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.
If they kept a few hookers on staff, I might never leave... : )
The only problem with unlimited arming of the population with weapons of massive firepower is the danger posed by living as close together as people do today. Then there are large numbers of people who are too irresponsible to have firepower. The "People" spoken of by our founders were not composed of welfare deadbeats without a trace of responsibility in their bones or large criminal gangs. Do I want to see large welfare high rises filled with people armed to the teeth? No. Do I fear a person who has been trained in the safe use of weapons of any caliber or rapidity of fire? No.
The Absolutists act as though we do not have huge populations of non-taxpaying leechs who would be happy to be able to prey upon the productive classes.
Modern firepower is not as simple and easily controlled as those of 1789. If "infringement" means there is no control over firearms and that ANY individual, no matter how criminal or mentally ill or immature or untrained, can get ANY arm he wishes then I am for infringement.
If "infringement" means the disarming of responsible citizenry who are trained in the use of weapons then I am opposed to it.
But the idea of the People today is far different than the Founders had and its quality has declined precipitously in the intervening centuries. Our Founders would have seen no problem in the disarming of criminal or irresponsible individuals.
The only derangement illustrated on this thread is from you vemonously spitting insults on my character as well as such eminences as John Marshall one of our greatest patriots and leaders of the Revolutionary generation. Such behavior is typical of the fanatic.
As for hating an inanimate object that is silly beyond comprehension. Guns are fascinating and marvelous things I wish I could afford an entire armoury filled with them. This is obvious to any but the delirious since I have repeatedly indicated it is only their possession by some people too irresponsible to have them. However, you appear to worship them. That I do not.
As much as I detest and disrespect BATF, I would have to say yes.
I owned and operated a small gun shop as a sideline for almost 3 years in the early '90s. If the shop in SF can't account for over 1700 firearms there is something seriously amiss in that store. Every firearm that becomes part of the store's inventory or is kept on the licensed premises must be logged into a "bound book" registry with serial #, model, manufacturer, caliber, type, name and address of source, and date of acquisition. All that data is kept on record and is subject to inspection once a year by BATF agents.Then, when a firearm is sold or transferred to any other party in any way the name, type of ID, and address of the buyer or recipient is entered in the bound book registry and the original copy of the 4473 form filled out by the buyer is kept on file permanantly.
IMHO it would be incredibly careless and reckless for a FFL dealer to run such a slipshod operation that the multiple required records of over 1700 firearms acquired and disposed of in just one year could have just innocently slipped through the cracks somehow. I hope I'm wrong, but it seems quite likely to me that this dealer is sitting in some very deep doo-doo.
If the ATF has evidence that they broke laws, that might be different, but book errors don't justify anything more than a fine.
what state?
My discussion concerns the law.
Believe me, I hold no sympathy for BATF thugs, they put my little operation out of business on trumped up accusations which I lacked the financial resources to contest in court simply because Clinton wanted to radically cut the number of Federal Fireams Licensees by whatever means necessary. A goal which BATF accomplished far above and beyond Clinton's most optimistic expectations by every kind of skullduggery and bald faced lying tactic known to the government-employed criminal's mind.
But my point was that such an incredibly high number of record keeping errors, provided that those errors were not "manufactured" out of thin air by BATF agents, indicates to me either an inexcusable lack of training and oversight of sales and/or clerical employees, or a deliberate attempt to bypass federal and state firearms laws. Which like it or not the firearms dealer is obligated to observe or face the consequences.
I live on the other side of the continent so I know nothing at all about that firearms dealer or his operation. I just have a very hard time believing that so many record keeping errors could have been committed unintentionally when every FFL merchant, and a high volume merchant in particular, knows very well that BATF is sitting on ready just waiting to pounce at the first sign of illegality or error in his or her business operation.
Exactly why the BATF should, at a minimum, have to assert a violation of law before they can attempt to close-down a legitimate buisness. It is not illegal to sell firearms. It is not a major crime to make bookkeeping errors.
If the BATF can prove criminal activity, that's a different issue.
The BATF should not be allowed to even threaten closure of a perfectly legal and legitimate buisness over bookkeeping errors.
"Tell us what Globalism is."
One description from self proclaimed "Globalists" themselves.
http://globalism.rmit.edu.au/about/about_us.html
"At a time of acute sensitivity to questions of social dislocation, economic inequity and political upheaval, the Globalism Institute is committed to rethinking the relationship between the global and the local. Its primary intellectual task is to understand the processes of change and continuity, and to think through cultural-political questions about sustainable living in a globalising world. In particular, it is concerned to facilitate and enhance activities of cultural dialogue across the continuing and positive boundaries of cultural diversity in the world today.
