Last night after we finished shooting we were sitting around the bar and I asked if anybody knew that we had an ATF Agent living in one of our small communities. Everybody started laughing at me and one guy quipped that I had been shooting with him all winter. Suprise Neil wake up and smell the Folgers. He seems to be a nice guy,but I have heard horror stories about that Agency including Texas and Ruby Ridge.

Last night after we finished shooting we were sitting around the bar and I asked if anybody knew that we had an ATF Agent living in one of our small communities. Everybody started laughing at me and one guy quipped that I had been shooting with him all winter. Suprise Neil wake up and smell the Folgers. He seems to be a nice guy,but I have heard horror stories about that Agency including Texas and Ruby Ridge.

In my area, the local agent seems to be a sensible guy. It's the ones in the division field offices that don't impress me. I met a few at a recent seminar. They are hardcore. Unnerving would be an understatement.

Good and bad as in all fields. The younger ones that I've encountered, unfortunately, seem to be "indoctrinated" to view firearms in the hands of civilians as "suspect" or "evil". Then I've met some older guys who were very down to earth and had a good view of the job.

Bottom line, they work for a government agency whose agenda depends on the politics in power at the moment. Some of you reading this don't seem to remember that . . . .

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Qui plantavit curabit

I don't care to associate with someone who willingly belongs to a Federal agency which produced an official training video on how to lie under oath.

Then don't. I don't. I'm not advocating that. He's not my buddy. My point was not all ATF agents are pinheads. I said my local rep seems to be a sensible guy. We don't sit around and toss back cold ones together and discuss politics. The two or three times I've interacted with my local guy he was down to earth "at the time". That doesn't mean I would openly discuss everything with him without fear of repercussions. I just don't wear a tin foil hat "all" of the time.

I'm not telling you what to do. I'm telling you what I'd do and not do.

I ran into our local BATFY at a local gunshow. He was dressed like a gangbanger, except wrong shoes, and his english was too good. He asked if I wanted to sell what I was carrying....I declined.

Didn't know he was an agent till I saw him a month later on the evening news talking about their latest raid, or whatever.

Got a cite for this "official training video?"

Yeah, I'd like to see the source for that statement, too.

Me, too.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

I wouldn't mind having a friend at the ATF. I could use a discount on all three!

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"I also cook."

During my years of undercover narcotics and narcotic enforcement (State Level) Lots of people were not comfortable around us. Kind of thought it might be the "pro drug use culture"of the time or maybe they just had something to hide

Google James Jeffries. He's a former Maine Corps Col., a former Federal Prosceutor, and now in private practice specializing in 2nd A cases.

The training video, which I've never seen in person, details how they expect their agents to testify in cases relating to full auto firearms. Its designed to get them to testify there are no known errors in the database of class 3 firearms. Of course any government database is full of errors (like most databases). It tries to close the door on the argument that maybe the government has made mistakes from time to time.

Jeffries has written a number of articles on how to answer questions (don't) and react to a BATFE visit. Its good reading, and it also applies to any instance a Federal Officer is questioning you. Basically, his advice is to say nothing. Name, rank, and serial number only. Be nice, be polite, but offer no useful information. If they have a search warrant, leave the premises, they're going to trash your home regardless. He's not a big fan of the agency, and he's given some very good examples of their abuses.

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Dick Burg

So, is the video produced by a lawyer who never worked for ATF the "official training video" referenced above?

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

I have no dog in this fight. Just did a Google search. Here is a link to an article written by Mr. Jeffries:

http://www.atfabuse.com/atfabuse-1.html

It looks to be footnoted as to where the info and quotes come from, but I don't know how he accessed the info or if it was confirmed. Pretty salacious quotes, though.

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All Rights Reserved

Use language appropriate for the board.

BATFE
They created an official training video instructing agents testifying in court to state that there was a 100% accuracy rate in the NFA record keeping system, which the supervisor giving the instruction admits ON FILM, was NOT true. I believe I've seen at least parts of the video in the past.

I also recall when the [then] BATF had to come in front of Congress to explain the video. They didn't deny that it had been made. They just said it was a "misunderstanding".

Institutional perjury, organized White supremacist activity, institutional racial harassment and discrimination, corruption, the BATFE has it all.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by jag312:
Use language appropriate for the board.

Your link isn't to the "official training video" you referenced.

Saying it doesn't make it so.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

The link is to the JPFO, the organization which widely publicized the video.

In the past, I've seen people who dismissed the matter out of hand, mostly because they're opposed to the JPFO on principle.

