ATF STILL harassing Red's Trading Post

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Hi all, as some of you may already have heard the ATF is STILL harassing Red's Trading Post about 0.4% of over 10,000 forms they had customers fill out with silly "out of policy" issues such as placing a "y" in a field instead of a full "yes" - that is LESS than 1/2 of ONE percent! If only the ATF could have an error rate so low. We all need to send an email to our Senators & to the organization that oversees the ATF - the DOJ. See my below blog entry for an example of an email I sent as well as a link to Red's Trading Post blog discussing the latest ATF abuse:

Yet Another Audit

The email address for the Office of the Inspector General for the DOJ which is listed for reporting "Waste, Fraud, Abuse, or Misconduct" of the government entities that it oversees is: oig.hotline@usdoj.gov

DOJ Website is:
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/FOIA/hotline.htm

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How about asking the NRA for help?

And, I wasn't aware that the ATF reported to anyone. At any rate, it's worth a letter...

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swift wrote:

...about 0.4% of over 10,000 forms they had customers fill out with silly "out of policy" issues such as placing a "y" in a field instead of a full "yes" - that is LESS than 1/2 of ONE percent!...

Click to expand...

I wonder what the other errors were like? Were there any non-silly errors?

If so, how manyand what were they?

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HankT wrote:

swift wrote:

...about 0.4% of over 10,000 forms they had customers fill out with silly "out of policy" issues such as placing a "y" in a field instead of a full "yes" - that is LESS than 1/2 of ONE percent!...

Click to expand...

I wonder what the other errors were like? Were there any non-silly errors?

If so, how many, and what were they?

Click to expand...

It's hard to tell since we don't have access to the records. Who ever is reporting the story will only cite those facts that support their case or agenda.

It is a good question though. Good girl for coming up with that.

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tarzan1888 wrote:

HankT wrote:

swift wrote:

...about 0.4% of over 10,000 forms they had customers fill out with silly "out of policy" issues such as placing a "y" in a field instead of a full "yes" - that is LESS than 1/2 of ONE percent!...

Click to expand...

I wonder what the other errors were like? Were there any non-silly errors?

If so, how many, and what were they?

Click to expand...

It's hard to tell since we don't have access to the records. Who ever is reporting the story will only cite those facts that support their case or agenda.

It is a good question though. Good girl for coming up with that.

Click to expand...

Well somebody has to do the adult critical analysis around here.

Everyone else just jumps on the "Oh yes! We must support Ole Red's Trading Post-he's a GUN GUY!" bus.

Doesn't even have to come to acomplete stop.... :?

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I do know that ATF does not like blank fields on the 4473 forms. I tell everyone to spell out "yes" and "no" and put "N/A" in all the goofball immigration questions (as appropriate), just in case. Some guy was just in here trying to get a piece with an expired driver's license - that's the very thing that will get you in a jam. I sent him to DMV for a renewal before we'd complete the transaction, just to avoid horseshit like that.

-ljp

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HankT wrote:

tarzan1888 wrote:

HankT wrote:

swift wrote:

...about 0.4% of over 10,000 forms they had customers fill out with silly "out of policy" issues such as placing a "y" in a field instead of a full "yes" - that is LESS than 1/2 of ONE percent!...

Click to expand...

I wonder what the other errors were like? Were there any non-silly errors?

If so, how many, and what were they?

Click to expand...

It's hard to tell since we don't have access to the records. Who ever is reporting the story will only cite those facts that support their case or agenda.

It is a good question though. Good girl for coming up with that.

Click to expand...

Well somebody has to do the adult critical analysis around here.

Everyone else just jumps on the "Oh yes! We must support Ole Red's Trading Post-he's a GUN GUY!" bus.

Doesn't even have to come to acomplete stop.... :?

Click to expand...

Notice that HankT did not deny that she was a she in the above quote.

She is a woman.

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Henrietta? Who'da thunk?

-ljp

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HankT wrote:

I wonder what the other errors were like? Were there any non-silly errors?

If so, how manyand what were they?

Click to expand...

