From another site:

Dangerous appointment to the BATF!!!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Senate Close To Confirming A Ted Kennedy-style Liberal To BATFE

-- Contact your Senator immediately


Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert

8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151

Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408

http://www.gunowners.org


Tuesday, December 4, 2007



"We'll miss him in Massachusetts, but he'll be a strong leader at

ATF, and I look forward to working with him on key issues on gun

control." -- Senator Ted Kennedy



The above quote highlights all you need to know about Michael

Sullivan, the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,

Firearms and Explosives.


Sullivan was, unfortunately, nominated by President Bush to

permanently take over ATF this year. Right before Thanksgiving, the

Senate "hotlined" his name for unanimous consent approval.

(Hotlining is a parliamentary maneuver which allows non-controversial

bills or nominations to be unanimously approved by the Senate without

debate or a vote.)


GOA immediately sent a letter to each Senator's office, urging them

to oppose the Sullivan nomination. Thankfully, one senator

subsequently objected to Sullivan's approval, and his nomination was

put on hold. However, that legislator is now coming under fire from

other senators, who are asking him to withdraw his "hold."


That's why it's important for gun owners to contact their two

Senators. Under Sullivan's leadership, the ATF has gone berserk.

Sure, the problems at ATF didn't originate with him, but Sullivan has

certainly done nothing to put out the fire.


While discussing the agency's 2008 appropriations bill, the House

Commerce & Justice committee issued a stinging rebuke for the ATF:


"The committee has heard reports that ATF has pursued license

revocations and denials against firearms dealers based on violations

that consist largely of recordkeeping errors of various types that

are unlikely to impede tracing investigations or prosecution of

individuals who use firearms in crime. The Committee encourages ATF

to consider lesser gradation of sanctions for recordkeeping errors."

[House Committee report on HR 3093.]


The strategy, that was begun long before Sullivan arrived, has

continued unabated under his tutelage. ATF inspectors try to find

any violation they can, usually focusing on clerical mistakes.


A family gun business that had been in operation for years in

Baltimore, Maryland was attacked because of the "wanton, repeated

crime" of abbreviating Baltimore as "Blto" on the teeny,

tiny spaces

on the 4473 forms.


Now, the agency has turned their collective guns on Red's Trading

Post in Idaho, among others. Even though one ATF agent told the

manager that Red's was "one of the best small gun shops" he'd ever

seen, the ATF has continued its assault on this gun shop (which has

been in business for decades) for minor clerical mistakes and failing

to put up a poster.


According to WorldNetDaily, one judge who is familiar with the Red's

Trading Post case found "the ATF speaks of violations found during

the inspections of 2000 and 2005, but fails to reveal that additional

investigations in 2001 and 2007 revealed no violations or problems."

The judge also noted the ATF was exaggerating the situation by

"double counting" some violations.


The agency holds a continuing animus against gun owners and dealers.

Inspectors have no handbook under which to operate, and the absence

of such written procedures allows them to be arbitrary and

capricious.


Americans don't need an anti-gun cop from Massachusetts as the

Director of the federal gun police.