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Word of shakeups in ATF command
Word is circulating that a number of ATF supervisors, from field up to high HQ levels, Assistant Directors and such, are being effectively suspended (effectively, but without using that term) while higher powers look into their competence and allegations of abuse and/or fraud. The Inspector General is said to be taking a role, and some of those involved in matters like Red's Trading Post are under the microscope.
About time; I just hope it goes far enough. There's a lot of good agents out there, who're perfectly reasonable toward firearm owners and honest in their work. The problem is for decades the agency has overlooked the ones who weren't and too often promoted them. (It was esp. bad in the late 70s, when the driving force was producing arrests and seizures, so that the abusive guys were "getting results" and the reasonable ones were not -- and for bureaucratic reasons, including the fact that US Attorneys wouldn't prosecute, felon-in-possession case were useless).
· BATFE
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Jed,
I have no lawsuit of any sort so if I have something negative to say about the NRA it is because of something the NRA did not me. I am a life member of the NRA but I have not supported them since the back stabbing of May 1986 and will not until Uncle Wayne is no longer representing the NRA.
I suspect the post was pulled because it did not turnout to be an NRA lovefest. Not all gun owners are the fuds that the NRA caters to. As a military firearms collector I have felt the NRA stopped representing me many years ago.
Those who expect perfection from the NRA don't understand that perfection is the enemy of the good, perhaps the very good. If it were not for the NRA we would be like England, Canada and Australia and the Second Amendment would be a dead letter.
No organization made up of people is going to be perfect. The NRA, warts and all, is the *overall* best we have. Don't like it the way it is? Get involved. Make a difference.
Sheesh...seems that some people can never have enough ememies...
Don't dismiss Kodos so casually. He's got some very salient points to make on dominion over the earth and the enslavement of hu-mans.
Let's hope this isn't typical shuffling of the deck chairs that the government is famous for so that it appears to be working on the problem.
The "good" agents and usefully skilled personel should be sent over to the FBI and the whole BATF disbanded.
The ATF has "agents" and "inspectors/investigators" (their title keeps changing). I've only dealt with the inspectors (three different ones now) and always was treated well.
The agents are the ones that break down doors, throw flash-bangs into your bedroom, and stomp kittens. The inspectors examine your paperwork, do audits, and make suggestions on how to more easily remain in compliance with the government regulations.
In an ideal, constitutional compliant world the ATF and it's functions (and the same for most of the FBI) would cease to exist. But that's not the world we live in. I'm fully in agreement that the FBI should take over the criminal aspects of the ATF. The FBI "charter" probably would have to be expanded to include the inspectors.
[I don't believe the tone of this comment has been affected by the fact that I have an ATF inspector visiting my explosives magazine on Monday but in the interests of full disclosure I thought you should know this.]
Huh - you have to wonder what OIG is looking for. Info on Red's? Cav Arms? Some other bit of corruption? Could make for interesting times over there...
I'm betting that the very public exposure of the Olofson travesty is what pushed things over the edge. We've been complaining for years now, built up a groundswell of public opinion and inputs, but what the powers that be really hate is negative press on a national scale.
It doesn't matter how good a guy the inspector is, his first loyalty is to his family and his retirement. That means he has to keep getting paid.
When someone higher up says "frog", he can either jump, or leave.
The jerks and jackasses on the enforcement side face the same problem, of course, "Shape up or ship out", and I'd rather they take the second option. The little I've seen shows them to be sanctimonious asses, or controlled by same.
I'm unconvinced that there are ANY "good" officers left serving in the BATFE. They all know what agency they work for and what it does.