New York City has a revolving door criminal justice system. Prosecutors regularly plea bargain away gun charges for a lesser sentence. Sometimes because the gun charges are trumped-up. In the face of rising firearms-related crime, New York City will be handing off an unspecified number of gun charges to the feds. Specifically, our not-so-good friends at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive (and Really Big Fires). What could possibly go wrong? Well, for one thing . . .

The ATF ain’t gonna sit on the sidelines. newyork.cbslocal.com reports:

ATF agents have mounted a first-ever summer gun initiative to get illegal weapons off the street.

And when the feds get involved, Mulham warned, “In many cases, the punishment is more severe.”

And Mulham said the feds will not rest with nabbing the triggerman.

“Of course, when the ATF gets involved with our resources and our tracing expertise, we’ll be able to figure out if weapon is part of an interstate trafficking operation,” Mulham said.

So the feds will be “nabbing people” – not just prosecuting offenders collared by New York’s Finest. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? The Bureau’s gung-ho culture would hardly lead them to sit on the sidelines waiting for the paperwork. They need action! Results! Busts!

Manny Gomez, a security expert who has been both an NYPD officer and an FBI agent, said the federal program is unusual.

“If they’re going to go around doing gun busts on a day-to-day basis, that’s something that we really haven’t seen that often in New York City,” Gomez said.

Question: how often do you want to see federal agents policing city streets, performing jobs normally reserved for law enforcement officers who are [supposedly] accountable to local taxpayers? Not to mention the fact that NYPD has 34k uniformed police officers and nearly 50k employees. Why isn’t that enough?

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41 COMMENTS

  2. I’m sure there must be SOME neighborhoods in NYC where the local “slow” kid doesn’t yet have a criminal record.

    • Well they’ve got to pad the numbers somehow to justify the program. A false storefront or two, manipulate some special needs people and let them go down. Hey it worked in Milwaukee, sort of, kind of.

      Side note – Over/Under on number of days until ATF agent loses a firearm – 10 days

      • I’ll take under, and I’ll go further and say it’ll be a gun given to a convicted felon in a “sting” operation, that they’ll lose track of and it’ll wind up being used in a crime or three in New Jersey.

  3. With their “tracing expertise”? And ya’ll thought your guns weren’t already registered. No, really, they destroy all the records after they run a NCIC check on you. Ha! Zee government haz been vatching you!

    • Well, you see, they can contact the manufacturer, who gives them the dealer, who can tell them who the first retail owner was, and from there they can…

      Make nice little pie charts showing how many guns come from which states when they go begging for a bigger budget.

  4. I’m all for getting illegal guns off the street, but your point is a good one: at what point will the results be the catalyst for more federal police power in other areas? This could be the latest attempt to get people used to having a federal law enforcement presence in day-to-day life, which is (in my opinion) a terrible precedent.

    Why does NYC have 34k cops if they can’t even address their (self-proclaimed) crime priorities? What are these cops doing if not going after the top initiatives?

    • If the BATFE gears up a program to target “illegal” guns in New York City (Excuse me, “…shall not be infringed.” – how exactly does that allow for ANY gun to be “illegal” under the Constitution?) and it is successful, which is doubtful, since government programs are designed to be self-perpetuating, not successful, what makes anybody think they would just disband all that infrastructure and return those agents to selling guns to Mexican drug gangs?

      More likely scenario is that they would move it to another city, at best, or at worst use it as a template to create similar programs in other cites until the Federal Poiice Force in your neighborhood is a reality.

    • “What are these cops doing if not going after the top initiatives?”

      Bottom feeding to pad productivity stats. and evaluation ratings.

  5. If they will break up the iron chunnel of trafficking, I’m all for it. Glad it’s NY. I never liked the place.

  7. It starts in weak Liberal territory and expands from there. Police Chiefs are politicians, so they like it. They could care less about 2nd Ammendment.

  8. More importantly, the A.T.F. is a tax collection and enforcement department of the Internal Revenue Service … why are they going out to arrest anyone for possessing “illegal” firearms? Since when did they get arrest powers? If someone violated federal law regarding firearms, shouldn’t U.S. Marshals or the F.B.I. be the ones to arrest them?

    • Pretty much every federal “ABC” agency has its own SWAT team, let alone armed “officers” who have the “authority” to arrest people, usually for a “crime” with no victim.

      America, “land of the free” – the biggest lie ever.

