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Kyle
Aside from you putting F&F in with your other examples(there is conflicting information on
about ATF's role in F&F and what they did and didn't do depending on what source you look at)
this goes beyond lack of support. Its systematic effort at weakening the agency by special
interests that have vested financial interest in weakening it.Those special interests aren't
being motivated by what happened in F&F or Ruby Ridge. if Specicial interest groups like the
NRA were motivated by the ATF not doing their job well they certianly wouldn't lobby
"successfully to block all attempts to computerize records of gun sales, arguing against any
kind of national registry of firearms ownership.". Obviously what motivates special interest
groups like the NRA going after the ATF and trying to undermine isn't a desire to improve and
strengthen the ATF but to weaken it
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if you first punch someone and then that someone punches back and then you complain to
someone else that you were punched, then you're a silly fool
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Dennis The Menace
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Posted on: Dec. 21 2012, 2:42 pm |
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(Montecresto @ Dec. 21 2012, 9:28 am)
QUOTE
(Dennis The Menace @ Dec. 20 2012, 11:20 pm)
QUOTE No one is asking for a perfect system.
Pointing out that a director for the ATF hasn't been appointed in 6 years hardly implies that
the person pointed this out is demanding perfection.
if perfection is the goal then there would be no reason to pass any law.
Bottom line is there NO valid reason or excuse why the ATF STILL doesn't have a director.
This is just pathetic. You think the thousands of employees of ATF don't get up and go to work everyday, just because the directors not setting at his desk, planning his next golf game?
Is that the issue? Why do organizations bother to have directors? Gee under that mentality
why have a director of the CIA? Why have a Secretary of Defense? Why have a Secretary of
State? Are you really this mind boggling dense? Apparently you are.
Could it be that organizations are inherently based on leadership and without a true
director accountability and the means of improvement are reduced? You really think that
with a director and only an interim acting director for 6 years who works part time and who
juggles another job in Minnesota doesn't make a difference?
Besides its not just being without a director for 6 years and having a part-time interim
acting director who juggles the ATF job with another job in Minnesota but how the agencies
resources have been consistently been undermined and infilitrated by the gun industry
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if you first punch someone and then that someone punches back and then you complain to
someone else that you were punched, then you're a silly fool
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| Post Number: 14
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gunslinger
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Posted on: Dec. 22 2012, 5:56 am |
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(kyle2193 @ Dec. 21 2012, 9:52 am)
QUOTE Their actions in the 1980s, Ruby Ridge, Waco, the Jay Dobyns mess, Fast and Furious, etc. Their track record speaks for them. Their budget has doubled since since 2000.
If they weren't so godawful at their job, I imagine they would have more support.
Bingo
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For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
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BillBab
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Posted on: Dec. 22 2012, 10:31 am |
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There have been rumors for years that their functions would be absorbed by the FBI
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"Asking liberals where wages and prices come from is like asking six-year-olds where babies come from."
Thomas Sowell
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gunslinger
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Posted on: Dec. 22 2012, 10:38 am |
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Well, it appears the ATF is doing a fine job.......of sending guns to Mexico
http://news.yahoo.com/us-prob....08.html
This raises more questions.....
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-34....-mexico
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote a letter (PDF) to the Inspector General late today asking for an urgent investigation. Grassley included records from three of Gillett's gun purchases, so-called Form 4473's, and says that Gillett appears to have provided false information on them.
"Lying on a Form 4473 is a felony and can be punished by up to five years in prison," Grassley's letter states. The senator also points out that's the same alleged violation that suspects in ATF's Fast and Furious operation were arrested for. "Jaime Avila, Jr. recently plead guilty to a variety of charges" in Fast and Furious, including "for giving a false address on Form 4473."
Form 4473's require purchasers to list their current residential address. Gillett's gun purchase forms incorrectly list the local ATF Phoenix office and a shopping plaza as his personal residence, according to Grassley's letter.
This is the fox guarding the hen house isn't it?
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For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
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Dennis The Menace
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Posted on: Dec. 22 2012, 12:35 pm |
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Really, this is such an absurd argument. So let me get this straight. Those who are trying to
weaken and undermine the ATF are doing so because they feel the ATF has has been incompetent
because weakening and undermining the ATF will make the ATF more competent? Please.
