NRA Board Member Loses FFL
I was going to comment extensively on the WaPo’s coverage of the incident but Bitter done beat me to it:
He’s correct, they do lose firearms all the time and they should be held accountable for it. However, he’s an NRA Board Member who is supposed to be helping recruit members and bring more people to the pro-gun side. Hiding behind the issue of losing so many guns is not the way to do that.
At this point, I’m willing to say that Abrams needs to resign from the Board of Directors.
The NRA often pushes the notion that we should enforce existing gun laws and that would entail their members abiding by them. I will note that many violations of Federal firearms law is stuff like writing a Y when the form mandates you write Yes. The WaPo also trots out stats on machine guns being sold without proper records in 2003. Well, I think that’s bullshit. Since 1986, machine guns are sold only to governments. Pre-86 machine guns that are transferred among civilians must go through a fairly extensive check with the ATF. Surely, the ATF didn’t allow botched paperwork through?
Ok, one last thing:
In 1997, he couldn’t account for 45. In 2001, it was 133. In 2003, there were 422 firearms missing — more than a quarter of his inventory — including semiautomatic assault rifles, 12-gauge shotguns and Glock 9mm pistols, according to federal investigators.
I doubt the guns are missing. More likely, the paperwork is missing. Which really ought to not be a problem since the only reason people fill out Form 4473 is for the background check. I mean, if they’re missing, that means there must be some registry to compare the weapons to. And a gun registry is illegal.
Now back to Bitter, who also posted it here.
July 24th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Sickening.
Why are we turning on this man instead of attacking the entangling paperwork and harassment that FFLs have to go through. We know that technicality and red-tape is how bureaucracy destroys us. Do we back up this guy? No, of course not. We disown him. We are our own worst enemy.
What? Are we going to join the anti-gun forces in agreeing that untracable weapons is a problem, “missing” guns are a danger to the community, and other such nonsense? It’s all a joke and we know it. They can make us guilty of anything.
Are we all even on the same side anymore? All of this nonse needs to be seen for what it is: Disarming America. And we need to side on principle.
C.H.
August 11th, 2006 at 8:53 am
[…] See background on Sandy Abrams loss of his FFL here. Via PGP, comes this bit by John Lott in the other biased Washington Paper: The Washington Post’s front page on Sunday illustrated the problems with both the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives abuses as well as the media’s out-of-control attacks. The article examined the supposed abuses by Sandy Abrams’ gun shop in Baltimore, a shop he took over from his father in 1996. The second paragraph points out that “there were 422 firearms missing — more than a quarter of his inventory.” The count listed guns as missing if there were simple paperwork mistakes (e.g., two digits in a number transposed). […]
October 17th, 2007 at 9:41 am
[…] Seems people put Y instead of spelling Yes or a buyer listing the wrong county on form 4473. See here and […]