This entails responding to key political issues of the new century across all levels of community and polity: from the remaking of institutions of global governance and the reconstitution of the nation-state to the re-formations of local regions and communities. It entails working across the divide between abstract theory and applied research. We begin with the place in which we liveMelbourneand seek to draw lines of co-operation and reciprocal connection locally, regionally, nationally and internationally."
Perhaps Globalism is well described as...
A group of open conspirators seeking to impose their will and view of the world over all nations and peoples under the guise of mutual interest and concern.There actual motives being nothing new but in fact the age old base desires of men with evil intent to dominate others.
Those individuals and groups seeking to establish a "Uniform Global Culture" i.e. Uniform Global Fascism (C). A philosophy and political ideology which in fact to be achieved requires and seeks the subjugation and subornation of all other philosophies and ideologies. A goal which in order to be accomplished requires the active application of threats or fear of force or violence. This certainly suggest a somewhat less than legitimate aspiration on the part of the "Globaloneyists".
One of the most important requirements in order to achieve this fascistic goal is the disarming of all potential opponents under whatever ruse or guise. (Think of a neo Hitler or neo Stalin) Of necessity at times it requires the appearances publicaly of acting lawfully and in the "public interest".
This well explains the actual motives and objectives of the upcoming UN Conference on Small Arms. The "Globaloneyists" seek to prevent the possession of arms by people leaving firearms and the means of legitimate self defense only in the hands of "Governments". Governments the Globaloneyists seek to control....er influence.
A lot of people know what Globalism and Globaloney is and the very real and proven dangers it represents to the lives and liberty of Americans, in fact all of humanity.
We have seen it before from Tojo, Hitler, Stalin... and others. We see it today only the faces have changed not the intent.
From "Open Borders and Amnesty to the upcoming UN Conference on Small Arms seeking to disarm the peoples of the world (especially Americans). It is interesting to contemplate such a conference seeking to disarm the American people under a guise of "Treaty" being held on American soil during the days surrounding our 4th of July Independence Celebrations (made possible by the individual possession and
application of arms). The BATFE sadly is but one more player with an agenda in the game.
Globaloney and Globalists are like ravenous Wolves seeking to devour the hard won freedoms of Americans in particular and humanity in general.
W,
No. Actually. It wasn't. Nor will you find anything in Elliot's or the Anti-/Federalist papers to support such a follish notion. Hence the wording of the Constitution itself. Your hero worship of a judge who changed the plain meaning of the Constitution to undercut our civil Rights is disgusting.
Vile Slander? Now that is laughable. Get a grip on yourself. How is it infallible logic that the retard couldn't even put "Supreme law of the Land" and "shall not be infringed" and come up with the correct calculus? Further, you could reconstruct a two-piece jigsaw puzzle without an instruction manual. You have already shown you know NOTHING about how a Constitution, nor a Republic, work.
Take your idiot democracy elsewhere...
If the states wished to limit their own power they could have done so within their constitutions.
Actually, as I pointed out in Elliot's, which apparently neither your nor your Lord Marshall bothered to read... This very fact was argued. It was concluded that sine some States did NOT include a Bill of Rights, that one should be included in the Constitution to cut down on confusion between States, that all Citizens would havea common and recognizable set of Rights, and that certain Rights so vital for freedom would be codified and that much harder to infringe. Also, it was mentioned that having duplication in those protections in the State Constitutions was not a bad thing and that States were still free to enact even MORE protections.
They never dreamed that idiots like you would come along and cheerlead the REMOVAL of said protections at the State level.
What you and Marshall both miss is that in order to ratify an Amendment, Congress and the States both have to sign off on it. This was done in accordance with the Constitution for the BoR and needed no assbat judges signoff before it could be "incorperated".
Keeping firearms out of the hands of "criminal or irresponsible individuals" makes sense on its face. However, the definition of "criminal or irresponsible" varies considerably depending on who's in charge. From living in California for almost twenty years, I learned that the majority of self-anointed demagogues in that states' quasi-totalitarian government consider anyone who owns so much as a .22lr single-shot is considered "criminal or irresponsible".
They themselves were always immune to this definition, however. Interesting how that works...
---Albert Gallatin to Alexander Addison, Oct 7, 1789, MS. in N.Y. Hist. Soc.-A.G. Papers, 2.
-- Tench Coxe, in Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution
"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."
--Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.
"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"
-- Patrick Henry, 3 J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions 45, 2d ed. Philadelphia, 1836
"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
James Madison, The Federalist Papers #46 at 243-244
But, apparently... despite all this from people actually involved in WRITING the Constitution and the BoR, one "judge" can overturn it all...
I don't think so...
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