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FrancF
Member Posts: 35,279 ✭✭✭
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The fedgov policing its ranks isn't a subject of much interest, to me...
quote:Gun-control activists tie the trend to a drop in crime. NRA disagrees.
No surprise, here...
quote:NEW YORK - The United States has more gas stations than gun dealers. "News flash?" you might think.
Not really. Oil companies are not accosted by 20,000 laws and regulations that far exceed any other product, which is diabolical and anticapitalist.
quote:But a decade ago, businesses licensed to sell firearms outnumbered gas stations 245,000 to 210,000.
Yeah, big oil doesn't have to contend with jack-booted thugs like any gun shop does.
quote:Since then, the number of licensed firearms dealers has declined almost 80 percent, according to a recent study of federal data.
Yep, but sales keep going through the roof, anyway.
quote:The reason: changes in regulations in the 1990s that, among other things, required federally licensed gun dealers to comply with zoning laws and report certain information to local police.
Put into context, a violation of private property rights, in full blown magnitude. This is the height of anticapitalism, but yet sales keep booming, regardless.
quote:Gun-control advocates contend that this dramatic reduction is a victory for "sensible" gun-control policy that has made it harder for criminals to get guns.
It has actually done nothing of the sort. In fact, any location where guns are restricted or forbidden does not show this to be even remotely true, does it, kommies???
quote:They believe the reduced number of dealers makes it easier for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (known commonly as ATF) to police the "bad apple" dealers who divert guns onto the illegal market.
Yep, jack-booted thugs need a little extra help in justifying their war on the populace, all right. This also has been as abject a failure as the ballistic fingerprinting registration scheme, except that it did make a back door registration scheme, which the kommies want very much.
quote:ATF studies have shown that a disproportionately large number of those bad apple dealers were small businesses.
The ATF doesn't do studies, so this is false. The Justice Department does this, and those so-called "bad apple" dealers are disproportionately technicality violators, and not the right arm of the underground arms market, and they damned well know it.
quote:And while gun-control advocates acknowledge there's no empirical evidence, they believe the reduction was one element that added to the dramatic decline in crime during the past decade.
Nope, wrong again dumb@$$e$. The proliferation of guns, and advances of concealed carry is what did this.
quote:"This is a major policy success of the Clinton administration, because the gun distribution system has been out of control for a long time," says Dennis Henigan, director of the Brady Center, a gun-control advocacy group in Washington.
Klinton had nothing to do with this. Guns are finding their way into peoples' hands more now, than ever.
quote:The National Rifle Association has a very different response: "So what?" says Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the NRA in Fairfax, Va. He contends the changes only drove out individuals who may have gotten a license so they could buy guns at wholesale prices for their personal use.
True... true....
quote:His explanation for crime being at an all-time low is very different, but also anecdotal: During the past decade NRA membership has almost doubled, the number of firearms sold has increased, and a majority of states now have laws allowing individuals to carry concealed weapons.
Yep. Despite Klinton's ineptitude in office, state legislations were "fixing" the real problem.... proliferation of firearms into society.
quote:"It's a stretch to make the claim that this reduction in dealers had any impact on the reduction in crime," Mr. Arulanandam says.
It's not a stretch... it is an out and out lie.
quote:These two dramatically different takes on what was clearly an effective social policy - like it or not, it did decrease the number of gun dealers - illustrate the hot- button nature of the gun-control debate.
Translation, it closed honest businesses down. Just what this country needed, too.
quote:They also show widely different perceptions of the nation's current gun laws: While one side says the regulations are inadequate, the other says they're already too onerous.
I'm on the latter side, and they are onerous, by around 20,000 laws, overall.
quote:But there are a few things that both sides in the debate can agree on, such as the reasons for the decline in gun dealers.
One is absolutely right, while the brady bunch is, as always, full of $#!t.
quote:During the Clinton administration, three major changes took place: ATF tightened up regulations, the Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act passed in 1993,
Spelled E-N-T-R-A-P-M-E-N-T. And the correct term for that law is the Brady Viktim Disarmament and Endangerment Akt of 1993.
quote:and the next year the 1994 crime bill passed, which also tightened gun regulations.
Yep, that bill was a crime, too, and has finally left us, hopefully, forever.
quote:As a result, the cost of a federal firearms license jumped from $30 for three years to $200 for the same duration. In addition, dealers were required to be photographed and fingerprinted, and they had to provide that information to the local police.
There's nothing in the world like being treated as criminals to help deter otherwise lawful enterprise. If all businesses were treated like this, our country would be worse than a third world $#!t#ole.
quote:They also had to comply with local zoning laws and prove they were engaged in "the business" of selling firearms.
