Author: Grumpy
No one makes the case that it’s time to end the ATF better than the ATF.
Rather than allowing the agency to continue on its own or merging it with the DEA as has been recently discussed, President Donald J. Trump should put the agency out of our misery before its agents kill yet another innocent American or violate someone else’s civil rights.
If action is not taken, more innocent Americans will die, that much is certainly true. In fact, it’s guaranteed.
No other federal law enforcement agency has a bloodier history, and it is the blood of innocent Americans that will forever taint the ATF.
In fact, killing innocent Americans in their homes is what the ATF appears very willing to do.
They did it on February 28, 1993, at a small religious compound outside of Waco, Texas, and ATF Agent Tyler Cowart did it on March 19, 2024, when he shot and killed a 53-year-old Arkansas airport executive who had never committed a crime.
Those responsible for ATF’s atrocities have never been held accountable.
Other federal law enforcement agencies don’t have this problem. If a DEA or an FBI agent uses excessive force their career would be over, but not at the ATF, where innocent blood on an agent’s hands doesn’t seem to matter.
The ATF cannot even admit its agents made a mistake, not even at Waco, where 76 Branch Davidians including 20 children were killed, along with ATF Special Agents LeBleu, Williams, Willis and McKeehan.
To this day, the ATF is still trying to justify its Waco carnage.
The following was taken from the ATF’s “Remembering Waco” webpage.
“A subsequent investigation by the Departments of Treasury and Justice regarding the actions of law enforcement agents during the siege determined that some tactics and decisions were poorly executed; and certain actions by ATF were criticized.
However, the September 1993 U.S. Department of Treasury Administrative Review concluded: “…the agency is made up of dedicated, committed and experienced professionals, who have regularly demonstrated sound judgment and remarkable courage in enforcing the law. ATF has a history of success in conducting complex investigations and executing dangerous and challenging law enforcement missions.
That fine tradition, together with the line agents’ commitment to the truth and their courage and determination has enabled ATF to provide our country with a safer and more secure nation under law,” the ATF claims.
This is ludicrous.
The agency admits that “certain actions by ATF were criticized,” but quickly adds “ATF has a history of success,” and agents have a “commitment to the truth,” as well as “courage and determination.”
The ATF looks at the Waco siege – which killed 80 Americans – as if it was misjudged.
This is toxic.
With an inability to correctly evaluate the massive series of errors that occurred at Waco, which led to the longest gunfight on American soil since the Civil War, how can the ATF ever be trusted to judge an agent’s actions again?
Unfortunately, there are plenty more ATF actions still waiting to be rightfully judged.
- Patrick “Tate” Adamiak, a former U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class, is serving the third year of a 20-year sentence in federal prison, even though he did nothing wrong. Recently released documents show that the ATF was screwed after they stormed into Adamiak’s home based solely on an informant’s misinformation. Agents found nothing illegal, so they created fake charges.
- Mark “Choppa” Manley was a gun owner, a gun collector and a Second Amendment advocate who had more than 70 legally owned firearms stored in a gun safe until an ATF SWAT team stormed his Baltimore home and threw concussion grenades at his children. The Manley family was never told why they were mistakenly targeted by the ATF.
- Russell Fincher was a high school history teacher, a Baptist pastor and a part time gun dealer who also coached Little League in his hometown of Tuskahoma, Oklahoma. In 2023, seven vehicles roared up to his home and disgorged a dozen ATF agents wearing tactical gear, armed with AR-15s. They yelled and screamed at Fincher for two hours until he agreed to stop selling firearms.
- Bryan Malinowski was shot and killed inside his Arkansas home by ATF Agent Tyler Cowart. Unfortunately, the ATF has yet to be held accountable for killing Malinowski just 16 months ago.
The cases, and there are many more, clearly show that the ATF cannot distinguish between a criminal and a legitimate gun owner, and this inability can result in the filing of false criminal charges and prison, like they did to Adamiak, or even death, as befell Malinowski.
That is the problem.
Law-abiding American gun owners would have no problem with an ATF that follows the law, only arrests bad guys and doesn’t kick down our doors or throw stun grenades at our children. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
Bottom line: ATF’s 2,600 Special Agents deserve to be judged exactly as they judge us: They’re all guilty and they all need to go.
Hopefully, President Trump will make this happen before another innocent life is lost.
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Minute of Mae: Spanish Jo.Lo.Ar.
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The Pepperbox
Note no brains were lost during this film!
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The War Room: Rifles at Mons, 1914
One of the most conspicuous attractions in Plaza San Martín in Buenos Aires is a Memorial to the Fallen. Its blood-red walls and eternal flame remember the 649 Argentine soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who lost their lives during the 74-day-long war in the South Atlantic in 1982.
