Posted on 05/19/2015 4:59:27 AM PDT by rellimpank
The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, charged with enforcing the nation's gun laws and regulating the firearms industry, has been so hobbled by high-profile operational failures, internal dysfunction and external limits on its authority that the agency should be eliminated and merged into the FBI, a new report concludes.
The report, by the left-leaning Center for American Progress, comes in the wake of a bill by U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) that seeks to dissolve the agency and move its law enforcement and gun industry regulatory functions into the FBI and other agencies.
The bill and the report are the latest in a series of efforts, from both sides of the political spectrum and even by veterans of the ATF, to reform or eliminate the agency. In July, a Government Accountability Office report on the ATF described an agency trying to redefine itself while struggling with high personnel turnover and internal problems.
The think tank's 182-page report, to be made public Tuesday, traces the agency from its origins as a tax collection agency to the present, as it again finds itself with no director and beset by problems. A copy of the report was obtained earlier by the Journal Sentinel.
(Excerpt) Read more at jsonline.com ...
--and it's what you would expect--
-ping-
The only firearms regulation we need is already in the constitution in the form of 2nd ammendment.
I’ll uh, “2nd” that. Just turn over their duties to dhs. Oh, if we go by the constitution, they shouldn’t have much to do.
Agreed. BATFE should be disbanded. Also, most federal gun laws should be repealed. We should not need a federal stamp, $200 fee, and one year wait to shoot more quietly or to fire through a shorter barrel. Besides being unconstitutional, those restrictions are silly.
No - only eliminated.
There should be some government experts in explosives, examining the remains of bombs that have gone off and other forensic and technical details but the FBI could do this task. Not sure what the ATF does with the A and the T but that doesn’t seem to justify their own agency. I know there is a large smuggling business taking cigarettes from low tax states to high tax states, but again this is something the FBI can do.
We were told by a friend of ours that the FBI wants no part of the BATF because the Bureau would have to absorb all of the clowns who work there.
WACO should have spelled “The End” to an agency only looking for work at the expense of law abiding citizens.
Just before Ruby Ridge it was publicly suggested the agency be eliminated. I’ve wondered if there was a connection.
BS!
The reason--the only reason--the BATF had anything to do with firearms was because a "tax" was imposed on the transfer of certain types of arms by the National Firearms Act of 1934. Before that, they were a revenue enforcement agency tasked with making sure taxes were collected on booze and tobacco.
The "F" part shouldn't be there in the first place (the "taxed" arms are the sort a Militia would want, and precisely the sort of arms the Founders envisioned as being protected by the Second Amendment--whether for personal or militia use).
The "E" was added to entrench and legitimize the "F".
Unfetter the Second Amendment, and stop infringing the Right, and they go back to being tax collectors.
-—exactly what I told the J-S—
New report calls for dissolving the ATF.
FReep mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.
In realistic terms, looking for an optimal outcome, the most important thing to do is first, to parse the agency so that its different areas of authority have different outcomes.
1) Alcohol. Clearly there is no need for the federal regulation of ethanol, though “pure food and drug” guidelines should be given to the states so that *they* can assure that retail alcohol is potable and not poisonous. Testing alcohol for quality should be the responsibility of those states in which it is sold. No more federal alcohol taxes, but the states can tax as they see fit. The feds would still have a say for international alcohol trade.
2) Tobacco. A similar regime, with no need for federal involvement, beyond inspection of foreign tobacco entering the US.
3) Firearms and explosives, including chemical precursors. This is the section to be turned over to the FBI, as it is far beyond the second amendment, which should be isolated in its own area, away from things like chemical weapons, rockets and missiles, artillery and mortars, incendiary weapons, and even overlaps to some degree with biological and radiological devices.
“We were told by a friend of ours that the FBI wants no part of the BATF because the Bureau would have to absorb all of the clowns who work there.”
The way the FBI operates today, that’s kinda like the pot calling the kettle black! “Clowns to the left of me, clowns to the right, here I am stuck in the middle.”
But you make an important point nonetheless. No one ever gets fired from a government job. In the Government, jobs exist mainly for those who are in them. Whatever they do do (if they do anything of value), is secondary to their employment and benefits.
When I worked briefly for the Federal government in the 1970s (mea culpa), the work previously performed by a middle-age coworker of mine was taken over by another part of the agency. Instead of finding some other tasks for him to do, the division head put him in a small private office with a door, and assigned him no work. I was later told that this arrangement lasted for five or six years until the guy had enough time-in-service to retire.
No other agency wants F Troop employees they are such screw-ups for the most part. Disband, terminate and roll duties to another agency. Although at this point is there any government agency that is not suspected to be utterly corrupt to the core?
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