ATF Again...

Desperate to dig up any dirt it can on Red's Trading Post, the ATF visits The Real Gun Guys again.


I hope they liked the articles...

Video Interview: Ryan Horsley of Red's Trading Post

Part 1
Ryan Horsley on the history of Red’s Trading Post



Part 2
The Growth of Red’s Trading Post



Part 3
Ryan Horsley on dealing with the ATF



Part 4
Ryan Horsley on the 2nd Amendment



Bonus Video!

Red's Trading Post - Commercial #1



Red's Trading Post - Commercial #1

The ATF in action!

Thanks to David Codrea of The War on Guns and his anonymous source, we get our first ever look at ATF Area Supervisor Linda Young on site at Red's Trading Post. I will reserve all comments about the photo, as I think it speaks for its self.

Ladies and gentlemen, your tax dollars at work...

Just like roaches...

Several blogs that link to or post information about the ATF's vindictive attempt to close down Red's Trading Post have been getting visits from the DOJ (ATF). The only possible reason for this is to try and dig up dirt on Red's Trading Post and Ryan Horsley, or to intimidate others in the gun culture into silence.

In fact, recently, they filed with the court that they felt intimidated someone had dared take their picture while they were there, and cobbled that together with an anonymous comment by one of his readers (since removed) and some exaggerated hand wringing as to how they feared for their safety. Give me a break!

I too have received a visit from the DOJ concerning Red's Trading Post. While I find it creepy, and I feel slightly soiled by the experience, their attempt at intimidation isn't going to work.



I encourage all of my readers to go read the Red's Trading Post blog and while you're at it, read the related entries from The War on Guns.

Oh, and does anyone know where I can get a good price on some size 12 Wingtips and a can of Raid?

LOL

We're from the government...and we're here to help!

Boo, Frickin' Hoo!

The ATF & me

By Steve Bailey, Globe Columnist | July 20, 2007

There is an epidemic of handgun violence in Boston's poorest neighborhoods, and the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is investigating me?

Consider this my confession. I plead guilty to offending the loony gun lobby.

In the likely event you missed this alleged story, here are the facts. You be the judge.

Twenty months ago, a lifetime in columnist time, I wrote in this space about going to a gun show in New Hampshire. The idea was to see how easy it would be to buy a handgun just across the border from Massachusetts, which has some of the toughest gun laws in the country. The answer: not very hard at all.

I went with John Rosenthal, the Boston gun-control advocate the gun lobby loves to hate, a cop named Andrew Heggie, and a former prison guard, Walter Belair. I also took my kids, who got in free. The cereal makers may be cutting back on marketing to kids, but the gun industry knows it is never to early to target the next generation.

We shopped till we dropped. Someone beat us to the used grenade launcher (price: $190), but it took Belair, a New Hampshire resident and licensed gun owner, less than 20 minutes to complete the purchase of a trashy little .38-caliber revolver, perfect for a night out in Dorchester. The gun, which retails for $349, was bargain-priced at $240, which I had given to Belair. (And, of course, expensed to the Globe.)

Belair could have bought 100 guns in tax-free, no-limit New Hampshire that day, and I could have put them in my trunk and driven (illegally) home. That was exactly the point I was making. That is not what I did. Belair took the gun with him; I'm afraid of guns.

You would have thought I burned Johnny Pesky's jersey at Fenway Park. I got hundreds of vitriolic e-mails and phone calls from the live free and die bunch. No other column in a decade has approached it for hate mail, and that's saying something. In general, these are exactly the people I'd rather not see armed. In January I wrote about a 14-year-old boy who was gunned down on Bowdoin Street. Not a word of outrage from this crowd.

This was all ancient history until 10 days ago when Rosenthal and I talked about our trip to the gun show on WRKO-AM's "Finneran's Forum," where I am a daily (paid) guest. The loonies went off again. On Wednesday the Second Amendment Foundation issued a press release headlined: "SAF calls for firing of Boston Globe columnist in straw purchase." It asked the ATF to open an investigation.

