Yup, you hear me right folks. I always knew I would end up on a list somewhere, and seems I was right.

I am a bit disturbed by the implications, I will refrain from most of my "slippery slope" speculations for the nonce, and just relate the facts, if a bit paraphrased.

Seems the ATF has pulled agents in from all over the country to the border states to find out why Mexico has so many gun and why there is so much violence. In aid of putting a stop to it the ATF has audited every FFL holder and is questioning in person anyone who has bought more than 5 guns in the last year.

Ooohh yeah, your old buddy CC popped up fairly high on the list.

To his credit the special agent was very nice, and quite a bit sheepish about the whole process, but had to do it anyway. He started the conversation off with the fact I was not in trouble. Nice to know, otherwise he would have had to wait while I traced down my lawyer. He seemed to have the attitude that this was a waste of time and told me by looking at my records that there was no real reason to question me other than he had to interview everybody who purchased multiple firearms.

I buy lots of old revolvers for the collection and they are often expensive ones, so it was obvious I was not making straw purchases and selling them to drug lords in Merry Old Mexico. He asked if I had sold any in the last year, and if I knew them, but stopped there. He read a prepared statement about if I want to be a dealer get an FFL, and that I have every right to sell my personal guns to friends, etc, etc. He had a long list of purchases and asked if I still had all of them. Since I rarely part with a gun it was pretty easy to answer in the affirmative.

Still, very disturbing. He was professional and nice, we went through what was probably the bare minimum to eliminate me as a suspect and he went on to his next interview.

I am very troubled by all this, I know very well this kind of stuff does not stop here. I wonder if they will share their data with the local cops who will now know how many guns I own and my address. I wonder if we get another liberal sheriff and they hear of a shooting if they will ring my doorbell to make sure none of my guns are stolen, etc.

I bet we will hear more about this on the blogosphere in the near future.

<UPDATE>

Ah ha! I have gotten the real story out of an ATF agent as well as my local Death Merchant! Seems my dealer was not audited, nor any of the usual local place I frequent, with the exception of a pawn shop.

Turns out it was not the 4473 they were going off of, but the form the dealers have to fill out when you buy multiple guns in a 5 day period. The ATF have plenty of records of that! Seems your buddy CC buys his guns in clumps and that is what landed me on the investigation list.

We had a straw purchaser and his two mules caught the other day in Buda as well.....

I must say I am not happy still, but I at least know what really happened. I discovered a buddy's brother is in the ATF and I got the story confirmed, so if you don't buy your guns in clumps and do it several times I think you will not be on that list.

Damn, I need to go to the range.

DAMN, dude! WTF, over?? I *THOUGHT* this was a free country and we were in the United States of America, not some fascist dictatorship. Seems I may be wrong.

I wonder if they *REALLY* audited every border FFL dealer, or if they already had the list drawn up from all the 4473 inquiries. It might be interesting to see what you favorite gun dealer has to say about it.

As a LAW abiding citizen buying LEGAL arms, this should have NEVER HAPPENED to you. I'd be askin' some attorney types about a lawsiut... you know, the NRA, JPFO...
It seems a full court OFFENSIVE tactic will be the ONLY thing that slows down the 'Obamissiah' machine...

Holy crap. I also wonder if this means that they are auditing, er copying/imaging 4473s as fast as they can during "inspections" of ffl holders, or are keeping a record of NICS hits?

At least the agent had the presence of mind to do his research beforehand and realized that someone who owns a business with factories in several states is probably not looking to raise extra cash by reselling tiger-striped Desert Eagles to Mexican drug lords.

I am pretty sure it was from auditing the FFL holders as I have a CHL and they don't have to call in on me. I could be wrong... The dealer might have had to send all the records in, but I am taking a stab in the dark. I am off to visit many of my haunts and ask if the ATF has come calling at all.

CC. NEVER give the .gov the benefit of the doubt. They violated your rights as a free citizen. PERIOD. They had NO business inquiring into your LAWFUL arms requisitions or purchases.

