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 cant 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 couldnt 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 ATFs figures dont 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 thats 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 couldnt 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 shops side.
I dont like what theyre doing because its 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 couldnt legally buy guns and straw sales, which is a purchase by a legal buyer who turns the gun over to someone who cant legally buy a gun.
It says "shall not be infringed"... end of story. Full stop. If Marshall disagreed, then he should have worked within the system to repeal the Amendment instead of using "legislating from the bench" to nullify it.
You keep calling him our "greatest" jurist. Not so great if he can't read plain English IMO...
How many do they SELL per year? As they are one of, if not THE, largest licensed firearms retailer in the state, I could see that many per year being human error.
Actually, I can't find that whole "record keeping" requirement in my copy of the Second Amendment.
As I said there is dispute as to whether the qualification of the First amendment was intended to apply to the others.
BTAIM the Law of the Land only applies to those laws enacted under the Constitution by the federal government.
In NO way does it claim that ALL laws in Virginia were to be the same as those in New Jersey.
I will take Marshall's interpretation of the Constitution over yours every day. Not only was he it greatest interpreter but knew it backward and forward having played an important role in getting it adopted as a delegate to the Virginia ratification convention.
Good luck on trying to convince rational people that "shall not infringe" means criminals cannot be disarmed or that guns cannot be fired haphazardly anytime a shooter wishes or that children must be allowed to bring guns into high schools.
Of course you'll side with Marshall. That way, you can enact at the State level legislation that does away with individual Rights you don't like. Funny, I don't remember seeing Marshall's name come up in a single one of those debates.
Deprivation of Rights as punishment for a crime is a whole 'nother ball of wax. Or are you insinuating that gun bans are legal because we are all criminals subject to punishment?
Nice going Ace...
There is nothing illogical about recognizing the vast increase in firepower and killing ability of modern weapons. Not a week goes by without a story of an innocent killed inadvertently by bullets passing through walls or a ceiling. But reality has no meaning to fanatics.
I notice you do not address most of the other examples I listed or the origin of the Second.
The "origin" of the Second is in the inalienable, Natural, Right of man to fight off an aggressor. Be it a natural predator or a political one. "Modern Weapons" are particularly suited to this purpose.
Despite the hoplophobic whining of liberals like you.
A lot of those "innocents" you cry about are already in Gun Control heavy areas of the US. They have no option to fight back and the criminals doing the drive by's know this. They can shoot at each other with impunity.
Are you by any chance related to Josh Sugerman?
Is that what you are saying?
Maybe they think we should get rid of all those multi-ton killing machines known as automobiles as well. And baseball bats, and golf clubs, and sharp rocks... After all, there is no Constitutional protection for owning a baseball bat now is there?
You can not be more wrong. I've discussed this issue with flat-out leftist gun-grabbers and they are using the same exact argument as you.
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
Notice that they included the term "free state". If the crap ever hits the fan, the founders intended for citizens to be armed similarly to the military. Alexander Hamilton writes in the Federalist Papers...
"This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens."
Without getting too specific as to frighten you, if I am ever asked to give up my guns, let's just say that jail will not be one of the several possible outcomes.
Just keep ignoring reality and fuel the GGs.
Was the word banning in that post or any other I have posted? I didn't think so.
What I have said and still say is that Absolutist interpretations of the Second aids those who are opposed to it.
The reality is, every individual has a Right to defend themselves with whatever tools they feel are necessary. The reality is that this very sentiment was expressly codified by the Founders in our Constitution as being VITAL to the continuence of freedom in our Country.
It is also reality that perverted individuals like you would rather everyone was made harmless by force so that your own political will could be carried out that much more easily.
You are in the same ideological company as Chairman Mao, Joseph Stalin, and Hugo Chavez. And you think this is a "good thing".
It is YOU who would sell out a fundamental Right for the illusion of safety.
No. But if I read you correctly, you are endorsing "infringment". Is that better?
What word would you use as you declare entire classes of "modern" firearms illegal?
That is what you are advocating, is it not?
Of course it matters not to fanatics but the innocents of which I spoke were involved in no fight and often were not even aware of one. They were sleeping in their beds, playing with their dolls, watching tv. Punks are not targeting them but their firepower is so great and so out of their control that they endanger others.
Sorry if reality once again intrudes on your desire to arm thugs.
Automobiles are under far more control than firearms in some respects. You cannot legally drive one without passing tests showing that you can control it and that you understand the rules of the road. Not so with firearms no proficiency tests are required, no vision tests. You do not even have to know which end the bullet comes out of to buy weapons capable of immense damage.
And Nope there is no constitutional guarantee of owning a baseball bat.
BTW you lie about 186 as well as 188.
Gee after you tell me I am wrong I guess I will just give up. After all who could resist such persuasion?
In Hamilton's day the difference in weaponry available to private individuals and the military was miniscule compared to that of today. Now the military has aircraft carriers and submarines with gigantic firepower, chemical weapons, biological weapons, nuclear weapons. Individuals will NEVER be allowed to own these. His argument has been invalidated by technological advances. The only way the US military could be resisted by the citizens would be if it refused to fight them.
Nostalgia is ok in its place but has no bearing when considering policy.
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