By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON –– As far as image goes, the past few days have not been good ones for Prince George’s County, a Maryland suburb of Washington. On Friday, the FBI arrested the County Executive Jack Johnson and his wife, Leslie, a county council member, on charges of trying to destroy and hide…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON –– A Justice Department’s Inspector General report released Tuesday sharply criticized ATF’s efforts to crackdown on gun trafficking along the Mexican border, saying the agency is failing to share information within and outside the agency and with Mexico and is focusing far too much on smaller rather than bigger gun…
The Washington Post Editorial Page WASHINGTON — TAKING AND tracking inventory is a basic component of many businesses. Imagine, for example, a pharmacy that routinely could not account for its drugs. The store would quickly run into trouble with regulators. Not so gun dealers. Since 2005, 113,642 guns have been reported missing from the thousands…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com ATF is operating on a short leash, hamstrung by limited resources to regulate gun ownership, much in part due to the strong gun lobbying efforts, the Washington Post reports. “Concerns about government regulation of gun ownership have limited the resources available to the ATF, led to strict regulatory restrictions and left…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The latest sign in the U.S. that there’s a drug war in Mexico: U.S. Border Patrol agents fired gunshots into Mexico Saturday after coming under attack in south Texas along the Rio Grande, the Associated Press reports. Authorities said the incident happened during a half-ton drug bust that involved Border Patrol…
By The Washington Post Editorial Page WASHINGTON — SECRETARY OF STATE Hillary Rodham Clinton caused a stir last week by suggesting that Mexico’s drug-trafficking gangs were beginning to resemble an insurgency, like that which has plagued Colombia. She’s right in the sense that the cartels have come to effectively control parts of the country, where…
By The Washington Post Editorial Page WASHINGTON — ONLY ABOUT 10 percent of the nation’s 100,000 licensed gun dealers are audited each year by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The ATF cannot fine wayward dealers; its only tool at the moment involves revoking a miscreant’s license. And that happens only about…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com An attorney for a Los Angeles cop who was acquitted last week of illegally exporting guns says the laws are so confusing it’s difficult for people to adhere to them all. “There is so much confusion when comes to these requirements,” Humbarto Diaz, a federal public defender, said in an interview…
