The Department of Homeland Security loses hundreds of guns (courtesy rare.us)

“These are the people securing our borders and playing an integral part in our national security directives. And yet they’re leaving guns in unattended backpacks and leaving badges behind in restaurants and amusement parks. And the DHS doesn’t consider this to be enough of a problem to handle with meaningful punishments or consistent policies and reporting.” – Tim Cushing in Report Finds DHS Terrible At Keeping Track Of Agents’ Badges And Guns [via techdirt.com]

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33 COMMENTS

  1. Accountability? Why should there be? These people are the government! Our righteous saviors and defenders. They grant us all peace and security and safety. They are above the law.

    Want to hold them accountable? Stop funding them. Paying taxes and allowing them to stay funded is no different than a vote of confidence and belief that they should exist.

    • Good luck trying to convince your employer not to withhold any taxes from your paycheck because of political objections.

      • Form W-4, 99 exemptions.

        But you’ll be receiving an unfunny letter from the IRS in a year or two, so I don’t recommend it unless you’ve totally given up on your cancer treatments.

        • You guys all miss the forest for the trees.

          This isn’t a one little guy vs the leviathan type prospect. It’s a mass movement. What do you think would happen if perhaps 10% of the population stopped paying taxes?

          But, yes, even on a personal level there are ways to legally mitigate your tax liability.

          I’m just offering up the only solution that will work. Don’t want to actually do anything about it but just content to sit on the internet at gripe and moan about it? That’s cool.

          We have the government we deserve.

        • As long as you write the check in April the gubmint won’t care. You’ll owe some penalty though, because if they hold on to your money it’s interest free but if you hold on to their money you gotta pay the freight.

          Also might note that your employer is free from any liability if he withholds the wrong amount and you get a nasty surprise in April.

        • 99 exemptions still won’t stop the FICA deduction.

          And, it’s quite clear that a lack of funds won’t stop gov’t spending. We didn’t get a 22 Trillion dollar debt by only spending what was taken in. 10% of the people not paying taxes via withholding isn’t going to change a thing other than the IRS using and justifying their MRAPs and “SWAT” teams.

        • Stereo –

          You’re correct, of course, but the payment of taxes or lack thereof is the “shot across the bow”.

          It is the peaceful step of non-compliance that makes their ears perk up. It let’s them know the citizenry is holding them accountable.

          We all like to bemoan the politicians, but they are doing what they are going to do – that’s the point of government – to steal from many and enrich a few – so if government is still somehow a “must” and we farm out responsibilities to them then we’d better darn well hold them accountable.

          But we don’t. The citizens are asleep at the wheel. We only need look in the mirror to understand why we have the problems we have. And you think that if/when a collapse comes because of poor fiscal responsibility that the people who actually perpetrated it will really care or be affected? These are the people with homes in multiple countries and offshore accounts and great wealth. They will be positioned to exploit the next opportunity that arises out of the ashes. We the people will not.

          But by all means, let’s just stay on this circus ride and continue to go ’round and ’round doing the same thing over and over…what’s the definition of insanity again?

        • ” What do you think would happen if perhaps 10% of the population stopped paying taxes?”
          Depends on which 10% your referring to: remember, the bottom 50% pay nothing at all in federal taxes – so a protest from them is less than meaningless. The top 10%, on the other hand, pay for 90% of the IRS revenues, so not collecting taxes from them would shut it down instantly. Problem is: quite a few of those top earners actually like the current screwed-up system just fine… after all, they paid for its current form and could have fixed it long ago – if they actually wanted to. 🤠

        • Bloving actually it is not the top 10% that pay the most taxes. most of them know how to game the system so they pay fuck all. it is the middle class that get hit the hardest

    • Wont work, no matter what games we all played.

      They just tell the fed to push “play” on the printers and they get all the money they want.

      They can use it to fully fund the IRS and come hunting for all the mass movement. Use some more of if to build prisons, and lock up entire movement.

      We already are a prison nation with a higher percentage of our population locked up than almost anyone, so whats a few hundred thousand or million more prisoners.

