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Posted on 07/23/2006 2:45:34 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
PARKVILLE, Md. -- Sanford M. Abrams began selling guns from his shop in Baltimore County in 1996 and almost immediately started losing track of them.
In 1997, he couldn't account for 45. In 2001, it was 133. In 2003, there were 422 firearms missing -- more than a quarter of his inventory -- including semiautomatic assault rifles, 12-gauge shotguns and Glock 9mm pistols, according to federal investigators.
This year, a decade after he started losing track of guns, Abrams's store lost its firearms license. But he still intends to sell guns.
Tale of Abrams and his Valley Gun Shop -- which regulators describe in court records as "a serial violator" that has "endangered the public" -- illustrates the difficulty government regulators face in shutting down even those dealers found to have persistently flouted the nation's gun laws. The controversy is the subject of fierce debate in Congress.
Abrams, a member of the National Rifle Association's board of directors, did not dispute the substance of more than 900 violations of federal gun laws filed against his store. But he called them unintentional recordkeeping errors that posed no threat to public safety and said it is impossible for anyone to comply with all firearms regulations.
Dispute has heightened scrutiny of new federal legislation, strongly backed by the NRA, that federal officials said would cripple their ability to revoke gun licenses. The bill, which would make it more difficult to close down gun shops without evidence of criminal intent, also could allow Valley Gun to resume sales of firearms, the lawmaker sponsoring the measure said.
Even if the bill is defeated, Abrams plans to use a provision in existing law to sell 700 guns left over from his shop's inventory at a soon-to-be-opened store called Just Guns, which will sell them on consignment.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
It's much worse that that,
BATFE has a 15% or more error rate in THIER OWN RECORDS!
The BATFE managed NFRTR is a shambles, a well known fact, complete with congressional testimony, money allocated by congress to correct the problem, and continued BATFE denial that the problem exist.
Anyone in possession of an NFA item that BATFE has misplaced or totally lost the records on is looking at a $250,000 fine, up to five years in prison, and forfeiture of the item, which is probably very valuable.
But hey, BATFE are not required to abide by the same standards they impose on the dealers they license!
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em, Down Hezbullies.)
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em, Down Hezbullies.)
Well stated, and true. That's exactly why it doesn't make sense to leave yourself vulnerable. A dealer who is a model of compliance has a leg to stand on in court, and a dealer with 900+ violations of any kind whatsoever does not have a leg to stand on in court.
I firmly believe "shall not be infringed" means exactly what it says. I think most gun laws are unconstitutional.
However, if I want to operate as a licensed gun dealer I know I'm going to have to comply with a lot of bullcrap I don't like and don't believe in.
I'm behind you 100%. Don't get me wrong...
You're calling a man defending his right to sell guns without being hassled by bureaucrats a boneheaded jerk. --- It's pretty easy to 'get you wrong'.
I believe he should fight back, but he blew most of his chances by not fully complying with laws he knew he would have to comply with. Compliance is the other half of the coin of accepting any kind of license. That's the ONLY, THE ONLY point I'm trying to make. I agree 100% with all the constitutional arguments. Lack of compliance got him in trouble in the first place, and the finest most eloquent defense of his constitutional rights is badly crippled as a result. That's the whole point.
>>>One through Rule Ten in the business, and anyone who doesn't can't be trusted to have a dealer's license, plain and simple.<<<
The ones who cannot be trusted are politicians who pass laws that require gun registration.
I agree 100%. However, a dealer who cannot or will not comply with the BATF laws should not be trusted with a license. The rougue dealers that knowingly sell to gangstas out of state, or off the books, poison the well for all the rest. Since the rougues do exist, they provide the MSM and the BATF with all the ammo they need to persecute honest dealers who are lazy and careless with their books. In the minds of the MSM and the BATF there's not much difference, if any at all, with a careless, lazy dealer and a rogue dealer - it's a gun dealer in violation of the law. A dealer in violation can't be trusted, and shouldn't be. So, ......... don't be in violation of the law, no matter what you feel about those laws. There are much better avenues for changing gun laws that trying to mount a successful defense after getting caught with 900+ violations.
Please READ WHERE THE F##$%^ ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN AT!!! There is NOTHING that you can believe about any gun dealer from anything written by the Compost. What several of us are trying to 'splain to you is that we don't really disagree that you have to go along to get along. THAT is not the point.
You are naively trusting the WaPo to give you objective, factual information about a gun dealer and his business. That will historically not ever happen. Like I said before, this guy could be a Saint and the WaPo and BATFE would make him sound like Capone's right hand gun supplier. That's all we're trying to point out to you.
Just the fact that YOU, as pro-gun, pro-2nd Amend that you are, are falling for their negative reporting about this guy is telling. If they can make YOU fall for the eeeeeevil gun dealer story, think about what happens when some sub-80 IQ liberal, socialist soccer mom reads how this eeeeevil gun dealer is supplying half the East coast with unregistered eeeevil gunzzzzzz. They would hang him in a heartbeat. And vote remove the 2nd Amend. - fer the chilrun...
This is exactly why I will not watch the national snooze programs and will only ocassionally watch the local teevee snooze media-- (only for the whether you know, the Whether guys who need to stick their head out the window to determine "whether" its raining or not). They are the biggest propaganda machines for the left, liberal socialists. They slant their stories, they leave out facts (if they ever got them), they distort everything to their liberal, socialist agenda. And YOU fell for it.