(It turns out that Alan Gottlieb, the foundation's founder and the guy who thinks I should be fired for unethical conduct, was convicted in 1984 for filing a false tax return, a felony. His right to possess a gun was later restored through an ATF program that gave felons a second chance. Gottlieb says the case should have been a civil matter; he says he settled the case for $18,000. But that's another story.)

Coincidence or not, you decide, two ATF agents and a Manchester, N.H., cop visited Belair at his work the same day. They had a search warrant and a tape of the radio interview. They wanted to know about the gun, Rosenthal, and me. Belair told them the gun was at home; they went there later in the day, and confiscated it. They did give him a receipt.

Jim McNally, a spokesman for the ATF's Boston office, declined to comment.

This is how it works. Intimidation is the stock in trade of the National Rifle Association and all the NRA knock-offs out there. Dare to say we need fewer, not more guns in this country, dare to say we need a uniform system for monitoring gun sales in this country and you become a target to be hunted down. Democrats and Republicans have allowed themselves to be cowed by this one-issue bloc for too long.

The list of what ails America's poor urban neighborhoods is long. Start with the disaster of children bearing children, our scandalous dropout rate, and the drugs that are everywhere. But the flood of guns belongs prominently on that list, too. Count me as a proud member of the gun lobby's hit list.

Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at bailey@globe.com or at 617-929-2902.

(Thanks to Irons in the Fire for the heads up.)

New Gun Grab Scheme Exposed

Gun Banners Try New Tactic on Dealers; BATF Aims to Bankrupt Honest Sellers

By Mark Anderson

A tyrannical trend has rocked the world of Second Amendment supporters. The oldest still-operating gun store in Idaho, Red’s Trading Post in Twin Falls, is being targeted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), a relic from the days of Prohibition that is setting its sights on law-abiding firearms sellers, nitpicking over clerical errors to wage a war of attrition.

More troubling still is the fact that this appears to be part of an organized campaign to force gun dealers out of business across the country.

On March 5, 2007, Red’s license to acquire firearms was to be revoked. However, for the time being, in accordance with a federal judge’s injunction in favor of Red’s, the store can continue selling firearms as it has done for the last 71 years. Red’s first opened its doors in 1936, under the management of a great grandfather of Ryan Horsley, a current owner.

U.S. attorneys currently are asking U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge to terminate his May 2 injunction that allowed Red’s to continue full operations.

“We’ve spent $70,000 [on legal fees] so far . . . and there’s still no court date,” Horsley told American Free Press on July 11. He believes the ATF and U.S attorneys want to avoid setting a court date since the feds might lose the case and receive unwanted publicity.

Their tactic appears to be: Find clerical glitches, if any, make court filings and exhaust Red’s finances.

“They’re trying to win by attrition,” said Horsley, adding that every legal rebuttal to the citations from each ATF visit costs the store $5,000 to $6,000.

In granting the injunction, Lodge noted: “The ATF speaks of violations found during the inspections of 2000 and 2005, but fails to reveal that additional investigations in 2001 and 2007 revealed no violations or problems.”

He also acknowledged Red’s statement that ATF is exaggerating Red ’s conduct by “double counting” certain violations. The judge also looked at the balance of the ATF’s hardship compared to Red’s hardship and found that the relative hardships tip sharply in the store’s “favor.”

“A 2004 audit by the ATF claims to have uncovered several minor clerical errors. Out of nearly 10,000 firearms transferred between 1996 and 2004, the alleged error rate found was not even a full percentage point. There were no missing firearms, and no willful illegal acts,” notes a statement from Red’s web site.

“This is not just happening to us though and is becoming a common trend throughout the United States.”

DETAILS, DETAILS

Horsley, who said the feds are using a 2005 audit to go after the store, recalled the contradictory and capricious way ATF agents conducted themselves that year.

He explained that he was first told the store’s files should be kept “pretty much alphabetically” but in date-of-purchase chronological order within each letter (A, B C, and so on, according to the buyer’s last name).

