But It Provides Income For ATF Employees
BY Herschel Smith
5 years, 4 months ago
That makes it fair to ask – and expect answers to – how many cases are solved based on traces. How many perpetrators have been convicted that would otherwise not have been had ATF not identified a name gleaned from a retailer’s 4473 copy? Intuitively, if you catch the perp, it would seem you’ve solved the case. Ditto, what percentage of guns found at the scene trace back to the “retail purchaser” who is either guilty or able to provide a useful lead to who is? Factoring in the costs of these operations, how much does that work out to per solved crime?
So how’d you like that tweed suit? And the extreme unction with which they work? Is this good use of your tax money?
On August 26, 2019 at 12:13 am, BRVTVS said:
Although what I’ll call, for lack of a better term, practical arguments (e.g. more guns = less crime, gun traces don’t solve crimes, etc.) normally work in out favor, I’m uncomfortable with them. Stating that we should allow guns because they reduce crime implies that if the controllers can prove that guns lead more crime, we’ll just lay down our arms. I’d still demand my God given rights if guns were proven to increase crime tenfold, because freedom has a price. Trading ones rights away for a little security is a worse deal than Esau received from Jacob, at least Esau had a tangible meal.
Genesis 25
29 And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint:
30 And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.
31 And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.
32 And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?
33 And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.
34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.
On August 26, 2019 at 5:41 am, Matt said:
Backdoor registration. That’s all it is. We all know it.
On August 26, 2019 at 9:08 am, Ned said:
Back in the 80 when I worked in California ATF did a massive trace of Mossberg shotguns. One of them was an 835 that I had purchased.
I can’t remember how I learned this, but it was creepy enough at the time.
On August 26, 2019 at 3:22 pm, Henry said:
BRVTVS: Or, less theologically:
What it means to take rights seriously is that one will honor them even when there is significant social cost in doing so.
—SANFORD LEVINSON
The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.
—JUSTICE ANTHONY KENNEDY
The Constitution recognizes higher values than speed and efficiency. Indeed, one might fairly say of the Bill of Rights in general, and the Due Process Clause in particular, that they were designed to protect the fragile values of a vulnerable citizenry from the overbearing concern for efficiency and efficacy that may characterize praiseworthy government officials no less, and perhaps more, than mediocre ones.
–STANLEY V ILLINOIS, 405 US 645, 656 (1972)
History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.
—THURGOOD MARSHALL