ATF harrassing gun owners in border states?

From NRA-ILA:

NRA-ILA has recently received several calls from NRA members in border states who have been visited or called by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. In some cases, agents have asked to enter these people's homes, and requested serial numbers of all firearms the members possess.

In each case, the agents were making inquiries based on the number of firearms these NRA members had recently bought, and in some cases the agents said they were asking because the members had bought types of guns that are frequently recovered in Mexico.

This kind of questioning may or may not be part of a legitimate criminal investigation. For example, when BATFE traces a gun seized after use in a crime, manufacturers' and dealers' records will normally lead to the first retail buyer of that gun, and investigators will have to interview the buyer to find out how the gun ended up in criminal hands. But in other cases, the questioning may simply be based on information in dealers' records, with agents trying to "profile" potentially suspicious purchases.

On the other hand, some of the agents have used heavy-handed tactics. One reportedly demanded that a gun owner return home early from a business trip, while another threatened to "report" an NRA member as "refusing to cooperate." That kind of behavior is outrageous and unprofessional.

Whether agents act appropriately or not, concerned gun owners should remember that all constitutional protections apply. Answering questions in this type of investigation is generally an individual choice. Most importantly, there are only a few relatively rare exceptions to the general Fourth Amendment requirement that law enforcement officials need a warrant to enter a home without the residents' consent. There is nothing wrong with politely, but firmly, asserting your rights. [emphasis added]

If BATFE contacts you and you have any question about how to respond, you may want to consult a local attorney. NRA members may also call NRA-ILA's Office of Legislative Counsel at (703) 267-1161 for further information. Whether contacting a local attorney or NRA, be sure to provide as many details as possible, including the date, time, and location, agent's name, and specific questions asked.

Article here. Know your rights. Don't let yourself be intimidated. See my post here on your right to remain silent (and why you should use it).

More "common sense" anti-gun rhetoric, post-Heller

Opinion piece in the National Law Journal arguing that while the Supreme Court's Heller decision took gun bans off the gun-grabber menu, that "[l]ittle, if anything else, is."

What we've needed, for a long time, is common-sense steps to prevent the illegal trafficking and diversion of guns to people everybody agrees shouldn't have them. Here's where the fringe gun-grabbing arguments -- on both sides -- have made common sense impossible. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives is forbidden by law from computerizing its firearms records, on the argument that they could become a de facto registration system, which could then be used to inform gun confiscation. The famed "gun show loophole" is a myth. The reality is far worse: Federal gun law only applies to "dealers," who become dealers by voluntarily announcing themselves to ATF. Everybody else can legally sell guns without any of the federal requirements, at gun shows or anywhere else. Amendments filed by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., with NRA backing, forbade ATF from publishing reports on crime-gun traces that indicated local and national patterns of trafficking and diversion, and prevented police departments from sharing this information. Jersey City, N.J., was refused data from crime guns it had submitted itself to ATF for tracing. (No, I'm not making this up.)

It would be very simple to make a huge difference here. Let ATF do its job. Eliminate the unregulated "secondary" market. Mandate that stolen guns be reported to the police. Register handguns, the most important component of gun violence. Mandate criminal background checks for gun-store employees. Reinstitute the national crime-gun tracing program the Bush administration shut down. Make penalties for trafficking guns commensurate with, at least, those for trafficking drugs. These are simple, common-ground steps that would really matter. We've been distracted from such common-sense moves by the far more dramatic culture war over guns. But that, as of last term, is over and done with.

Read the op-ed here. The author mentions the Tiahrt Amendment, and seems to imply that the amendment is a hindrance to legitimate law enforcement activities. Of course, the Tiahrt Amendment is supported by the DOJ and ATF, and by police groups such as the Fraternal Order of Police, and Michael Sullivan, the acting head of the ATF has publicly stated:

Let me be clear: neither the congressional language nor ATF rules prohibit the sharing of trace data with law enforcement conducting criminal investigations, or place any restrictions on the sharing of trace data with other jurisdictions once it is in the hands of state or local law enforcement. In fact, multi-jurisdictional trace data is also utilized by ATF and shared with fellow law-enforcement agencies to identify firearm-trafficking trends and leads. Additionally, nothing prohibits ATF from releasing our own reports that analyze trace-data trends that could be used by law enforcement.

So the amendment doesn't restrict legitimate law enforcement activities, but does restrict the use of trace data for non-law enforcement purposes, such as lawsuits by anti-gun big-city mayors. Also, note that trace data by itself is not necessarily evidence of any crime. For example, a stolen gun might get traced back to the gunstore that originally sold the gun to a legal buyer. The fact that the gun was later stolen from that legal buyer and used in a crime doesn't mean the gunstore did anything wrong.