is the BATFE really like that?

[Shung]

they had in fact established the probable cause necessary for the search warrant.

A search warrant is enough to shoot 9 time at a naked guy in the night, who might think that you are invading his home ? (as i understood from what I read, not only the book, he was half naked and carried a cap&ball revolver) .. Do you really think he knew these guys were ATF ? Do you really think he could win a gun fight against a bunch of people with modern firearms and in large number..? it seems obvious to me that the way ATF conducted the raid made Ballew think he was fighting for his life against thugs..

Sure, Ballew shouldnt have resisted the ATF.. but he should have known, from the ATF that they WERE ATF, in the 1st place..

So who's fault ?

 

[ChaoSS]

Certainly, there are good people in the ATF. Their screening process does not include urination on a crucifix, offering up a virgin sacrifice, or raping young children.

That being said, the good people in the ATF are the exception. The organization is evil at it's very core. They exist to enforce laws that are unconstitutional, and as such, have the mentality that the law simply does not apply to them.


Anyone who wants to tell me that they are not evil at their core can explain why they employed a murderous scumbag like Lon Horiuchi, and continued to employ him after he committed murder.

 

[ArmedBear]

This is F-troop's tribute to their four members killed while massacring people at Waco, TX:



They're a government agency with no real check on their power, especially with Eric Holder as AG, and former Joyce Foundation board member B. Hussein Obama in the White House. Of course, they'll do evil. That's how human nature works.

 

[Zoogster]

Anyone who wants to tell me that they are not evil at their core can explain why they employed a murderous scumbag like Lon Horiuchi, and continued to employ him after he committed murder.

That is the FBI, not the ATF. Specifically their hostage rescue team.

They got a federal judge to dismiss charges against him.
They do it because they want people like that willing to pull the trigger whenever given the order to do so. If they start allowing them to be prosecuted then more will think twice when told to pull the trigger, and they won't be as effective.
So instead they defend their actions at all costs, and at the federal level with federal judges in your pocket, when actions are taken in the performance of duty as ordered by a superior there is not much that can touch you. You get the Nuremberg Defense in practice even if not officially.
If they let him get prosecuted, more agents will start thinking for themselves, and not be good little soldiers who jump when they say jump and shoot when they say shoot. That is counterproductive to a paramilitary team's effectiveness as a tool of the government.

The FBI is big and there is a lot of good people in it. But sometimes what gets done in a big bureaucracy is for the good of the bureaucracy and not the people they serve.
The HRT was called in by other agencies to come in as a team of commandos after other federal LEO were killed, certainly without full understanding or maybe even much care of what led up to that as it doesn't change the mission, and given a lot of discretion to respond accordingly.


In modern times they are much more successful with media blackouts, use cell phone jammers and block internet and land lines during such crisis. So such big spectacles noticed by most of the nation will be very infrequent. Similar events still happen though.

 

[Deanimator]

That is the FBI, not the ATF. Specifically their hostage rescue team.

However, the BATF's lies to the Federal Marshall's Service regarding Weaver's involvement in bank robbery and their original PROTRACTED effort to entrap him were massive factors in creating the entire situation. The BATFE's VERY casual attitude toward the truth, especially sworn testimony, has a pattern of getting people, including LEOs, killed.

Sometimes the BATFE seems like "Randall Flagg", Stephen King's demon villain in "The Stand". Like him, they just seem to be around whenever something really bad happens, and NEVER in a capacity to make the situation better.

When have a contempt for the truth, a contempt for the law, corruption, ineptitude and racial hatred ever been a recipe for anything GOOD?

 

[Eaglecreekbrewer]

However, feel free to post a citation for the Federal District Court where this alleged prosecution took place.

Forgive me if I don't hold my breath waiting for that case number.

Although I believe the LEO prosecution is an urban legend. the BATFE has been guilty of prosecuting people of ownership of a malfunctioning AR even though it was shown to have not been modified. An unintentional mechanical failure is just that, yet the feds stretch their "definition" at any opportunity.

