I’m not going to get into the legality of the raid, or if I think ARES was in compliance or violation of the law, that will come out in time.
What got me was the footage of the raid over at ENDO
So this is a store front that is regularly open for business, and ATF has been in contact with this business enough for them to request a restraining order against the ATF. Further this business does not have and FFL and claims to not be selling firearms.
The question I have right now is Why the damn entry team?
Why did they feel the need to break down the door and storm in with rifles. The store was apparently closed, and would be open later that day. If the warrant is proper, why didn’t they wait until the store was open to serve it, or contact the owner to open early to serve the warrant in a civil fashion?
This is obviously a punitive display of force. Don’t fuck with us or we will destroy your shit. The ATF is telling the people of America “We are NOT your friend, we are your enemy!”
How many times have you read a story of somebody turning themselves in to police. It happens all the time. When the cops have you, they will let you know, and allow you to come in on your own terms rather than resort to nasty and potentially dangerous tasks.
Yet when the cops are no longer serving and protecting the people, they simply do what they think will hurt the most.
Note that all persons are innocent until proven guilty. Even the dude with gang tats and colors with bags of crack in his pockets gets read his Miranda rights, because they are still a citizen. They are still a human being. Now if they chose not to act the part things can get ugly, and within reason I’m 100% fine with that.
In this case they managed to make contact on multiple occasions with the owner with maybe some bad blood, but no bad conduct. They didn’t need an entry team, and they didn’t need to break down the door.
They didn’t NEED to, they just wanted to!
SWAT teams are the standing armies our founding fathers warned us about!
Why the SWAT team? Because ARES committed the cardinal sin of failing to respect ATF’s authoritay!!!111!eleventy11!!1!!, that’s why. The peasants dared to question their betters, and therefore deserve to be subjected to the full force of the oppressor state.
SWAT? teamsPOLICE are the standing armies our founding fathers warned us about!I won’t go that far! I’m generally a fan of police! Hell as a lawful gun owner, they’re the people I call when somebody needs to be shot but I don’t want to shoot them.
That’s a bit glib, but when you think about it, my philosophy of self defense is “If I can walk away from this situation safely, I’m walking away.” that doesn’t mean the situation is safe anymore, just that I’m safe, and won’t need to shoot anybody. But then I’ll call the cops and when they see some scenario that is dangerous they engage to keep us all safer.
Now there are some BAD cops, and even worse, departments that stand behind the bad cops, but I’d never paint every man and woman to wear the shield to be a threat to liberty. We need to do our best to weed out the bad cops, and the bad departments, but that’s on a case-by-case basis.
Now when you have cops in black fatigues, combat boots, heavy body armor, and class III weapons, that is NOT something we need to have on our streets. Cops are CIVILIANS and they get to have all the tools I can have, and nothing more. If they want their full-auto guns, they can have them, just repeal the NFA.
If they ACTUALLY need military hardware, then the shit has hit the fan, and they are OUT of their element, call in the national guard!
If you’re open to it, here’s what I’ve been able to discern:
ARES isn’t the primary business in this investigation. That’d be EP Armory, one of ARES’ suppliers.
The issue is an “80% complete” AR-15-style lower receiver that EP Armory manufactures. “80% complete” lowers are not firearms – by ATF’s own rules – because the buyer needs to do some significant machining to make it a “finished” lower. Because they’re not “firearms,” they’re sold without serial numbers; the buyer must add a serial number when he/she finishes it. EP’s “80%” polymer lowers use a different color polymer for the part that must be milled out, making it easier to finish. The ATF is claiming that EP is making a “finished” lower and then filling in the parts to “unfinish” it (by law, once it’s finished, it’s a firearm, even if it’s rendered inoperable), but EP’s manufacturing process is to make the to-be-removed bit first, and then mold the receiver around that core. Their process, their notes, everything shows that this is their process. Unless/until I hear otherwise, I’m inclined to think that this ATF raid is a punitive farce, even if some dipsh!ts were making illegal, unserialized complete rifles from EP “80%” lowers.
In addition to the wholly accurate reasons you mention above, another reason these raids are becoming so common-place is that agencies and departments that have specialized breaching / door-kicking / business-invading teams have to justify those teams. If you never use the specialized teams or their pretty toys, some congressional paper-pushing pencil-neck weenie would have the nerve to decide you do not need those specialized teams or their pretty toys, and then they would take them away from you.
So now we have SWAT teams raiding organic farms and the BATFE kicking in business’ doors. Good times.
Hell, they sent a SWAT team to raid an Amish farmer a couple of years ago, IIRC.
For the federal crime of selling unpasteurized milk to people with out-of-state tags on their cars.
It’s like when cops coerce a resident into allowing a search without a warrant:
“No, we don’t have a warrant. You could agree to a search, or we could come back with a warrant… and a sledgehammer. Your call.”
“In this case they managed to make contact on multiple occasions with the owner with maybe some bad blood, but no bad conduct. They didn’t need an entry team, and they didn’t need to break down the door.
They didn’t NEED to, they just wanted to!”
See also: Mt. Carmel, Waco Texas. (Branch Davidian’s)
Damn excellent point!