Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Following the mass shooting in a Connecticut elementary school, attention has shifted to the ATF, the federal agency responsible for regulating the gun industry. A Washington Post investigation found that ATF is inadequately resourced and so beleaguered that it hasn’t had a director in years. Sources said the gun industry, particularly the NRA,…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Over the past decade, the number of federally mandated background checks of prospective gun purchases has nearly doubled, the USA Today reports, citing FBI records. Nearly 17 million people received background checks already this year, up from 8.5 million in 2002, the USA Today wrote. If you ask gun-rights advocates what’s causing…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Hats off to Sen. Chuck Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa for their keen interest in the failed ATF Operation Fast and Furious. They have a right to be concerned about the program that let guns walk into Mexico. It’s great that they care that the feds let guns get into the…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The U.S. Secret Service has an interest in rocker Ted Nugent, and not for his music. Yahoo News! is reporting that the Secret Service is looking into his violent rant at the NRA convention in St. Louis over the weekend. “I’ll tell you this right now: If Barack Obama becomes the…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com In the back-and-forth, knock down drag out battle over gun rights, no victory goes unchallenged. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that the US gun industry, according to the Chicago Tribune, appealed on Monday US Judge Rosemary Collyer’s recent decision upholding a new requirement by the ATF that gun dealers in…
By Allan Lengel for Salon.com While an apologetic Attorney Gen. Eric Holder Jr. went before a Senate committee this week to talk about a failed gun-walking program, the National Rifle Association was gearing up its campaign to get Holder fired. In a new, slick 1 minute and 55 second television ad flush with with Fox…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com More than 30 Republican Congress members have called for the firing of Atty. Gen. Eric Holder Jr. and now the NRA is running an advertising asking for the same. The NRA, which has historically been at odds with ATF, says in its ad that Holder lied about what he knew about…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com I’m all for the right to bear arms. The constitution says we can. That being said, guns and semi-automatic rifles are a dangerous enough commodity — like prescription morphine and oxycodone — that they need to be regulated — particularly when they end up in the hands of the violent Mexican…
