Do you think the ATF would use the same standard of leniency for the average FFL gunshop as you seem to be willing to grant them?
At the risk of wading back into a forum I am clearly not welcome in at this time, this statement right here is the source of my "bile & spleen," and why I am so jaded about the ATF's compliance failures here. They can break laws that would destroy the lives of ordinary citizens/businesses, and merely get an advisory summary in a report for it, even in a situation like this where it should be pretty clear that the retaining of personal info on gun sales is not acceptable. I can't put a DIAS in a lower & walk away if I promise to immediately remove it (and not discard it) once caught.
There are numerous documented examples of misbehavior for any given calendar year, going back
decades. There's more than enough history to deny them the benefit of the doubt when assessing the latest scandal of the day. Surely their agents simply aren't sophisticated enough to realize they were cataloging information that could link buyers with firearms, despite the well known provision in FOPA to prevent exactly this. Surely their database managers get training on the various laws they are to abide by.
We see it over and over, and keep coming back to it again and again; is it incompetence or arrogance driving these repeated breaches of public trust?
-As I said, the ATF can somehow maintain a functional database of personal purchase data improperly, yet can't answer the simple question "how many machine guns are in your registry?"
-Can send an LEO all the way to SCOTUS & jail for arranging a fully documented discount-Glock sale to a legal possesor because he did not have an FFL which wouldn't have been granted anyway, yet 'loses' thousands of firearms across the border to Mexican cartel smugglers?
-Threatens to prosecute business owners who informally lend their tooling/machinery to third parties so they can build their own firearms unattended with their own skill but without substantial capital investment, yet set up laughable sting operations whose only result is to prosecute those citizens induced to cooperate as informants.
-Who demand FFLs surrender entire bound books for photocopying during routine inspections, while delaying and denying FOIA requests on a number of topics.
The GAO tells the ATF they were breaking the FOPA and other laws with their practices, Thomas Brandon immediately demands they be given authority to continue these exact same (illegal) activities. Yup, I'm just sure they intend to conform to the auditor's recommendations.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/atf-head-our-job-is-not-to-take-away-peoples-guns/
"...Would it be efficient and effective? Absolutely. Would the taxpayers benefit with public safety? Absolutely. Are we allowed to do it? No." [Are you doing it anyway? Apparently yes, according to the GAO]
TCB