Free Republic

Attorney General Bill Barr will announce a new Department of Justice initiative tomorrow called Project Guardian. Project Guardian, which will be implemented through ATF and overseen by DOJ, will focus on preventing "gun violence" in cities across the country. Barr will make the announcement and detail the project Wednesday from downtown Memphis. He will be joined by ATF Acting Director Regina Lombardo, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee D. Michael Dunavant and ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Nashville Field Division Marcus Watson. In the meantime, President Trump's DOJ has been setting records for prosecutions against felony...

(CNN)For more than a year, Joseph Roh illegally manufactured AR-15-style rifles in a warehouse south of Los Angeles. His customers, more than two dozen of whom were legally prohibited from possessing a firearm, could push a button, pull a lever, and walk away a short time later with a fully assembled, untraceable semi-automatic weapon for about $1,000, according to court records. Roh continued his black-market operation despite being warned in person by agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that he was breaking the law. But five years after raiding his business and indicting him, federal authorities...

Tucked inside a narrow wedge of a traditional open-air market is one of Mexico’s most dangerous black market operations. It’s known as the Tepito. It’s a barrio where even the police mostly remain outside. Inside, it’s under the tightly controlled thumb of the Union de Tepito, otherwise known as the Union Cartel – one of the capital city’s most violent and well-financed criminal players. ... And, the ATF itself became a contentious piece of that puzzle between 2009 and 2011 in what became known as “Operation Fast and Furious,” when the ATF’s Phoenix Field Division allowed illegal gun sales in...

Chuck Canterbury, President Trump's nominee to serve as head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, is likely to see his nomination withdrawn due to stringent opposition from Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Washington Free Beacon learned on Thursday. "Chuck Canterbury does NOT have sufficient support in the Judiciary Committee and is now expected to be held up instead of getting a vote today," a GOP Senate aide told the Free Beacon on Thursday morning. "Republican members are (1) Concerned about his stances on gun control, and (2) there is still some bad blood for him...

The shootout between Randy Weaver and his family and federal agents on August 21, 1992 is often considered a pivotal date in American history. The short version is this: Randy Weaver and his wife Vicki moved with their four kids to the Idaho Panhandle, near the Canadian border, to escape what they thought was an increasingly corrupt world. The Weavers held racial separatist beliefs, but were not involved in any violent activity or rhetoric. They were peaceful Christians who simply wanted to be left alone. Specifically for his beliefs, Randy Weaver was targeted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and...

Please do not have a cow, my proposal is an improvement in speed and confidentiality. Imagine my zip code is 55555-1212 and I have a valid state-issued photo ID with that zip code on it. If some gun seller wanted to see if I'm a barred person, he would enter 55555 into the ATF website. He would get back a numerically ordered list of nine-digit zip codes of barred persons who have been issued state identification cards/licenses with nine-digit zip codes for 55555 that are still valid. This might have fifty zip codes on it. The gun seller would check...

".................In one email from March 2011, after being sent a news story about the Fast and Furious investigation, Holder told staff, "I hope there is another side to the story." Later, after the ATF deputy director assured Holder aides that "we did not allow guns to walk," Holder responded to staff with, "Do they really, really know?" That August, Holder was told by staff that about 25 U.S. attorneys was upset that the resignation of Dennis Burke, then the U.S. attorney in Arizona, was announced simultaneously with the reassignment of ATF Acting Director Ken Melson. Holder wondered "why wouldn't we...

Chuck Canterbury, up for the position of ATF boss, underwent two hours of Senate hearings this week. (Photo: Screen-capture of video from U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee)Kenneth Charles “Chuck” Canterbury, Jr., President Trump’s nominee for Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, underwent a round of hearings in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. The long-term president of the National Fraternal Order of Police, Canterbury has held his current spot in the 350,000-strong group since 2003. A South Carolina resident, he formerly served 26 years in the Horry County Police Department in the Palmetto State and...

ATF agents across the country have been working to track down thousands of guns and firearms parts that had been seized by law enforcement and were supposed to be destroyed but were stolen first, according to sources familiar with the effort. The agents are searching for some of their own retired service weapons as well as guns from other federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and DEA. All of the weapons had been sent to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' National Firearms and Ammunition Destruction Branch in Martinsburg, West Virginia, to be shredded, according to...

