In a 1995 fund raising letter, NRA Veep Wayne LaPierre called employees of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives “jack-booted thugs” who “wear Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms to attack law-abiding citizens.” And now . .
he wants the very same ATF to regulate bump fire stocks, to make them illegal or at the least, NFA items. What could possibly go wrong?
We’re talking about the federal agency whose actions in Waco, Texas led to the death of 76 people.
The agency that watched Mexican drug thugs illegally purchase firearms and walk them across the border, later linked to 69 killings — including the death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry — and 20 mass killings.
The agency that hired a brain-damaged man to promote an undercover storefront sting in Milwaukee. And then arrested him. One operation among many ATF “stings” that manufactures crime.
The agency that sold black market cigarettes and maintained secret bank accounts to fund operations they couldn’t get Congress to bankroll.
Need I go on?
In short, the ATF is a deeply corrupt organization that has a long, squalid history of antipathy towards Americans seeking to exercise their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. And a longstanding tradition of remaining unaccountable for their illegal, amoral and unconstitutional actions.
The NRA realized this back in the day. They probably realize it now. But in the aftermath of the Las Vegas massacre, the NRA’s leaders have decided its better to encourage the ATF to reverse its logically consistent ruling that approved bump fire stocks than it is to let a bump fire ban bill make it to the President’s desk. Or to be seen as “pro-mass murder.”
They may be right — if the ATF heads off Congress at the pass. But they may also be wrong. The move gives the ATF more legitimacy.
We’ve seen what the Bureau’s done with their power in the past. The NRA’s implicit endorsement can only make them stronger.
What happens when a pro-gun control Democrat wins the White House and directs the ATF to wield the ban hammer again? Will semi-autos (a.k.a., “weapons of war”) be next? And don’t forget: the ATF have their own little army. The next Prez could get all enforcement happy.
All the Devil wants is your soul. Has the NRA delivered?
I agree that the ATF has a long and shady history, and would never for one moment think they have our best interests in mind. How sad, then, that they are the lesser of two evils today?
I thought this was a clever move by the NRA, and still do. A rules change by them can’t be worse than a law written by Feinstein and Pelosi. Especially since any new rules would be subject to clarification and interpretation by the ATF.
And really, if a terrible new law passed with widespread public support, society would think of the ATF as legitimate by association anyway.
We gave the weak ass GOP the house, senate, and White House so we wouldn’t have to worry about bills from Pelosi and Fienstine. The fact they’re wielding this much power again is extremely telling. The NRA screamed bloody murder when Obamas ATF just up and banned green tip 5.56… now the the NRA is tuck tail and running like we dogs. They’re cowards pure and simple. Damn them. Damn them to hell.
I think your comment is more telling than you realize. Gun owners threw their support behind the GOP candidates in hopes that they would deliver some pretty big prizes (Silencer deregulation, National CC reciprocity, etc. They have not because they cannot.
Irrespective of what polls pro-gun people want to dig up, the fact is that broad support for gun rights is tenuous at best and things like the LV shooting do nothing to help. We can’t get enough hard core gun rights supporters elected because there are simply not enough gun owners across the country to tip the scales in our favor. As a result, we will continue to have small incremental victories, but sooner or later, anti-gun forces will rise to dominance at the Federal level and rights will be on the chopping block.
The only hope is to continue to increase the numbers of people who think favorably towards guns and to do this we need to stop having the f-ing madmen shoot places up. The LV shooting would have been bad enough, but this jackass had to use AR-15 pattern rifles and then stick on a device that for all intents and purposes in the minds of the average person easily converted it into a machine gun. At that point, the general populace is not going to debate the finer points of semi versus full and AR versus hunting rifles. They are going to support wholesale bans and unless gun owners are willing to literally go to war over it, there is going to be little that can be done.
I don’t disagree with you, I see any advancement of 2A done outside of SCOTUS as a Pyrrhic victory because the long term strategy isn’t to win the war, but delay losing it.
What the majority of those who don’t fully believe in “shall not be infringed” need to be brought to understand is that if legislation comes in the future that all but disarms the minority of the populace that owns guns that it’s not going to lead to some utopia of peace. The harder they push 2A people into that gun free future, the more of a reaction they’re gonna get.
