The boys from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Explosives and really big fires have grown increasingly busy in recent weeks. If they’re not running down legitimate gun owners while fishing for straw purchasers, then they’re trying to intimidate people into surrendering forced reset triggers. Now they’re hitting the pavement hectoring people about (formerly legal) … Read more
The ATF’s jackbooted and illegal raid on Ares Armor has made headlines for days, but it doesn’t seem to have intimidated the National City, CA manufacturer one bit. Instead of bowing and scraping to the ATFE’s scofflaws with badges, they’re using the ATFE’s notoriety to help them move some of their (remaining) inventory.
Because we’re a few months into 2014, the ATF has just released their annual “Annual Firearms Manufacturing And Export Report” for the calendar year…2012. It’s a year late and a dollar short, so we’re lucky that good news can (in this case) wait . . .
Call it some long-delayed house cleaning, now that the election is over and there’s no longer a political penalty to pay. I call it too little and far too late. Either way, the ATFE has reportedly fired, demoted or revoked the security clearances of several key F&F conspirators. The major news outlets have been quiet as a dormouse about this development, but Breitbart.com lays it all out:
In what appears to be a pre-emptive move to appeal to centrist and fiscally conservative voters this coming November, President Obama has proposed abolishing and/or merging five federal agencies and the Department of Commerce. The action is slated to save $3 billion over ten years, and reduce the federal payroll by 1,000 to 2,000 jobs.
Back in April of 2011, we reported on the donnybrook between some Oregon sheriffs and the Beaver State’s pistol-packing medical marijuana users. The sheriffs initially refused to issue CCW permits to medical marijuana licensees, on the grounds that bong-loading (medically sanctioned or not) violated the Gun Control Act of 1968.
We’ve heard plenty about the ‘seepage’ of arms from the Mexican army and police forces into criminal hands, but we’re not quite so used to it happening here at home. When twenty-six AK-74 rifles and one Dragunov sniper rifle went missing from a U.S. Army storage depot at Fort Irwin, California, however, Army officials knew just who to call: the ATFE.
Ah Spring. That time of year when a senior ATF agent’s thoughts turn to CYA. And so it is with little surprise that we report to you, gentle reader, that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (and sometimes Really Big Fires) summoned all the head cheeses to D.C. for a circle-the-wagons confab earlier this week. We can now report that what spooked the ATF spooks was a report that the Phoenix office Special Assistant Agent in Charge, George Gillett, is cooperating with Senator Charles Grassley’s investigation into Operation Fast and Furious. Or the Gunwalker Project. Or whatever they’re calling it this week inside the Beltway. (My guess would be “Operation Step in a Steaming Pile,” but that’s only a guess.)
While I write about guns here on TTAG, my main gig is as a marketing guy. As such, I have a little different perspective on a lot of news stories. I often-times see scandal-type stories through the prism of press releases, spin doctoring, and manufactured consent. And lemme tell ya, there’s two ways you can react when the excrement hits the rotating cooling device. The right way, and the wrong way. Care to guess which way the ATF chose?
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