> [Congressional Record: February 14, 2000 (House)] [Page H363-H364]
>
> LESS ATF AGENTS NEEDED, NOT MORE
>
> The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker’s announced policy of
> January 6, 1999, the gentlewoman from Idaho (Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage)
> is recognized for 10 minutes as the designee of the majority
> leader.
>
> [Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE.] Mr. Speaker, last month the President
> delivered his State of the Union address, and in it he
> highlighted several new anti-firearms initiatives. One of those
> proposals was to hire 500 new Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
> agents. We have been told that he offered what gun owners have
> called for: more enforcement of existing gun laws. We were told
> that this will help take the guns out of the hands of criminals.
>
> Mr. Speaker, the truth is this initiative is a ruse. It is a
> trick designed to increase the number of Federal agents who can
> harass honest gun owners and gun dealers.
>
> It is true that the administration has done an abysmal job of
> enforcing gun laws. During the first 6 years of the current
> administration, ATF referrals for Federal, State and local
> prosecution declined by nearly one-half. For an administration
> that has clamored for and received massive new gun laws, this
> is an amazing drop.
>
> Mr. Speaker, it is also true that gun owners, like most people,
> want criminals behind bars. But the President’s initiative, this
> deceptive trick, is not designed to do that. Its purpose is to
> enlarge and empower the worst offenders of our gun rights. And
> let there be no mistake about it, the ATF is the worst enemy that
> gun owners have. Let us remember the ATF. It was ATF agents who
> botched efforts started at Ruby Ridge and at Waco, two of
> America’s most abhorrent abuses of power. It was ATF agents who
> wrongly charged Florida resident Wayne Scott with a firearms
> violation by using a crooked informant; and it was ATF agents
> who tampered with police sergeant James Corcoran’s rifle so they
> could falsely charge him with owning a machine gun. And gun
> owners need 500 more of these folks? I do not think so.
>
> A Senate subcommittee reported that 75 percent of ATF firearms
> prosecutions targeted ordinary citizens. A report went on to say
> that these citizens had, and I quote, “neither criminal intent
> nor knowledge, but were enticed by ATF agents into unknowing
> technical violations.”
>
> In a word, Mr. Speaker, the ATF has engaged in entrapment, which
> courts have clearly and strictly forbidden in law enforcement.
>
> The pattern of abuse by ATF reminds us of the very reason why
> the second amendment was written into the Constitution. Alan
> Keyes, presidential contender, said it very well in a recent
> interview, and I quote Mr. Keyes:
>
> I think the Second Amendment is there because the
> Founders understood a lesson of history; that a
> free people must be an armed people, capable of
> defending their liberties, not only against foreign
> enemies, but potentially against an abusive government.
> And that’s why the right to keep and bear arms is
> there, why it is guaranteed to the citizens of this
> country and why we would be in grave danger if we
> ever lose the ability to respect the instruments of
> our defense and to make responsible use of them.
>
> Mr. Keyes went on to say,
>
> We as citizens have a right to keep a gun in
> the event that things go wrong in this country.
> Jefferson, others who were part of the founders,
> they made it very clear, and it is right there
> in the Declaration, that if a government becomes
> subversive of liberty and, in the end, a design
> if evinced to destroy the liberty of the people,
> they have a right, he said, they have a duty to
> abolish or alter it.
>
> Mr. Keyes went on to say,
>
> We are at the end of a century when the abuse of
> human beings by government power has claimed the
> lives of millions of human beings. The suggestion
> that human nature has somehow changed since the
> founding period when we no longer have to fear the
> abuse of government power is too absurd at the end
> of the 20th century that I don’t even want to
> address it.
>
> Human nature is the same now as when the document was
> written, and we can no more put trust in those who have
> government power than our founders could.
>
> I would think anybody who lived in this country in the
> last several years and watched the abuse of power
> that took place at Waco is reminded that sometimes the
> people in our government, for whatever reason best known
> only to themselves, lose sight of who they are supposed
> to be. Waco was a thoroughly disgusting, tragic and
> un-American episode in which Janet Reno said that
> because they were tired, they went in and killed all of
> those people, including children. I think it is time to
> remember that yes, power can be abused.
>
> Mr. Speaker, we should have learned long ago that once you give a
> small amount of power to the Federal Government, it seizes much more.
> Catching and punishing criminals, in most cases, has been the
> business of the States, and it should remain so. The horrors that we
> have seen at the hands of Federal agents show us this.
>
> Let us not fall into this latest ruse designed to intimidate honest
> citizens out of owning and selling guns legally. ATF’s gun control
> by coercion.
>
> Mr. Speaker, we do not need 500 more of these ATF agents; we need
> 500 fewer.
> ———–