Why would a BATF spokesman try to "explain" something which never existed?

Institutional Perjury

Fair enough. Thanks for the link.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

My best gun buddies are a retired ATF agent and a retired IRS enforcement agent.
The three of us have known each other for about 4 decades.

These are some real "stand up" guys, common as dirt and fun to be around.


I used them as guest instructors
to teach about their respective agencies, functions and authorities to new highway patrol recruits some 40 years ago.

There is no one that is more of a gun nut and firearms ownership supporters than these two.

We hit every gun show within a hundred miles and each have a nice collection of firearms.


The ATF agents I worked with years ago were staunch gun rights supporters.

I don't know about the ones today and don't want to know either.

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Eccentric old coot

My only interaction was with 2 of them at a booth at a gun show last December. I recruit for GeorgiaCarry.org at our local shows. Georgia's laws can be very vague, and they kept sending people over to us to answer questions they weren't sure of.

They indirectly sent us at least 6 new members!

Here's a letter written to the ATF by Mr. Jeffries on behalf of our own John Ross, author of Unintended Consequences:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/u...f_letter_re_ross.txt

JAMES H. JEFFRIES, III
ATTORNEY AT LAW
3019 LAKE FOREST DRIVE
GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA 27408
TELEPHONE: (336) 282-6024

30 June, 2000


Honorable Bradley A. Buckles, Director
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
United States Department of the Treasury
650 Massachusetts Avenue, Northwest
Washington, D.C. 20226


Re: Mr. John Ross
St. Louis, Missouri

Dear Mr. Buckles:

I represent Mr. John Ross of St. Louis, Missouri. Mr. Ross is
an investment broker and financial adviser with a respected
investment firm in st. Louis. He has degrees in English and
Economics from Amherst College. Mr. Ross is very active in
community and public affairs. He is the grandson of President
Harry Truman's press secretary, Charles Ross, and was himself the
Democratic Party candidate for the United States House of
Representatives from the Second District of Missouri in 1998. In
short, Mr. Ross is an upstanding and productive member of his
community.

Mr. Ross has had a lifelong interest in firearms and is both
a Federal Firearms Licensee and a Special Occupational Taxpayer
under the National Firearms Act. Of central importance to the
purpose of this letter is the fact that Mr. Ross is also the author
of Unintended Consequences, a highly popular novel about the trials
and tribulations of legal gun owners and dealers in the United
States. Although the book is manifestly a work of fiction, it
accurately depicts documented historical events in the long and
sordid history of misconduct by personnel of the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms. The book is in its fifth hardcover printing
with some 50,000 copies in circulation and has become enormously
popular among the gun owners of the United States. Because the
book is highly critical of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms, it appears that some in your agency have undertaken to
suppress it and to intimidate its author.


Honorable Bradley A. Buckles - page two


For example, in 1997 the book's publisher became aware that
individuals purporting to be BATF agents had threatened vendors of
the book in at least three different states with "problems" if they
did not cease their sales of the book. A full-page ad in Shotgun
News offering a $10,000 reward for the identity of these
individuals put a stop to that particular business.

Now we have learned that in late May of this year agents from
your St. Louis field office have engaged in an official effort to
enlist Mrs. Ross, who is amicably separated from her husband as an
informant against her husband. On or about May 24 2000, at about
7:30 a.m. two agents approached Mrs. Ross on the street while she
was walking her dog, identified themselves by displaying their BATF
credentials, and proceeded to inquire what she thought about her
husband's book. When she was noncommittal the agents terminated
the conversation and departed. This contact had been preceded in
previous weeks by pretext telephone calls to Mrs. Ross, by what
were undoubtedly your agents, in an attempt to draw her out about
her husband's book. An agent, using the pseudonym of Peter
Nettleson, and pretending to be a great fan of Unintended
Consequences, sought Mrs. Ross's agreement that the book was, in
fact, "a manual for the murder of federal agents." [1]

I note in passing that best-selling author Tom Clancy in
recent books has murdered a Director of the FBI, the President of
the United States, the entire Congress, the Supreme Court, the
entire cabinet, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a few lesser
functionaries. I presume he has not thereby become subject to
investigation by your literary critics.

