one battle at a time...great ....

Good bye and if everyone believes that local and state police agencies are competent, professional and honest why not do away with the DEA? If you don't believe the local and state agencies are competent, professional and honest why not do away with them?

I have always been in favor of de-activating most of the "alphabet" agencies. Does not really matter where you start, it just requires a Congress not composed of mostly eunuchs.

Yep - it's hard to "lay off" a government worker, but it's pretty easy to just get rid of an entire agency.

Dept of Education, ATF, DHS, etc.. all good places to start without affecting anyone else's life.

Absolutely agree that bureaucratic instructions must come with accountability in the event of compliance failure. It is the main reason our government is so intractable in the first place.

The basic idea is excellent. In order for the provisions of any law eliminating the ATF to have any effect though there must be a downside to not following it. For example if there is a deadline for reporting excess property to a bureau responsible for eliminating it, failure to meet the deadline would render all that bureau's property as excess and name a private entity that would assume control of it.
The problem is that bureaucrats have demonstrated that they have little respect for the wishes of congress and must be taught the hard way.

I will vote for elimination of ATF, also DEA, DOT, EPA. As to FDA, their monopoly power to control manufacture and distribution of drugs needs to stop NOW. There needs to be competition.

that would be great, hope he is successful.

count me in...

Perfect start! Excellent. Laws should be made by Congress, and enforcement by a general police. We don't need an agency that legislates from the Executive Branch and enforces it's own legislation.
DEA next?

I have time to spare. :) You have talent.

We know you have the talent. ;)

oh. give me some time...and talent

Hello khalling,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FDlc...
Indeed. I am still waiting for the second one to be released in paper and ink. :(
Regards,
O.A.

and they are evil. today, another story of drug cartel violence in Playa del Carmen. 8 dead, 11 injured. at a nightclub. the ATF has been nailed many times for supporting the drug warsin the US> I wonder how many of the weapons used in this recent shooting walked with the work from that evil ABC. be gone now, before someone drops a house on you. I co-wrote a novel to show their evil duplicity

Hello blarman,
Good. The ATF should be the name of a convenience store. :) There are too many bureaucracies with overlapping responsibilities.
Respectfully,
O.A.

If you read carefully, the bill would transfer the responsibilities to the FBI, which already has parallel jurisdiction on most of these items. I understand your objection, but I think this is more elimination of duplication than anything else.

One down, more to go. Pretty please?

It will likely be much more difficult to wrest power from a big coercive bureaucracy than from a smaller one.

I agree with WS and blarman. If you can get rid of an agency like this, do it. The repercussions of how other agencies take over their role with can be dealt with separately.

Eliminating a bureaucracy is important, but more important is scaling back its powers. Transferring the ATF's powers to other law enforcement agencies may have the unintended consequence of turning the government into an even more efficient violator of rights.

Since every agency seems to need a private army with military-grade weapons, the fewer agencies we have, the better!

The following is a hypothetical argument, but please do consider it.
Getting rid of the ATF requires someone to take over the responsibilities of the ATF to collect the taxes placed on these three items. Sin the A (Alcohol) and T (Tobacco) are money raising entities and are considered taxes the IRS would most likely claim resonsability to collect them. You really want the IRS getting more power and and a wider reach than it already has.
Just getting rid of the ATF is not a solution. It is a half solution unless you get rid of the taxers on Alcohol and Tobacco over and above the normal taxes extorted from businesses and citizens. Not that Congress will let go of any means of increasing its power to take money from citizens, corporate or other.