Charlton Heston was absolutely correct when he said, “From my cold, dead hands.” because I believe if we are disarmed, we’re already dead and I know I’m not alone when I say that. Any confiscation or registration movement will not be obeyed and if the American people in the future want to send police, military, etc. to people’s homes to confiscate guns en masse, they have to understand and accept that it will lead to a conflagration and it will destroy the nation.
Because it’s that exact same thing that began the creation of this nation.
But, we all know liberals are suicidal and if they want to go from just calling gun owners criminals to legislatively and judicially changing the classification of gun laws into making gun owners official criminals in the name of their progressive, unconstitutional laws, then they’ll have succeeded in ostracizing us and making us the enemy and justifying their actions when they say, “SEE! We told you they were criminals for decades and now they are!”
And when that comes, they’re gonna reap the whirlwind.
I don’t disagree with you, I see any advancement of 2A done outside of SCOTUS as a Pyrrhic victory because the long term strategy isn’t to win the war, but delay losing it.
What the majority of those who don’t fully believe in “shall not be infringed” need to be brought to understand is that if legislation comes in the future that all but disarms the minority of the populace that owns guns that it’s not going to lead to some utopia of peace. The harder they push 2A people into that gun free future, the more of a reaction they’re gonna get.
Charlton Heston was absolutely correct when he said, “From my cold, dead hands.” because I believe if we are disarmed, we’re already dead and I know I’m not alone when I say that. Any confiscation or registration movement will not be obeyed and if the American people in the future want to send police, military, etc. to people’s homes to confiscate guns en masse, they have to understand and accept that it will lead to a conflagration and it will destroy the nation.
Because it’s that exact same thing that began the creation of this nation.
But, we all know liberals are suicidal and if they want to go from just calling gun owners criminals to legislatively and judicially changing the classification of gun laws into making gun owners official criminals in the name of their progressive, unconstitutional laws, then they’ll have succeeded in ostracizing us and making us the enemy and justifying their actions when they say, “SEE! We told you they were criminals for decades and now they are!”
And when that comes, they’re gonna reap the whirlwind and the American people of that time have to understand that. I once read that no Constitution can be self-enforcing, that the Constitution is only alive when it is alive in the hearts and minds of the American people and that if/when future Americans lose that fire in them to keep the Constitution alive because they think they know better than White, slave owning, men who’ve been dead for centuries, then not only will the nation die, but so to will their liberty.
Actually you’re wrong a rule made by a federal police agency is not how this country makes laws. This would give the ATF the ability to keep changing whatever laws they want to make it more restrictive all the way down to Banning aftermarket triggers because of these freaking bump fire stocks. The NRA are a bunch of morons and I’m just now realizing this. I tried to give Wayne LaPierre the benefit of the doubt for the last 27 years but I was expecting more from Pete Brpwnell. We definitely don’t want federal police agencies making up laws for the people that is absolutely not how this country runs and it is absolutely horrificator.
I see what you’re saying, but this is something the ATF already does. Arm braces were legal, then putting them to your shoulder was a felony, then it wasn’t, based on ATF rules interpretation. A VFG on a pistol is a felony, but an AFG isn’t, based on ATF rules interpretation. A shoestring is or isn’t a machine gun based on ATF rules interpretation, and a slide fire stock currently isn’t, based on… ATF rules interpretation. If you think this is stupid, then we agree. Doesn’t change the reality, though.
Even if technically correct, do you really think the outcome would be better if the current Congress wrote a law to deal with this?
Times of conflict will show who is a friend or foe. The new leadership of the NRA has shown they are no friend of any gun owner. Oh the hypocrisy of the youtubers and nra members who said “not one more inch” but now say “its only bump fire guys”
The function of the ATF needs to exist, but the ATF in it’s current form doesn’t. Fold it into the FBI already… Tax collection is a Treasury function anyways…
Ah, yes, transfer the ATF to the vaunted FBI — former home of Lon Horiuchi (murderer of Vicki Weaver), Robert Hanssen (maybe the worst traitor since Benedict Arnold) and Robert Comey (who whitewashed Hildebitch).
Great move!
Give any power at all to the IRS??? Holy Sh!t! Don’t forger, they have been used as a government club to repeatedly bash conservatives! Anyone remember that huge prison sentence given to Louis Lerner and her boss for political corruption, and fraud, and lying to Congress under oath? Yeah, me neither.
So… is there a good government agency that could take over some of the functions?