Oh and anyone who thinks a Republican like Grassley is motivated by anything but politics is
obviously naive.
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if you first punch someone and then that someone punches back and then you complain to
someone else that you were punched, then you're a silly fool
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gunslinger
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Posted on: Dec. 23 2012, 9:56 am |
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Well, when the ATF is illegally selling firearms, and when a high ranking ATF agent lies on a form 4473 in order to purchase a pistol (a felony), and when the same ATF agents pistol shows up at the crime scene of a Mexican beauty queens murder......why shouldn't we be asking questions?
Seems the ATF might be above the law?
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For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
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Dennis The Menace
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Posted on: Dec. 23 2012, 1:35 pm |
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You just took(what you thought was) Chuck Grassley's word that an agent lied on his form 4473
as if Grassley has No political motive to accuse agent of lying. I say 'what you thought was'
because no where does Grassley say that agent lied. Even if he did that is no reason to
politicize all of this which Republicans and the right-wing are doing?
But more to the point what does this F&F red herring have to do with any reason to justify
weakening the ATF? So explain how weakening the ATF will improve the ATF?
Furthermore the idea that the NRA is motivated in going after the ATF because it cares about
what happens in Mexico or the F&F is preposterous. The NRA wants to weaken the ATF because
that is better for the Gun Manufactures bottom line of whom the NRA in the end represents
most of all.
Geez. I just can't get over the inanity of thinking the ATF is motivated to go after the ATF
because they supposedly want to help improve the ATF and the absurd idea that somehow
weakening the ATF would actually improve the ATF.
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if you first punch someone and then that someone punches back and then you complain to
someone else that you were punched, then you're a silly fool
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wwwest
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Posted on: Dec. 23 2012, 1:44 pm |
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Seems the ATF might be above the law?
Interesting that you bend over backward to defend all bad apples in state and local law enforcement, but attack a bad apple in the ATF with the greatest vigor.
Might it have anything to do with the NRA agenda and suppressing free speech regarding gun records and research to improve the safety of guns??
Check it out: Missing from NRA plan: Smart gun technology
http://www.computerworld.com/s....umber=2
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Land Rover
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Posted on: Dec. 23 2012, 2:21 pm |
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It's a telling story that the NRA wants to do nothing to prevent crazies getting hold of weapons but tries to do all it can to prevent the ATF from doing its job.
No really. They are good people.
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Land Rover
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Posted on: Dec. 23 2012, 6:45 pm |
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No one is all over anyone with guns. That's the problem. Not sure what world you are living in where they are? It certainly isn't America.
Gunslinger - a major initiative went wrong and our elected officials were "all over it". Democracy at work with accountability. You seem to live in a strange world where you are external to America and how it functions.
No one is holding the NRA accountable for anything, yet they appear to own a good chunk of the conservative backside. We all pay the price for that, especially the kids that died.
I guess years of buying into the narrative does that to a guy.
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Dennis The Menace
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Posted on: Dec. 26 2012, 10:45 pm |
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Ok some in this thread some have claimed or implied that the opposition to the ATF is because they
are incompetent rather than from the Gun lobby/NRA (and the politicians who do their bidding) who
have a vested financial interest in weakening the ATF as mind boggling absurd as that sounds.
Well we have information to show how stupid this narrative is
MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been without a permanent
director for six years, as President Obama recently noted. But even if someone were to be confirmed for
the job, the agency’s ability to thwart gun violence is hamstrung by legislative restrictions and by
loopholes in federal gun laws, many law enforcement officials and advocates of tighter gun regulations say.
For example, under current laws the bureau is prohibited from creating a federal registry of gun transactions.
So while detectives on television tap a serial number into a computer and instantly identify the buyer of
a firearm, the reality could not be more different.
When law enforcement officers recover a gun and serial number, workers at the bureau’s National Tracing
Center here — a windowless warehouse-style building on a narrow road outside town — begin making their way
through a series of phone calls, asking first the manufacturer, then the wholesaler and finally the dealer
to search their files to identify the buyer of the firearm.
