http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2007/03/14/news/top_story/108108.txt
Red's loses its gun license
By Cassidy Friedman
Times-News writer
TWIN FALLS - Red's Trading Post, one of Idaho's oldest gun shops, can trade no longer.
The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has revoked the business's license to buy, trade or obtain guns after an ATF audit found Red's employees sold guns improperly numerous times between 1999 and 2004.
Red's manager, Ryan Horsley, admits when the business sold guns it sometimes left blank required parts of a gun purchase form, omitted a background check on a special order, failed to log multiple handgun sales to the same customer in five working days, did not keep track of guns returned to manufacturers, threw away denied applications dealers are required to keep for 20 years and failed to post a gun safety sign and pamphlets.
The ATF revoked Red's license March 5, shutting down 90 percent of the income that has sustained the store through three generations of Horsleys.
"They are taking very minor things and blowing them out of proportion," said Terry Horsley, the shop's owner and Ryan's mother.
The shop, at 215 Shoshone St. South, can sell the 1,000 guns remaining in its inventory, and can continue selling gun accessories and ammunition.
But accessories account for only 10 percent of its revenue.
"I'm just sitting here going, 'What am I going to do?,'" Ryan Horsley said.
The five-year audit found violations over a period in which 10,000 guns were sold, Horsley said.
"Mistakes happen. Stuff happens," Horsley said. "I think it's unreal expecting to have 100 percent non errors."
The bad news, which comes on the heels of record profits, could now close the store, Terry Horsley said.
Red's has paid $20,000 in legal fees protesting the ATF's decision. On Feb. 23, Red's legal team filed a petition in federal court in Boise.
The judicial review will consider, among other things, whether Red's "willfully" violated the law.
"'Not willful' is one of their petitions," said Deborah Ferguson, assistant U.S. attorney, representing the ATF's industry operations. "'Willful has been defined by case law. I would expect the court to look at that legal authority."
Case law defines "willful," an essential component of the allegations, as "they knew of the regulations and did not abide by them," Ferguson said.
Ryan Horsley said Red's was found responsible of several violations in an earlier audit.
But he said the infractions are petty and do not justify a revoked license.
"There's no missing guns," he said. "There are errors but everyone has errors."
Walt Sinclair, a Boise co-counsel for Red's, said the errors were clerical, not intentional.
He said it's not the first time the ATF has revoked the license of a Twin Falls gun dealership.
"Blue Lakes Sporting Goods lost its license," Sinclair said. "They had been there forever. It was a family business. It was a real success story, but this type of petty, technical noncompliance caused them to end up going out of business."
The ATF has 60 days from Feb. 23 to respond Red's petition.
The ATF Seattle Field Office spokeswoman declined to comment on Red's case until after judicial review.
"If the individuals reapply, the facts from the revocation would be considered for any future licenses," said spokeswoman Julianne Marshall. "Industry Operations will consider their application. However, they have an interest for public safety. This license was revoked for a reason."
A judge may still overturn ATF's decision.
Cassidy Friedman covers crime and courts for the Times-News. He can be reached at (208)735-3241 or by e-mail at [email protected].
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Related story:
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200307\NAT20030702c.html
Hundreds of Guns Missing From Federal Police Agencies
By Jeff Johnson
CNSNews.com Congressional Bureau Chief
July 02, 2003
Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - A congressional report released Monday found that federal law enforcement agencies are still unable to account for 824 of 1,012 lost or stolen firearms issued to their officers a full year after the weapons were determined to be missing. The Republican chairman and ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee both called the revelation "inexcusable."
"Neither the public nor I will condone having over 800 firearms missing from federal agencies," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) after the General Accounting Office (GAO) released its updated report Monday.
"Most disturbing, though, is that many of these firearms were not timely reported missing by the law enforcement officers themselves," Sensenbrenner continued. "That is inexcusable."
Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, said the revelations are "certainly a disturbing development.
"It is like many other activities that the federal government carries on, poor inventory control and lack of attention to detail," he said.
"One of the most important things that the federal government does is to protect the American people," Schatz continued, "and particularly now, when we have terrorist alerts and all kinds of new threats to the people of this country, federal agencies should be extra careful and extra protective of their weapons."
FBI took more than four years to report missing guns
The GAO found that - of 1,012 firearms either lost by or stolen from federal law enforcement officers and agencies between September 1998 and July 2002 - only 188 have been accounted for since the GAO first reported the firearms missing one year ago this month.
