Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms

“ That's why today I'm announcing that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is launching a new website, called EZ CHECK, to prevent criminals and juveniles from using fraudulent licenses to buy firearms. ”

“ Gun violence issues differ in each community, and no single program or approach works everywhere. In response to a directive I issued last year to help reduce gun violence and save lives, United States Attorneys and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Field Division Directors for each of our Nation's 94 Federal judicial districts have developed locally coordinated gun violence reduction strategies. ”

“ Pursuant to request by and notification to licensee in accordance with Section 178.72, Title 26, Code of Federal Regulations and with Section 923 (f) (2) , Title 18, United States Code, a hearing to review the denial of application for firearms license in the captioned case was held before Hearing Officer J. E. McDewitt in Room 331, Federal Office Building, 51 S. W. First Avenue, Miami, Florida on November 12, 1974. The hearing began at 10:00 A.M. with Attorney Arnold Yorra, Regional Counsel office, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Atlanta, Georgia, representing the government. ”

“ While we have no love for the evil way in which this agency has enforced the firearms law, we believe that any other agency assigned to enforce such a poorly written law as the Gun Control Act of 1968 would face enormous temptations to behave in much the same manner. In essence, the federal firearms laws are surprisingly limited in their effect upon the criminal misuse of firearms. ”

“ Senator DECONCINI. I have contradictory evidence that the Attorney General's organized crime unit in Arizona, a prosecuting attorney in Phoenix, where they had dealings with ATF, they indicate in the area of smuggling guns, particularly into Mexico in trade for drugs, they have had good relations and good effective law enforcement with ATF.
Mr. EARL. Two things in closing I would like to say. No. 1, I do feel I stand a great risk of retaliation in what I am telling you people regardless of what you say and regardless of what they say. These people do not play fair. ”

“ We have discovered outrageous destructions of the lives, livelihoods, and well-being of countless respected, law-abiding citizens. Only a fraction of our evidence can be presented during these hearings, but I urge you to fully explore the activities of this agency, and offer the help and assistance of the NRA and its membership, who have most frequently been the victims of this rogue agency, and the travesty of law under which they function. ”

“ Trapped between the obsolescence-of its traditional enforcement function, and the desire to expand manpower, budget, and powers, the Bureau chose the role of creating artificial criminals within the scope of its firearms enforcement function. Since undercover penetration of genuine firearm criminals – organized crime, radical groups, black market operations, and so forth -takes much time, expertise and training generally lacking within the Bureau, and a considerable amount of agent risk, the Bureau chose to ignore such an effort. Instead, it focused upon the harassment of law-abiding citizens. ”

“ For instance, beginning in 1975, Bureau officials apparently reached a judgment that a dealer who sells to a legitimate purchaser may nonetheless be subject to prosecution or license revocation if he knows that that individual intends to transfer the firearm to a nonresident or other unqualified purchaser. ”

“ The Bureau's own figures demonstrate that in recent years the percentage of its arrests devoted to felons in possession and persons knowingly selling to them have dropped from 14 percent down to 10 percent of their firearms cases.
To be sure, genuine criminals are sometimes prosecuted under other sections of the law. Yet, subsequent to these hearings, BATF stated that 55 percent of its gun law prosecutions overall involve persons with no record of a felony conviction, and a third involve citizens with no prior police contact at all. ”

“ In keeping with the fine tradition of the Bureau, we believe our system of firearms registration should be of such caliber that it can serve as a model for states and cities which now have gun registration laws or may enact them in the future. ”

“ As an example, we note that this ordinance would prohibit gunsmiths, pawnbrokers and sporting goods stores from carrying on a substantial part of their business. Also, the ordinance appears to prohibit individuals from transporting guns to and from such places of business. Furthermore, it makes it unlawful for a person to possess a firearm in a vehicle or in a place of business for the purpose of self-defense. ”

“ The Bureau was faced with a significant problem, however. Until recently, much of its manpower was devoted to alcohol taxation enforcement, pursuing illegal moonshiners. Lately, the skyrocketing price of sugar has virtually driven the moonshiner out of business. ”

“ The charges leveled at the BATF, many of which are extremely serious, have mounted to the point that Congress can no longer avoid the issue. It is of dire importance that we once and for all wade deeply into the matter and sort out the fact, and, where necessary, take swift and meaningful measures to remedy the situation. It is not likely we will get all the answers today or tomorrow, and I, for one, intend to keep digging until the whole truth is exposed for all to see. ”

“ This position was never published in the Federal Register and is indeed contrary to indications which Bureau officials had given Congress, that such sales were not in violation of existing law. Moreover, BATF had informed dealers that an adult purchaser could legally buy for a minor, barred by his age from purchasing a gun on his own. ”

“ Any reference to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau in any law, regulation, map, document, record, or other paper of the United States shall be deemed to be a reference to the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Marijuana Tax and Trade Bureau. ”

“ The commitment of the alcoholic to an ordinary penal institution is a perilous expedient. The experiences which various authorities connected with the Department of Correction in the City of New York have had with drug and alcohol smugglers indicate a condition that exists more or less generally in penal institutions throughout the country. The drug-user or alcoholic who has been locked up in a prison is in no way relieved of his craving for the substance which is harming him, and his efforts to obtain it will be desperate. ”

“ Nor can we deny to the legislature the power to impose restrictions upon the sale of noxious or poisonous drugs, such as opium and other similar articles, extremely valuable as medicines, but equally baneful to the habitual user.
Cigarettes do not seem until recently to have attracted the attention of the public as more injurious than other forms of tobacco ”