And now that the 4473's are electronic too, it makes their job just that much easier!

sorry to hear this. Speak to your lawyer regardless of what the agent said. Make as full a note of that conversation as you can. don't worry. more when i get hands on a pc.

Wow. Just, wow.

I forgot about that. I haven't bought a gun since they came out with those.

I have. My gun dealer still uses the paper ones.

I just came from my nearest death merchant's store and asked her about the audits. She had a vist yesterday with the local BATFU boys and they didn't say anything about the more-than-five-guns-in-a-year audit, probably because they were there to shut her down. She didn't get shut down because her attorney was there and explained the reason they were trying to shut her down was only because she followed THEIR instructions the last time she renewed her FFL.

So maybe they didn't feel it was necessary for the audit because they figured they were going to get all her records anyway. But that didn't happen and she's going to be allowed to stay in business.

Good thing they don't register guns in the USA, huh?

Hmm... Well, I'm closer to the border than CC, and I've met the same standard... We'll see -- the last time the ATF messed w. my primary dealer, he was nice, until they pissed him off, and sic'd some serious lawyers on them...

Repeat after me, "I will NEVER talk to a governmental official without the presence of the meanest SOB of an attorney I can find."

Trying to remember how many guns I've bought in the last year, it's between 4 and 7. Problem is that some were bought in Austin, some here, some in antique shops (believe it or not). wonder if I'll get visited.

Mike,
If you like send me name of local dealer you're alluding to. I should give her some business just for the principle of the thing.

CC, something else that should be rather frightening to us is the fact that they're breaking the law by using the 4473s, I think. The BATFE was never supposed to be able to use them for just such a fishing expedition as this. I'm using Wiki for this but I'm pretty sure it's right:



Okay, this means that you were part of a criminal investigation? He SHOULD have read you your rights then.



Did you ask for the warrant?

Maybe the paranoia isn't so paranoid any more.

The question is never whether you're paranoid, but if you're paranoid enough.

You're not paranoid when you're right.

Sherry, over at Wholesale, second floor between Magnolia and the Highway 67 overpass.

If you go there (closed on Sundays), pickup a few of those little multi-led aluminum flashlights that take three AAA batteries for only $18.99. I bought a few, to put in our cars and for putting one in each jacket. They're small enough and cheap enough, and use cheap & plentiful batteries that if you break, lose one, or it gets stolen, it's no bid deal and they're decent flashlights for the money. They have five light settings (but no momentary), white light, green light, red laser pointer, flashing white SOS, and off.

If you get there soon, she'll offer you a free clip-on holster for it (while they last).

Don't forget the old rule: "DON'T TALK TO THE POLICE."

Goes double for ATF agents, I'm sure.

For review:
Part 1: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 4885833865
Part 2: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 9458915912

You know, I was three seconds away from making a big deal, and probably would have won, but I have had a rough two weeks and I am trying to make my business grow right now. Getting into an expensive fight with the ATF didn't appeal, they probably would have just left me alone, but I also didn't want to run the risk of them getting real nasty before leaving me alone.

So yes, I was intimidated by their nasty rep and the oppressive hand of big government. Innocent people like me should never be afraid of my government or anything else, and at the time I was more curious then anything else, but the more I think it through the more I am upset that as a nation we have stooped so low.

Well shit. I am trying to figure out just how many I bought. I know I bought more than 5, but some were private purchase and I am fuzzy on the exact dates of those vs the ones from an FFL. Did they tell you how they defined "the last year"?

There's so much wrong here I don't even know where to start...

Another brick in the wall...

I still have to join the "never talk without a lawyer" crowd -- like the man said, there's simply no way to know if you broke some obscure law, and anything you say can and will be used against you...

If you haven't watched the vids linked above, please PLEASE do...

DD

I had a visit from them October of '07. According to them, the bug spray guy saw my AK and called in a tip. Needless to say, he don't work there no more... And, yes, they told me up front who it was who dropped the dime on me, so it's pretty clear they thought it was BS and were pretty much going through the motions. Or perhaps they were hoping to provke a "snitches get stitches" reaction out of me. (instead of "snitches' bosses get an earful, as well as threats of legal action") Either way, I'd certainly think long and hard about my own safety before going to them with any scuttlebutt.

