Traders Gun Shop Told to Close June 1(more jackbooted batfe abuse)

http://www.ebpublishing.com/ ^ | 5 18 06 | Jim Knowles

[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.

[jmc813]

JMC also believes that his personal judgment can be substituted for Article III of the Constitution.

If a law is unjust, there is no moral issue with breaking it. I doubt you would have been a fan of Rosa Parks.

[Charles Martel]

I'd love to know the percentage represented by those 1,700 guns. If the store sells a million guns a year vs 5,000, it makes a huge difference as to how relevant that 1,700 number is.

I'm not sure that the percentage of "unaccounted for" firearms is the correct statistic to be examining. The article mentions records going back thirty years, so how about:

5 guns per week;
20 guns per month;
240 guns per year;
x 30 = 7,200 guns.

IF the missing firearms were spread over the entire 30 year period, that's roughly one gun vanishing per day, Monday through Friday!

Add to that, the number was originally 7,000+ before sifting out obvious clerical errors.

I've seen enough BATF abuses to have significant contempt for that agency, but in this case, there is clearly something amiss. This appears to be a gun dealer who is not in control of his operation (or worse). IMHO, policing FFL holders is what the BATF is *supposed* to do. Better they do that, than raid rural churches or stomp on kittens.

[Dead Corpse]

I am going on record as saying that the Second amendment was not designed even to affect States and Localities since the Bill of Rights only applied to FEDERAL legislation.

So why did they also put in a "Supreme Law of the Land" clause and argue about the scope of the Federal Constitution, and all attendant Amendments, over-riding State powers? That to not have it set up that way would make executing any Federal authority at all impossible?

Or will you know cite Cruickshank, a clear case of legislating from the bench if ever the was one, as proof that the Founders didn't mean exactly what they said?

You gun haters are all alike...

[justshutupandtakeit]

Nope. The Founders were referring weapons that were single shot took considerable time to reload and were not very accurate. They were not speaking about guns which can shoot at a rapid rate of fire and are FAR more accurate. And there is a HUGE difference between living in highly congested areas and where the next person lives twenty miles away.

Then there is always the explicit reason given in the amendment for its being there: " A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,..." It is not intended to allow hunting or even personal defense.

As to the meaning of "arms" I tried the argument which you are using and was informed that the term was NOT meant to refer to those things which can be carried in the arms or were limited to infantry.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Those who are not idiots will know that the BoR was created and passed to mollify the STATES not to impose more controls on them. Besides I am only speaking of what the USSC actually RULED in Barron vs. Baltimore in the 1830s argue with them about it.

As to the Law of the Land it did NOT allow the fedgov to pass laws which were not within the realm of powers delegated to it. States had plenty of powers which they could exercise as long as they did not violate the constituion. And they erected State supported churches, closed newspapers, persecuted their editors (this was a favorite tactic of the Jeffersonians), restricted their citizens freedoms in many areas.

As to your closing stupidity: I love guns it is the gun worshippers I don't care for.

[Dead Corpse]

And those who have actually read Elliot's Debates would realize you are full of bovine fecal matter. They made it quite clear that the FedGov, as the central authority, would over-ride the Confederacy's State powers. Those areas in the Constitution are absolute, as were the Amendments added.

You don't have to agree with it, just stop lying about original intent.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Not only am I NOT lying but have not even made an incorrect statement. Your inability to correctly understand the federal system apparently confuses you.

There were sovereign powers left to the states as long as they did not conflict with those which were placed in the hands of the federal government. I suggest further study of the Federalist to clear up your confusion.

It is true that the constitution was designed to remove much of the state's powers but not ALL of them. For example, absent a federal law or court ruling the abortion issue could have been left to the states as it was for two hundred years.

[Dead Corpse]

There were sovereign powers left to the states as long as they did not conflict with those which were placed in the hands of the federal government.

Right, up to that point. The codification of SOME individual Rights in the BoR was not to be a limit on any Rights also granted protection by the States. The Founders were quite clear that those Rights in the BoR were the common set of Rights for ALL US citizens. Hence their placement in the Constitution as the "Supreme Law of the Land".