I kid, of course there isn’t. If there were a part of the Federal Government that wasn’t doing something wrong, they wouldn’t be doing anything and should be cut for general uselessness. Still, most people don’t really think about the ATF at all. Consolidating the functions might make some of their screwups more visible. I mean, everyone hates the IRS already, and I think the FBI wants everyone to think they’re professionals- they might cut some of the worst ATF excesses out of sheer embarrassment.
Besides making gun control laws without any accountability to the people, what function does the ATF do that isn’t already done by other organizations?
NRA has screwed us at every meaningful corner. Why should this be any different? Perhaps new leadership is in order to rectify such betrayal.
I approve of this article!
“‘Jack-booted government thugs,’ the phrase that has aroused such ire since the NRA used it to denounce federal agents in a fund-raising letter (in 1995), was first uttered by Rep. John Dingell in 1981.”
https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-16866559.html
Yeah, the ATF absolutely is a bunch of jack-booted government thugs. So what. It’s here to stay. It doesn’t need the NRA to “legitimize” it. It’s billion dollar budget does that all by itself.
That’s $2.1 billion.
Yes, and $1.3 billion is for their 5000+ personnel.
I’m thinking that the ATF brass is thinking, “$2 billion be damned, it’s a damn good thing that the NRA just legitimized us or we’d be in big trouble.”
Stop. You’re killing me.
Ralph is right on this. Would you give their power to the IRS?
My thoughts exactly.
The ATF’s been around for 49, 45 or 15 years. It doesn’t need the NRA to ascertain its legitimacy.
I disagree with a lot of what they say and do (the shoelace machine gun and constructive possession are going to come back to bite us some day), but I doubt that this is a junction through which we can get any of that fixed.
It’s astounding the number of people who can’t see the long game the NRA is playing here. Bump stocks are simply pawns in the game of chess they are engaged in. Use them as leverage to get national reciprocity moving forward. Then, when a state assault weapons ban makes it top the supreme court (which it will once the court is stacked in our favor) restrictions on features in a firearm are eliminated, and bump stocks are free again. It is a little temporary sacrifice for a much greater gain.
Chalk it up to frustration, which is more than understandable.
I view the NRA’s move — if it works — as the only one that saves bump stocks. Which is why the Democrats will never permit it. They will want to pass legislation to ban bump stocks, and the RINOs will go along.
So either the ATF will review bump stocks, or Congress will outlaw them. There’s no third option. The NRA picked the best one.
No, if they’d be banned either way the best option is to oppose it so the RINOs have a big ugly mark on their record in the primary and the voters are riled against the many Democrat senators up in 2018. Best for NRA’s wallet too, “We tried to stop it but we didn’t have enough money, please give us more so it won’t happen again” is a far better fund raiser than whatever they’ll try
There is no pawns here, just Sudetenland.
Either the NRA is the powerful respected organization it claims to be and can just dock people a letter grade and yanking endorsements will keep Republicans (and Democrats, 2018 is looking like a purge of both establishments) away from any gun control but is choosing not to, or the NRA doesn’t have any of the power they claim to have when asking for money. With the NRA making sacrifices for literally no gain regularlly (FoPA could have been vetoed and sent back without the Hughes given nobody actually voted for that amendment) it’s easily the first.
The NRA is powerful because there are 5 million members who vote and make direct campaign contributions. Their votes have elected good candidates and gotten rid of bad ones. After Sandy Hook, they gained at least 500,000 new members in short order. I expect this will happen now. The NRA organization itself has only given politicians around $3.5 million over the last 20 years. If the NRA winds up for 2018, which they will, some RINOs and dems will probably lose their seats. As someone said above, the NRA is playing the long game. Things are going to get ugly. Let’s hope we get another good justice or two on SCOTUS. Roberts has been playing the long game too, avoiding 2nd Amendment cases until there is a strong conservative majority.
So we should make the GoA as powerful as the NRA instead of trying to fix the NRA?
Yea, sounds good
The GCA and resulting ATF are a Constitutional infringement “LOOPHOLE” that needs to be
C L O S E D.
If you check out the ATF&E’s weekly emails (sign up here: https://www.atf.gov/contact and they’ll start popping up in your email Inbox in approximately 3 hours (CDT)) you will see that the sh_t that they brag highly on is just their “cooperative” efforts with the FBI and DEA. If they have to illegally sell cigarettes to pool money for operations THEY HAVE A SH_T-PILE OF EXPLAINING TO DO. Remember – a head of SEAL Team VI (Dev Gru) went to jail on similar efforts.
