Wow
Bombshell: DOJ Considering Elimination of ATF:
Multiple sources, including sources from ATF, DOJ and Congressional offices have said there is a white paper circulating within the Department of Justice, outlining the essential elimination of ATF. According to sources, the paper outlines the firing of at least 450 ATF agents in an effort to conduct damage control as Operation Fast and Furious gets uglier and as election day 2012 gets closer.
September 30th, 2011 at 4:54 pm
To Dream the Impossible Dream. Not going to happen. A Bureaucracy is the only life form that is immortal.
September 30th, 2011 at 5:06 pm
I believe it when it happens.
September 30th, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Oh please, oh please, oh please…
September 30th, 2011 at 5:18 pm
I won’t believe that until the entire thing is disbanded and every single agent loses his job AND his dept. issued firearm.
September 30th, 2011 at 5:19 pm
You know what they say about wishful thinking — it gets you nowhere. That’s why this seems very unlikely.
Why?
Because it’s the US government.
Do you really think they would terminate all of the ATF employees?
Of course they won’t. Well, they may lay off some field agents, who will get jobs with local or state agencies. And they would reassign the managers and directors to other agencies and likely allow them to do the same kinds of work.
I envision them “disbanding” the ATF and simply reassigning the entire organization into a newly-created agency whose job is to do exactly the same kind of work, but with a kinder, gentler, politically-correct name. They’d probably call it something like the Citizen’s Liberty and Independence Team.
September 30th, 2011 at 5:28 pm
It’s called rebranding. The ATF will be disbanded in an impressively decisive way. And the DOJ’s new Bureau of Firearm Control will be employing the same people (minus the ‘politically unreliable’ ones) 18 month later. Which of course means rewriting all the regs, which of course means gun owners having brand new ways to mistakenly not be in compliance.
September 30th, 2011 at 5:36 pm
I’m with Mike W. TAKE THEIR GUNS AWAY! Nothing else matters.
September 30th, 2011 at 5:38 pm
Woot!
But after reading the comment above I asked myself, “Self, when was the last Fed agency that was shut down?”
I’m too lazy to Google the Reagan quote about the only thing being immortal is a government agency.
September 30th, 2011 at 5:57 pm
They will likely just put her in a new dress
September 30th, 2011 at 5:58 pm
@John – That’s awesome. I would love to see the US Government actually have a department whose acronym is CLIT. Please tell me that was intentional.
September 30th, 2011 at 6:24 pm
@John – I know who the head of the department would be. NSFW – language!
September 30th, 2011 at 7:01 pm
The Federal Government has NO “delegated powers” for the ATF. It should be disbanded in obedience to “the Supreme Law of the Land”. Re-assign its agents to the Border Patrol in accordance with “the United States SHALL…protect the States against Invasion…” (Article IV, Section 4, U.S. Constitution)
September 30th, 2011 at 7:24 pm
Good luck when the FBI takes over enforcing our gun laws. People listen to the FBI, and they have credibility even when they’re basically fucking you.
Better to have your regulating agency be clowns than to have them be competent. There certainly is some downside to ATF, but giving FBI a vested interest in there being more gun laws is a bad idea.
September 30th, 2011 at 8:04 pm
Renaming is the news disbanding.
September 30th, 2011 at 8:18 pm
Let’s see how this works, now. If I’m an ATF employee who knows a little something about a little gun running snafu and if up to now I’ve figured that keeping my mouth shut would be a good employment strategy, what’s the chances I might be able to sing a full three octaves if I were to lose my employment? Hell, I might even make stuff up, just to kind of even up the rhyme scheme, doncha know.
September 30th, 2011 at 9:38 pm
Really, this is making the rounds, the laying off of agents who probably documented the orders they received to conduct this program.
Good luck with the special prosecutor
September 30th, 2011 at 9:48 pm
They are pretty serious about it… Trust me.
