Posted on 07/12/2011 8:30:58 AM PDT by markomalley
The National Rifle Association plans to sue the Obama administration over its new gun-reporting requirement in four states bordering Mexico.
On Monday, the Justice Department said it would require firearms dealers in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas to report multiple sales of certain semi-automatic rifles to the same person within a five-day period. The goal is to stop the illegal flow of weapons to Mexican drug cartels, said Deputy Attorney General James Cole.
The new reporting requirement applies to semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines and calibers greater than .22. Such weapons, Cole said, "are highly sought after by dangerous drug trafficiking organizations and frequently recovered at violent crime scenes near the Southwest Border."
NRA Executive Director Chris Cox called the reporting requirement "a blatant effort by the Obama administration and ATF to divert focus of Congress and the general public from their gross incompetence in the Fast and Furious scandal."
As CNSNews.com has reported, a House committee is investigating the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for its botched gun-tracking operation in which the ATF -- evidently with the approval of Justice Department higher-ups -- allowed straw purchasers in the U.S. to send guns to Mexican criminals. Two of the guns sold as part of Operation Fast and Furious ended up at the Arizona crime scene where a U.S. Border Patrol agent was murdered in December.
Although ATF's goal was to track the guns, Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, said tracking devices were put on guns in only two instances.
Most of the tracking involved "a few hours of following the first car," Issa told Fox News. "In one case, he said, the ATF did track the guns with a GPS device "quite a ways into Mexico, but of course, they didn't inform the Mexican officials, and they didn't have a team on the other side of the border" to follow the signal, which "simply disappeared."
The NRA said the Justice Department's "scheme" will "unjustly burden law-abiding retailers in border states." Cox said the move will not affect drug cartels -- which are not deterred by paperwork violations -- and it won't prevent violence along the border.
"ATF and the Administration lack the statutory authority to do this, and the NRA will file suit as soon as ATF sends the first demand letters," Cox said in a statement posted on the NRA's Web site.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) called the Justice Department's new reporting requirement "the height of hypocrisy," given that the administration "knowingly and intentionally allowed guns to be trafficked into Mexico."
"Limiting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens is not going to solve the problem," the Associated Press quoted Smith as saying.
That's almost always the kind of flaw that gets you sent to federal prison.
From your keyboard to God's ears.
The blackout and cover up loses ground.
Not a shred of credibility left. None.
There is absolutely nothing left to salvage, this criminal enterprise administration has got to go. At a minimum the donks have destroyed themselves for a generation. Quite possibly it is permanent.
.
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” - DOI, 1776
Ah yes, another example of a government screw up - Gunwalker - Fast and Furious - ATF ought to be ashamed of themselves but alas, instead, they punish the citizens of this country.
Sue the communists Administration is a lost cause.
Gunwalker backfired, so they'll try to show how 'extreme' the NRA is through the press in this way.
The whole objective of “GunRunner” was to set the stage for this very action. Actually, it was to get legislative action, but that has failed, so the Socialist Dictator has decided to see how far he can bend and shred the Constitution before the hammer falls.
You got the folks who run the Washington Post, NYT and LATimes sweating in their boots for fear one or more of their reporters are found to have concocted some of that propaganda last year on behalf of ATF and other government agencies that were then sending guns to Mexican narcotrafficantes.
I bet the support doesn't go further than a couple of talking heads at ABC.
Gee, I’ll bet the NRA’s good buddy, Hairy Reed, will back them a 1000%/sarc.
Beat me to it.
RIHBO!
Oh, yeah. Say the administration loses the lawsuit. Does it then honor the court ruling, or does it do what it damn-well pleases?
Hmmmmm... let me guess...
I am a dealer..I am fed up with the ATF and suggest someone provide the fore-mat, for anyone to sue the ATF, just by filling in the blanks. No pun intended, possibly copy one which has been written.
So the NRA sues the government...Big whoop...
In the meantime the policy gets legs and is enforced by an emboldened government agency...If you want to know what Fast and Furious is, this will be the outcome...
What they need to do is file an injunction (stay) in court and stop the implementation of this policy before it gets anywhere...
Then the lawsuit should proceed, if need be...Lawsuits cost money that we don’t need to spend on such an obvious government infringement on our right to keep and bear arms...
Not that the Odumbo Administration is the least bit interested in following the law, but on what basis can they require such reporting requirements only in 4 border states and not elsewhere? For that matter, what authority does ATF have to collect that data from anywhere (even assuming that one concedes that ATF has authority over guns to begin with, which I don’t)?
He should know, considering how the ATF has been hawking said weapons to Mexican drug armies in violation of every law on the books.
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