[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 1160-1161]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                    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

[[Page 1161]]

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.

                              {time}  1930

  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.

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