This sounds like a blatant attempt to harass legitimate businesses. The Biden Administration is working overtime to make things difficult and inconvenient so that fewer people will want to engage in the business of manufacturing and selling firearms to law-abiding people.
Alan Rice
New Hampshire State Director for Gun Owners of America
Leak Shows ATF Preparing Operation Targeting Smith & Wesson and Others
[Via a tweet from John Richardson.
Their goal is more than “difficult and inconvenient”. The goal is elimination of the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms…one step at a time.
Rice, almost for certain, knows this but a snapshot of the evidence in the current news doesn’t reveal the entire picture. So he makes the more easily supported claim for the soundbite.—Joe]
And who was it during the Reagan administration that said, ideally there would be only four or five corporations [in all of the United States]?
And the COVID scandal has just wiped out thousands of small businesses.
This war is far broader in range and scope than the issue of mere guns and ammunition. And so yes, harassing and ultimately eradicating legitimate businesses (and by the way, who presumes to believe that they get to decide what is “legitimate” and what is not?) has been and will remain a priority for governments worldwide. Eventually, no one will be allowed to buy or sell (through “legitimate” channels) unless they have the mark of the beast.
That’s an easy one. Most business would gladly wear a mark on their forehead to stay in business. Just another license bro.
The IRS would like it if there were no more sole proprietors or even LLC’s or S Corps. Much easier to have the big corporations jump at their every whim.
Having gone through several ATF compliance audits at the shop I use to work at. I can say with confidence it’s a total bullshit game in the first place. No manufacturer is selling guns out the back door. Not that the ATF could prove through paper work.
Smith & Wesson needs to have a team ready to do a one on one with the ATF.
Shut the whole plant down. And have one employee follow one ATF agent around. Answer no questions. And be ready to tell them NO, you can’t touch that.
Be ready to film the whole thing.
The first audit I went through was a shit-show. They rattle you, then play you.
Second one was smooth as silk. They were very disappointed. They don’t like being controlled and told what to do. But you have to do that. Make them do their job in an orderly fashion, And complete one task before starting on something else.
They have the power to look at your books and inspect your operation. But that’s not a warrant. Let’s hope Smith, as well as the whole industry gets ready.
Cause the commies are out for blood on this one.
Harassment and attempts at entrapment are common features of the Bureau. It’s their job. Back when we at UltiMAK attended a lot of gun shows, there was often an ATF agent circulating, trying to get one of the vendors to say or do something illegal. They were usually pretty bad at it, and stuck out like vipers among a herd of sheep, but they had a job to do (disruption) and they were going to do it.
There was an especially persistent (and obvious) agent at a show in Moses Lake, WA who would not give up trying to get me to tell him how to convert an AK to full auto. The other booth operators at the show had had similar experiences with the son of a bitch, and they all of course knew he was ATF. But he’s getting paid to be there, to be a pain in the ass, and to make his bureau look like the predatory, anti-American agitators they are, and that’s exactly what he’s going to do, come what may. One has to give them credit for being so dedicated and persistent in their commission of evil, but of course in the long run, when the cup of their iniquity has been filled, they will have hanged themselves with the very rope they are now so carefully and persistently making.
With any luck!
The Lawyer I clerked for said he told one of their stooges that he didn’t need him to tell him how to handle his taxes, there are books and websites that will tell him how.
And when the IRS came to the Tax problem solvers in the other suite on our floor, he read the warrant and wrote up a pleading to the judge that signed the warrant, saying they were majorly overstepping the limits of the warrant. That was the only tax problem solvers in the county that were still in business. Instead of cleaning out the office, all the IRS agents got for stomping up the stairs and bursting out of the fire exit door was a couple of files less than an inch thick.
And the less we talk about City Agencies the better. I’ve never seen (at least until five years ago) a more mendacious corrupt group of government employees.
It seems to me the thing to do with those vipers is (1) take a photo of the person, (2) send that along with a report of his request to the FBI for criminal investigation.
Obviously nothing would come of that, but injecting some noise into the system seems like a worthwhile exercise.
For extra credit, a copy of the report could be sent to selected media outlets.