This happens whenever you ask any government bureaucracy for clarification, as any ambiguity inevitably requires review by lawyers eager to establish precedent. This is a result of the way the government establishes how their employees rack up points for advancement, and it never involves anything that benefits our citizens. Budget decisions? Cut the outlay, but not the requested numbers for next year. Rules that impact the law-abiding? New restrictions, new forms to fill out, new fines or taxes that create new revenue - all good, pat on the back, promising career move. Questionable confiscations, fines, legal charges against citizens? When in doubt, take it, force the abused to incur court costs to discourage challenges.

The only way to tackle this is a long, bloody struggle to defund and close down most of these agencies. Changing the rules for civil service advancement so that real service to the taxpayer is rewarded, rather than treating us as either criminals or revenue sources to be drained is an absolute must for positive change.

View all political candidates with caution, and carefully examine their stated positions and history. If they show real courage and willingness to take personal risks, that's more important than bureaucratic experience, as a new political figure is going to have to be willing to buck established power structures in order to make a difference that benefits us.

I'll say it again...
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a convenience store and NOT a government bureau.

I am not at all surprised at this.

There are two options on policies....

1. Anything not expressly forbidden is allowed

2. Anything not expressly allowed is forbidden


Which one do you think the government uses?




hint: it isn't option 1

edit - added numbers

one more example of a government created agency like the epa making their own laws. This is a situation that will probably never stop happening. The congress is duplicitous by default because they never know such "laws" (?) are written versus being written by the congress and voted on.

I second the recommendation to read Unintended Consequences by John Ross. As comprehensive an exposition of the "gun culture" and the disgusting tactics used by the BATF to destroy it. And it has some great passages that will make you smile and cheer.

All I have to say is that the second amendment was ratified to protect US from the excesses of our own government. It didnt issue weapons to us all to protect ourselves from thieves and robbers. It just said that the government couldnt prevent us from having guns. And who is likely to try to prevent us from having guns- look no further than our own government itself. Government is into POWER in all forms, and the purpose of the constitution was to LIMIT its powers (unsuccessfully unfortunately)

2-Anything not expressly allowed is forbidden. My opinion is that no one has the right to change or even modify our Constitution. We have a right to express how we feel and no one has the right to take that away from the american people.

Our novel, Trails of Injustice, provides a lot more reasons for the BATF to be shut down. We had a story in the book about the ATF exploiting a retarded kid in a sting operation. Our editor thought this was so outrageous she asked us to take it out. Then we showed her the court documents and newspaper clippings.

Check out Trails of Injustice by DK Halling http://www.amazon.com/Trails-Injustic...

I don't think we are going to get much reduction in
size of the government until (or unless) the Americ-
an people are weaned off the notion that they have
a right to vote in policies that allow them to gang up
on a minority, or individual, and take that minority's or individual's property. Nowadays,
it's "vote for the guy who will give you more of
your neighbor's stuff." And too many people be-
lieve that this is right and moral.

When I owned my camera shop, I had two customers who were ATF agents. They told some pretty wild stories about their adventures. I'm not sure if they were true, but some of them were pretty creepy. After a while, I got the impression that one of the persons they often worked with was Jack Daniels.