B. Todd Jones is the Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives [And Really Big Fires]. In this PBS interview, Byron talks about implementing a new “business model” for the ATF—a worrying bit of jargon for a Marine who never spent a day of his life running a business. Jones promises to focus his Agency on “the trigger-pullers and traffickers around the country who are creating havoc in our community.” Trigger-pullers? Not criminals? Another trendy but concerning choice of words. Byron then redefines criminal violence as . . .

“slow-motion mass shootings.” Oh dear. That’s the term gun control advocates use to agitate for civilian disarmament. I wonder who’s Byron hanging out with these days? Or maybe he’s just in synch with those who would deny Americans their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.

After kvetching about a lack of agents (again), Byron says he’s determined to tackle the “five percent of gun dealers” who “continue to dump firearms into that illegal crime gun pool.” Wait. Didn’t the ATF do just that in Operation Fast and Furious?

The Director’s confident that things are better now, organizationally speaking. Could the ATF do a sequel, F&F II accidentally on purpose? “I learned to never say never,” Byron demurs. In other words, Byron didn’t promise bad shit won’t happen again. Which is the most truthful thing—and prophetic—thing he said in the whole interview.

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56 COMMENTS

    • He is neither the first nor the last. The Obama legacy will be the many idiots and zealots he has sprinkled across the land. The courts will be packed with his buddies and the end runs he is doing around congress will further screw up the country. It will come down to 2014. If we do not get a Republican majority in the Senate the BS will continue.

  5. let me fix that quote: “due to our purposefully convoluted laws, 5% of gun dealers are criminals. 100% of them are evil baby killers.”

  7. 5 percent of FFLs are criminals?
    Well i is YOUR job to prevent that.
    If YOU failed to prevent that, its YOUR JOB to FIX that.
    Before you get ANOTHER TAX DOLLAR for ANYTHING.

    If the agency needs more money RESIGN so your salary is available to be used for working folks.

      • No, it was the Affirmative Action mentality that enabled this brokedick to get the job. Same thing happened with Obama. Twice.

      • Because any black person had to have gotten their job via affirmative action

        No, thatGirl. But this one sure as hell did.

        • Man, that was weak. You can do better than that; I’ll wait. Extra points for (tired) variations of “left”, “lefty”, “leftard”, “libtard”, etc., because everyone is on the left if some guy on a forum says so.

      • What on Earth does Bush’s election have to do with Todd Jones or Obama’s election? Typical liberal move, deflection. Can’t produce an answer so quick change the subject.

        It’s a well documented phenomenon at this point; many, many people voted for Obama in 2008 AND in 2012 because he was black, and have admitted as much. And, interestingly (or perhaps not surprisng, depending on how you look at it), many of these people have since admitted that they regret doing so.

        The Bush Administration certainly had its share of problems, but the same can be said for any administration we’ve had thus far. At this point, Bush should be viewed as a role model in comparison to what Obama has done in the last five years.

        But I digress. It’s an irrelevant topic.

        • Ha, there it is! I’m a liberal for asking about a racist comment? Can you guys here be more predictable?

      • Let’s see…

        You claim that a valid comment is “racist.”

        You used the “yeah, well what about Bush?” argument. To defend Obama, no less.

        The “can you guys here be more predictable?” part suggests that you came here with the intent of antagonizing the regular members.

        Yeah, I’d say you’re liberal. After all, even your username suggests that you are, in fact, that guy.

        • Alaskan Patriot, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between a Democrat and a tr0ll. In this case, I think thatGirl is too young to vote and still living in mommy’s spare room, so what does that tell you?

        • @Ralph –

          I concur.

          It’s just so hard to pass on an opportunity to knock them down so handily.

          I shall henceforth practice further restraint.

        • “You guys” meaning the purveyors of thinly-veiled racism. If you want to be racist, that’s your right, just be a respectable racist and quit speaking euphemistically about it.

          Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not defending Obama; I don’t play into the phony left-right paradigm.

          Thanks for playing.

        • What we in the Armed Intelligentsia have come to realize, thatGuy, is that it is, as a matter of historical fact no less, the left that perpetuates racism — even going so far as to completely fabricate it in places where it simply does not exist — and absolutely needs it to survive.

          Calling a spade a spade is not racist, but in your apparent worldview it might as well be because it’s not “politically correct”. That in itself is funny because it’s political correctness that is killing public discourse in the first place, not that you would mind, I’m sure.

          And apparently you do buy into the false left-right paradigm, being that you are quite adamantly defending Obama and the left by playing straight out of their handbook.

          “Thanks for playing.” Indeed.

      • Ah, ain’t that cute? “Anon” is now posting as”thatguy”. Simply changing usenames does not hide the fact you are a racist leftarded Democrat, you are still posting the same leftarded sh*t spew you always do, sweety.

        What we all would like to know is WHY you hate people with dark skin? Go ahead, expound at length, leftard, we laughing at mental midgets like you.

  10. “five percent of gun dealers” who “continue to dump firearms into that illegal crime gun pool.”

    They love to bring up that statistic about how most guns used in crimes can be traced back to 5% of dealers. They like to throw that out there without context, so that those dealers can be libeled as criminals in a non-actionable way.

    The thing is this: the ATF can audit any one of those 5% of dealers, and yank their license or even put them in prison if they find anything amiss with their paperwork. They already HAVE the crime guns they traced back, they already HAVE access to the 4473 forms and bound book that document how those guns were sold. So why are these 5% still in business? It can only be because the ATF can find no evidence of wrongdoing, and the most plausible explanation for that is that they’ve done nothing wrong.