September 30th, 2011 at 10:30 pm
On the BATFU, Wikipedia says “5,000 personnel”. So 450 is like 9%. Your guess if it’s going to be the whistleblowers or the gunwalkers.
September 30th, 2011 at 11:32 pm
the FBI after-all has better CYA mechanisms.
October 1st, 2011 at 7:06 am
Or this could be a play to get the Senate to confirm Andrew Traver as head of the BATFE. Like others here have said, when was the last time a federal agency went away?
October 1st, 2011 at 8:00 am
Even if they did eliminate the agency, it’s functions would just move to DOJ or somewhere else. That would also provide an opportunity for them to rewrite many regulations since they all currently say “BATFE” and I’m guessing that they would tend to be worse for gun rights. I think fedgov would take one step back so it could take three steps forward.
October 1st, 2011 at 8:23 am
The Civil Aviation Board is gone (though many want it back); they say the Tea Tasting Council is history, but I’d have to look it up. There is no Post Office Department, and USPS is well on its way — and I would look to that process as the model, rather than, say, Bastiat. You’re going to love them, privatized and operating on bounties. ATF, everyone here knows, was the “answer” to a previous “problem.”
October 1st, 2011 at 11:32 am
Damn, you have to admire the chutzpah on that Obama: first to wink at the gunwalking, then to throw an entire federal agency under the bus when he gets caught at it.
October 1st, 2011 at 12:05 pm
If you want to see how it will work out, look at the old Atomic Energy Agency.
which spawned (eventually)
ERDA
NRC
DOE
NNSA
DHS
(and maybe a few others)
October 1st, 2011 at 3:13 pm
Don’t think it would ever happen.Even if it did it would be more of a restructuring then anything.Just like HiddenHills Says.Just fall under different name.
October 1st, 2011 at 3:28 pm
So, who will take over all the anti-gun policy? No way will the government get out of the gun control business, as Henry Bowman wanted it to do.
October 1st, 2011 at 4:04 pm
Somebody is going to be enforcing all the unconstitutional, federal gun laws on the books that those congressholes aren’t about to repeal. We’re only $15 trillion in the hole, so we can afford an army of agents who do bullshit work?
With or without ATF, any criminal on the street who wants a gun will get one. ATF makes no difference, except when they’re running guns directly to criminals to make crime easier, as they have been doing.
October 1st, 2011 at 4:09 pm
+1 for Sebastian (#13) and Crotalus (#26)
I would *not* want current federal gun laws enforced by the FBI, and that’s where they are likely to go.
Get the laws changed, first. Then push for disbanding the ATF.
October 2nd, 2011 at 9:31 am
Progressives never stop, they one change the name of what they are doing.
October 2nd, 2011 at 9:31 am
Progressives never stop, they only change the name of what they are doing.
October 2nd, 2011 at 9:46 am
Roll the firearms industry regulation and tax-collecting functions back into Treasury.
Having a dedicated Agency responsible for “gun crimes” creates an incentive to find and, if necessary, manufacture gun crimes in order to justify their existence.
Sure, the FCC and FAA and USDA are no fun to deal with, but they rarely burn down churches full of people.
October 2nd, 2011 at 12:21 pm
What this tells me is that the DOJ knows that the F & F scandal is going very deep into the ATF and DOJ (perhaps the FBI, also).
Holder will make a modified limited hangout and admit some of what is already known and solve the problem by getting rid of the rogue agency, while moving all of its functions to the FBI.
October 2nd, 2011 at 1:44 pm
I’ll believe when I see it. And even then, I won’t be satisfied until every agent is dead, buried, dug up, burned, raped and buried again.
October 3rd, 2011 at 12:28 am
Won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on if, in fact, he will not keep going. Can someone think of ANOTHER useless government agency?
October 3rd, 2011 at 8:56 am
Mike W,
If there is one thing these guys excel at it, it is losing dpet issued firearms. Jobs…. I can be hopeful they will lose those also.