re: #49 FemNaziBitch

I think after Ruby Ridge, the ATF, lost a lot of support.

The agency needs to be scrapped. Why can’t the FBI do Firearms and the one of the various Public Health agencies do Alcohol and Tobacco.

Lumping the three together seems to be a moral decision based on the archaic idea of VICE.

It it was really about vice, then prostitution and gambling would be lumped in as well.

Because Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms aren’t about crime or vice. They’re about money. More specifically, taxes.

Alcohol, tobacco, and guns were (and are) big revenue generators. The government wanted its piece of that profit. A lot of the producers thought the money should be theirs and theirs alone. ATF (which has had various names and detailed operations throughout our history) was created to find the people trying to cheat on those taxes and make sure they paid. Stuff that was produced for which the taxes weren’t paid was to be destroyed.