    Most guns used in crimes come from a small fraction of dealers because that’s the fraction of dealers located within easy distance of low-income, high-crime urban areas. That’s where innocent people living in high-crime areas go to get their defensive weapons, and those people are the same ones whose guns are most likely to get stolen by those very same criminals. Those dealers are also the place where the criminals living in those neighborhoods send their straw buyers. None of that is the dealers’ fault.

    • Every gun that was used in a crime was once bought legally. The question is how do we stem the tide of guns getting into the hands of repeat offenders. The NICS is a joke, as are most pre-crime measures. With that in mind, the only solution IMO is to lock up repeat offenders. Guns can’t get into the hands of repeat offenders if those offenders are locked up or dead. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you again. Forever. In an 8×4 cell, or 6 feet unde the ground. It’s only shame on me if I let you out a third time to continue your life of crime.

      If only the criminal justice system was operated in this manner…

    • @DaveL, check out the wikipedia entry for the John Jovino Gun Shop in Manhattan. It’s owned by the Imperato family of Henry Repeating Arms fame. It’s close (in every sense of the word) to the NYPD, and yet it’s near the top of the list of sellers whose guns were linked to New York City crimes.

      Go figure.

  11. Is Mr. Jones willing to guess what % of straw purchasers for urban gangs are black or Latino? Or is he only willing to make pointless generalizations against legitimate businessmen? It boggles my mind that a black man in this country can use that kind of non-logic when it has been used against his own people.

    • The ATF doesn’t address street crime per se, and plenty of murderers (and straw buyers) are white. My objection to Jones’ statement is that if 5% of gun dealers are actually known to be dishonest, why do they still have their FFLs?

      I know one FFL who is so paranoid about dealing with the public that he won’t hardly talk to “civilians” and treats us all like criminals. Yet his store is in the top 5% of FFLs whose transferred guns are subsequently used in crimes. It’s the nature of the business and his location, not an indication that he’s crooked.

    • Another commenter addressed this point quite well, but I’ll take a crack at it too.

      Quite simply, they can’t. They already audit all these gun dealers, and you can bet that Obama’s ATF jumps at the chance to shut down any FFL license holder they possibly can.

      In other words, them saying that 5% of FFL dealers are criminals is a load of bull, because the ATF abuses FFL dealers with such regularity and consistency that those allegedly criminal FFL licensees would be slapped so hard so fast that there would be no criminal FFL dealers still breathing long enough for the ATF to report on it.

      These allegedly “criminal” FFL dealers are in fact NOT doing anything wrong, otherwise they would be shut down. With the capabilities that the ATF has regarding auditing them and illegally securing copies of their 4473 forms, if the dealers WERE doing anything wrong the ATF would see it and take swift action. Supposedly.

  13. I’m suddenly reminded of an episode of South Park. An episode where people started pooping out of their mouths. And the Surgeon General came on TV to announce that not out was this natural but that it was actually healthier than normal eating. He also immediate said that he based this off of absolutely nothing. Just like this guy.

  15. “Could the ATF do a sequel, F&F II accidentally on purpose?”

    I thought I saw it reported a few weeks ago, that is exactly what they’re doing. It was something like because of F&F, they’re now so ‘afraid’ of getting in trouble that they’ve effectively stopped trying to do their job on the southern border, and are just looking the other way altogether.

  16. The other day on the Bill Bennett radio show, ATF agent John Dodson of F&F whistleblower fame was interviewed as his book came out. I figured that I had heard everything. As he went deeper in the interview it became obvious to me that we ain’t heard NOTHING yet. He detailed how the FBI was paying the cartels to buy guns. How the DEA was running their guys who worked in these cartels. How NOBODY told the Mexicans about this. How the ATF was essentially protecting the gun runners right up to the border. How they browbeat the FFLs into selling the guns against their will. Then he was asked the WHO question? Who knew? How high up? The answer….the White House knew. If you can get the podcast of the interview it is well worth the listen.

    The next day I listened to the Congressional hearing on this Administration and its illegal circumvention of the law. I nearly wanted to puke. Here is an article on Prof Jonathan Turley testifying:

    http://clashdaily.com/2013/12/preach-prof-obamas-become-danger-constitution-designed-avoid/

    The criminals are those in power, Those who have titles. Those who collect our money in salary. Those to whom we are supposed to regard with respect.

  17. Even if 5% of FFLs are bad (I’m dubious-I think he pulled that out of his backside), I’m guessing that percentage is still less than the percentage of MAIG members who have done naughty things.

  18. So, there, Mister Jones, what percentage of ATF employees are criminals for running guns to Mexican drug cartels?

  19. Where DO we get these guys, Nut JObs.com??? All he has to do is to look upstream from his position in this administration to find bigger criminals than he is referring to.

  21. I think its fair to say that the faces at the forefront of the administration are becoming less and less diverse, with the notable exception of Herman Munster.

  23. Funny, he can trot this claim out and when he gets backed against the wall he will justify it by pointing out gun dealers who have incorrectly filled out paper work and those his agency forced to sell guns to criminals with threats of prosecution if they went to the press. What a sweet gig.

    • Actually it illustrates that a head of a government agency will simply create whatever criminals they need when they need them. Having dealt with BATF and other alphabet soup jacka$$ery I can assure you that you can become a criminal, multi-year in prison criminal, simply by not filling out one line on one piece of paper to their satisfaction.

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