The Liberal Gun Club Forum

Everyone should read this one - you will be presented with 'facts' that this man is some limp wristed liberal who is out to get your guns, you should decide for yourself first.

http://www.allgov.com/Appointments_and_ ... ver_101211

I haven't seen anything that knocks Traver out of the running to head ATF. There is a lot of winger and NRA generated articles, but I haven't seen any real evidence. So Traver is from the Chicago area - Nixon and Reagan were from California but that didn't knock them out of their races. Did I miss something in the NRA hype?

I believe that the combination of the Obama nomination, and his association with Daley in Chicago might have something to do with it.

Though the NRA hasn't let a director be nominated for years.

Personally, I'd like to see the ATF seriously restructured, with clear boundaries of their powers defined. As it stands they are able to to make arbitrary decisions that can clearly contradict their own previous statements, with no recourse for citizens and no penalty to the ATF agency itself or its agents. Reform is waaaay past due. It is not unheard of for them to make a determination of legality, only to rescind that statement without warning or publication, then charge anyone who was previously in compliance with a federal crime.

I don't know much about this guy, but I have serious reservations about letting anyone be appointed to that role until reform and clarification have happened. This agency was thrown together haphazardly at its inception, without any real parameters and no progress has been made since. Technically until recently, they weren't even a LEO organization, they were (and still pretty much are) tax collectors(treasury dept.), and that is a big part of the problem. Ideally, I think they should be disbanded, with their role absorbed by more appropriate agencies.

AmirMortal wrote:Personally, I'd like to see the ATF seriously restructured, with clear boundaries of their powers defined. As it stands they are able to to make arbitrary decisions that can clearly contradict their own previous statements, with no recourse for citizens and no penalty to the ATF agency itself or its agents. Reform is waaaay past due. It is not unheard of for them to make a determination of legality, only to rescind that statement without warning or publication, then charge anyone who was previously in compliance with a federal crime.

Ideally, I think they should be disbanded, with their role absorbed by more appropriate agencies.

I wholeheartedly agree...


Regards,

CarolinaHiker

I also think that the ATF is not functioning as it should. It should be absorbed into other agencies that could perform their duty better. Regan came close to closing it down and moving it's functions to other federal agencies but the NRA stopped that. The NRA needs a weak and useless ATF to play as their "evil government" boogey man. If the ATF were to be closed down the NRA would lose "government jack boots" as a way to drive up donations and gun sales. It's all about controlling the narrative.

What agencies would be better capable of performing the duties of regulating the sale of alcohol, tobacco and firearms?

The Commerce department has a LE authority.

Inquisitor wrote:The Commerce department has a LE authority.

So create a

Tobacco Division
Alcohol Division
and
Firearms Division

within the Department of Commerce?

And how will this make the regulation of firearms 'function as it should'? I see this alot, that the ATF should be dismantled, but I am not sure about what people think the ATF should be doing better that will be helped by making administrative changes such as this.

One of the biggest beefs I hear and have is the lack of oversight by any other body. There is no recourse for the people to contest the arbitrary decisions of the atf. There is no appeals process, yet they are neither judiciary or legislative. There is no reason that this group should be able to in effect make laws up as they go along. The atf could easily continue to exist in a more reasonable form, with solidly defined parameters and bounds which they cannot haphazardly cross.

Agents and Dept. Heads come and go, not much changes on the street level.This guy could get held up in comittee,he could have a Dominican nanny, any number of things could stand between him and the big chair.
The ATF is the only regulatory body in the Gov. that has the adversarial relationship with those it seeks to regulate.The FDA doesn't treat drug companies with the hostility ATF treats gun dealers.If they did there would aspirin for your cancer treatment.
An example of their idiocy, a derringer is what? a pistol...no, a revolver...no, it is not a long gun and doesn't fit into the "other" category on a 4473 form so what is it? They can not tell you what it is' but they know what it isn't.
I'd like to see them all re-assigned as hog-lagoon inspectors or semen testers at the Dept. of Agriculture.