Some of the Torrie holdovers and Condeferate's didn't like that and immediately went to work to overturn as much as they could through whatever means necessary. And people like you are keeping thier fictions alive.

Nice going Ace...

Start there and keep reading...

[justshutupandtakeit]

Oh, I get it you THINK that this proposed amendment is EQUIVALENT to those ACTUALLY incorporated into the Constitution.

BTW there were several SUGGESTED amendments which did not make it to the final 10.

NONE of the suggested statements were interwoven into the body of the document either. It is also a fact that some of the constitution was directed ONLY at the fedgov not the states and that does not contradict it being the Law of the Land.

There was no claim that the BoR should be passed to restrain states it was ONLY the restraint of the fedgov which concerned the anti-federalists pushing for the BoR. It was only the passage of the 14th amendment that brought states under the BoR. Well into the 19th century Virginia had a state church, Massachusetts had a state church. Pennsylvania and New York prosecuted editors for their writings as well since the First amendment was not intended to apply to the States. Anti-slavery papers were closed down by Southern states and what the others wrote often censored.

[El Laton Caliente]

NNot necessarily, it is possible, but can be who the auditor was. Some are pleasant and reasonable and some are the opposite. There is almost no oversight of the ATF. I was hoping it would get better with them moved from the IRS to the Justice Dept. All a FFL has to do is piss off an auditor.

Also refusal of informant / entrapment / undercover cooperation can result in this type of harassment. The West Coast ATF office is known for grandstanding and entrapment type operations. They have had their methods called to question in L.A., Reno and Las Vegas. I have personally watched them try to get gun show dealers to make straw sales and not fill out paperwork at the ‘Vegas gun shows.

One of their famous “raids” was on an importer in Los Angeles several years ago. They made a huge show of confiscating “machine guns” from the importer and hauled way tractor-trailer loads of “contraband” right before ATF’s Congressional budget hearings… two weeks later they returned the entire inventory quietly.

That is who you are dealing with…

[Dead Corpse]

Again, wrong. The snippet I posted makes clear their thinking in even ADDING amendments and what their scope would be.

Of course, recognizing that would destroy your argument, so instead you ignore the import, make an idiotic statement that doesn't pertain, and continue to bolster your "slavery could be instituted at the State or City level" bull crap.

Like I said... keep reading.

And the next page...

Note that the BoR was to help prevent abuse of the minority by the majority in States and localities. The basic human Rights so codified in the BoR were to be the absolute MINIMUM for a US citizen. That without which, no man could pretend to be free or to be in control over their liberty. And without the Second, no way to keep that liberty from being taken away.

[justshutupandtakeit]

How does your unnamed Congressman speak for the House or Senate? After all the proposals were not all adopted. The selection does NOT claim that the BoR applies to the states and refers to the BoR within some state constitutions. It being difficult to read perhaps you might point out where you believe it does.

Not only did you not dispute the facts I posted but you still have not addressed the SC ruling which explicitly says the BoR does NOT apply to the states. And the greatest jurist America ever produced, John Marshall, led the Court then. No one, other than Hamilton, was as great a legal mind as his nor was he surpassed in knowledge of the history of the Constitution and its ratification.

[Dead Corpse]

First Congress. Constitutional Convention. The "un-named speaker", had you chosen to look up Elliot's debates, was James Madison speaking in the House of Representitives.

If, and this is a mighty big if, you had actually read what I posted you would have had the answer to your question. The BoR applies regardless of later SC rulings. Despite your heroworship of Marshall, he got that one wrong.

It happens. Get over it.

Here is even more you won't bother to read...

[verity]

The Judiciary will decide that which is unconstitutional.

On the moral issue.... are you willing to do jail time?

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

In the absence of evidence that any of these "missing" guns ended up in criminal hands suggesting a pipeline or pattern, no.

ATF claims that they have that info in this case.

When I was a cop, we knew certain shops were trafficking through straw buyers--through CIs and tracing serials on guns we recovered at crime scenes or confiscated during arrests. We notified the BATF. They investigated. They started bringing cases.

And then one of the gun shop owners would senda a check to his Congressman or Senator, and the BATF would tell us, "Sorry, we're going to have to drop the case--your guy has a good friend in DC."

Money talks and BS walks. I guess that's just the way of the world.