Farago, the article above maybe your most poignant yet. Nicely done.
Realpolitik, Robert. The NRA’s proposal recognizes the unpredictably of a Republican controlled congress that is thoroughly unconnected to its base. In highly politicized situations our feckless politicians have a tendency to go wobbly on issues like this. If the NRA trusts the ATF more than Republicans in congress that says something.
Then that means they need to stop blindly endorsing people with an (R) beside their name. Exactly the problem with positioning yourself with a political party instead of with the issue that you’re supposed to.
I just spent an hour and 47 minutes on the phone with the freaking NRA trying to cancel my lifetime membership that I’ve had for over 27 years. I don’t know what the hell Wayne LaPierre is thinking he must have had a freaking stroke. Throwing a gun manufacturer even a stock manufacturer under the bus into the ATF is absolutely the most irresponsible and vindictive treatment of a gun company that I’ve ever seen. They need to fire Wayne LaPierre immediately. That guy is got a freaking screw loose. You never leave anyone behind, and that’s exactly what Wayne LaPierre did. He’s an ass hat with a capital a! If you guys are members of the NRA please call and give them a earful don’t cuss but tell him straight up ask them if Wayne LaPierre had a stroke and if he’s alright because he’s making the most stupidest decisions that he’s made in the last 27 years. That’s what we need is more gun control by the NRA if that didn’t already come through in the NFL Act of 1934 or 1986. I’ve had enough of the NRA time to break up that organization and set it of on fire. I thought the NRA was going to be a better organization with Pete Brownell running things that’s obviously incorrect. And I have a mind not to order any more crap from Brownells either. Please let me know ladies and gentlemen if there is another really sound Grassroots organization that is a second amendment supporter that would need more members more sponsors and more people to spend time in the field for them. The NRA has got their last free hour of Labor out of my ass. Rest in peace in our a scumbags.
GOA: Gun Owners of America
The ATF approved these things already. If the ATF balks under the popular pressure of people wholly ignorant of what the thing/technique even is and renegs on their previous approval it essentially sheds light on the arbitrary circus of it all.
Of course anyone paying attention already knows what a bunch of clowns they are and just how terrifyingly stupid their fellow citizens are so the worst outcome is that all these screaming morons get a pat on the head and told they were right even as they are so wrong. Rewarding ignorance and arbitrary rulings isn’t good for anyone.
“Arbitrary circus”…….Kind of like the whole pistol arm brace fiasco.
“Need I go on?”
Yes actually. I don’t think anyone has ever made a complete timeline of all the ATF scandals. Would be a good article.
RF, that’s a very good point, and one I frankly hadn’t considered. Thanks for this.
It is very disappointing to read all the TTAG comments who agree with the NRA on the bump stock accessory.
How many police officer’s have these bump stocks on their AR15??? Its is cheaper than buying an Uzi.
The bump stock is the poor mans machine gun. Now the easily fooled and frightened “gun community” supports making them illegal or so costly that only a “rich white man” will be able to afford one. Just like true machine guns now. Only for the rich.
I guess my membership is going to lapse. I really enjoyed Colion Noir’s videos.
I have always gotten the impression that LaPierre was just another sleezy corporate climber that found a job for life heading the NRA. He doesn’t even seem to be a bun guy. Does anyone have evidence to the contrary?
Oh, my, I didn’t really mean “bun guy”:-(
Monitor Vol 13, number 13, August 15, 1986
NRA to Fight Machine Gun Ban
“Repealing the Machine gun amendment tacked on to the Mclure-Volkmer bill will be a high priority” said National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action Executive Director Wayne LaPierre Jr.”
Of course the NRA legitimizes the ATF.
The NRA has long been a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party.
And the Republican Party feels better when there are enough thugs to protect their positions of privilege and power.
The NRA sold us George HW Bush who renounced his NRA membership, and left us with Assault Rifle ban v.1 and school zones. And George W Bush who developed Homeland Security, a huge leap towards a police state, and never thought to include the fed’s police force, the FBI; so he instead ballooned the ATF to become the executive branch’s police who seem to be omnipresent at any crime scene, usually in addition to, or conflict with, the FBI.
