NY Times: Firearms Bureau Finds Itself in a Rough Patch

[alp227]

WASHINGTON — The last time the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was caught up in scandal, its director faced accusations of lavish spending on his new office. Before he resigned, Congress, flexing its oversight muscles, decided the Senate would confirm all future A.T.F. chiefs.

That was five years ago. Nobody has been confirmed, and the nation has been without a chief firearms inspector ever since.

Today, the bureau is again under scrutiny, this time over a gun-trafficking investigation in which federal agents knowingly let weapons slip across the Mexican border; two later turned up in Arizona, where an American Border Patrol agent was killed in a shootout. Congress and the Justice Department are investigating; President Obama vowed last week to take “appropriate actions” when the facts come out.

The fracas over the operation, called Fast and Furious, could cost another A.T.F. official — Kenneth E. Melson, the acting director — his job. But it has also renewed long-simmering questions about whether the bureau — hobbled by the volatile gun politics of Washington, a lack of permanent leadership and its own missteps — should even continue to exist.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/us/politics/05guns.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

[MicaelS]

1. I think the ATF should be dissolved...

The A/T portion should go the Secret Service. The F/E portion to the FBI. Since the FBI already has to do criminal background checks, it would be the natural place for Firearms and Explosives.

[PavePusher]

2. Actually, shouldn't the A/T go under the USDA/FDA? n/t

[MicaelS]

3. Never thought of that perspective..

But I was thinking more about the taxation and regulation end of things. The whole point of the A/T end of things is to make sure the Federal Government gets it tax money. Since USSS has plenty of experience with people trying to cheat with money, I figured it would be right up their alley.

I don't want the entire ATF to go to the FBI though. Too much power in one agency.

[gejohnston]

4. it was originally under the Treasury Dept

Since those three items are the few things that have federal sales tax. The ATF was once the Prohibition Bureau. Since the AT is still tax, another (formally and still should be) Treasury agency like the USSS would take that over, since financial crime is their primary function. Firearms are both tax (Pittman/Robertson act of 1937) and crime, so it could be FBI or USSS.

[RSillsbee]

5. Out of curiosity

what would you put Alcohol and Tobacco under the Department of the Treasury? Because they're taxed items?

I'd say FDA

TYPO

[MicaelS]

6. Yes because of taxation..

As I stated above

"But I was thinking more about the taxation and regulation end of things. The whole point of the A/T end of things is to make sure the Federal Government gets it tax money. Since USSS has plenty of experience with people trying to cheat with money, I figured it would be right up their alley."

I do not want the FDA to get their hands on the A/T end of things, because they would damn well try to put further restrictions on them, or ban then outright. Sort of like allowing Public Health to have a say over guns. We all know how that would turn out.

[gejohnston]

7. it was originally under the Treasury Dept until the Bush agency shuffle in 2001

USSS, another Treasury agency, went to DHS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Alcohol,_Tobacco,_Firearms_and_Explosives