Just one example.........

http://www.davidkopel.com/2A/Olofson/2-OLOFSON-trial-TRANSCRIPT.pdf

 

[Hatchett]

On Unintended Consequences...

The writing is quite horrible, the book could easily lose about 500 pages and nobody would notice, and the plot is completely, insanely contrived, but that just makes it a bad book which books are allowed to be.

What bothers me is the whole thing is basically the author's personal masturbatory power fantasy put to paper. It could not be more obvious that the main character is just a thinly disguised version of the author, except that he's been perfected in every way the author can think of from superhuman skill, to financial bliss, to threesomes with strippers--if the main character had all the powers of the X-Men it'd be no less believable. Every wonderful thing that can come to the main character does, as he gleefully goes about murdering politicians, who are apparently easier to kill than thugs in a Charles Bronson movie, and gleefully detailing the nauseating snuff gore for pages and pages. Finally the entire United States government bows down in surrender to one man and his 4-inch .44 Magnum with nylon bullets, which is such a insanely ridiculous concept even Chuck Norris wouldn't star in that movie.

Plus the main character plays with a severed phallus, rapes a congressman's corpse, and executes a black woman named Gonorrhea, which means that the most perfected version of the author is also a massive pervert and a racist.

 

[General Geoff]

Finally the entire United States government bows down in surrender to one man and his 4-inch .44 Magnum

5-inch, get it right

 

[Shung]

I didnt get to these parts yet ! You ruined my reading now !!!

 

[ChaoSS]

That is the FBI, not the ATF. Specifically their hostage rescue team.

My mistake. You are correct.

That being said, it was the ATF that framed him in the first place with the entrapment regarding the gun. They were acting in the role of persecuting political enemies, going after a white racialist organization who's only wish was to be left in peace.

 

[Erik]

"is the BATFE really like that ?"

No.

"I thought their bulk purchase of an "always think forfeiture" engraved tool to be carried in the field was an especially interesting choice."

It is commonly found "swag" among a variety of federal agencies with administrative seizure powers. I have never received an answer to whom decides such things, but have a a shoe box full of always think forfeiture swag from at least 5 agencies.

"BATFE traditionally has had the lowest qualifications for Federal LEOs and the worst supervision."

Untrue re their qualifications. They remain one of the most sought after agencies to work for and their successful candidate pool (defined as those actually hired) reflects that. As for the supervision, I'd put it as comparable to other agencies, which would make the assertion of its being the worst also untrue.

"by the way, is there any record of any big operation of the BATFE (or ATF) making usefull arrests, unlike arresting people for unlawfull gun's (too short, stocks on pistols etc, but who had no criminal intent at all)"

The ATF regularly runs and participates in multi-jurisdictional operations large and small targeting criminals involved in broad varieties of criminal activity.

I was going to go on, but there is obviously quite the anti-ATF slant among some here, which is par for the course on a firearms related forum in my experience. The truth of the matter is that the ATF has a large pool of applicants to draw from, draws some of the best of any in the industry, and that they spend the majority of their careers doing things all but the most radically on the right and left would have them do; namely investigate criminals engaged in illegal activity. Note, much of what the detractors feel should be legal is not, and their opinion is largely framed by that position.

Finally, a note on federal prosecutions: Law enforcement officers, regardless of agency, title and authority, do not decide who is prosecuted or not. The United States Attorney's Office decides that, usually if not exclusively by the Assistant United States Attorney assigned to a given case.

 

[DRZinn]

It is commonly found "swag" among a variety of federal agencies with administrative seizure powers.

That makes it better?

 

[ArmedBear]

The ATF regularly runs and participates in multi-jurisdictional operations large and small targeting criminals involved in broad varieties of victimless criminal activity.

Fixed it for you...

 

[Cosmoline]

The ATF is a federal law enforcement arm, not merely a regulatory body. It "interprets" very broad and cryptic federal statutes and then enforces them. Its mandate is not to encourage shooting or marksmanship, but to enforce the phalanx of federal anti-gun laws. Institutionally, its goal is to catch people who violate these complex rules. Even if there are nice people working for that agency, their purpose in life is to put us behind bars. That means, among other things, that they give themselves the maximum possible wiggle room in their regulations. That's why you see shoestrings defined as machine guns.

thus they passed the 1934 laws, making people and objects "illegal" from a day to another, and so creating new "work" for those unoccupied people...

