Is it because alcohol, tobacco, and firearms also have legal pathways? So they spend time tracking down cheats and checking/enforcing regulations?
I’m still annoyed alcohol isn’t administered by the Food and Drug Administration. It’s both a food and a drug. I want nutrition labels (mostly for the calorie count) on my alcohol. They don’t have them because the ATF does not require them as the FDA does.
Honestly, the ATF can just be split with half being folded into the FDA and the other half folded into the FBI. The ATF doesn’t need to exist.
Although neither the ATF nor DEA existed before the 70s, part of the reason might have to do with ATF’s precursor existing for a really long time, before we cared about many other drugs. DEA pretty much came about under Nixon’s war on drugs.
Take a look at their federal registers at the type of different actions they’ve been up to lately. You will see they are completely different.
https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies/alcohol-tobacco-firearms-and-explosives-bureau
https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies/drug-enforcement-administration
It’s both a food and a drug.
Drinks are food?
ATF = cracking down on legal funtime stuffs
DEA = cracking down on illegal funtime stuffs
Never understood the ATF hate until I became a gun enthusiast. Heysus! Even us libs hate 'em!
I bought a perfectly legal .22 rifle, pretty much this (without whatever suppressor thing is shown). It’s like the baby brother version of an AR-15. Jams a lot, but it’s fun!
Note the stupid looking flexible stock. That was a way to get a “short barreled rifle” because a normal, rigid stock would be illegal. “Uh, it’s not a stock. It’s a handicap thing for one-armed shooters.” Yes, it can work that way and yes, it’s a loophole.
Now I’m a felon for owning such a thing even though it was legal when I bought it. ATF: “We changed our mind. And no your gun isn’t grandfathered. Because fuck you, that’s why.”
Shit like this is why shooters rail against any gun legislation. One dumb thing after another like this sucks political capital that could be spent on better, more effective gun laws.
So many gun laws are just fucking stupid. Tons of stuff is banned because it looks scary.
SBRs being illegal is pretty dumb.
Brother, I can talk dumb and ineffective gun laws all night long without repeating myself.
Problem is that people, of any political persuasion, don’t get the notion of political capital. I rant about it a lot. :)
No matter how right you think you are, no matter how scientifically valid your reasoning, no matter how sensible, no matter what, making laws costs goodwill. Decisions cost votes. And votes determine one’s ability to stay in office and effect the sorts of changes one, and hopefully, their constituents want.
Knowing that and factoring it in is what politicians need to be doing. FFS, this is high school Government 101.
Guns for example:
“We want a ‘high capacity’ mag ban!”
Well, none of that works like you think. High cap mags jam, the military won’t even use 'em, only mass shooter idiots, and I’d rather their shit jam. Besides, swapping a mag is trivial for a shooter, 4-seconds if he sucks. Can we talk about it?
“Children! Safety! WANT!”
OK, it’s gotta cost voters, and cost you a chance to make real changes.
“WANT!”
tl;dr If the Democrats had brains enough to read the room, they’d drop the non-stop gun ban shit, take the issue back from the assholes, gain all those single-issue voters and sweep the polls everywhere.
“WANT!!!”
They just change the definitions when it suits them.
High capacity used to be the big 50-100 round mags. Now when they say “high capacity” they mean standard capacity 30 round or even smaller. Plenty of places ban anything over 10 or 15.
Yeah, because there’s no legitimate self-defense purpose to load more than 10 rounds. If you can’t do it in 10, you can’t do it.
When kept separate from a receiver, it’s perfectly legal, they’re just gun parts. So just make sure you travel with it in pieces and only shoot with friends out in nature
They’ll still arrest you for constructive possession.
https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/can-i-possess-pistol-and-unattached-“stabilizing-brace”
I’m with you. We absolutely need some common sense gun legislation, but every time it comes up, it turns into a political mess. And almost all of the legislation is either like a bandaid on a leaking dam, or overbearing nanny-state bullshit.
I’m with ya’, but gun debates taught me to avoid the “common sense” argument, in any context.
If you use those words, you imply that anyone that doesn’t agree doesn’t have “common sense”. It’s a shortcut to say, “You’re an idiot if you don’t accept my premise.” And that’s no way to reach consensus.
I’d used that term my whole life! Now I avoid it like poison.
Maybe drifting off topic a bit, but I’d like to hear your “common sense” ideas. There’s got to be ideas we can all come around to.
