Ding Dong, ATF Calling...

So yesterday’s Houston Chronicle ran a story on an ATF action in Houston, targeting “straw purchases” of guns that wind up south of the border. Surely you remember the drama surrounding attorney general Eric Holder’s concern for our neighbors south of the border; based on his comments, you’d have thought that every American living south of the Mason Dixon line was selling weapons to Mexican drug cartels. Anyway, I digress…

First, a “straw purchase” occurs when someone purchases a firearm for another who is ineligible to buy the weapon himself. Convicted felons, for example, are excluded from purchasing weapons, as are residents of a different state or country. Laws and sentencing guidelines for straw purchases are well defined; unfortunately, enforcement requires catching someone in the act of falsifying identity or turning a recently purchased gun over to an ineligible party.

Fast forward to the Houston Chronicle story. One hundred veteran ATF agents are sent to Houston to follow up on the purchase of certain types of weapons, such as “high-end” handguns (their words, not mine) and assault rifles. Since the federal government is precluded from compiling databases on gun owners (which is a good thing), agents were sent to gun shops to review purchase records for red-flag triggers like multiple purchases in a single day, or (presumably) purchases of a certain brand or type of weapon. These agents then went door to door, trying to gather information on transactions in question.

And here’s where my trouble begins. I’m a pretty big proponent of our second amendment and have been a recreational shooter for years. I’m all for enforcing the current laws to prevent straw purchases, but let’s take this a step further: if it starts with ATF agents knocking on doors to investigate suspicious purchases, what comes next? Say, for example, you’ve downloaded a fine selection of midget-scat-tranny-porn, and the government decides that decent citizens can no longer get their freak on in the privacy of their own home. Do you get the knock on the door? What if you’ve recently purchased a large amount of alcohol? Since drinking is bad for you, can you expect a knock on the door to check your liquor cabinet when we’re under socialized medicine?

Are these scenarios far-fetched? Perhaps, but wasn’t the new administration supposed to restore some of the privacy we’ve lost in the war on terror? The Houston action doesn’t seem to be a step in the right direction.

And here’s today’s parting thought, boys and girls: if it’s illegal for the government to compile databases on gun owners, what do you think the ATF did with the lists compiled for Houston? Lists that included plenty of legitimate, legal purchases. Are they shredded and burned at the bottom of a landfill, or are they now part of our permanent citizen records? Sleep tight pondering that one…