ATF Agents
(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

As gun sales surge during the coronavirus pandemic, the Justice Department is asking Congress for more enforcement resources — including to confiscate guns from people who shouldn’t legally be able to own them.

In recent outreach to Capitol Hill, DOJ made two requests related to the spike in gun purchases, according to two sources with knowledge of those asks. First, the department asked for funding to help the FBI hire more staff to keep up with the growing number of background checks and appeal requests going through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The bureau runs that system, which handles background checks on millions of gun buyers every year.

“The top priorities for the Department of Justice are to protect the safety and security of the American people and to ensure that Americans are not deprived of their constitutional rights,” said Stephen Boyd, head of the department’s Office of Legislative Affairs, in a statement. “Increased funding for NICS and ATF at this time is important to achieving those goals.”

The department also asked for more resources and personnel for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to deal with firearm retrievals and other field work related to delayed denials, according to the two sources. The term “delayed denials” refers to situations in which people buy weapons and take them home before the NICS system can flag those buyers as ineligible to own guns.

– Betsy Woodruff in Trump Justice Department asks for more resources to enforce gun laws

31 COMMENTS

  1. If our Founding Fathers felt we needed an organization to shoot our dogs and otherwise infringe on our rights . . . well I’m pretty sure they would have included that in one of the founding documents.

    The ATF needs to be disbanded.

    • “The top priorities for the Department of Justice are to protect the safety and security of the American people and to ensure that Americans are not deprived of their constitutional rights,…”

      ****
      I call bovine excrement on that statement.

    • If the IRS tax system is built and running on 60 year old computers and code, I’m wondering what is hosting the NICS system?

      Was ENIAC requisitioned from a museum?

  2. Seems like this is a roundabout admission that NICS doesn’t work and should be scrapped…

    • Be careful what you wish for…disband and get something WORSE. Commisar.

      • ‘Disband’ doesn’t equal ‘replace’, but point taken. What we need to do is just disband the federal f#cking government and put all the politicians under the prison. Then prohibit all the federal LE agents from the hundreds of agencies that have LE agents, from ever working in LE ever again.

        That would go a long way toward fixing things but I think we all know realistically nothing can fix this broken gooberment.

        Boogaloo Now!

  3. “The top priorities for the Department of Justice are to protect the safety and security of the American people and to ensure that Americans are not deprived of their constitutional rights,” said Stephen Boyd, head of the department’s Office of Legislative Affairs, in a statement. “Increased funding for NICS and ATF at this time is important to achieving those goals.”

    No.

    That is the deprivation of rights.

    • As all gun control laws are un Constitutional infringement, overseen by a un Constitutionally authorized agency, what could go wrong,that is the deprivation of rights.

  4. I wonder how this goes in with the letter a group of Dems sent to the FBI asking them to illegally extend denials (which the FBI is already doing, but nominally not indefinitely) and retain records.

  5. The problems that are allowing the wrong people to have guns will never be given any attention. Instead, the focus will be unconstitutional insanity that in itself will create bigger problems. In other words: they are hell bent on wasting time, money, and resources for the purposes of removing freedom and controlling people.

  6. The answer should be less money, not more money.

    Move the Explosives division out of BATFE, make them into FBI non-LEO staff. I understand this group to be exceptional in their specialized field. Nothing else can be salvaged.

    The rest of it is an unnecessary anti-Constitutional agency that gets innocent citizens, their own officers and officers in other police agencies killed. They do this by way of incompetence, arrogance and the certainty that no matter how horrible their failures the Republicans and Democrats can be counted upon to blame each other and shield the ATF in the inevitable political hissy fit that follows.

  7. Tens of THOUSANDS NICS rejections each year, mostly by felons….

    Less than 100 prohibited felons charged each year.

    They are not interested in catching felons, only restricting honest people from getting firearms.

    The DOJ and FBI and ATF ate like the NKVD and STASI. We free people don’t need them.

    • Why spend all the resources on that? The point of NICS is to make it harder to gun run, not so much chasing individual purchases. And yes, the biggest source of “criminal” guns comes from running, not stealing.

      And I’m sure the mob would love to get rid of the FBI. As it is, large criminal organizations already have too much power.

      • Wanna cite some sources? You make several statements which I do not believe are true, with an “everybody knows that” attitude which I find normally means it’s bullshit. The main effect of this infringement falls on law abiding gun owners, not criminals at all. And I have not heard of any “gun runners” (whatever that means) being prosecuted, either. *NO* further funds should be allocated until the public sees graphs of “before” and “after” showing the effects of past spending on specific crimes, not including firearm possession since that is a Constitutional right, I’m talking about robbery and murder, kidnapping and rape, REAL crimes. I got a nickel says you won’t see a blip due to the many hundreds of billions we’ve spent on this agency (ATF) since it was invented so the revenooers wouldn’t have to be fired on the death of Prohibition. And no replacement, just dump it and all “agents” in it.

      • Even though most crime guns are actually straw purchased, not stolen. No, we don’t need an institutionally-corrupt organization like the FBI, and never did. They are among the largest criminal organizations in the world.

    • Tens of thousands of NICS rejections every year, mostly due to glitches and errors in the system. To the tune of 95% . Less than 50 charges filed and less than 20 prosecutions in any given year. NICS needs to be scrapped, and it be made an immediately arrestable offense for any legislator to merely suggest such a thing ever again.

  8. It’s always about more money, and growing the organization. The Leviathan only gets larger.

    • Here in L.A. County, the municipal fiscal year ends on June 30. A couple of years ago, during the last two weeks of June, several asphalt crews came to our neck of the woods and “repaired” some of our local streets by laying fresh asphalt over the dirt on the right shoulder (where not needed at all) in short strips, in a manner that made absolutely no sense whatsoever and looked stupid. Everybody knew they were doing it only to pad their materials & payroll budgets so as to prove they still “needed” their full allocation for the upcoming year. God forbid they try to actually save the taxpayers money and be responsible, right?

      Same goes for the L.A. Welfare. We knew someone who worked in that department, and she said they actually have people on the payroll whose primary role is to push and promote the programs in order to keep them loaded up with welfare recipients. According to her, if they show that all the money allocated to welfare is being used, they qualify for adjusted increases the following fiscal year. One year not long ago, the number of welfare applicants had actually decreased, so the promoters worked to sign more people back up to fill the quota. It worked, and they “saved” their slice of the county budget and got COLA raises for their efforts.

      Your assessment is correct. The Leviathan grows ever-larger, and must be fed.

  9. ATF Gun ‘Retrievals the news here.

    Background checks are illegal!

    Delays,Fees & permission is not required on a human natural right from GOD!

  10. I have no doubt that there will be newly released felons acquiring firearms. Individuals that would still be in a cell if not for liberals setting them free.

  11. Stephen Boyd. Actor who played the role of Massala, Roman tribune, opposite Charlton Heston in the movie Ben Hur. That chariot race did not end well for that tyrant!

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