Posted on 05/18/2006 6:22:58 AM PDT by freepatriot32
Traders Sports, one of the biggest gun dealers in the state, hopes a hearing in U.S. District Court next week will keep them in business.
Traders has been under scrutiny for several years by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), which is trying to shut down the gun dealer. The ATF decided to revoke Traders gun permit on June 1. After an audit in 2003, the ATF claims that Traders can’t account for 1,767 weapons, and that guns sold at Traders turn up in crimes at an alarming rate.
ATF spokeswoman Marti McKee said she couldn’t comment on the hearing, which is coming up next Thursday, May 25 in San Francisco before Judge Vaughn Walker.
Traders’ owner Tony Cucchiara also declined to comment on the hearing, deferring questions to his lawyer, Malcolm Segal.
The gun shop claims the ATF’s figures don’t add up because of human error, filling out paperwork wrong. They also say the ATF is unfairly targeting the store and going beyond reasonable annual inspections.
“The law allows one inspection a year — that’s a law passed by Congress — and the ATF inspected twice in one year,” said Segal.
Segal said the ATF decided to close Traders after their own hearing in which they used records going back 30 years.
“The errors they claim are really human errors,” Segal said. “Any time there are thousands of transactions with serial numbers in dozens of digits, there is always bound to be human error.”
The ATF initially claimed in its audit that Traders couldn’t account for 7,477 weapons, but the number in the final account was reduced to 1,767. Customers going to Traders this week tended to be on the gun shop’s side.
“I don’t like what they’re doing because it’s a good store,” said Sonny Verde, who comes from Marin County to shop at Traders. “They should go after the criminals not the gun stores.”
Last week the U.S. Department of Justice filed papers saying that guns sold by Traders have been recovered in a crime at a rate of nearly one per day.
About one in every eight guns sold by Traders between 2003 and 2005 has wound up in a crime, the second highest number of guns traced to crimes of any dealer in the nation, according to the Department of Justice.
In 1994, Muckraker magazine featured a story on Traders, listing violations found by the ATF going back to 1970, including sales to people who couldn’t legally buy guns and “straw sales,” which is a purchase by a legal buyer who turns the gun over to someone who can’t legally buy a gun.
I have seen no evidence that anyone but BATF and FBI agents fired on the Waco Compound. Even the BATFE was only involved in the original raid/attack. There probably were Army or National Guard advisers (the equipment belonged to the Texas National Guard) on site to advice the FBIies on the use of the armored vehicles. Wesly Clark, as loathsome as he is, was involved very peripherally, if at all.
That was Janet Reno's disaster from the time the FBIies took over from the BATFers after the Davidians beat back the BATF attack.
Oh come now, this is the government, and probably the most anal retentive arm of it. They have Rules you know, and the Rules are Holly Writ, even if they was writ in 1935 or 1969.
Yet you seem to believe the quotes from the BATFE types, while not questioning what wasn't said or written about, such as how many guns they sold in that period.
This one defys logic. If "Traders" doesn't have the records, how does the ATF know the guns were purchaced in his store? The dealer keeps the records. They are not forwarded to the ATF. As usual, the ATF is a cancor on Freedom.""
In California, buyers are also cleared thru the state for purchases clearance, so the state has the data, and they share it with BATF.
Lets not and say we did. They are corrupt, in the sense that power corrupts, and incompetent. Send them to the border, and the number of illegals and the amount of drugs would probably increase
It would also be interesting to find out what fraction of those "crime guns" were used by the person who the shop sold them to, rather than having been stolen from the buyer.
The FBI took over from the BATFE, and Texas lawmen, not from the Marshals. The JBTs in the Elian case were from INS, not FBI HRT.
Soon??
BTW, It's BATFE. Before they were BATF, even though like to be pretend they were a TLA (Three Letter Agency) they were a Four Letter Agency, and are now a Five Letter Agency. (Although to be fair, organizationally they are at the same level on the DoJ org chart as the FBI and DEA).
So there are hundreds or thousands of these shops being harassed out of existence? The testimony of the gun shop owners earlier in the thread idicates that this particular operation is either too slipshod to perform the required documentation which all others do or it is just a criminal front. Pardon me if I cannot quite work up the requisite sympathy for these boys.
True, but if the manufacturer puts down that a certain SN got shiped to dealer A but it actually got shipped to dealer B, there would be no mismatch on A's paperwork because they did not get a gun does it have a SN on any paperwork. That is what I meant.
Yeah, but dealer A would get paperwork saying, "We shipped you gun X" without actually receiving it, and dealer B would get gun X with no covering paperwork. One of them at least, or both, would (if they were being properly run) raise a red flag over that.
Any federal firearms law.
There was only one link to click.
While I realize that such topics as Globaloneyism is a hot topic around the bar and with the barflies my lack of a desire to imbibe limits my knowledge of the Barfly Theory of the World.
After stating that you don't know what the hell you are talking about your posts confirm that.
Tell us what Globalism is.
While I am not in academia I am sure it is a far better place than whatever your "here" is.
Alright I will specifically tell you that ATF was not the major player in Waco. FBI and the Army also got involved and most of the deaths came as a result of the fire following the tank attack.
Not that the actions of the Clintons has anything to do with today.
Never the less the rest of the stores in the nation seem to be able to jump through the appropriate hoops. Is this the ONLY one in the country which cannot/will not?
What a pack of lies.
Opinions of fanatics have little worth.
One group I will not believe are the Absolutists who have taken the 2d and made it the object of gun WORSHIP.
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