ATF Director Jones Announces Resignation

ATF Director, B. Todd Jones

Ammoland

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Director B. Todd Jones today announced that he is resigning. 

Jones was nominated by President Barack Obama for the position of ATF director on Jan. 24, 2013. On July 31, 2013, Jones became the first ATF director in history to receive Senate confirmation.
Prior to becoming ATF’s permanent Director, Jones served as the acting ATF Director starting Aug. 31, 2011. While serving as the acting director of ATF, Jones was also the U. S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota, a post he held from Aug. 7, 2009, until his confirmation as ATF Director.

ATF Deputy Director Thomas E. Brandon will serve as Acting Director after Jones departs. Brandon was appointed Deputy Director of ATF in October 2011. Brandon has more than 26 years of experience with ATF. Prior to his appointment as Deputy Director, Brandon served as the special agent in charge of the Phoenix field division beginning in March 2011, and special agent in charge of the Detroit field division from January 2008 until his assignment to Phoenix.

Meet the ATF Director, B. Todd Jones

ATF Director Named - B. Todd Jones

The Daily News

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms got its first permanent director since 2006 Wednesday, when the Senate confirmed B. Todd Jones, by a hair.

It was supposed to be easier. The White House and gun control groups had made an issue of the agency’s lack of a permanent boss. President Obama listed confirming an ATF chief as one of his high-profile gun control priorities in January.

On the other side of the ledger, the National Rifle Association, whose hostility to the mission of the ATF Democrats blame for the longstanding failure to give the agency more than an interim boss, declined to fight Jones.

Jon Stewart on the NRA Ad and the ATF

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Jon Stewart on the ATF

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ATF criminal investigations at Gun Shows from Wikipedia

I posted this as a response to FWM who says that no illegal activity happens at gunshows and that the Bloomberg et al vids are fakes...

 BTW note where it says "The state of Ohio is one of the top ten source states for recovered guns used in crime."

ATF criminal investigations at Gun Shows From Wikipedia

From 2004 to 2006, ATF conducted surveillance and undercover investigations at 195 gun shows (approximately 2% of all shows). Specific targeting of suspected individuals (77%) resulted in 121 individual arrests and 5,345 firearms seizures. Seventy nine of the 121 ATF operation plans were known suspects previously under investigation.^[1]
Additionally, ATF Field Offices report that:

• Between 2002 and 2005, more than 400 guns legally purchased at gun shows from licensed dealers in the city of Richmond, Virginia, were later recovered in connection with criminal activity. Bouchard notes that, "These figures do not take into account firearms that may have been sold at Richmond area gun shows by unlicensed sellers, as these transactions are more difficult to track."^[3] It is noteworthy that the "in connection with criminal activity" category includes stolen guns later recovered from burglaries, but the report does not specify how many guns in the 400 gun figure cited were not guns used in the commission of a crime, but that were rather the fruits of criminal activity.

• The Department of Justice reports, "after reviewing hundreds of trace reports associated with guns used in crime recovered in the New Orleans area and interviewing known gang members and other criminals, ATF Special Agents identified area gun shows as a source used by local gang members and other criminals to obtain guns."^[1]

• In 2003 and 2004, the San Francisco ATF Field Division conducted six general operations at Reno, Nevada, gun shows to investigate interstate firearms trafficking. During these operations, "agents purchased firearms and identified violations related to "off paper" sales, sales to out-of-state residents, and dealing in firearms without a license." The "ATF seized or purchased 400 firearms before making arrests and executing search warrants, which resulted in the seizure of an additional 600 firearms and the recovery of explosives."^[1]

• ATF's Columbus Field Division conducted its anti-trafficking operations based on intelligence from Cleveland police that "many of the guns recovered in high-crime areas of the city had been purchased at local gun shows." Subsequent gun show sting operations resulted in the seizure of "5 guns, one indictment, and two pending indictments for felony possession of a firearm." The state of Ohio is one of the top ten source states for recovered guns used in crime.^[1]

• The ATF's Phoenix Field Division reported that "many gun shows attracted large numbers of gang members from Mexico and California. They often bought large quantities of assault weapons and smuggled them into Mexico or transported them to California."^[1] Garen Wintemute, a professor at the University of California at Davis, calls Arizona and Texas a "gunrunner's paradise."^[26]

Arming the Mexican Drug Cartels

This documentary was first aired in October 2011.