Time to go looking for a lawyer, I suppose. I hope I can find one who's a gun owner somewhere in town.

I once seriously considered an FFL.

In fact, I considered multiple types - as a manufacturer, an ammo component maker, and as dealer gunsmith.

And this kind of shennagins is why I will never, EVER get one. Not even a C&R. It gives them far to much leeway to screw with your life.


HTRN

Very disturbing. Sorry to hear, CC. But growing your business is your priority at this point, so being "cool" was the right thing to do.

Just out of curiosity: did the agent visit you at your home?

The agent is probably with a team of engineers as we speak, trying vigorously to get a Colt SAA to fire in 3-round burst. Failing that, they'll take your Python and affix a vertical foregrip to it and call it an AOW.

Sounds like the makings of a BIT...

Yes, but I was not there. They were given my phone number and they left a message with me. I called the guy who left the message back.

I don't know if the limit if five, it might be ten. I was taking a stab at the number of guns. All they said was "multiple firearms purchases" and I figured they had to have a minimum or they would be interviewing half the state of Texas....

He had a list of over thirty of mine... so the floor is at least 30, but I bet it is a smidge lower.

That last line is very disturbing. I have to assume that the purchases were from multiple sources. If so, that means there is a lot more at foot than meets the eye.

A single source would not be to difficult to parse from the "dealers" records. Multiple sources sounds like a "central" data source. I was under the impression that despite their best efforts that BATFE was not to maintain a central database. Have they not been smacked down for efforts along those lines?

Actually, it was probably a single source, I do buy a lot of guns from one place.

Hmmm. Well. I've been buying on average 14.5 guns a year, more than two-thirds of which I bought at one dealer.

Well, you will end up on the list or you won't, depending on how long and how deep they will carry on with this.

I have been searching the web for other tales of woe, but I am the only one to date to talk about it on the web it seems.

Christ, this is getting worse and worse.

I hope they keep those lists secure. Don't want them in the wrong hands or anything like that.

Lists have a bad habit of doing that.

All I can say is, Buy a dictophone. Record all the conversations. And I mean ALL. In fact it would seem that carrying a recording device of some kind would be as important as carrying extra mags.

Maybe we should have a group buy for MP3 devices etc???


Rusty

That'll teach you to buy multiple guns from the same FFL........

I loves me some private gun sales via the want ads..............

+1
I must be slipping. I didn't get a call.

BTW, CC, did you let the NRA know what happened to you?

I'm going to bring it up at our NRA Members Council meeting tomorrow night, but before that I'm going to forward CC's incident to our local MC President to get him to send it on to HQ.

That's a good idea. I have been out of town and will have three days out of the next three weeks at home, I will try to get a moment to do so though.

I still haven't seen any chatter on other gun boards or blogs. Do you think they may be focusing on you do to possible international travel and or possible ownership of a gun board (intimidation)?

No, not really at all. It was all very general, he didn't ask for many specifics at all. When I spoke of stuff that would usually provoke a followup he let it pass. I think he was sincere for whatever it's worth.

If the limit is five from one source, then I'm going to get a visit. I bought those since December 08. If it's more than five from one source, I'm probably good. If it's 10 - 12 from multiple sources, I'm getting a visit.

Did you go to his office or did he return to your house? Or was it a phone interview since you called him back?

And I thought I was being paranoid that I try to spread my business around.

I don't intend to figure out and I wouldn't say whether I've bought more than 5/year, but I've certainly not bought that many from any one source in any one year.

Out of idle curiosity, did you use a credit card to purchase your firearms?

Disturbing. Obviously, they are keeping closer track than they are supposed to.
I wonder if they are interviewing actual criminals?

SOM, the NRA can help you with that. They helped me once. I called the lawyer they referred, it was only indirectly a gun-related matter, but the guy talked to me for 15 or 20 minutes on the phone, no charge. Kudos to him.

Take a look here:



EDIT:

I also found this info: