Free Republic

In the movie “Cliff Hanger,” John Lithgow’s character, Qualen, utters a line that reminds me of how unscrupulous Democrat muckety-mucks like the Clintons and Obama operate. Qualen says, “Kill a few people, they call you a murderer. Kill a million and you’re a conqueror.” Similarly, with the Clintons and Obama, commit a few crimes, they call you a petty criminal. Commit a million and you’re untouchable. Well, maybe not a million—then again. You get the point. We’re now seeing a cascade of unearthed evidence of what seems to be an apparent three-plus-year coup attempt by the Obama administration and media...

Get a suppressor in 90 days or fewer!!! That is the thinking behind Congressman Greg Steube (R-FL-17) new bill, “H.R. 6126 – the End the Normalized Delay of Suppressors (ENDS) Act.” Introduced last month, the ENDS Act would cap suppressor transfer times at 90 days, meaning as long as the prospective purchaser wasn’t denied during the National Firearms Act (NFA) process, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) would have to automatically approve the transfer after 90 days. No more insane wait times! Currently, some purchasers can wait up to 18 months before getting their can. “I have...

Like a number of states, concealed pistol license holders in Michigan are exempted from the requirement to undergo a NICS background check every time they purchase a new firearm. That’s because permit holders have already undergone an extensive background check and fingerprinting in order to be issued a permit in the first place. Michigan has had that exemption from the ATF since 2006, but yesterday the ATF rescinded it. Why? Because recreational marijuana is now legal in the state. Voters approved legalization in 2018 and retail sales started December 1, 2019. While buying and using weed may not be a...

Erin Gregoire crossed the finish line of the Houston Marathon, looked at her watch, and smiled. In her debut at the distance, she ran 2:42:55—well under the qualifying time of 2:45:00 she needed for the Olympic Marathon Trials. In what has become a complex case, however, Gregoire was denied entry into the Trials, because the differential between her gun time (2:54:54) and chip time (her 2:42:55) was too large. And the day of the Houston Marathon (January 19) was the final day of qualifying, so it was her last shot at getting into the race. “Obviously it was an incredible...

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms says Alabama is an easy target for criminals to get a gun..... The ATF says there is a strong second amendment belief in Alabama as well as other surrounding states, but not a state system of registration or firearm requirements. "People know that, so this becomes a pipeline almost for firearms leaving legal commerce and then they are sold at flea markets and, etc. Buyers may not ask all the questions they should and someone a little smart and configures state laws and goes from Chicago - a place that has extreme firearms...

(CNN) - In his 23 years with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Dan O'Kelly was one of the agency's top gun experts. He served for five years as the lead firearms technology instructor at the ATF National Academy, where he co-wrote the curriculum for incoming agents. These days, however, O'Kelly is using his formidable firearms expertise and institutional knowledge of the ATF to take aim at his former employer. He's at the center of a brewing legal dispute that federal prosecutors say has the potential to upend the 1968 Gun Control Act and "seriously undermine the ATF's...

It's been about 10 years since the public discovered Fast and Furious, the gun walking operation conducted by the ATF under the Obama administration. The ATF arranged for straw buyers to purchase guns from American gun stores and transfer them to arms traffickers who would give them to drug cartels in Mexico. Ostensibly, the ATF would then track down the cartels. But they lost track of the guns, and some were used to kill Americans. Yet where are the prosecutions of the Obama officials who ran it? The victims and their families have never received justice. But they're looking into...

One of the Mexican gunmen who killed a U.S. Border Patrol agent, consequently sparking the Obama administration’s “Fast and Furious” scandal, was sentenced to life in prison. U.S. District Judge David C. Bury on Wednesday sentenced Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes to life in federal prison for first-degree murder. The sentencing follows Osorio-Arellanes’s involvement in a 2010 border shootout between Mexican gunmen and U.S. officials, resulting in the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry... Osorio-Arellanes fled the scene and evaded justice for many years. However, Mexican authorities arrested him in 2017 in Chihuahua. He was extradited to the U.S. in 2018 and...

The ATF isn’t all bad. In fact, they had a policy of letting illegal gun purchases go between 2006 and 2011. It ended up getting U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry killed on December 14, 2010, and let Mexican criminals get enough guns that they were found at over 150 crime scenes where Mexican citizens were either killed or maimed. And some of the guns were used in the November 2015 terrorist attack in Paris at the Bataclan. But other than that, it turned out just fine. (In case you’re not picking up on it, we’re laying on the sarcasm...

Rates of firearm ownership and gun sales are on the rise despite calls for gun control, according to a report released Wednesday by the Firearms Industry Trade Association (FITA). Using the most recent data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF’s) Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Export Reports (AFMER) to draw its conclusions, FITA’s report stated there are 422.9 million firearms in civilian possession from 1986 to 2018, along with an estimated 8.1 billion rounds of various firearms calibers and gauges. The report also noted that in a 25 year period between 1993 and 2017, the violent crime...

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...