Additionally, not all agencies always report, or report in a timely manner, missing firearms internally or to the National Crime Information Center, according to the GAO.
"The average time taken to report a firearm lost ranged from the same day by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to 4.3 years by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)," the report stated.
Some of the agencies at the Department of Justice (DOJ) "did not always investigate weapons that were lost or stolen from their agency as required by their policies and procedures.
"For instance, the GAO documented that the Justice Department Inspector General could not find evidence that the FBI investigated 141 of 212 missing firearms," the GAO reported. "The IG (Inspector General) has determined that 29 of 74 missing firearms were not investigated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)."
"The GAO's findings are deeply troubling," said Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. "The failure of the various law enforcement agencies to report and investigate lost and stolen firearms, coupled with their inability to recover these weapons after it has been determined that they were missing, places the lives of countless Americans at risk."
The congressional investigation began after a March 2001 audit by the DOJ-IG found that the INS could not account for more than 500 firearms issued to that agency. In July 2001, the nation's premier investigative agency, the FBI, disclosed that 449 of its firearms had been lost or stolen.
According to the most recent inventories available from the various federal law enforcement agencies when the GAO completed its initial review in July 2002, the U.S. government owned 243,017 firearms of various types dedicated to civilian law enforcement and prison use. The agencies with the largest number of weapons in inventory are the former INS with 54,930 and the FBI with 49,600. The FBI has the largest number of firearms still unaccounted for, 386.
The National Park Service came in second worst on the list. That agency had 196 weapons missing in July 2001. Of those, 133 had still not been found a year later. In all, the missing weapons account for less than 1 percent of the federal government's total civilian law enforcement arsenal.
Some missing federal law enforcement weapons used by criminals
The audits undertaken by the Justice and Treasury departments' Offices of the Inspector General (OIG) identified a number of incidents in which missing firearms had been located during investigations of criminal activity or during arrests.
"For example, Justice's OIG reviewed 16 missing firearms cases reported to the DEA Board of Professional Conduct, for the time period October 1, 1999, through November 15, 2001, and found that three had been recovered by local law enforcement during an arrest of an individual for a handgun violation, and two in connection with searches during unrelated criminal investigations," the GAO reported. "In another example, Treasury's OIG reviewed 10 of 13 firearms reported missing and recovered by the U.S. Customs Service, for the time period October 1, 1998, through September 30, 2001, and found that five of the 10 firearms had been recovered in connection with a robbery, a drive-by shooting or during the execution of a search warrant."
Matt Bennett of Americans for Gun Safety (AGS) - a gun control group that supports "tougher gun laws and better enforcement of those gun laws" - said the findings are "disturbing...but not particularly surprising.
"It just confirms everything that we know about how the black market in guns tends to work in this country," he said. "Many of them were stolen, and then they've made their way through the black market, through the hands of gun traffickers and into the hands of criminals."
'A systemic problem throughout the federal government'
Schatz said the fact that guns meant for federal law enforcement officers were recovered from the hands of criminals proves the agencies involved need help.
"They need to fix their controls, they need to improve their inventory management," he urged.
"It's similar...to a lot of other agencies where they lose computers, they can't find airplanes, they don't know how many vehicles they have; this is a systemic problem throughout the federal government," Schatz concluded. "When it comes to firearms, of course, it's a lot more dangerous."
The GAO report also found that:
* Some agencies do not always follow established procedures for storing firearms in vehicles or retrieving firearms from separating employees;
* Only 11 of 18 agencies required that persons assigned responsibility for conducting inventories be trained in inventory counting procedures; and
* Of the 63 recommendations made by the Justice Department inspector general in reports issued in March 2001 and August 2002, the INS, Bureau of Prisons, FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Marshals Service have implemented fully less than half.
Additionally, only 11 of the 18 agencies required that individuals responsible for conducting formal counts of their firearms have any training in inventory procedures.
Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), ranking Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, called the lack of success in recovering the weapons and the failure to implement the recommended changes "simply intolerable.
"More than 800 firearms - pistols, rifles and even submachine guns - remain unaccounted for," Dingell said. "Federal law enforcement must make a concerted effort to retrieve these missing guns, [and] government agencies that utilize firearms must immediately implement the GAO's recommendations, and persons at all levels must be held accountable in cases of negligence behavior."