I encourage people who follow the discussion of gun issues here to view it; if you don't have access to Current TV through your cable service, consider getting it.  The documentary may also be available online or through sources like a library in your area.  This particular documentary addresses the overwhelming contribution of guns from the U.S. into Mexico, the NRA, the gun show loophole, and the Obama administration requirement on multiple gun sales reporting that - contrary to what some of our commenters were expecting, from the assurances of the NRA - was found to be perfectly legal recently, as I posted here.

For those of you weak on geography (as sadly too many Americans are, another failure of our education system) Juarez is across the border from El Paso, Texas.  The two cities are considered one of the largest bi-national metropolitan areas.

Watch. Learn. Think.  Think about following the money through the NRA, back to the gun manufacturers. We need to act.

From Vanguard / Current TV:



Synopsis:

In "Arming the Mexican Cartels," Christof Putzel and the Renaud Brothers report from Juarez, Mexico, commonly known as the Murder Capital of the World. American guns are flooding across the border into Mexico, arming deadly cartel drug wars which continue to spiral out of control. Embedded with Mexican Police, Army Special Forces and Juarez CSI teams, Christof takes viewers on a journey where few dare to go, following a trail of blood, drugs and guns that inevitably leads back to the United States.

• Juarez mother stops a drive-by shooting: Scenes from 'Vanguard
• Going undercover at Texas gun show: Scenes from 'Vanguard'
• Crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, this time following guns: 'Vanguard' Blog
• Christof's Hipstamatic photo gallery: Facebook
• Mexican cartel car chase: 'Vanguard' Dispatches from the Field
• Inside a Mexican gun vault: 'Vanguard' Dispatches from the Field
• Learning how to shoot with the ATF: 'Vanguard' Dispatches from the Field
• This town is famous for hit men and burritos: 'Vanguard' Dispatches from the Field

The Fast and Furious Story Without the Hype

Huffington Post contributor Adam Winkler described it clearly and simply.

Now that Republicans in Congress won important concessions from President Obama in the debt ceiling debate, the next partisan battle is likely to be over what promises to be the first major scandal of the Obama administration: the botched gun sting known as "Operation Fast and Furious." The administration should waste no time and come clean about what happened, who approved it, and how it can be avoided again.

Unfortunately, the early signs are that Obama is going to handle this controversy as poorly as he handled the debt ceiling debate.

Professor Winkler goes on to point out that the cover-up is probably worse than the crime. Sting operations are used by law enforcement all the time. Sometimes you have to allow smaller crimes to occur so that you can capture the people behind far bigger crimes.
 
The real problem is all the attempts to stonewall and shirk responsibility. The NRA, which has long demonized Holder for his support of gun control, will continue to put pressure until he goes down, if possible. Naturally they'd try to destroy Obama with this too.

Around here we've written about this a number of times, including a wonderfully brief synopsis that JadeGold submitted.

Now, this is not to say any operation that is ill-advised or poorly executed shouldn't be investigated and those responsible demoted or fired, if need be.  But once more, the gunloons, in their phony outrage, have overreached. 

"Phony outrage" is exactly what it is. On the Sipsey Street Irregulars it's daily fare. And Farago is next in line with the exaggerated coverage (propaganda).

So, what's it really all about?  I'll tell you. It's the NRA vs the ATF. It's that simple. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is reviled by the NRA and many gun onwers as the symbolic representation of gun-rights opposition. ATF agents literally appear as the jack-booted oppressors who stand at the van of all common-sense gun control movements. As such they are the enemy of the Constitution and deserving of opprobrium.