      Want change, stop choosing the lesser of 2 evils, and vote libertarian….or at least do so in the house and senate. Ya may not like their foreign policy, but ya wont be broke.

      • I’m a libertarian, but the Libertarians, as in the Party, are nothing more than wolves in sheep’s clothing. One only need look to the most recent candidates for president to see that.

        The system is broke. Our form of government doesn’t work. It’s limped along for a couple hundred years and is about out of gas. Change will come one way or another and nothing can stop it. All empires cease to exist.

        Oh that we could only see and accept and choose to at least attempt a peaceful path…if the .gov shoots first then we know where we stand right?

  3. Whatever happened to responsibility? You lose a gun or badge and you should be taken out to the woodline and “wall to wall counseled” until such a point in time as your superiors feel you will not forget your gear again plus you should lose half your paycheck for 6 months and on top of that have to pay back the cost of said gun with ammunition and badge.

  4. Think this is bad? Go read “I’m from the government and I’m here to kill you” by David Hardy.

    I wish it were only lost guns.

  5. I have never been in the military, but I figure, whatever consequences there are for a soldier or Marine who loses a weapon or sensitive piece of technology, similar consequences should apply to stateside civilian law enforcement in its many flavors.

    • Usually for minor infractions there’s intra-shop solutions like “wall-to-wall counseling” before things get official with the UCMJ. Maybe we should look at things like that first?

    • In the military you don’t take home and store you weapon in your house or vehicle where it can be lost or stolen. The military keeps you weapon in the armory. I know a DHS employee who had their gun safe and service weapon stolen from his house. Not sure how being burglarized is the employees fault.

      • Being burglarized is not the victims’ fault.

        If alphabet agency employees are taking guns home, there needs to be specific policies in place to clarify how they are to be stored. Prudence lies somewhere between a bank vault and a kitchen cupboard. That’s why you need a policy.

        Did the stolen safe comply with those policies? Then the employee is in the clear, and the employer may want to reevaluate/revise the policy if needed. If not, he’s in trouble.

  6. Here’s a nice excerpt:

    An ICE officer left his firearm, badge, and credential unsecured in his hotel room while on vacation. As he slept, his overnight guest stole his belongings.

    His <ahem> overnight hotel room guest stole his stuff. You mean the hooker?

    • That’s where I went “I’ll go with ‘what did the hooker I had over last night leave with’, for $2000, Alex”

    • “His overnight hotel room guest stole his stuff. You mean the hooker?”

      Can’t a guy just enjoy his vacation like any other swinging-dick?

      Er, rapidly-reciprocating appendage?

      Eh, fuckit… 😉

  7. Death penalty for possession of a stolen firearm.
    No Exceptions, No Excuses.
    If you find a gun turn it in, if you aren’t absolutely sure of the seller, don’t buy it.

  10. “they’re leaving guns in unattended backpacks and leaving badges behind in restaurants and amusement parks” and they’re also leaving border-jumping wetbacks in Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona, among other places.

    So ya gotta give ’em props for consistency.

  11. Ever see a DOD report on missing and unaccounted small arms?

    You never will. I was at a place where the armorers would turn in 1/2 of a rifle part, get the new part, wait months and turn in the other part for a new one. . . . Voila! New firearm to sell. They got caught but not really punished.

    There is no accountability, cooperate and graduate is the rule.

    Commanders don’t like bad press and will do whatever it takes to bury a problem.

  12. Years ago I worked for INS and then for US Customs and Border Protection in Miami. I saw many cases of accidental shootings and stolen duty weapons left in cars (in downtown Miami of all places) by officers and nothing was done. I was sick leave for two months once and had to turn in my duty weapon. When I returned to duty, the weapon was nowhere to be found. Fortunately, I had a signed receipt for the weapon and when they came asking questions and looking for a guilty party i was covered. After a month, they found the weapon at the same office where it was turned in, under a mountain of paperwork in a file cabinet instead of a safe as per written protocol). Nothing happened to the officer in charge. I have more examples but you get my drift. We went from qualification and mandatory training with firearms every 90 days (including one night shooting) before I retired, to one or twice per year, according to friends still in active duty in Miami. Totally irresponsible.

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