Red's loses its gun license
By Cassidy Friedman
Times-News writer
TWIN FALLS - Red's Trading Post, one of Idaho's oldest gun shops, can trade no longer.
The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has revoked the business's license to buy, trade or obtain guns after an ATF audit found Red's employees sold guns improperly numerous times between 1999 and 2004.
Red's manager, Ryan Horsley, admits when the business sold guns it sometimes left blank required parts of a gun purchase form, omitted a background check on a special order, failed to log multiple handgun sales to the same customer in five working days, did not keep track of guns returned to manufacturers, threw away denied applications dealers are required to keep for 20 years and failed to post a gun safety sign and pamphlets.
The ATF revoked Red's license March 5, shutting down 90 percent of the income that has sustained the store through three generations of Horsleys.
"They are taking very minor things and blowing them out of proportion," said Terry Horsley, the shop's owner and Ryan's mother.
The shop, at 215 Shoshone St. South, can sell the 1,000 guns remaining in its inventory, and can continue selling gun accessories and ammunition.
But accessories account for only 10 percent of its revenue.
"I'm just sitting here going, 'What am I going to do?,'" Ryan Horsley said.
The five-year audit found violations over a period in which 10,000 guns were sold, Horsley said.
"Mistakes happen. Stuff happens," Horsley said. "I think it's unreal expecting to have 100 percent non errors."
The bad news, which comes on the heels of record profits, could now close the store, Terry Horsley said.
Red's has paid $20,000 in legal fees protesting the ATF's decision. On Feb. 23, Red's legal team filed a petition in federal court in Boise.
The judicial review will consider, among other things, whether Red's "willfully" violated the law.
"'Not willful' is one of their petitions," said Deborah Ferguson, assistant U.S. attorney, representing the ATF's industry operations. "'Willful has been defined by case law. I would expect the court to look at that legal authority."
Case law defines "willful," an essential component of the allegations, as "they knew of the regulations and did not abide by them," Ferguson said.
Ryan Horsley said Red's was found responsible of several violations in an earlier audit.
But he said the infractions are petty and do not justify a revoked license.
"There's no missing guns," he said. "There are errors but everyone has errors."
Walt Sinclair, a Boise co-counsel for Red's, said the errors were clerical, not intentional.
He said it's not the first time the ATF has revoked the license of a Twin Falls gun dealership.
"Blue Lakes Sporting Goods lost its license," Sinclair said. "They had been there forever. It was a family business. It was a real success story, but this type of petty, technical noncompliance caused them to end up going out of business."
The ATF has 60 days from Feb. 23 to respond Red's petition.
The ATF Seattle Field Office spokeswoman declined to comment on Red's case until after judicial review.
"If the individuals reapply, the facts from the revocation would be considered for any future licenses," said spokeswoman Julianne Marshall. "Industry Operations will consider their application. However, they have an interest for public safety. This license was revoked for a reason."
A judge may still overturn ATF's decision.
Cassidy Friedman covers crime and courts for the Times-News. He can be reached at (208)735-3241 or by e-mail at [email protected].
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Related story:
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200307\NAT20030702c.html
Hundreds of Guns Missing From Federal Police Agencies
By Jeff Johnson
CNSNews.com Congressional Bureau Chief
July 02, 2003
Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - A congressional report released Monday found that federal law enforcement agencies are still unable to account for 824 of 1,012 lost or stolen firearms issued to their officers a full year after the weapons were determined to be missing. The Republican chairman and ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee both called the revelation "inexcusable."
"Neither the public nor I will condone having over 800 firearms missing from federal agencies," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) after the General Accounting Office (GAO) released its updated report Monday.
"Most disturbing, though, is that many of these firearms were not timely reported missing by the law enforcement officers themselves," Sensenbrenner continued. "That is inexcusable."
Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, said the revelations are "certainly a disturbing development.
"It is like many other activities that the federal government carries on, poor inventory control and lack of attention to detail," he said.
"One of the most important things that the federal government does is to protect the American people," Schatz continued, "and particularly now, when we have terrorist alerts and all kinds of new threats to the people of this country, federal agencies should be extra careful and extra protective of their weapons."
FBI took more than four years to report missing guns
The GAO found that - of 1,012 firearms either lost by or stolen from federal law enforcement officers and agencies between September 1998 and July 2002 - only 188 have been accounted for since the GAO first reported the firearms missing one year ago this month.