“ Currently, 3 million young people between the ages of 14 and 17 have an alcohol problem, and more than half of America's school-age children have tried illegal drugs by the time they have finished high school. Research indicates that youth who avoid the early use of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana are less likely to engage in other harmful behaviors such as crime, delinquency, and other illegal drug use. That is why we must clearly communicate to America's youth that drug and alcohol abuse is dangerous and harmful to both their health and their future. ”

“ To amend title 18, United States Code, to include certain territories and possessions of the United States in the definition of State for the purposes of chapter 114, relating to trafficking in contraband cigarettes and smokeless tobacco. ”

“ Whatever may be said of the strict prohibition of liquor dealing, no one can have any objection to such laws as applied to cocaine, opium, or other poisonous drugs, and we find statutes of this sort in increasing number; while the manufacture and sale of cigarettes to minors or even in some States, their consumption, is strictly prohibited, under criminal penalty. ”

“ At the Naval Academy at Annapolis, not only is smoking forbidden, but the prohibition is effectual. There are four hundred young men confined within walls, and subjected to such discipline that it is impossible for a rule to be broken, the breaking of which betrays itself. The result is, that nearly all the students chew tobacco,—many of them to very great excess, and to their most serious and manifest injury. That great national institution teems with abuses, but, perhaps, all the other deleterious influences of the place united do less harm than this one abomination. ”

“ Should she call a police officer the chances are he is receiving bribes from her keeper and he will not help her to freedom. Is it strange that soon she eagerly drinks the wine that is constantly offered her, and sometimes actually forced down her throat, and smokes the cigarette with its benumbing effect of opium and tobacco, so that under the influences of these fatal drugs she may forget her awful fate and hasten her early death, for surely no hell in the other world can be more dreadful than a house of shame in this world. ”

“ To satisfy the general well-being and to satisfy the police with regard to fires, it is forbidden to smoke tobacco, and especially cigars, in the streets and squares of this town and the suburbs, with the penalty of losing the pipe if a police-agent catches anyone with it in his mouth, and in the case of a repeated offence the penalty will be more serious. ”

“ The Salvation Army do not enforce total abstinence from tobacco as well as from alcoholic drinks as a condition of membership or soldiership, but a member of the Army must be a non-smoker before he can hold any office in its rank, or be a bandsman, or a member of a "songster brigade." And in other religious organizations there are yet a few of the "unco' guid" who look askance at pipe or cigarette as if it were a device of the devil. But the numbers of these misguided folk become fewer every year. ”

“ Indeed, in most of the New England settlements, not only the use but the planting of tobacco was strictly forbidden. Those who had a mind to solace themselves with the interdicted weed could do so only in the most private manner. The language of the law is, “Nor shall any take tobacco in any wine or common victual house, except in a private room there, so as the master of said house nor any guest there shall take offence thereat; which, if any do, then such person shall forbear upon pain of two shillings sixpence for every such offence.” ”

“ A vigorous agitation was now started for and against the increase of armaments, but more interest was taken in the debate and division in the Lower House of Congress (Dec. 22) on the constitutional amendment, imposing "nation-wide prohibition" of the sale or transport of alcoholic liquors for "beverage purposes" in the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Provision, however, was made for continuing the supply of intoxicants for sacramental, medicinal, and industrial purposes. ”

“ On the same table stood a plentiful supply of brandy and a pitcher of water, of which judge, jury, prisoner, and spectators partook at pleasure during the trial; the brandy, from its rapid dis appearance, being evidently more to their taste than the water. Then the question seriously arose whether in a criminal court, where a man was on trial for his life, smoking was proper. Appetite presses a strong argument; precedent was found in the California women who smoked at bull-fights, executions, and funerals, and if ladies indulged in the practice, tobacco could not be out of place anywhere. ”

“ It empowers constables and park keepers to seize tobacco in the possession of any person apparently under sixteen found smoking in any street or public place, as well as to search them; it also empowers a court, of summary jurisdiction to prevent automatic machines for the sale of tobacco being used by young persons. ”

“ Moreover, it is commonly accepted that alcohol abuse and nicotine abuse can be at least as harmful as the abuse of marijuana, for instance. Yet, though somewhat curbed, alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking are legal. In contrast, users of cocaine - only a century ago recommended by doctors as tranquilizer - face life in jail in many countries, death in others. Almost everywhere pot smokers are confronted with prison terms. ”

“ Members of the House of Representatives and of the Senate, doctors, judges, barristers, and attorneys chew tobacco almost as generally as the laboring classes in the old country. Even in a court of justice, more especially in the Western States, it is no unusual thing to see judge, jury, and the gentlemen of the bar, all chewing and spitting as liberally as the crew of a homeward-bound West Indiaman. ”

“ There is very general legislation throughout the country forbidding the sale of intoxicating liquor to persons under twenty-one, and in the great majority of the States the sale of cigarettes, narcotics or other drugs, or even tobacco, to persons under twenty-one, eighteen, or fifteen, respectively. In some States it is forbidden, or made a misdemeanor, to insure the lives of children—very important legislation, if necessary. In 1904 Virginia passed a statute punishing kidnapping with death, which is followed in 1905 by heavy penalties for abduction in three other States ”

“ Thus to an extent we intrust daily the destinies of an appreciable proportion of our public to a class of men who certainly have done little to earn general confidence. In nearly every State, if not in all, laws exist imposing penalties upon the dealer in alcohol who sells drink to a person who is already in a state of intoxication ”

“ Probably one tenth, at least, of all the drunkards annually made in the nation, and throughout the world, are made drunkards through the use of tobacco. If thirty thousand drunkards are made annually in the United States, three thousand must be charged to the use of tobacco. If thirty thousand drunkards die annually, in the United States, three thousand of these deaths must be charged to the use of tobacco. If twenty thousand criminals are sentenced to our penitentiaries in twenty years, through the influence of strong drink, two thousand must be charged to the use of tobacco. ”