------------------------
1. As an experienced federal prosecutor I am fully aware of
what is going on here. Disgruntled former spouses are a prime
source of intelligence for law enforcement, having as they
frequently do both a strong bias against the subject of the
investigation and the proximity and intimacy to know many things
not available to others. A structured approach such as this
required, according to your manuals, formal agency approval. It
required the investment of time and effort in setting up the
approach: determining Mrs. Ross's new address, learning her new
telephone number, physical surveillance to determine her routine so
that she could be approached in a way that she could not simply
shut the door and where there would be less risk of confirming
witnesses, the use of a female agent to lessen any apprehension at
being approached publicly by strangers, etc.


Honorable Bradley A. Buckles - page three

What kind of people are you? Is there no honor within the
ranks of your agency? It has long been clear, from repeated court
decisions and congressional committee reports, that your agents
have no familiarity with the Second, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth
Amendments to the United States Constitution. Now it appears that
they have not even been introduced to the very first Article of the
Bill of Rights.

I am writing to express our outrage about this conduct and to
formally demand that your agency cease and desist from this
unconstitutional abuse of power. I am contemporaneously making
formal Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act demands upon BATF
for the records and files pertaining to Mr. Ross, his book, and
these events.

By copies of this letter I am requesting the Inspector General
of the Treasury Department to formally investigate this unlawful
conduct and the Attorney General to investigate to determine
whether Mr. Ross's civil rights are being violated by the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.


Sincerely yours,

[signed]
James H. Jeffries, III


cc: Attorney General of the United States
Inspector General, Department of the Treasury

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Rick

I'm sure the ATF agent is just fine with your disassociation from him and his family. Especially if your kids are anything like some of you guys.

And if he's anything like BATF supervisor Eugene Rightmyer of "Good Old Boys Roundup" fame, I'm very glad that he's "fine" with it... as though he had any say in the matter anyway. I don't associate with members of the New Black Panther Party or the Aryan Brotherhood either.

If Busey,in fact, made such statements he SHOULD/MUST be charged with subornation of perjury.

I will withhold further pending confirmation...

Be safe.

I think as long as you don't go around bragging about the M-16 you swiped when you were in the military or the silencers you make in your workshop you should get along just fine.
He has his job to do and if we object to the laws he enforces we should be lobbying our representatives to repeal them.

Don't hold your breath. Laws were made to enforce against the people. They don't apply to the agencies of the government. If that letter was written in 1997, we'd be talking about Janet Reno enforcing it against her own minions. Not likely to have happened.

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Dick Burg

To the contrary, Mr. Burg.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_v._Maryland

There are significant sanctions pertaining to LEO personnel who commit perjury.

Be safe.

When do they actually get APPLIED?

666: Every day in professional police organizations and in courtrooms.

Do stop, I know what you are about to spew. Spare me your rants re: the Chicago PD. They're rather boring and tiresome.

Be safe.

Quite the little mind reader.

Can you cite an example?

In my former department there were several officers who were removed from operational (i.e. gun toting) assignments due to an incident(s) wherein they lied. In these cases their lying was detected during internal administrative proceedings. The prosecutor's office essentially said they wouldn't be able to pursue any cases in which the tainted officers were involved as their candor could not be assured. IIRC, at least one of the officers was terminated.

Be safe.

Boring or not, still a fine example...

That's nice to hear.

Who started the ball rolling, the department or the prosecutors? If the latter, that was compelled by an outside agency. As I've noted previously, it's tough to be in law enforcement if you aren't ever allowed to testify to what you allegedly did or saw somebody else do. Of course that appears to have happened because the prosecutor refused to allow his office to be embarassed by being constantly rebutted on the officers' veracity, under Brady. I wonder what would happen if the officers' dishonesty were known only to the department rather than to the prosecutor's office.

Returning to the subject at hand, I've read in the past that the BATFE has had chronic and nasty problems regarding Brady. Their shenanigans with the training video apparently jeopardized dozens of NFA prosecutions. It's not impossible that numbers of people went to prison based on calculated lies told under oath as part of a criminal conspiracy to deprive defendants of their civil rights. In fact, I believe one of them was my armorer in Korea.

Again, not a group of people with whom I'd voluntarily associate.

I still can't believe CPD totalled all those police cars PLUS called out the SWAT team just to catch Jake and Elwood. What a waste of money.

Somewhat related:

An instructor and regular at a now defunct drop zone I used to frequent was a narcotics officer. Given that the majority of the DZ staff/regulars/instructors were not exactly cut from the same cloth (some stereotypes are true after all), an agreement was implicitly worked out:

As long as he didn't see anything blatent he wasn't going to dig deeper. But I bet if he went on a witch hunt half the DZ would have been busted.

I had nothing to worry about, but it was somewhat amusing.

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NRA Life Member