Doesnt this sound crazy for you ?

It is crazy, but that's how our federal overlords do business. Mind you, the US functions extremely well as it was ORIGINALLY designed. Under that Constitutional system, all law enforcement and almost all law comes from the states. The feds have supreme power but are only permitted to act within narrow confines (tariffs, bankruptcy, interstate commerce, foreign policy, etc). That's why Prohibition required a Constitutional amendment back in the teens. Since the New Deal their power has been expanded to encompass virtually all areas of daily life. So the War on Drugs, the Great Society, the War on Guns, etc etc etc etc can all be undertaken without Constitutional amendment and with virtually no interference from the courts.

The saving grace is that the bloated Federal leviathan has overextended itself so far that it faces virtually certain bankruptcy in the next decade or so. The foreign wars launched by the feds are costing over a billion dollars a day, all of it borrowed money. And the federal payroll is mind-bogglingly huge. All it will take is a sudden panic and loss of confidence in the dollar and t-bills, then we'll be back to growing rutabagas.

The might of the Feds is a facade. The rest of the world hasn't peeked behind the curtain yet. But smart people in this country are getting their assets out of the place now. Remember how fast the mighty USSR fell apart when the red ink go too deep?

 

[ArmedBear]

It "invents" very broad and cryptic federal statutes and then enforces them.

Fixed that, too.

 

[Cosmoline]

Fixed that, too

No, Congress passes the laws. Intentionally leaving them vague enough to drive a truck through. Then the ATF can pass regulations to make all sorts of things illegal. They're all in on it together.

 

[ArmedBear]

True enough.

I suppose you have to toss in SCOTUS, too, for not throwing out laws that essentially say, "Well, you make up the laws, and then you enforce them."

Sure, they're called "rulings" or "regulations", but you can go to prison for violating them.

 

[Cosmoline]

The Supreme Court bears enormous blame. They have been responsible for endorsing an outrageous expansion of the Commerce Clause and simultaneously permitting the fungus-like growth of extra-constitutional regulatory agencies. The only one of the Nine who's ever been willing to admit this is the much-hated Justice Thomas. His simple and short concurrence in Lopez drove my Con Law professor (now an Oregon Court of Appeals judge) into apoplectic rage, but Thomas is 100% correct:

Unless the dissenting Justices are willing to repudiate our long held understanding of the limited nature of federal power, I would think that they too must be willing to reconsider the substantial effects test in a future case. If we wish to be true to a Constitution that does not cede a police power to the Federal Government, our Commerce Clause's boundaries simply cannot be "defined" as being " `commensurate with the national needs' " or self consciously intended to let the Federal Government " `defend itself against economic forces that Congress decrees inimical or destructive of the national economy.' " See post, at 12-13 )Breyer, J., dissenting) (quoting North American Co. v. SEC, 327 U.S. 686, 705 (1946)). Such a formulation of federal power is no test at all: it is a blank check.

At an appropriate juncture, I think we must modify our Commerce Clause jurisprudence. Today, it is easy enough to say that the Clause certainly does not empower Congress to ban gun possession within 1,000 feet of a school.

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-1260.ZC1.html

Obviously the rest of the Court, including other conservative justices, have been far too timorous to take up this challenge and "modify our Commerce Clause jurisprudence." To do so would be to shut down a huge chunk of the federal government. It would also likely save the Republic from certain financial meltdown. But they're simply not brave enough to do it. We're headed right for the iceberg, but the ship is too big to turn around and nobody is brave enough to challenge the Captain's authority.

 

[MisterMike]

In a word, the answer is "no." However, it would be naive to presume that any organization of such a size with the breadth of authority that the ATF possesses could ever function without issues cropping up on occasion. Some here view it as an evil conspiracy. What is probably closer to the truth is that this particular agency is charged with enforcing laws unpopular among many here and has occasionally made mistakes.

