Feds, state officials abuse police powers to push policies 
Federal and state law enforcement officials seem to be abusing their police powers and manipulating the media in order to revise an old anti-gun legislative agenda.
I don’t know if Niccolo Machiavelli, the early 16th century Italian historian considered the father of modern political science, would be impressed.
But he should be, because officials in the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the New York State Attorney General’s office have opened new avenues to control gun owners.
At the federal level, it appears that new evidence may confirm what many observers have suspect for a long time: that Obama administration officials were plotting to use the consequences of flawed Operation Fast and Furious to further a gun-control agenda.
Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News reported on Dec. 7 that the emails show agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussing how they would use Fast and Furious to “argue for controversial new rules about gun sales.” “ATF officials didn’t intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called ‘Demand Letter 3,’ ” Attkisson reported. “That would require some US gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or ‘long guns.’ Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.” First came the questionable government claim to support new gun control laws that 90% of the guns fueling the drug wars in Mexico came from US retail outlets. While this was being disputed, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, along with the DOJ, were actually encouraging mass retail sales to possible traffickers and paid informers.
But they lost track of the guns they claimed they were tracing, and worse yet, they never informed the Mexican authorities so they could try and track the guns on their side of the border.
Meanwhile, the US was selling weapons to Mexico under another program called “direct commercial sales” for military and law enforcement use. Even though the Mexican military recently reported nearly 9,000 police weapons “missing,” the US has approved the sale of more guns to Mexico in recent years than ever before, according to CBS News.
It looks more and more that by creating a problem the anti-gunners can propose and enact a legislative solution.
The same stratagem seems to be in vogue in New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office.
Schneiderman, a notoriously anti-gun state senator before he became AG, in early December issued press releases about an undercover “sting” investigation of gun shows that had been ongoing since May 2011.
Schniederman’s probe involved undercover investigators making buys without background checks at gun shows, as required under New York law. That led first to charges against 10 people selling guns at various shows around the state.
The way the press releases were written, the print and electronic media reported it as the arrest of 10 New York gun dealers for illegal guns sales.
The only problem is that the 10 who were charged were not dealers, but individuals making private sales, even after they were advised by the “sting” agents that they probably could not pass a background check.
Schneiderman’s press release made it plain that it was not the guns or even the private sales that was his concern but the gun show promoters.
Needless to say, no one waited long before Schneiderman got together with the state’s junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat like the AG, to announce that she was filing new federal legislation “to crack down on corrupt gun dealers and eliminate the steady flow of illegal guns into New York.” Of course, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg of earlier “sting” infamy and the Brady Campaign were holding the coats of Gillibrand and Schneiderman.
Gillibrand’s forthcoming bill will be captioned the “Gun Trafficking Prevention Act of 2011.” It hadn’t been filed yet as this issue of TheGunMag.com went to press, but the DC press conference made it clear that it is aimed at preventing any private sales without a background check, and possible closing down most gun shows under an expensive paperwork and legal burden.
You’ll soon be reading and hearing more about these new efforts to resurrect some old gun show legislation that has been kicking around Washington, DC, and Albany for years without being passed. Gun shows, and private sales of all kinds at flea markets, shooting matches, or anywhere else have always been a prime concern of the anti-gun community.
I have always contended that what they are most concerned about is the social interaction at guns shows. The shows offer an opportunity for the grassroots activists to get informed and to mobilize against new gun restrictions just such as those that Gillibrand and Scheiderman are now proposing.
If you need further proof that the New York “sting” at least was not intended to prosecute wrongdoing, listen to this.
The 10 individuals recently charged in New York have already been released in contemplation of dismissal if they stay out of trouble of any kind for the next six months. Some consider that no more than a slap on the wrist.
However, TheGunMag.com has been informed that the individual gun show promoters involved have been served with papers demanding records of all the background checks conducted at their shows for the past three years.
This story will be continued. The lawyers will be busy and the gun show promoters will be wondering if they want to continue mounting shows with all the NICS warnings and security that they have had for years with the attendant higher cost of more legal counsel.
Whether Gillibrand’s bill can pass in the current Congress remains to be seen, but surely it is clear that the perseverance of the anti-gunners is unlimited.
