For years now, those of us involved in the movement to prevent gun injuries and deaths have understood that the ATF is working under inadequate funding and conditions. Congress has underfunded the agency and passed laws to make them darn near ineffective. Why? You know the answer-the NRA. The influence and the effectiveness of the NRA has all but shut down any common sense measures to curb bad apple gun dealers, to stop illegal trafficking, to stop felons, domestic abusers, mentally ill folks and others from getting guns and to require safety features to make guns in the home less likely to go off accidentally. Shame on us. Congress, in particular, is bought and paid for by the NRA. Very few are brave enough to stand up to the powerful lobbying group- no backbone.
Here is one article that exposes a bad apple gun dealer in Wisconsin and the lack of oversight by the ATF by design of our friends in Congress. The dealer's license was revoked in 2007, but because there is a legal action pending, he has been allowed to continue to sell guns even though he has violated many ATF rules. Meanwhile, there is evidence that criminals purchase guns from this dealer while the case is pending. So much for keeping guns away from criminals! Thank you NRA for allowing criminals to buy guns. The hypocrisy of saying that you don't want criminals to have guns but you also don't want to stop them from getting their guns is becoming dangerous. What we need is for a public temper tantrum about this national problem. I'll be waiting.
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