However, the same could be said of most any organization in the public or private sector. The good news? There are numerous checks on the abuse of power--first, the ATF is overseen by the DOJ Inspector General, who vigorously investigates allegations of abuse within the agency. Criminal case recommendations are vetted through lawyers--usually in U.S. Attorneys' offices--who take the fair administration of justice pretty seriously. The decisions to prosecute must pass muster before an independent grand jury, and if that body finds probable cause to bring an indictment, the defendant has all of the protections afforded any other criminal defendant, including a judge who is a member of a different branch of the government, and an independent and unbiased jury.

If a defendant asserts that mistakes were made at the trial level, he has the opportunity to appeal his conviction and sentence to a federal circuit court of appeals and, perhaps, to the Supreme Court.

Additionally, federal law enforcement officers may be held criminally or civilly liable for their abuse of individuals' rights.

So, yes, sometimes ATF agents screw up. But, no, it is not anywhere near the evil empire imagined or portrayed by so many.

 

[Deanimator]

What is probably closer to the truth is that this particular agency is charged with enforcing laws unpopular among many here and has occasionally made mistakes.

What "laws", popular or otherwise, was the BATF "enforcing" when it engaged in a decades long pattern of racial discrimination and harassment, and promoting racial hatred at agency sponsored and funded, RACIALLY SEGREGATED social events? It seems like at least some within the BATF have been dedicated to "enforcing" or reviving the Jim Crow laws. No such pattern and practice of behavior could exist for such a period of time without a well founded belief by the perpetrators that their actions were acceptable at all levels of management.

The BATFE is fundamentally tainted, irredeemably so.

 

[Eaglecreekbrewer]

There are numerous checks on the abuse of power

Yes, please see if you can explain that to the victims of their abuse. Settlements seldom repair the losses at the hands of the BATFE. When your abuses includes leaving dead victims behind, that's pretty hard to repair. And there are far to many examples to ever convince a rational person those so called checks and balances are anywhere near functional or adequate.

-Additionally, federal law enforcement officers may be held criminally or civilly liable for their abuse of individuals' rights

Hardly. When a BATFE sniper murders an unarmed woman holding her child, he walks, even when the state that the crime was committed in presses charges. The long arm of the fed takes care of it's own, period. They have a very large rug and a great big broom to sweep with.

 

[Deanimator]

When a BATFE sniper murders an unarmed woman holding her child

Lon Horiuchi was an FBI, NOT a BATF sniper. The BATF's culpability lay in its original attempt to entrap Weaver and its lies to the Federal Marshall's Service regarding Weaver's involvement in bank robbery. There's a straight line path between these events and the eventual murder of Vicky Weaver.

As a point of interest, I believe I met Lon Horiuchi when I was in the Army. If so, I can EASILY believe that he'd shoot a woman holding a baby, AND taunt her family about it.

 

[Eaglecreekbrewer]

Lon Horiuchi was an FBI, NOT a BATF sniper. The BATF's culpability lay in its original attempt to entrap Weaver and its lies to the Federal Marshall's Service regarding Weaver's involvement in bank robbery. There's a straight line path between these events and the eventual murder of Vicky Weaver.

As a point of interest, I believe I met Lon Horiuchi when I was in the Army. If so, I can EASILY believe that he'd shoot a woman holding a baby, AND taunt her family about it.

Yes, you are correct, that's what I get for posting in the middle of the night and getting my acronyms turned around. Yet the fact remains that the whole incident was created by the BATFE in the first place, as was the escalation of it. Had they not insisted on entrapping Weaver, then continuing with their intimidation and threats, the incident would have never happened. Their passing it along to the US Marshalls and ultimately the FBI seems more of spread the blame tactic than anything else.

At some point you would think someone would have stepped back and though, maybe we should rethink this thing. But, arrogance and the attitude that they are above reproach seems forbid such logic.

Perhaps someday, times will change, and Mr. Horiuchi can return to Idaho for his "accountability".

 

[BCCL]

99% of BATFE agents give the rest a bad name........