Here's phoney outrage personified. 

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Farago in the Washington Times

That's the Washington Times not to be confused with the Washington Post.

It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the church. The Times is known for presenting socially and politically conservative views.

Robert Farago, of course, is the leader of that merry band of gun-rights warriors called the Armed Intelligentsia of TTAG.

There's only one place on the internet that exceeds Robert's zeal in attacking the ATF.  That's the Sipsey Street Irregulars. Mike V. has practically turned his blog into a dedicated propaganda machine, even some of his fanboys have complained.

Farago uses his usual linguistic gifts to make his points, "the Nixonian cover-up," "the simmering scandal," "ATF’s ideological corruption," "moral abyss," "bloated bureaucracy," and so on and so on.

He had this to say too:

Displaying its ongoing antipathy to the right to keep and bear arms, the ATF has just pushed through an executive order creating an unconstitutional long-gun registry. The agency says the new regulations will help it catch smugglers trying to secrete American weapons into Mexico - the same crime it enabled and encouraged under Operation Fast and Furious.

By "unconstitutional long-gun registry," is he referring to the law requiring that multiple sales of guns like AR-15s be reported? Wouldn't such a law be one of the best ways to identify gun smugglers and straw purchasers? Wouldn't investigating people who buy more than one of those items make sense?

Well, apparently not to Robert Farago and his friends. To them, misrepresenting these attempts as "creating an unconstitutional long-gun registry, is part of their strategy to resist common sense gun control regulations.

What's your opinion? Is Robert Farago one eloquent son-of-a-gun, or what? Do you think he does a bit of spinning though, is he guilty of manipulating?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

A Better Effort

From the AP by way of MSNBC:

US to require gun-buyer information on border

The goal is to stem the illicit flow of weapons into Mexico

WASHINGTON — In an effort to stem the illicit flow of weapons into Mexico, the Justice Department announced Monday that all gun shops in four Southwest border states will be required to alert the federal government to frequent buyers of high-powered rifles.

The new policy comes amid criticism of a flawed federal probe aimed at dismantling large-scale arms trafficking networks along the Arizona border with Mexico.
In the probe, called Operation Fast and Furious, several agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives say they were inexplicably ordered by superiors to stop tracking some small-time "straw" buyers who purchased large numbers of weapons apparently destined for drug cartels.
Twenty low-level gun buyers have been charged in the operation. In December, two assault rifles that one of the now-indicted small-time buyers under scrutiny in Fast and Furious had purchased from a gun shop in Glendale, Ariz., turned up at the scene of a shootout that killed Brian Terry, an agent of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In recent congressional testimony, ATF agent John Dodson estimated that 1,800 guns in Fast and Furious were unaccounted for and that about two-thirds are probably in Mexico.
Story: Firearms from U.S. being used in Mexico drug violence
Under the new policy, federal firearms licensees in Texas, California, Arizona and New Mexico must report purchases of two or more of some types of rifles by the same person in a five-day span. The requirement applies to purchases of semi-automatic rifles that have detachable magazines and a caliber of greater than .22.
ATF estimates it will generate 18,000 reports a year.
Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the new reporting measure will improve the ATF's ability to disrupt illegal weapons trafficking networks that funnel firearms to criminal organizations
Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the new policy "is exactly what ATF agents on the ground told Congress — that reporting multiple sales of military-grade assault weapons is a crucial tool to identify and disrupt Mexican drug cartels engaged in gun trafficking."
One of the critics of Operation Fast and Furious called the new policy "the height of hypocrisy." The Obama administration is restricting the gun rights of border state citizens, "when the administration knowingly and intentionally allowed guns to be trafficked into Mexico," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas.
"Limiting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens is not going to solve the problem," Smith said.
Mexico's federal security spokesman, Alejandro Poire, praised Obama's action.
ATF estimates the requirement will cover nearly 8,500 gun store operators in the four states, though less than 30 percent of those operators are expected to have multiple sales to report.
ATF will retain the information and if no investigative leads have been realized after two years, it will be purged.
Holders of federal firearms licenses already report multiple sales of handguns. The results go to the National Tracing Center, and ATF says it has led to successful prosecutions for firearms trafficking.

Toothless Laws

via Chris Brown at Media Matters along with a wonderful article about the hearings.

Rene Jaquez, Academy Award Nominee

Also nominated are all those gun bloggers who are trying to say this is a big deal.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

More on the ATF Funding Question

The Washington Post reports that the Obama Administration may be changing course on those proposed cuts to the ATF budget.

The administration wisely - and in this political climate, bravely - appears to have had a change of heart. "As part of the president's commitment to strengthening core law enforcement and homeland security functions - even as we make tough choices across the government - the 2012 budget includes robust support for Southwest border security, including an increase above current funding levels for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives," according to Margaret L. Reilly, a spokeswoman at the Office of Management and Budget. In plain English: The administration is promising to increase the ATF's budget beyond the $1.13 billion currently included in the 2011 continuing resolution. OMB declined to provide the exact dollar amount. 

Could this be the beginning? Could this be the start of the long-overdue change in direction many of us have been waiting for?

Refusing to further gut the ATF is an important, but ultimately small, gesture. Assault weapons and related accessories, including the kind of high-capacity magazine used in the shootings just outside Tucson, should be banned; the gun show loophole for background checks should be closed. We hope the president's course correction on the ATF is but the first of many steps to combat the rash of gun violence that has for too long afflicted this country and its neighbor to the south.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Proposed ATF Budget Cuts

via Penigma.

This article examines the weird suggestion to significantly cut the ATF Budget at a time when many people think they're bneginning to do a good job along the Mexican border. It makes you wonder what's really going on.

Some agency officials held out hope that President Obama, whose campaign promised tougher gun laws, would support their mission and budget, and strengthen their legal tools. 

What's your opinion? Where do you think this initiative comes from? Will Obama save the day as far as the ATF goes?

Please leave a comment.

More on the Traver Nomination

Pajamas Media, in their typical bombastic and exaggerated language jumped on the bandwagon attacking the Traver nomination.  What I found interesting was this.

Traver was a participant in the 2007 Great Lakes States Summit on Firearm Violence, which generated a report titled “Taking a Stand: Reducing Gun Violence in Our Communities.”

Recommendations in the report involved a string of liberty-infringing proposals, including:

• Requiring that all gun sales take place through federal firearms license (FFL) holders with mandatory background checks.
• Enacting an effective ban on military-style assault weapons, armor-piercing handgun ammunition, .50 caliber sniper rifles, and other weapons that enable criminals to outgun law enforcement.
• Repealing the Tiahrt Amendment, which hinders investigation of illegal gun trafficking.
• Destroying guns that come into police possession once their law enforcement use has ended.
• Mandating safe storage of firearms by private citizens and providing safe facilities where gun owners can store their weapons.
• Mandating reporting of lost and stolen firearms.
• Developing a best practices protocol for voluntary gun surrender programs.
• Congress should restore funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant Program for state, local, and tribal agencies to investigate and prosecute cases of gun trafficking and gun violence.
• The federal government should increase funding to ATF for personnel and technical assistance to combat gun violence.
• Congress should enact legislation to allow federal health and safety oversight of the firearms industry.

What's your opinion? Do you think these are "liberty-infringing proposals?"   I certainly don't.

The very use of the word "infringe" to describe this is an attempt at spinning the whole thing.  Take the first proposal, requiring background checks has nothing to do with the "shall not be infringed" concept, at least not unless you're a disqualified person.

Some of these ideas I could do without, like the mandatory destroying of guns, I'm not particularly into that. That's more for the guys who hate all guns.  Yet, there is a problem in places where the police are selling the guns back out to the very gun dealers who too easily let them go to the criminals in the first place.  But, basically, I'm not so hot on the destroying idea.

The mandatory safe storage laws and the increased funding to the ATF sound good to me.