About a third of the time, the process involves digging through records sent in by companies that have closed,
in many cases searching by hand through cardboard boxes filled with computer printouts, hand-scrawled index
cards or even water-stained sheets of paper.
In an age when data is often available with a few keystrokes, the A.T.F. is forced to follow this manual routine
because the idea of establishing a central database of gun transactions has been rejected by lawmakers in
Congress, who have sided with the National Rifle Association, which argues that such a database poses a threat
to the Second Amendment. In other countries, gun rights groups argue, governments have used gun registries to
confiscate the firearms of law-abiding citizens.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012....ll&_r=0
That above has NOTHING to do with with F&F ,Ruby Ridge,etc
This is another example of the NRA and its allies weakening the ATF that makes it more difficult to
do its job. Those that bitch about the ATF doing their job maybe should look at the NRA and the
politicians that do their bidding first.
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if you first punch someone and then that someone punches back and then you complain to
someone else that you were punched, then you're a silly fool
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gunslinger
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Posted on: Dec. 27 2012, 10:35 am |
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I think they should have a court order first.
The fact that they can make a phone call and find out is without judicial revue and is a warrant-less search.
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For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
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wwwest
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Posted on: Dec. 27 2012, 12:58 pm |
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Might want to take a look at what will be coming soon to your neighborhood, and will have a real effect on stopping mass killers!!
Big data might have stopped the massacres in Newtown, Aurora, and Oak Creek. But it didn't, because there is no national database of gun owners, and no national record-keeping of firearm and ammunition purchases. Most states don't even require a license to buy or keep a gun.
That's a tragedy, because combining simple math and the power of crowds could give us the tools we need to red flag potential killers even without new restrictions on the guns anyone can buy. Privacy advocates may hate the idea, but an open national database of ammunition and gun purchases may be what America needs if we're ever going to get our mass shooting problem under control.
...............
After all, flying on a plane, buying cold medicine, and using your cell phone are much more common (so more people are tracked) than purchasing a weapon, and much less dangerous. To keep us safe, our government has decided they need the brightest mathematical minds to analyze records on the former and not the latter.
Imagine if that were to change. Armed only with data, we could begin to see the patterns between guns and ammunition purchases and violence, and to flag those people most at risk of killing dozens of their neighbors.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politic....3
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KenV
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Posted on: Jan. 02 2013, 11:13 am |
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Hmmmm.
The ATF does NOT, as claimed repeatedly, "regulate" the gun industry.
From the ATF website:
A unique law enforcement agency in the United States Department of Justice that protects our communities from violent criminals, criminal organizations, the illegal use and trafficking of firearms, the illegal use and storage of explosives, acts of arson and bombings, acts of terrorism, and the illegal diversion of alcohol and tobacco products. We partner with communities, industries, law enforcement, and public safety agencies to safeguard the public we serve through information sharing, training, research, and use of technology.
There's NOTHING there about regulating anything, especially an entire manufacturing industry.
Indeed I have to wonder if a law enforcement agency CAN "regulate" any industry.
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Dennis The Menace
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Posted on: Jan. 02 2013, 6:40 pm |
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Definition of regulating
1: a : to govern or direct according to rule
b : to bring under the control of law or constituted authority (2) : to make regulations
for or concerning <regulate the industries of a country>
2:to bring order, method, or uniformity to <regulate one's habits>
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/regulating \
The point is that the above definition is very consistent with what Kenv quoted
ATF in fact has an entire page just on regulations
http://www.atf.gov/regulations-rulings/
The original article in fact says
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a division of the Justice
Department, is supposed to regulate the nation's gun industry. But many within ATF
say it is the industry that dominates the agency.
Of course government agencies can regulate industries. My gaad that is good chunk(probably
the most important part) of most government agencies(EPA, FDA, etc..)
Of course how well government agencies can regulate, especially when they are being infiltrated
by those in the very industries they are supposed to regulate, is entirely different matter.
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if you first punch someone and then that someone punches back and then you complain to
someone else that you were punched, then you're a silly fool
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