The End of the Republican Party? - Observe the abuses of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms

A storm is brewing. It has the potential to utterly destroy the Republican Party.

For years, under both Democrat and Republican administrations, American citizens -- cornerstones of their communities -- have been falsely charged and railroaded into prisons. Their lives have been ruined. Their families have been shattered. It has all been because of accusations and sham trials that belong in Communist China, not the United States of America.

We´re talking about the decades of abuses committed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). We´re talking about the _continuing_ abuses that are ruining innocent gun owners and gun makers today. Worse, we´re now also talking about political cover-up and complicity.

A HISTORY OF ABUSE

People are being convicted on utterly meaningless testimony from "expert" witnesses who don´t know what they´re talking about and who work for an agency that uses arbitrary testing methods designed to yield whatever results bureaucrats and politicians want.

Do the Republicans know about this? Yes. Of course they do. They´ve known since at least 1982, when Congress recommended curbing the ATF´s powers. Instead of controlling the ATF, administration after administration, of both parties, has handed the ATF more money and more power.

NEW EVIDENCE OF A COVER-UP

But it´s worse. Not only does the current administration know about these unjust persecutions, these outrageous, trumped-up charges, they´re now blatantly aiding and abetting the very agency that so horribly abuses American gun owners.

Here´s what we´re discovering:


Earlier this year, firearm manufacturer Len Savage worked to reveal that ATF Firearms Technology Branch (FTB) actually has NO standards for determining what constitutes an "illegal machine gun"!

One agent might decide that a semi-automatic rifle is an "illegal machine gun" if it can be made to fire full-auto after 15 minutes of casual tinkering. Another ATF agent might say another semi-automatic rifle is an "illegal machine gun" if a gunsmith with a machine shop can make it fire full-auto after eight hours of expert modification.

But each "expert" can then give testimony that puts the innocent owner of a semi-automatic rifle in prison.

Sometimes, they do no real testing or examination of firearms at all. An ATF "expert" claimed that a semi-automatic rifle was an "illegal machine gun" because it had a broken part and would occasionally fire two shots on one trigger pull. No one from the ATF ever even disassembled the gun to look for the cause of the malfunction before charging Glover with a federal felony!

When the Glover footage became public, the prosecutor ordered the charges against Glover dropped. Later, the head of the ATF himself ordered Mr. Glover´s guns returned to him. (If you know someone being attacked by the ATF, make sure they have a copy of the footage to use!)

GUN OWNERS ATTEMPT TO HOLD THE ATF´S FEET TO THE FIRE

Recently, many concerned gun owners have contacted their congressional representatives requesting the FTB´s firearms-testing procedure manual. The response has been -- shockingly, but not surprisingly -- that _no such manual exists_. The ATF is now being forced to admit that for decades it´s been "making it up as it goes along" -- at the expense of American gun owners.

BUT ... Instead of defending gun owners in this simple matter of commonsense and justice, powerful Republicans are helping the ATF cover up!

The FTB has _refused_ to release its manual to the Congressional Research Service. Note: It´s not admitting the truth -- that there is no manual, that there are no standards. It´s just saying it won´t release it. And the Department of Justice (under which the ATF now operates) is backing up its underlings.

Congressman James Sensenbrenner - Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary - is scrambling to give the FTB time so that it can hurriedly write some sort of fake manual - anything! - to show the public when knowledge of this travesty becomes widespread.

But by doing so, the FTB will be facing unintended consequences: If the standards for testing firearms have only _now_ been written, then literally thousands of _previous_ gun owner convictions will become suspect, and may well be overturned. The Department of Justice fears (accurately) that there will be a wave of retrials or even complete exonerations for imprisoned gun owners when the public discovers this fetid coverup.

But the current VIPs of the Republican Party and the Bush administration are actually trying to _prevent you and me from learning what their agents are doing to us_.

Only one congressman, Phil Gingrey of Georgia, stands alone in opposition to the ATF´s domestic terrorism. He has written a bill to force the ATF to video-record all firearms tests. He made the first requests for the non-existent manual. Yes, Gingrey is a Republican, and a courageous one. But his attempts to get justice have been stymied at every turn by Republican James Sensenbrenner and the Republican Department of Justice.

We´re getting calls from outraged, patriotic gun owners. We´re reading angry rumblings on second-amendment blogs and message boards. They´re all saying the same thing: "If more gun owners begin to grasp the full depth of their betrayal, the Republican Party will not survive the fallout."

Republican betrayal of gun owners is unfortunately not new. The Brady law passed only because a powerful Republican (Bob Dole) enabled it. Republicans who claimed to oppose various Clinton-era gun laws have vigorously supported enforcement of those same laws through Project Safe Neighborhoods. It has been a _Republican_ administration, not a Democrat one that has appointed hundreds of special prosecutors just to handle "gun crimes" (which are often completely non-violent and technical "crimes").

Until now, many gun owners have either been oblivious to the depth of the Republican betrayal or they´ve held their noses and supported Republicans because they believed the Democrats to be worse.

Many Democrats are open and frank in their hatred of guns and gun owners. But for years the Republicans have looked us in the eye, smiled, shaken our hands, asked for our support -- then stabbed us in the back.

If this were a just world with an impartial media, this brewing scandal of Republican-supported abuse and Republican coverup would have the potential to make Watergate or Iran Contra look trivial in comparison.

Because the media doesn´t care about gun owners, and because gun owners themselves are so often willfully blind to Republican betrayal, we don´t know that this scandal _will_ be the end of the Republican Party.

We only know an increasing number of concerned, patriotic gun owners are saying that it _should_ be.