While we know it as the Falklands War, Argentina remembers it alternatively as Guerra del Atlántico Sur or Guerra de las Malvinas. Although the failure to take the Falklands from the U.K. in 1982 ended the military junta that brought on the war to begin with—paving the way to a more democratic future—it was nevertheless a blow to national prestige that haunts Argentina to this day.
It remains a sore subject in a country that is respectful of the men who survived the war and reverent of the men who did not. Their reverence is such that, on most days, an honor guard is posted at the Memorial to the Fallen at Plaza San Martín.
Sometimes the members of this honor guard are from Ejército Argentino (the Argentine Army) and are armed with 19th Century Rolling Block rifles, but sometimes the members of the honor guard are from Armada de la República Argentina (the Argentine Navy) and they carry the rifle that transitioned the country from the 19th Century to the 20th—the Model 1891 Argentine Mauser.
When Argentina sought to adopt a modern, repeating rifle for its military in the late 1880s, it was at a time when Paul Mauser’s recent designs offered the state-of-the-art. In 1889, Fabrique Nationale d’Armes de Guerre began manufacturing a Mauser-type rifle for the Belgian Army that was chambered for the rimless 7.65×53 mm rifle cartridge.
Shortly thereafter, the Ottoman Turkish Empire adopted an almost identical derivative for its military and they even went with the same caliber. Then, the following year, Argentina adopted a slightly modified version of the Belgian 1889 as Mauser Modelo Argentino 1891, also known as the 1891 Argentine Mauser.
The 1891 Argentine Mauser is a cock-on-close, striker-fired repeater feeding from an internal five-shot, single-stack box magazine. Like its Belgian and Turkish predecessors, the Argentine 1891 uses a bolt with front-locking lugs, the distinctive Mauser “wing”-type safety selector, a one-piece wooden stock, and a wood upper handguard that is secured to the barrel by two segments of copper wire.
Argentina purchased the Modelo 1891 in three different configurations: a full-length rifle, a Cavalry Carbine and an Engineer Carbine. The 1891 rifle features a 29.13-inch barrel, an adjustable rear sight graduated to 2,000 meters and a straight bolt handle, while both carbines are equipped with 17.6-inch barrels, rear sights graduated to 1,400 meters, and turned-down bolt handles. All of the 1891 Argentine Mauser rifles and carbines were manufactured in Berlin first at Ludwig Loewe & Company, and after 1896 at Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken Aktien-Gesellschaft (“DWM”).
(l.) A 90-degree turndown bolt handle was standard on carbines. (ctr.) Graduated out to 2,000 meters, the rear sight also folds flat. (r.) Rollmarked from Berlin and shipped to Argentina, the 1891 Mauser would also have the Argentine national crest on the front receiver band.
Whether made by Loewe or DWM, the 1891 Argentine Mausers are beautifully made firearms well-known for their spectacular receiver markings. In addition to the model designation and the manufacturer information, the front receiver band of each rifle and carbine was beautifully rollmarked with the distinctive Argentine national crest.
This emblem consists of a wreath enclosing three symbols important to the country’s national identity: a pair of hands in mid-handshake representing unity, a wooden pike representing power and a Phrygian cap representing freedom. At the apex of the crest, the sun shines down in a metaphor indicating a national aspiration and optimism that would not follow Argentina through the politically complicated 20th century.
The Phrygian cap and the shaking hands also appear on various parts and components of the 1891 rifles and carbines as proof and acceptance stamps, making each gun a handsome example of late 19th-century gunmaking craftsmanship.
Collectors in the U.S., though, often find the national crest ground off of Argentine 1891 Mausers. This was done in the aftermath of the Chaco War of 1935, which pitted Bolivia and Paraguay against one another in a vicious albeit brief struggle for control of South America’s resource-rich Chaco Boreal.
Argentina provided Paraguay with a large number of Model 1891 Mausers during the conflict in a move that jeopardized its relationship with Bolivia. The presence of unground national crests made it impossible to deny Argentina’s direct support for Paraguay, so after the war Argentina instituted a law requiring the removal of the national crest from any gun leaving the country. Although the government in Buenos Aires later dropped this requirement, by then most of the Argentine 1891 Mausers had been ground, and this accounts for why it is rare to find one with the crest intact.
The German-made 1891 Argentine Mausers were ultimately phased out of active service when Argentina began licensed domestic production of the Model 1909 Mauser. It serves to this day but in a ceremonial capacity only. If you’re ever in Buenos Aires, you might even spot sailors there guarding the Malvinas Memorial with it.