What's your opinion?  Are you opposed to all of these becasue the "infringe" too much like the Pajamas Media folks say?  

Please leave a comment.

The NYT on the Washington Post Piece

A great op-ed.

As a new Congress looms, we suggest lawmakers travel to Washington by way of West Virginia and an obscure federal building called the National Tracing Center. There they can see workers laboring through unmanageably high backlogs of handwritten paper records submitted by the nation’s gun dealers. This is Congress’s handiwork — at the behest of the gun lobby and to the detriment of public safety. 

Each year the center receives 300,000 inquiries from police officers trying to track weapons from tens of thousands of gun deaths. But it is prohibited, by law, from collecting gun ownership records through a modern computerized database. Instead, paper prevails in assorted scraps. Workers huddle over desks with tape and magnifying glass, while crime marches on. 

The center’s plight was described in a Washington Post report detailing the insidious roadblocks and lethal damage wrought by bipartisan pandering to the gun lobby. Congress’s failure is also clear in the underfinancing and short staffing at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Beleaguered enforcement agents must monitor 115,000 firearms dealers with 600 agents — the same number as three decades ago.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

The Bureaucracy Called ATF

The link to this fascinating article was provided by Zorro.

I suppose he finds the fact surprising that the ATF suffers from the same kinds of bureaucratic problems as any other government agency.

The article seemed to find it especially damning that they don't share information with other agencies and even among their own internal departments.

Because I watch those cop shows on the tele, I understand that they must concern themselves with spies and moles. But Zorro and the other ATF haters don't know this because they don't watch TV to learn neat stuff like that.

What's your opinion? Is $37.5 million a lot of money in this context? Isn't it possible that it takes that much and more to make real progress?

Please leave a comment.

Life on the Texas Border - Arizona Gun Seizure

This is a fascinating video about life on the border. Interestingly it's linked to an ABC story about the ATF seizing 1300 guns in Arizona.

The Leaderless ATF

Dennis Henigan published a very interesting article for The Huffington Post in which he describes the lack of action on the part of the president. One of the key failings is the fact that the ATF has gone without leadership for some time.

As the Brady Center points out in its new report, Leadership Vacuum, the ATF vacancy is particularly conspicuous, since 83% of the appointments that require Senate approval have been confirmed or nominated since President Obama took office. The Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Administration has been nominated and confirmed, but no one has even been nominated for the job of running the agency responsible for fighting gun trafficking.

This is a serious matter. In the words of James Pasco, a former ATF Assistant Director, "I am absolutely confident that because of the lack of a confirmed director, crimes are being committed and innocent people are dying." How can the Administration continue to maintain it has a policy to fight gun violence by improving enforcement of current law, when it has been willing to allow the federal gun enforcement agency to remain leaderless? How can it say that it is "doing all that we can" -- as Secretary of State Clinton claimed -- to curb the arming of Mexican cartels with guns trafficked from American gun shops?

This certainly doesn't sound like something that can be blamed on the fact that Obama has a lot on his plate, what with the wars and Health Care and all. This sounds like a purposeful omission, ensuring the wishes of the NRA are achieved. Could their lobbying and influence be that strong?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Sabre Defense Industries

The Nashville Business Journal reports on the investigation of a gun manufacturer.

Nashville-based gun manufacturer Sabre Defence Industries issued a statement late yesterday saying it is cooperating with federal agents who are investigating “potential criminal misuse of certain non-saleable firearms” manufactured by the company and purchased by Sabre employees.

“Sabre has received information that employee(s) involved in inventory control may have obtained and re-sold some items without appropriate licenses,” reads the company’s statement. “Sabre is and has been cooperating with federal agents in this investigation.”

The company had an FFL license, just like the guy in your local gun shop. And just like many local gun shops, Sabre Defense turned out to be the source of gun flow into the criminal world.

What's your opinion? Is there not enough oversight? Is there too much wiggle-room for these felons masquerading as legitimate employees making money on the side?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.