  9. They’re good at tracing? Tell that to all the Mexicans killed by the ‘Fast and Furious’, ‘Wide Receiver’, ‘Castaway’ and unnamed Texas operation. Tracing’s pretty easy when you’re the folks pushing selling the guns and wait until they’re left at a crime scene to collect them.

  10. This is scary and predictable on a continuum towards a police state. Watch-out. We’re frogs being slowly boiled.

  13. Um, there already IS a program to jail violent repeat offenders? So….all the [alleged] perps responsible for this uptick in violence are first-timers?

    La, la, la. I’m not listening to you, Jeffrey (’cause you’re an idiot).

  14. It would be one thing if the focus of this effort was to disarm and lock up gang bangers. As with much of federal enforcement agencies, they will only go after the low hanging fruit. In the minds of police administrators, its too hard and risky to take on violent felons. And the gang members have a friend in Loretta Lynch and Barack Obama.

  15. Does no one remember Project Exile from the 90’s in Richmond, VA? Al Sharpton will be out in force when too many young black men get arrested in this sweep, just like the activist were out in the 90’s to shut down Project Exile.

    • Yes, I remember “Project Exile”, where the NRA handed out $50k grants from our membership dollars to “strictly enforce” existing violations of the 2A, like GCA 1968.

      “Strictly enforce existing illegal laws” was their “alternative” to passing stuff like “assault weapon” bans, “armor piercing” ammo bans, Prior Restraint, I mean “Background Checks” etc in the 1990s. Funny how everything I mentioned became federal law in the 1990s anyway.

  16. They’ve been doing it in chicago for a while now. I think it added up to 15 agents. Results as expected.

  17. So when will the ATF in conjunction with the state of NY decide to go after those that have not registered their scary black rifls? Or go after those that have registered their weapons?

  18. More proof that the coastal population centers are the testing grounds for what can be gotten away with. More proof that the struggle has to begin there rather than begin when it has already spilled too far into the comfortable gun friendly center of the country.

  19. “Going to go around doing gun busts on a day to day basis…”

    So killing dogs and flash banging babies?

  20. They shoot a woman holding a baby and burn down a church full of women and children… again?

  21. The ‘revolving door criminal system’ story is in reference to Philidelphia, not NYC.

  22. “And when the feds get involved, Mulham warned, “In many cases, the punishment is more severe.”

    I love how this statement applies to numerous facets of our bloated bureaucracy, but the ATF and IRS really come to mind.

  23. Maybe if the DA doesn’t want to prosecute the Waldorf Astoria pocket shooter, the Feds can 🙂

    Did anyone else catch that this is the second time this jerk has had a negligent discharge? Did one in 2014, had to take a safety class, got to keep his business pistol license. Another ZnD did anyone else catch that this is the second time this jerk has had a negligent discharge? Did one in 2014, had to take a safety class, got to keep his business pistol license. Another negligent discharge, a concealed carry violation, wonder if the New York City machine will let this big spending political contributor walk again.

    I think I already know the answer.

  25. Think of it this way: if they f* this up, there will be no hiding it being that it’s New York City. It will be all over the news and their transgressions exposed.

    I hope.

  26. Here’s a question. Is the “illegal” gun’s legality from state law or federal law?

    If the gun is illegal under federal law, fair enough. But if the gun is illegal under state law, why is F-Troop now enforcing state laws?

    • @Southern Cross – you really need to work your head around this problem.

      The first issue is that any and all New York State laws purporting to make any weapon, much less firearms, “illegal” are in themselves illegal as violations of the Second Amendment. If the BATFE had any jurisdiction at all in this matter it should be to arrest and jail all NY State officials who attempt to enforce those state laws.

      Further, the Second Amendment clearly states, “…the right to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” which means that a government agency that has as one of its primary missions the regulation of firearms is in itself in violation of the Constitution.

      We may be limited in our individual power to affect this state of affairs, but we should NEVER allow for even a moment that we think what they are doing might be okay. NEVER.

      • You will have to excuse my ignorance in some areas as I am located in the opposite side of the world (hence the tag). But F-Troop are just as reviled in my part of globe too. Especially as they openly consort with and advise not only police and politicians, but anti-gun groups as well.

        We watch developments in the US very closely. Keep up the good fight.

  27. To my black friends in NYC: If you think that the NYPD sucks, wait ’til you get a load of the ATF. You are not going to believe it.

  28. It is very interesting how liberal New York City is where the American government repeats what the British did. They confiscated guns. The British also said they were just taking guns from criminals.

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