Sometime later, ATF agents looked at the same files and did not cite the store with violations.

But during a third inspection, Horsley related that ATF agents told him, “We’re writing you up for not having them in perfect alphabetical order,” meaning that the chronology suddenly no longer matters.

According to Horsley, who worked directly with ATF personnel, the supervisors can overrule the inspectors and re-interpret policies in the process—the very policies used to determine what constitutes a violation.

So the law enforcement agency fiddles with the law, in essence rewriting it to suit its needs at a given time, said Horsley.

He added that when the ATF came in during 2005, the store was cited for not having posters and pamphlets that state handguns are dangerous to children and for not making sure gun buyers indicated their county of residence on government forms used for cataloging firearms purchases.

“We had a 99.6% success rate for the 2005 audit,” Horsley told AFP. He added that another detail raised by ATF agents was whether a box was checked on the forms indicating the type of gun that was purchased (handgun, long gun, or whatever).

One form did not have the box checked. “They searched through 10,000 forms and found one violation of that,” he said. Not having the right literature in the store and the unmarked box on a form prompted agents to designate Red’s as “a threat to public safety,” hence the continuing legal action against the store. Lodge, however, shot back that the store is not a threat to public safety.

A key thing in the law is the word “willful,” said Horsley. The ATF must prove applicable laws were willfully violated as opposed to the few inadvertent oversights and errors that occurred at Red’s.

LARGER CAMPAIGN?

Some say the ATF, while it seems to just be nitpicking over T’s not crossed and I’s not dotted, is actually engaging in a campaign to close gun stores across the country, especially since other approaches, such as cities and other entities suing gun manufacturers and distributors to pin the blame on them when guns are misused, have not worked.

Horsley cited Violence Policy Center (VPC) figures that showed an 80% decline in the number of new federally licensed firearms dealers from 1994-2005. And the ATF’s own figures, he said, show that between 2001 and 2006 revocations of federal firearms licenses, or FFLs, shot up to a rate six times above the norm.

A March 2006 VPC press release noted: “The number of gun dealers in America has dropped by 190,726 since 1994 according to a new study released . . . by the VPC.

The study found that the number of Type 1 FFLs plummeted 78% from 245,628 in 1994 to 54,902 in 2005.”

The Type 1 FFL is the basic federal license required to sell guns in America.

A competitor in Twin Falls, Blue Lakes Sporting Goods was forced out of business in the same manner; however ATF agent Richard Van Loan never allowed the store to appeal the ATF’s decision. It was not until the urging of Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) that Blue Lakes was allowed to have an appeal, but by then they were in the middle of their “going out of business sale,” Horsley noted.

Red’s Trading Post is at 215 Shoshone St. S., Twin Falls, ID 83301. Phone: 208-733-3546.

American Free Press reporter Mark Anderson can be reached at truthhound2@yahoo.com

The Gang Trailer

Here is the Trailer for the JPFO Documentary The Gang. If you are a gun owner or value your Second Amendment rights then you must see this movie.

In Defense of the Tiahrt Amendment

The anti-gun forces would have you believe that the Tiahart Amendment is somehow evil and needs to be repealed. The New York Times even ran an op-ed recently calling for it's repeal, based on the erroneous idea that it somehow keeps law enforcement from getting the valuable firearms trace data they need to investigate crimes. As you can see from the below article from ScrippsNews, this is a lie, pure and simple.

"Setting the record straight about firearms trace data
By MICHAEL J. SULLIVAN
Monday, April 30, 2007

During the past several weeks, numerous questions and articles have arisen in the media, regarding the ability of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to share firearms trace data among members of the law-enforcement community. With the recent tragic events surrounding the senseless criminal use of firearms; I felt the need to clarify this important issue.

Firearms trace data is critically important information developed by ATF to assist state and local law-enforcement in investigating and solving violent crimes. This data tracks the transfer of a firearm from the manufacturer to the gun's first purchaser, and can assist law enforcement in ultimately pinpointing the individual who used the gun to commit a particular crime.