I’ll go first, and it seems an easy one; Draconian laws regarding storage. Do it please ya’ gunslinger, but everything other than your primary and secondary self-defense weapons must be locked in a safe. Don’t care about ammo. Don’t care about guns in pieces that you’re working on. Does it fire? Pick two and rotate the rest out your safe(s). That doesn’t seem unreasonable. And if you’re unsecured weapon is stolen or used by a minor? You. Are. Fucked.
How do you enforce storage laws? Do you regularly inspect people’s homes?
Storage like that isn’t unreasonable, but the methods required to enforce it are.
Same way any law is enforced. If you’re caught, you are punished.
You’ve glossed over how someone would get caught. Storage is done in private residences, so in order to catch someone you’d need to search their homes.
Regular searches would be unreasonable. As well as any searches just because they own a gun. The only time someone would be charged for this is when another search of the home would be conducted. The law wouldnt protect anyone nor would it increase safety or lower the rates of crimes, but add more charges to someone already being arrested. It would only inflate prison times.
No, you just make people have a requirement to carry gun insurance. See if the insurance company wants to write you a policy unless it’s sure you’re storing the gun properly. Maybe you need to provide a receipt for a storage locker before they will write the policy.
Maybe you do have to have someone inspect it. Plenty of states have motor vehicle inspections.
Let the free market solve this problem. Right now. Gun owners want all the toys they can dream of but want zero responsibility for when someone inevitably uses their gun to murder someone.
You can’t keep a Tiger in your living room. In order to catch someone with it, police aren’t going door to door doing Tiger checks. That’s how literally every law works.
Who cares. People who get upset at this shit are fucking babies. Kids are getting shot left and right. Nobody gives a fuck about your short barrel.
They could easily combine to create an organization called DAFT
they would each rather be daft separately
Don’t forget that back in 1998, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms reached a Trade Agreement with the Food & Drug Administration
WASHINGTON, DC—The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms and the Food & Drug Administration reached a formal trade agreement Monday. Under the terms of the deal, the ATF will provide the FDA with alcohol, tobacco and firearms in exchange for equal value in food and drugs.
“My administrative assistants and I were enjoying some of our food the other day when it hit us,” FDA Commissioner Michael Friedman said. “We have tons of food lying around, and tons of drugs, but nothing to drink, smoke or shoot. Then, someone—I think it was [deputy commissioner] Phil [Royce]—suggested we call up those guys at the ATF across town and see what we could get. Turns out, they were ready to deal.”
…
https://www.theonion.com/bureau-of-alcohol-tobacco-firearms-reaches-trade-agr-1819564792
Ate the Onion
Governments are organized according to political processes rather than rational ones.
Even under ideal conditions, any (especially larger) organizational body is extremely difficult to keep from falling into these types of irrationality.
We have many names for variations on the phenomenon. I’ll cite groupthink. You can fall down a rabbit hole on your own from there.
literally 1984
It’s because the main laws that regulated these things arise out of different statutes that were enacted at different times and under different circumstances.
An agency’s main job is to interpret and execute its enabling statute. They may seem similar but the subject matter is all very different.
You’d have to read about the history of each of these two agencies.
I don’t know much myself but I suspect they were born out of working groups from predecessor agencies.
Yeah, that’s about it. The ATF deals with making minor interpretations of existing law regarding its purview (which are sometimes challenged in court) as well as enforcement of regulation regarding items that are legal. The DEA is all about enforcement of the prohibition on drugs. It’s the same reason that the DEA and the FDA are different, despite both dealing in drugs.
despite both dealing in drugs.
Heh. Don’t forget the CIA!
Oi, you’re a cheeky one, ain’t ya! 😆
Most people don’t consider alcohol and tobacco drugs, also alcohol, tobacco and guns have been around in the US for hundreds of years. Pretty much all the drugs that the DEA covers are relatively new compared to alcohol and tobacco, Cannabis is probably the only exception but even that wasn’t nearly as common to grow and consume as the other two. The ATF was founded a year before the DEA.
Are we forgetting that you could buy morphine and even diamorphine tinctures legally for a long time? Often marketed as cough medicine.
You could buy cocaine legally over the counter when Lincoln was president.
Some people say they were born in the wrong decade. Today I learned I was born in the wrong century.
Kinda how I figured it, but didn’t know how closely in time they were founded. Interesting!
Me either, I looked it up to figure it out and was surprised as well. I thought they were founded further apart. I think the ATF had a different name formerly.
Alcohol and pills are the good drugs because they come from corporations.
Moonshine and diacetyl morphine are the bad drugs because they come from criminals.
What I want to know is; why is there an enforcement agency for alcohol, tobacco and firearms, when they are are all 3 legal?
All 3 can be done illegally too.
Regulation requires enforcement to work.