Chuck is a 25-year veteran of law enforcement, including serving as the firearm instructor for his department in Horry County, S.C. He chartered the Local Coastal Carolina FOP lodge in 1984 and rose through the FOP ranks to become national president in 2003. Canterbury`s son is following in his footsteps by serving with the Horry County Police Department. They also share a passion for waterfowl hunting in the Myrtle Beach area, where they both live. I was pleased to catch up with Chuck when he visited Washington recently. Cox: "Chuck, it`s great to visit with you. The NRA has been...

In a national email, the National Association for Gun Rights announced that the Trump administration just made an anti-gunner the next ATF Director. Chuck Canterbury is the presumptive nominee at the ATF based on an announcement made on Friday. According to the NAGR President Dudley Brown, Canterbury has a “long history of publicly supporting and endorsing anti-gun policies, anti-gun Supreme Court nominees, and anti-gun high ranking government officials.” As President of the National Fraternal Order of Police, Canterbury has supported anti-gun Supreme Court Justices like Sonia Sotomayor and former Attorney General Eric Holder, who ran the notorious Fast and Furious...

A man was arrested on suspicion of possessing, selling and manufacturing assault weapons, according to the LAPD. The suspect was placed into a car and transported by authorities to an unidentified location. A spokesperson for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in Los Angeles confirmed a “joint investigation with LAPD” was ongoing. Police told CBSLA more than roughly 1,000 firearms were recovered at the scene. Thousands of rounds of ammo were also found at the home, according to CBSLA’s Tom Wait.

Janet Reno, the nation’s first female attorney general, approved the FBI’s assault on the Davidians. Previously, she had zealously prosecuted child abuse cases in Dade County, Fla, though many of her high-profile convictions were later overturned because of gross violations of due process. Reno approved the FBI assault after being told “babies were being beaten.” It is not known who told her about the false claims of child abuse. Reno’s sterling reputation helped the government avoid any apparent culpability for the deaths of 27 children on April 19, 1993. After Reno publicly promised to take responsibility for the outcome at...

Retailers who had to destroy tens of thousands of bump stocks to comply with an ATF rule change have gone to the court seeking compensation. (Photo: Slide Fire Solutions)Two former retailers of now-banned bump stock devices are suing the federal government for damages they incurred after having to destroy their inventory. The plaintiffs include two companies, Minnesota’s Modern Sportsman and Texas-based RW Arms, as well as two individuals, Mark Maxwell and Michael Stewart, who in all lost 74,995 bump stocks to the ban which took effect late last month. The case, filed in a Washington, D.C. federal court, argues that...

<p>Two years ago at the annual SHOT Show—the Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade Show, run by the National Shooting Sports Foundation—Second Amendment supporters felt optimism that the first year of the Trump administration would bring good things to firearm makers, sellers, and users.</p>

On the 25th "anniversary" of the government siege of the Branch Davidian property outside of Waco, TX, Mance talks to the producer and narrator of the 1997 documentary, "Waco - The Rules of Engagement.," Dan Gifford. In this expose, Dan was the first to reveal the lies, and outright crimes, State agents committed against a group of people that turned out to be innocent of any misconduct under the law.

The largest annual trade show for shooting, hunting and outdoor show in the world is not immune to the partial government shutdown’s effects. Two scheduled educational sessions involving the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms at the Shooting, Hunting & Outdoor Trade Show at the Sands Expo and Convention Center were canceled due to the agents being furloughed. “The cancelled sessions were replaced with sessions on other topics,” said spolesperson Bill Brassard with the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which sponsors the show. “These and other seminars are attended by firearms retailers, who were basically unaffected because they continued to have...

CNN decided to "investigate" the number of people who lie on the 4473 forms, which are used when someone purchases a firearm. It asks basic questions like your name, address, date of birth and if you've committed a number of criminal violations. When you fill it out you check a simple "yes" or "no" on each question. Lying on 4473 is a felony that can result in a hefty fine and up to 10 years in prison. What's silly is it took an "investigation" for CNN to realize a fact that gun rights advocates have been saying for years:...

My title. Go to the 3 minute mark.

Discontinuance of Accessory Classifications Effective Immediately: The Firearms Technology Industry Services Branch (FTISB) classifies firearms as defined by the Gun Control Act (GCA) and National Firearms Act (NFA) based on the configuration and the design features of the firearm as submitted by members of the industry. Effective immediately, any requests for a determination on how an accessory affects the classification of a firearm under the GCA or NFA must include a firearm with the accessory already installed. Except in cases of conditional import determinations, FTISB will not issue a determination on an accessory unless it is attached to the submitted...