And don’t forget Ronald Reagan who said, “There’s no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.” Of course he, like Trump, spent most of his life a Democrat.
Now the NRA sold us a New York billionaire. When has one of them ever been our friend?
In my innocence I used to assume that the NRA existed so that Wayne could hang out with his betters at fancy A-list soirees, and hunt Africa at someone else’s expense. Now I’m thinking he’s into the swamp chin deep too.
(And, did Obama do any of the things the NRA said he would? Not so much, though he did sign off on our transporting guns on Amtrak and taking them into National Parks. Oh, and it was his ATF that signed off on those darn bump-stocks that the NRA and the Republican Party seem all too willing to throw under the bus.)
Yeah, I got my Nomex suit on; and no I’m not a troll. Just a gun guy, but one without much of a taste for Kool-Aid.
I’ve come to think that, while I don’t agree with NRA on this, that they are playing a longer game, especially when it comes to keeping this from coming up for vote, where the Repub are forced to go on record.
However, I now really consider that the NRA is probably little more than the management company for the voting resource that is the US gun owner for the Republican party.
The ATF’s actions contributed to the death of those people in Waco, but they do not deserve all of the blame. Other human actors were at play, certainly including the religious extremists in the compound.
We only get along due to our Constitution. We’re essentially on our 3rd version of a Constitution right now. But Fing with the Constitution or the Amendments won’t allow you to take away or modify that which we demand of each other in order to have that agreement.
FURTHER: Without our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution is only a piece of animal hide with some writing on it, and we can negotiate it and do it again, but we’re going to go after the same protections for the things we demand of each other in the Declaration. You should assume that you’ll give up everything if I am urged to give up gun rights, and I’ll only assume the same from you. And the world should assume that we’ll come FUCK their shit up in short order if they want to weigh in before we’re settled (and that, we may after, anyway).
The ATF already ruled on bump stocks. If the NRA is showing the left that simply asking the ATF to go back ok decisions is the answer to getting rid of what you don’t agree with, the NRA is carving a dangerous path to the left’s final and only goal as it pertains to the 2nd. I’m disappointed with the NRA. The GOP needs to come together and not falter at this critical time. Im saddened by the deaths that occurred, but stricter restrictions on the 2nd won’t stop murderers or criminals, only people who follow the law. The arguments are the same because they are true. Planned parenthood performs 600,000 premeditated murders a year and the left loves it. Sickening.
Years ago I was an NRA member,had the bumper sticker, hat and NRA “crap’ all over. Then I noticed all that stuff made me a target, get pulled over for taillight out, left of center, whatever…..”Mr.Tast you have any weapons? May I search your vehicle?” Then in 1995, I had several firearms illegally confiscated, well I’m a member of NRA, they said in one of there promo letters that NRA had lawyers to help with this. Called them up and got absolutely nowhere, wound up in court representing myself. I won my case, but no Thanx to the NRA. Tore off the stickers, hat I burned( I was furious with NRA) and championed against the NRA. When shtf they’re really not going to do nothing, and I still think it’s a government organization gaining info , like yeh I want your firearms insurance , NRA you fcked me back then, and if I had the chance I’d ,,,, ,,, ,,,
I saw Marc Thiessen this morning discuss this, though I haven’t read his article yet. And I think I agree with him.
Yes, law makers should write a very limited and precise bill that bans bump-fire stocks. And if I had my way, it would simultaneously eliminate state bans on magazines over 7 rounds, and unreasonable restrictions on ammo purchases.
Do not let the ATF run amok and become yet another unelected legislator. Haven’t we learned from the abuses of the EPA, the California CARB, etc.?
________
Marc also said something insightful. The lawmakers are tripping all over themselves so as to avoid taking a stand on the issue. They’d love to pass it off to the ATF. I was only slightly surprised to see Dana Loesch rapidly obfuscate the issue, again… taking no stand. Dana is, after all, a paid advertiser pitch woman.
I could write a long coment on my own, but the best analysis i have seen was from Lukas Botkin on the T.Rex Arms channel on youtube. To sum it up:
NRA sold out on the second Amendment. Shall not be infringed is no more for them.
Even more dangerous: they openly call for tyranny and to not only disrespect the constitution but every written law. They want the ATF to do what is not even writen in shitty laws as the NFA, they want absolute power without even our stupid representatives having a vote on it. Do as you want my fellow big brother overlords, laws apply no more to the government agencies.
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