ATF UNDER SIEGE

DEMON AGENCY? FAR FROM IT. TORN BY INTERNAL STRIFE, THE BUREAU HAS LOST ITS SENSE OF MISSION

A DETROIT COMPUTER BULLETIN board lists the names of local agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and offers helpful advice on how to harass them. A licensed gun dealer, required to surrender his business records to ATF's national tracing center, coated them first with rat excrement. A flyer found posted in Pennsylvania reads WANTED: ATF AGENT. DEAD.

The ATF may be the most hated federal agency in America today, surpassing even the IRS in its notoriety. Gun-rights advocates have demonized the agency as a dark legion of storm troopers who trample the rights of ordinary citizens. Critics have...

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