ATF gun raid sends us all a message

May 16, 12:07 PMGun Rights ExaminerDavid Codrea

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"ATF in Action"

There's been an armed raid in Connecticut. Mary Ellen Godin of the Record-Journal reports:

A usually quiet mobile home park was shaken Friday morning when about 15 officers from the U.S. bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and local police descended on one of their neighbor's homes with force.

"They had their guns drawn and were surrounding the house," said Jennifer Monroe of Hosford Bridge Road. "These weren't small guns, they were machine guns. It wasn't normal."

"Machine guns"? You know, true "assault weapons," not the neutered kind the citizen disarmament cartel says you and I can't be trusted with, because they are "weapons of war designed only to kill people."

Except when deployed by the "Only Ones," they magically transform themselves into "patrol rifles"...

And the purpose of the raid? The compelling reason 15 heavily-armed police state ninjas used a battering ram on an unlocked door, assaulted and threw citizens to the ground, put guns to their heads, terrorized a man with a heart condition, destroyed and seized property, and generally trashed the place?

Because a son who "was arrested 34 years ago at the age of 17 with a friend who had forged a check [and] hasn't been arrested since" was living with his gun owner father.

"This could have been handled so much easier," Boynton said. "All they had to do was have an officer come to my door and tell me."

Indeed. But that presupposes you are dealing with creatures who feel any need to treat you like a citizen and respect your rights, Mr. Boynton. That presupposes you're dealing with Oath Keepers who understand the purpose behind giving government authority in the first place was to "secure the blessings of Liberty."

Perhaps it's trivial, but one of the first things that struck me was the inclusion of "holsters" on the search warrant. Then there's the question of why no arrests were made, and why, if having the guns and his son on the same premises is illegal, the raiders left a pistol behind--would that not subject the residents to further charges, further armed assaults?

And it also brings up the subject of prohibited persons. My position is that anyone who can't be trusted with a gun can't be trusted without a custodian. But back to our story:

"At the end of it when they didn't find nothing, they were real nice," Gilman Boynton said.

I'll bet--perhaps they realized things weren't exactly as their pet rat...I mean...confidential informant led them to believe (and what his incentive was has yet to be disclosed), and are anticipating a legal backlash. But they weren't so "nice" the veiled threat "that Paul Boynton could still be arrested because the keys to the gun rack were hanging up in the kitchen" wasn't made (perhaps to discourage that backlash?).

The object lesson here could not be more clear--we exist at the convenience and pleasure of the state. What we do, what we may possess, all are subject to permission and revocation that can, at any moment, be violently wrested from us. Nothing is ours. Not our bodies, not our lives. And this no doubt foreshadows some of that "change" and sets the tone we can expect now that the Bureau gets its marching orders from a new administration.

At least that's the way some see it. And we know how those of us who disagree with that are regarded.

This also brings up an interesting double standard. We know the names of the citizens who were minding their own business when all hell broke loose and their lives were put in immediate lethal and continued legal danger. In a free society, where citizen is supposed to be master and government the servant, why are the names of those responsible for initiating force protected?

And speaking of double standards, here's another one, a news report from Florida involving a cop and his wife:

A Polk County deputy disgraced by his family's pranks gave up his badge earlier this week.

Charles "Chip" Buckner resigned... An arrest report shows Bucker's wife, Gail, and his mother-in-law took his patrol car without his knowledge and drove around Lakeland.

And here's the kicker:

Gail Buckner is also looking at a charge of Possession of a Firearm by a Convicted Felon.

"Law enforcement" clearly had first-hand knowledge of this situation. So where was the 15-man home invasion?

[Thanks to reader Mark G for this news tip.]

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Speaking of 'prohibited persons'...

Oregon Firearms Federation tells us of a bill to expand the list. Click here to read their latest alert.