Well, 0.4% of 10,000 forms is 40 errors. The majority were actually missing county name on some of the older forms that had one field that was supposed to contain both the city & a county in a very small space, but some folks who lived in Twin Falls that is also in Twin Falls county, only wrote Twin Falls instead of Twin Falls, Twin Falls. The rest of the errors were things like a Y or N instead of a Yes or No - in the words of the ATF agent "Y or N could mean something other than Yes or No" - WHAT planet is that agent from anyway? My 1st grader could figure out what a Y means.

Note that the form did have the street address, city, state, & zip code even though it was missing the county, so you'd think that even an ATF agent could locate the address of the purchaser without knowing that Twin Falls Idaho is also in Twin Falls County.

There was nothing serious found or the owner would be in jail rather than still operating his business after he convinced an ATF judge to grant him a temporary injuction that allows him to continue business as usual while also granting the ATF the ability to run audits as often as every 2 weeks rather than the normal limit of once a year until they find another error so that they can try to shut him down again.

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Oops, I forgot that a couple of the errors were some posters that he was required to have hanging that were not up. One of the posters was supposed to inform people that leaving a gun unlocked around the house is not safe for children. I forget what the other poster was supposed to say, but it was something similar (some obvious information like "unlocked guns around children is not safe" that even an ATF agent would know without being told)

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Yeah, the "Youth Handgun Safety Act" has to be posted/displayed and some kind of generic gun safety information/brochures are supposed to be made available also. We had the poster up in half the store here, but not in the other half, so I made a copy to assure compliance, although the ATF didn't say anything about it during the last audit here.

-ljp

p.s. this is in Ohio - no connection to Reds, for clarity.

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For anyone interested the owner of Red's Trading Post Ryan Horsley is interviewed on the below Aug 25th episod of Livefire where he discusses what has been going on:

http://archives.gsradio.net:8080/livefire/lf08-25-07.mp3

For more info on Livefire you can follow the below link:

http://www.gunowners.org/radio.htm

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Legba wrote:

I do know that ATF does not like blank fields on the 4473 forms.  I tell everyone to spell out "yes" and "no" and put "N/A" in all the goofball immigration questions (as appropriate), just in case.  Some guy was just in here trying to get a piece with an expired driver's license - that's the very thing that will get you in a jam.  I sent him to DMV for a renewal before we'd complete the transaction, just to avoid horseshit like that.

-ljp

Click to expand...

I don't know about your particular state, but an expired driver's license is still a perfectly valid form of identification for years after its expiry in Kansas.

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Legba wrote:

I do know that ATF does not like blank fields on the 4473 forms. I tell everyone to spell out "yes" and "no" and put "N/A" in all the goofball immigration questions (as appropriate), just in case. Some guy was just in here trying to get a piece with an expired driver's license - that's the very thing that will get you in a jam. I sent him to DMV for a renewal before we'd complete the transaction, just to avoid horseshit like that.

-ljp

Click to expand...

I bet those nip picky infidels would complain that not applicable was not spelled out.:banghead:

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Particle: an expired license is not a valid ID in Ohio (you're not supposed to sell alcohol or tobacco to someone with one, so I can assume guns are a no-no). The state laws don't matter though - the form in question is a federal legal deal, and they would gripe about it, almost certainly.

sccrref: well, that hasn't been identified as a problem yet... It's better than leaving blanks, which everyone did in the past. I've sold a total of 2 guns to permanent residents from other countries, so it doesn't come up much, all the immigration status questions. A bigger problem is when a resident of another state moves here and tries to get a handgun. You need to change your ID over to the new state before that will work to the satisfaction of the feds, even if it's not expired. I think you are permitted to accept cable bills and such as evidence of residency with an out-of-state ID, but it's not worth the potential downside if it turns out to be a bogus mail drop, say. And god help you if you put down a post office box for an address...

-ljp

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Particle wrote:

I don't know about your particular state, but an expired driver's license is still a perfectly valid form of identification for years after its expiry in Kansas.

Click to expand...

As far as ATF is concerned, an expired license is no longer valid identification. And that's true for FFLs in every state.

Yes, it's stupid. Your identity doesn't have an expiration date.