Additionally, not all agencies always report, or report in a timely manner, missing firearms internally or to the National Crime Information Center, according to the GAO.
"The average time taken to report a firearm lost ranged from the same day by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to 4.3 years by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)," the report stated.
Some of the agencies at the Department of Justice (DOJ) "did not always investigate weapons that were lost or stolen from their agency as required by their policies and procedures.
"For instance, the GAO documented that the Justice Department Inspector General could not find evidence that the FBI investigated 141 of 212 missing firearms," the GAO reported. "The IG (Inspector General) has determined that 29 of 74 missing firearms were not investigated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)."
"The GAO's findings are deeply troubling," said Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. "The failure of the various law enforcement agencies to report and investigate lost and stolen firearms, coupled with their inability to recover these weapons after it has been determined that they were missing, places the lives of countless Americans at risk."
The congressional investigation began after a March 2001 audit by the DOJ-IG found that the INS could not account for more than 500 firearms issued to that agency. In July 2001, the nation's premier investigative agency, the FBI, disclosed that 449 of its firearms had been lost or stolen.
According to the most recent inventories available from the various federal law enforcement agencies when the GAO completed its initial review in July 2002, the U.S. government owned 243,017 firearms of various types dedicated to civilian law enforcement and prison use. The agencies with the largest number of weapons in inventory are the former INS with 54,930 and the FBI with 49,600. The FBI has the largest number of firearms still unaccounted for, 386.
The National Park Service came in second worst on the list. That agency had 196 weapons missing in July 2001. Of those, 133 had still not been found a year later. In all, the missing weapons account for less than 1 percent of the federal government's total civilian law enforcement arsenal.
Some missing federal law enforcement weapons used by criminals
The audits undertaken by the Justice and Treasury departments' Offices of the Inspector General (OIG) identified a number of incidents in which missing firearms had been located during investigations of criminal activity or during arrests.
"For example, Justice's OIG reviewed 16 missing firearms cases reported to the DEA Board of Professional Conduct, for the time period October 1, 1999, through November 15, 2001, and found that three had been recovered by local law enforcement during an arrest of an individual for a handgun violation, and two in connection with searches during unrelated criminal investigations," the GAO reported. "In another example, Treasury's OIG reviewed 10 of 13 firearms reported missing and recovered by the U.S. Customs Service, for the time period October 1, 1998, through September 30, 2001, and found that five of the 10 firearms had been recovered in connection with a robbery, a drive-by shooting or during the execution of a search warrant."
Matt Bennett of Americans for Gun Safety (AGS) - a gun control group that supports "tougher gun laws and better enforcement of those gun laws" - said the findings are "disturbing...but not particularly surprising.
"It just confirms everything that we know about how the black market in guns tends to work in this country," he said. "Many of them were stolen, and then they've made their way through the black market, through the hands of gun traffickers and into the hands of criminals."
'A systemic problem throughout the federal government'
Schatz said the fact that guns meant for federal law enforcement officers were recovered from the hands of criminals proves the agencies involved need help.
"They need to fix their controls, they need to improve their inventory management," he urged.
"It's similar...to a lot of other agencies where they lose computers, they can't find airplanes, they don't know how many vehicles they have; this is a systemic problem throughout the federal government," Schatz concluded. "When it comes to firearms, of course, it's a lot more dangerous."
The GAO report also found that:
* Some agencies do not always follow established procedures for storing firearms in vehicles or retrieving firearms from separating employees;
* Only 11 of 18 agencies required that persons assigned responsibility for conducting inventories be trained in inventory counting procedures; and
* Of the 63 recommendations made by the Justice Department inspector general in reports issued in March 2001 and August 2002, the INS, Bureau of Prisons, FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Marshals Service have implemented fully less than half.
Additionally, only 11 of the 18 agencies required that individuals responsible for conducting formal counts of their firearms have any training in inventory procedures.
Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), ranking Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, called the lack of success in recovering the weapons and the failure to implement the recommended changes "simply intolerable.
"More than 800 firearms - pistols, rifles and even submachine guns - remain unaccounted for," Dingell said. "Federal law enforcement must make a concerted effort to retrieve these missing guns, [and] government agencies that utilize firearms must immediately implement the GAO's recommendations, and persons at all levels must be held accountable in cases of negligence behavior."