No, I'm not a raving, paranoid conspiracy lunatic. I just can see beyond their krappy™ "reporting" and slanting of the stories. It's become so obvious to me that if the WaPo said the sky was blue, I'd go outside to check to make sure. Because based upon their historical accuracy, their chance of being correct is vanishingly small. And that's on a relatively objective, well known fact. Take an emotional leftist agenda like gun grabbing and they are always incorrect and without accurate facts.
So please, pay attention to the man behind the curtain. Don't rely on the smoke and mirrors that the liberal left use to blow smoke up YOUR skirt.
That's all several of us were trying to point out.
All the best.
I believe he should fight back, but he blew most of his chances by not fully complying with laws he knew he would have to comply with.
Amusing theory you have. -- If he 'fully complied' with the unconstitutional 'laws', he wouldn't be in trouble, and have to 'fight back'.
Compliance is the other half of the coin of accepting any kind of license. That's the ONLY, THE ONLY point I'm trying to make.
Ah, - so you claim none of us should have ever 'accepted' a FFL license? I agree. -- But seeing it was only a 1 dollar a year 'formality' back in '38, our fathers were conned into it by big bro.
I agree 100% with all the constitutional arguments. Lack of compliance got him in trouble in the first place, and the finest most eloquent defense of his constitutional rights is badly crippled as a result.
In effect you're arguing that he was damned if he did, - or didn't, - get a license.
That's the whole point.
Dream on that you've made a valid one.
I feel sorry for this guy and all the other dealers who are honest but sloppy bookkeepers. That doesn't change what the guy's going to be put through. He could have avoided all this by keeping his books in order - STEP ONE. Everything else is noise in the wind.
One of the cop shops I used to work at went out of business last year. A friend of mine there was kept on for several months *as the only other employee* until all the decades' worth of firearm records could be organized and boxed up. It amounted to several large pickup truck loads, and all the boxes had to be accurately labeled as to contents. It took months of hard work to do this. The owner of the defunct company could have put on an attitude and just left the stuff in the old building. Since he didn't want to be hauled into Federal court and prosecuted, he put in the time and money to gather up and turn over the records as the BATF laws require. He won't be hauled into Federal court - because he complied with laws he knew up front that he was going to have to comply with.
It doesn't matter in the slightest if this ex-cop-shop owner liked it, believed in it, or approved of it. It only matters that he complied with the requirement to turn over those records or face some serious Federal prosecution. It's a requirement that every FFL holder has. Fail to comply, get ready for a rough ride.
There's better ways to fight the battle against us gun owners than trying to mount a successful defense after getting caught with a multitude of violations.
Keep in mind that Governor Erlich was elected in part for his stance on the 'ballistic fingerprinting' issue and general statements which indicated a sentiment toward repealing useless gun laws, and this has state/local implications as well.
In general, there seems to be an increase in eeeevil gun stories out there, (though it may just be my perception). I expect that the rhetoric will get worse as November approaches.
On the brighter side, it illustrates that the Dems plan to continue their anti-gun rhetoric, which has already cost them votes at the state and national levels.
Then there is no barrier to regulating gun ownership into obscurity.
That's what they're trying to do, all right. To fight back you have to be standing on firm ground and not be vulnerable. This dealer's going into battle after shooting off his own leg clear up to the hip.
"Not being vulnerable" amounts to complying with their regulations, no matter how onerous they become. Before you have standing to challenge the rules in court, you have to be charged with being out of compliance. Sounds like a fool's game to me.
Exactly!! Even if I never paid attention to politics and the calendar, around here locally I can always tell when it is an election year. All of a sudden, the local leftist rag starts regularly running stories on police busts of prostitution or dirty book stores. Never fails. Doesn't have to be a national election year, just one where locals are being elected by trumpeting how "hard on crime" they are. Local sheriffs are bad, but the leftist pols who "own" them (viz. are their "elected" bosses) will make sure there are plenty of fodder for those stories. And the local leftist rags just salivate to spread them across the front page. What in the previous non-election year would end up page D-9 in the police blotter- if then- now gets front page above the fold on a slow news day. "It's fer the chilrun"... and all that horsepucky.
Same thing is starting with gunshops if there's a liberal, leftist who thinks he/she can "buy" the lawnorder votes of the naive socialist soccer moms. And in the blue cities around here, there's plenty of both of those to go around. [Think Patty Murray in Seattle, Gov. Queen Christine, etc. The latter who holds office only by the obvious and documented corruption of King County elections.]
Yup, crack down on the ho's, porn and guns, but go easy on the meth, crack, murderers, rapists and serial killers- because they vote Democrat.
This is what I was trying to point out to the DumpsterHead guy... the gun dealer doesn't have to do anything to be targeted, and if he is, there isn't anything he can do about it. And the WaPo will make a saint look like a mafia hitman to further the gungrabbing.
And once they have selected you, it doesn't make any difference how good your paperwork is, you are going down. Too bad the BATFE can't meet their own paperwork criteria, as noted by some other posters.
BRADY BUNCH COORDINATING WITH WAPO! The BBs issued a report called "Death Valley" (I am not making this up) about this situation within the last week or ten days now it shows up in the Wapo as a story. I have to get to work and could only scan the story but didn't see the BB listed.
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
we also didn't import crime and poverty from the third world.
Well said!
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