During the investigation of the recent Virginia Tech incident, ATF provided the Virginia State Police (VSP) with trace information that allowed the VSP to determine where and from whom Seung-Hui Cho purchased the two handguns he used in the shootings. Firearms trace information was also used to solve a theft of 22 firearms from a security service in Atlanta that were subsequently purchased by an undercover police officer on the streets of New York.

ATF considers this information law-enforcement-sensitive because it is often the first investigative lead in a case. We treat it no differently than fingerprint matches and other crime-scene information, since disclosure outside of law enforcement can tip off criminals to the investigation, compromise cases and endanger the lives of undercover officers, witnesses and confidential sources.

Our agency routinely shares trace data with state and local law-enforcement agencies in support of investigations within their respective jurisdictions. Once a requesting agency receives law-enforcement-sensitive trace data from ATF, it becomes the agency's data to disseminate and share with other law-enforcement entities as it deems appropriate.

Let me be clear: neither the congressional language nor ATF rules prohibit the sharing of trace data with law enforcement conducting criminal investigations, or place any restrictions on the sharing of trace data with other jurisdictions once it is in the hands of state or local law enforcement. In fact, multi-jurisdictional trace data is also utilized by ATF and shared with fellow law-enforcement agencies to identify firearm-trafficking trends and leads. Additionally, nothing prohibits ATF from releasing our own reports that analyze trace-data trends that could be used by law enforcement.

ATF has a proud tradition of supporting its law-enforcement partners at every level of government. We will continue to provide them with the information they need to protect our communities from individuals who would use firearms to further illegal activity. Congress has recognized ATF's crucial role in that investigative process and has protected our ability to share that sensitive data with law enforcement. The restriction did nothing more than to codify ATF's longstanding policy of sharing trace data with other law-enforcement agencies for the purpose of conducting a criminal investigation.

Our priority will continue to be to release trace data in a manner consistent with our longstanding policy, and to support the over 17,000 federal, state, local and foreign law-enforcement agencies that avail themselves of this crucial tool.

(Michael J. Sullivan is acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), U.S. Department of Justice.)"

New Blog Roll Addition

Hello!

I have added Red's Trading Post to my blog roll. I am not sure if you are familiar with the particulars, but the ATF has been systematically trying to put them out of business for what amounts to simple clerical errors, some of which were done at the direction of previous agents.

If you have a chance, click on their link on the left and read about what the government is doing now to try and shut down a family owned business on trumped up charges.

Thanks!

-Yuri

You Might Be A Terrorist...

...if:

You believe that Gun Control laws are unconstitutional.

You object to the governments behaviour at Waco/Ruby Ridge.

You fly a "Gadsden" flag and/or believe in the words "Don't Tread On Me."

You are or have been a member of an unorganized militia.

You believe Gun Control is a conspiracy to enslave us starting with the removal of our ability to either defend ourselves or forcefully change our government.

You believe the first ten amendments of The Constitution are God given and all others are temporary, invalid or outright fraudulent.

You believe all judicial authority resides with the people. The jury, not the Judge, directs trials and can nullify laws they do not approve of.

You believe that U.S. sovereignty is being surrendered to the U.N., World Court, and World Bank, with the U.S. becoming an economic region of this New World Order.

You believe that Federal and State governments do not have the legal authority to levy taxes or interfere with travel or private enterprise by requiring licenses or regulating activity or conduct.

This, according to http://www.pa-aware.org/who-are-terrorists/domestic-5.asp

Yep, it looks like I'm a terrorist, if being a terrorist is someone who loves their country to the death. If it is someone who believes in the principles that this country was founded on and believes that the government we have now is far from the government we should have. If it is someone who believes in the the whole bill of rights as written and owns several guns and knows how to use them.

Actually...doesn't that pretty much describe a Patriot?

Well, might as well make it complete and embrace my "terroristness". Here's my Gadsden flag:

Thanks to Blognomicon for the tip.

The Clinton Gun Ban & Ballistic Fingerprinting

From NRA Videos