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NFA database seriously flawed
I have a Freedom of Information Act suit pending in D.C. District Court, where I'm represented by progun attorney Stephen Stamboulieh of Madison, Mississippi. He won a partial motion for summary judgment, and as a result we obtained certain files, which you can download here.
The files are some of the work papers of a Justice Department Office of Inspector General audit of the NFRTR, which is ATF's database on National Firearms Act firearms, which is consulted to see if a firearm is registered. As part of the audit, OIG took a survey of ATF's inspectors (IOIs, for Industry Operations Inspectors). The first step in inspecting an NFA dealer is to obtain a print out of his NFRTR registry, then compare that to his inventory.
OIG asked how often there was a discrepancy between the inventory and what the NFRTR said the inventory should be: 46% of inspectors said either "always" or "most of the time." (Only 5% reported "never"). How often was the discrepancy found in the NFRTR? 44% said always or most of the time, only 6% said "never." The comments by inspectors were pretty eye-opening:
"When I conduct an NFA inventory reconciliation, I start knowing that the NRA register will be incomplete or inaccurate."
"The discrepancies in the NFRTR makes it impossible to verify the onsite inventory."
"I encounter discrepancies on a daily basis."
"In one instance, I received an NFRTR inventory report with more than 60 errors on behalf of the NFA branch."
"A majority of the FFLs I have inspected, NFA is a small portion of their business. However, I spend the most time on the NFA portion due to the NFRTR being inaccurate most of the time."
"It creates embarrassment to the agency and the IOI because we are always wrong."
Mind you, felony prosecutions are undertaken relying on the NFRTR to establish that a gun is not registered, and with evidence consisting of an affidavit from the custodian of records for the NFRTR certifying that no record of registration could be found. This sounds like Brady material to me.... and it's ten years old.
UPDATE: Brady material is -- well, it's named for a Supreme Court case, Brady v. Maryland, that held it violates due process to convict a person while hiding evidence that that tended to suggest their innocence, or "exculpatory material."
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At my last two audits I've had either more or less NFA items than the inspectors had on their reports. No problem, it was "corrected". Jack.
Wanna fix the exculpatory issue? Make the prosecutor serve the remaining time if it's proven that the prosecutor didn't release exculpatory evidence. Better yet. All evidence should be analyzed by private companies and not by the state. And all results must be sent to both the prosecution and the defense.
Why would anyone expect anything better from the government? If you want it screwed up let the government do it. Besides according to the Federalist papers, the federal government has no authority to legislate in any of the areas covered by the Bill of Rights meaning NO FEDERAL FIREARMS LAWS AT ALL. The Bill of Rights are amendments OF the Constitution meaning they supersede or circumscribe ALL PRIOR Constitutional provisions. If tghe BoR were amendments to the Constitution their action on conflicting clauses would be different. but because they are amendments OF, the BoR overrides all grants to the federal government where that grant conflicts with the BoR. No taxation on Arms because that is an infringement. All federal laws on firearms are unconstitutional regardless of whether or not the idiots on the benches understand such.
@FWB: I'm not sure I agree in with the totality of your second paragraph.
Namely, I do not believe that The U.S. Constitution restricts ALL federal legislation concerning firearms.
In particular, it is likely that there is nothing to prevent the federal government from regulating the importation/exportation of arms in a manner consistent with the importation/exportation of other articles.
Further, I do not believe that The U.S. Constitution, nor any amendment(s) thereto, prevents the federal government from enacting laws that act to overrule the states when it comes to the regulation of arms. Much as the federal government enacted laws to abolish the various "Jim Crow" abuses perpetuated by the states, I believe that it would be Constitutional for the federal government to act likewise to strike down state-level laws that limit access to guns based on arbitrary features (i.e. model designation, manufacturer, magazine capacity, cosmetic features, etc.).
TLDR: I agree that the federal gun control system that we have now is utterly unconstitutional; That being said, I believe that replacing it with a simple and straightforward law establishing the supremacy of The U.S. Constitution over the states which prohibited them from enacting gun control of their own would pass Constitutional muster.
What is "Brady material"?