This past weekend my wife and I went to Jacksonville to take the grandkids to a special wildlife facility and stayed at a nice motel that offers a complimentary copy of USA Weekend. A story below the fold blew my mind with the headline Agents searching for thousands of weapons stolen from ATF facility. DO WHAT??? Firearms were stolen from an ATF facility designed to destroy them? How stupid and incompetent is this? This falls right in line with the stories we've heard about some irresponsible government worker who has a laptop stolen from their car or apartment containing classified documents--and they were never supposed to take it out of their office in the first place. The article from John Diedrich with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was jaw-dropping on steroids. Now I've always thought that a federal agency combining alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives was a whacky combination. Firearms and explosives are first cousins but what the heck do booze and tobacco have to do with each other except they're both potentially addictive but how does that fit in with firearms? But I digress.
Apparently ATF agents along with their FBI and DEA counterparts are having to take time off other cases they're working on because of monumental incompetence at the ATF's Ammunition Destruction Branch in Martinsburg, West Virginia. This is the facility where federal law enforcement of all branches send their outdated firearms and ammunition. The facility has industrial equipment that literally shreds these items making them useless and I suppose can be recycled to help save the planet too! I'll quickly admit that I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer but I would think a facility of this nature would be about as secure as Fort Knox or the formula for Coca Cola. One would think that security personnel would be there 24/7-365 with security cameras and inspections galore. Workers searched when they leave to make sure they're not taking off with a gun or ammunition. Well apparently you would be wrong. It seems that a longtime (key word longtime) contract employee at said ATF facility admitted carting off thousands--THOUSANDS--of firearms, gun parts and ammunition and selling them over several--wait for it!--YEARS! Not weeks or months--years. How can this possibly happen? We have fired personnel at our station who've taken equipment they were not entitled to or asked permission and none of those items had the ability to kill anybody.
The "perp" in this case is a guard named Christopher Yates who has pleaded guilty to possession of a stolen gun and stealing government property and was charged in federal court in West Virginia back in April. He'll be sentenced in August. He faces up to ten years in prison on each count. The more you read the more horrified you should become...so here goes. So far, ATF has recovered more than--sit down--4,000 (not a misprint) guns and parts that had been reported missing while Yates worked there. He's also admitted to stealing 3,000 slides--the part that allows the gun to fire and rechamber a round for the next shot--from Glock semiautomatic hand guns along with dozens of guns. Here's the next line that's mind boggling: "He also admitted to stealing at least four fully automatic machine guns, which are closely regulated by the ATF (but apparently not as closely as they should). And so far the ATF is being closed-mouth about this so we don't know if they've gotten any of the machine guns back or not. Yates told prosecutors he stole the weapons and parts when he was alone at the facility and sold them. ATF's acting director, Tom Brandon sent a letter to U. S. Senators Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Gary Peters, D-Mich., said he couldn't say much about the Yates case since it was still under investigation. Johnson is chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security & Government Affairs while Peters is the ranking member and they too wrote a letter asking for answers saying they had been told that about 600 guns and parts were stolen.
Question or two for you: why in the world would someone be left ALONE in a facility of this nature? It doesn't matter who it is--no one should ever be alone there and then inspected when they leave to make certain they don't have a gun, gun part or even one round of ammunition. When I was in the Army we had to qualify with our weapons occasionally and when we were finished it was each soldiers responsibility to pick up our brass empties and we had to put it on a scale--they knew how much the 20 or so rounds were supposed to weigh and if it seemed suspicious you had to empty your pockets. Why not a similar procedure in Martinsburg and why in the name of everything holy aren't there cameras at such a critical facility? I endorse Safe Touch and let me recommend they call 'em! Meanwhile, the agency is still not saying publicly how many guns and gun parts have been taken, disclosing only that the loss was "significant." Now when the government admits something is "significant" you can bet the real number is mind-blowing beyond belief. It's like when they tell you a building is going to cost $25,000,000 and it winds up costing $200,000,000.
This is terrifying from people who are supposed to be protecting us. Heads should roll but what do you want to bet they don't? Nobody got fired after 9-11...some were reassigned and given raises. And the Dembulbs have the unmitigated gall to say ICE should be eliminated! I have another agency that should be on the elimination radar or at least revamped big time!