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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   42017 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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Red flag laws are bad too. As are many TROs. But this is worse than those. It's more like if there was a conspiracy among gun shops to decide who they would and would not sell to, with government regulators making 'suggestions' backed by thinly veiled threats of losing their FFLs if they didn't play along.

Well there was that one time ATF pressured FFLs to knowingly sell guns to otherwise ineligible buyers.

Was that "Operation Forward Trace"? They got FFLs to sell guns to cartels, then crowed about how Mexican cartels were buying guns in the US?

I was thinking of Fast and Furious, but maybe it's been done other times:

Several gun dealers who cooperated with ATF told CBS News and Congressional investigators they only went through with suspicious sales because ATF asked them to.

Sometimes it was against the gun dealer's own best judgment.

In April, 2010 a licensed gun dealer cooperating with ATF was increasingly concerned about selling so many guns. "We just want to make sure we are cooperating with ATF and that we are not viewed as selling to the bad guys," writes the gun dealer to ATF Phoenix officials, "(W)e were hoping to put together something like a letter of understanding to alleviate concerns of some type of recourse against us down the road for selling these items."

ATF's group supervisor on Fast and Furious David Voth assures the gun dealer there's nothing to worry about. "We (ATF) are continually monitoring these suspects using a variety of investigative techniques which I cannot go into detail."

Two months later, the same gun dealer grew more agitated.

"I wanted to make sure that none of the firearms that were sold per our conversation with you and various ATF agents could or would ever end up south of the border or in the hands of the bad guys. I guess I am looking for a bit of reassurance that the guns are not getting south or in the wrong hands...I want to help ATF with its investigation but not at the risk of agents (sic) safety because I have some very close friends that are US Border Patrol agents in southern AZ as well as my concern for all the agents (sic) safety that protect our country."

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