A sidestep of standard operating procedure, considering the burden of proof should not rest on you.
quote:"If there are fewer licensees to monitor, then the workload may be more manageable, but the question still remains: Does the ATF have the power and resources to find the bad apples and then go after them?"
If they are determined to just shut you down, then sure, even if they are not truly bad apples (takes one to know one, doesn't it, JBT's??) then the entrapment concept takes root to make you a criminal whether you are or not.
quote:says James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston. "You still have a small percentage of dealers linked to a high percentage of guns traced to crime."
A staggering percentage of which were stolen from legal owners, and increases in large cities can also be seen to link those small percentages of dealers to these said firearms. This kind of comparison is both pointless and stupid.
quote:While the ATF does not release the number of inspectors it employees to monitor gun-dealer compliance, sources within the agency say there are "only hundreds of them" to inspect an estimated 54,000 dealers nationwide.
Yeah, that's like just under a thousand too many, right there.
quote:As a result, less than 5 percent of gun dealers are inspected each year. A July 2004 inspector general's report estimated that with the ATF's current resources, it would take 22 years to inspect every licensed gun dealer in the country.
It would take a couple centuries to do the same if you had to wait for just cause, wouldn't it, JBT's??
quote:It recommended a series of reforms to streamline the inspection process. The bureau has already implemented many of those changes, but an agency source says that more inspectors are what's really needed, as well as increased authority to fine and penalize dealers that are out of compliance - something recommended by the inspector general.
No no... less inspectors. No authority. No counterproductive policies or laws. That is what will put things in harmonic balance.
quote:But ATF officials will not publicly comment on any of these issues, because whatever is said "can be taken out of context" by one side or the other in the gun-control debate.
Actually, it can only really be taken out of context by the anyti-gun side, because as time passes, even the ATF is finding it hard to justify its existence, which is why we see them in Virginia harassing the citizens for no just reason.
quote:"We're like the punching bag in the middle," says the source. "Whatever we say, one side or the other will bash us, so we just focus on enforcing the gun laws, whatever they are."
Don't stop on my account. You guys are an unconstitutional agency anyway, and I don't require you saying anything for me to bash you.
quote:Gun-control advocates are concerned that some of the progress made in reining in the number of gun dealers will be lost because Congress has been quietly attempting to roll back some of the reforms implemented in the 1990s.
Let's not forget, Congress is doing the bidding of mainstream America, because there is no way they would do it out of good conscience.
quote:For instance, in an amendment attached to the ATF appropriations bill at the behest of the NRA late last year, Congress forbid the ATF from suspending a firearms license because of lack of legitimate "business activity."
Hopefully, the next step is to render all licenses for any business in the country as nullified, and never do this to the populace, ever again.
quote:"What we really don't want to see is a return to the early '90s, when there was just horror story after horror story of people who were using their license to buy huge numbers of guns and then traffic them illegally into urban areas with strict gun-control laws," says Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit gun-violence prevention organization that conducted the study of the decline in gun dealers.
Story after story??? Give me a break. I feel like getting my waders on for this.
quote:The NRA says it supported the amendment limiting the ATF's enforcement abilities because some individuals don't sell guns in a regular retail manner, and it believes they shouldn't be penalized for that. The organization also argues that the gun distribution system is not out of control. In fact, it believes the current ATF regulations are already too onerous.
Yup...
quote:"The [ATF] can conduct annual checks on any [federal firearms licensee (FFL)], and if in the course of one of these audits, ATF finds any discrepancy, it can literally move in to the place of business and set up shop and go over their records with a fine-toothed comb," says Arulanandam.
Just like a tax audit. And basically, if they want to nail you, you can consider yourself nailed, even if you never did anything wrong.
quote:"You add to that the regulation that any FFL is required to maintain a record of any transaction for 20 years. That's a requirement that even surpasses IRS standards."
Both of which are highly unconstitutional....
What right do we the people have to complain about bureaucRATs that change the laws by making up rules and reg. that fill in the blanks between the lines of new and old laws.
The A$$HO!*S you send to government to represent you the people ,need to put there name on a new law in order to feel fulfilled . Once they get into government service they find a way to hire the rest of the family , It's just like a anchor baby for illegals . When your government says they will create jobs they mean more bureaucRATs, more Feds to show up at your door to help you .
To give up is to give in .
Never let them win by you giving up.
When they asked me to give up My FFL
when the Clintons were on a crime spree
, I told them to go to hell. They never
called back and I am still here. When
you make waves they will leave you alone.[8D]