“The devil you know,” he remarked, may be preferable to sprawling bureaucracies with even more power to interfere with lawful gun ownership. [More]
Couldn’t have said it better myself…
As for “ATF, when properly managed, serves a legitimate purpose—targeting violent offenders and assisting the firearms industry in compliance,” first, compliance with what that doesn’t run afoul of “shall not be infringed”?
As for “violent offenders,” there are three crimes the feds are Constitutionally delegated power to combat, and unless the baddies are committing treason, counterfeiting, or engaged in piracy, stopping them is a power ceded to the states by the Tenth Amendment.
Everything else is usurpation compounded with corrupt stare decisis.
“I has an idea.”
The next time some troll suggests we repeal The Second Amendment, we counter with repeal of the God forsaken “commerce clause.”
While it may not be the root of all evil, it certainly has been the root of most of it since Wickard v Filburn.
“Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942), was a landmark United States Supreme Court decision that dramatically increased the regulatory power of the federal government. It remains as one of the most important and far-reaching cases concerning the New Deal, and it set a precedent for an expansive reading of the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause for decades to come. The goal of the legal challenge was to end the entire federal crop support program by declaring it unconstitutional.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
The commerce clause is the tap root of the deep state. Cut the root and we’d likely be rid of the plant it feeds, including one particularly pesky stem known as BATFE.
Matthew 7:16-20: “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them”.