Wound up losing one of my two favorite lungs to a gun that had been bought through a straw buyer. (This one didn't even exist--the address on the 4473 was a vacant lot in an adjacent city. Besides, the name on the 4473 was "Heywood Jablowme." Kind of childish, actually.)

The guy who sold the lung-perforator to "Heywood Jablowme" of the vacant lot in La Mesa, CA made the mistake of stiffing a recreational pharmaceuticals wholesaler, and that was that. C'est la vie.

When you hear about how the BATFE always going after the marginal dealers--that's because they know the dealers aren't going to donate $4,000 to their Congresscritter and ask the Congresscritter to "fade the heat."

And, no, I am not an ATF fan. If the ATF were worth a damn, they'd go after the hard cases instead of backing off when a crooked legislator passes wind.

[justshutupandtakeit]

It does not say what you claim. The constitution did not establish a unified government ruled from the federal capital. It left most issues to the states including the laws which governed their citizens. Madison does not say the BoR extends to the states or that they were adopted to apply to any but the federal government.

Marshall's fame and renown are justly earned irrespective of the opinion of folks such as you.

[Dead Corpse]

"I wish also, in revising the constitution, we may throw into that section, which interdicts the abuse of certain powers in the State Legislatures, some other provisions of equal, if not greater importance than those already made. The words, "No State shall pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law," &c. were wise and proper restrictions in the constitution. I think there is more danger of those powers being abused by the State Government that by the Government of the United States." -Madison. Elliot's Debates as sourced in my other post.

You should have paid more attention to what the Founder's actually wrote than your teachers SAID they wrote.

This is also just the arguments in the Congress over inclusion of the BoR. Some of the State debates discuss the same points. Other debates don't even mention it as it was taken for granted. Only those States with power to lose had any debates over the scope of the BoR. Most saw a general protection for basic Rights a good thing.

You, obviously, don't. You might want to work on that a bit.

[justshutupandtakeit]

I have had no teacher tell me what they wrote but in any case Madison's desire does not mean that the rest of Congress agreed with him. It should be recalled that at this time Madison was still an uber Federalist. Jefferson had not yet arrived from France to twist him away from the true faith. He had even proposed at the Convention that the states be done away with entirely which was more than Hamilton had ever suggested.

Most of the states did not even have Bills of Rights. Hence, it had only been brought up as a means of opposing the adoption of the Constitution. Had there been this universal demand for them they would have played a more prominent role in the State's constitutions where adoption should have been a matter of course.

Madison and Hamilton both opposed them as unnecessary but later realized that the anti-federalist opposition was using the lack of the BoR as a tool to whip up the ignorant and fanatic against the Constitution. Thus, they buried their misgivings and undercut the Antis by allowing it. Hamilton has a thorough discussion of the tactics and the perfidy of the opposition wrt this issue in the Federalist. He shows the antis to be complete blowhards without a shred of honesty or understanding.

If the two greatest political thinkers of the time were not overly enthusiastic I would believe it unnecessary given that the People are the best guarantors of Liberty. But it has become a tradition and part of the National Myth which is not worth destroying or fighting about.

[Dead Corpse]

Doesn't mean they agreed with him? They argued for a WEEK about the inclusion of the BoR and the proper scope of the Federal Constitution once passed. But they STILL PASSED IT. Even with the "Supreme Law of the Land" clause and everything that meant. The very arguments you mention were brought up, and it was decided that they would rather have TOO many protections for basic Rights than the harm that would be done by not enough.

Such as the California, New York, ect.. firearms bans.

They used YOUR arguments to pass those bans BTW...

Any other of our Rights you'd like to see thrown away on an incorrect judicial interpretation?

[justshutupandtakeit]

The discussion was obviously not definitive enough to make a difference to our greatest jurist or his court. And he was very familiar with the issue and the prickly sensitivity of the States as regards their rights.

The first amendment clearly refers to what the CONGRESS can't do, it also clearly refers ONLY to Congress. The argument that the same reason applies to the other amendments can be debated but the first on its face is designed to constrain Congress.

It seems a trifle unlikely that all of a sudden the Courts realized 80 years later that the BoR was to apply to the States.