Well, well, what do we have here?

A very interesting report which states that the jack-booted agency known as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has some housekeeping problems of its own to work on, that's what.

A Department of Justice Inspector General's report states that Carl J. Truscott , who recently resigned as the head of the ATF, ordered 20 employees over 10 months, using significant government resources, to help with his nephew's high school homework, a documentary about the ATF. If that wasn't enough, Truscott "failed to fully accept responsibility for the project by minimizing the extent of ATF resources that were committed to it" and tried to justify his staff's help as a form of community outreach.". Nice try, though.

Truscott is also accused of wasting federal money by taking unnecessarily expensive trips, as well as planning on spending $100,000 on a gym at ATF headquarters (are the machines gold-plated?), and, of course, "demanding a larger security detail than needed". I find that last one to be the most ironic. The head of the agency that set up Randy Weaver and his family at Ruby Ridge, as well as the Branch Davidians at Waco (whatever you think of the personal qualities of these two groups, they were most assuredly set up) gets his own personal armed guard, while honest firearms dealers (not criminal ones) lose sleep over not crossing a T or dotting an I, incurring a visit from the dreaded bureau that seems to delight in finding any reason at all to shut a gun shop down, depriving Joe Peasant of a place to purchase a firearm to defend himself and his family. ATF regulations are notoriously onerous and restrictive, such as the fact that a dealer pretty much must have a storefront to obtain a FFL nowadays. Someone who wants to be a "kitchen table" dealer has many problems doing so, as seen in a quote from this article:

"The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) acknowledged that these kitchen table dealers were not a problem; they sold only a few guns per year to people whom they personally knew to be good citizens. But BATF claimed that the need to perform inspections of the kitchen table dealers kept BATF inspection agents so busy that they did not have enough time to do repeat inspections of stocking gun dealers. So starting in 1993, BATF began a program to drive the kitchen table dealers out of business. Threats from BATF agents, deliberate bureaucratic delays and other forms of harassment not only convinced most kitchen table dealers to cease operations, but also caused many small-scale stocking gun dealers to surrender or not renew their licenses.Some of these low-volume ex-licensees sell firearms at gun shows. Since BATF took away their licenses under the claim that the licensees were not selling enough guns to be engaged in the business, it would hardly be fair to claim that these people are violating federal law by not having a license."

This disproportionately negatively affects lower-income people, who have to buy self-defense weapons from a place with significant overhead, raising prices.

Oh, and lest you think the ATF's problems are over with the departure of Mr. Truscott, the Inspector General received an anonymous letter from ATF employees on September 22, stating that "three ATF assistant directors also were mismanaging agency funds by commuting to work in government-owned cars, promoting relatives and arranging weeklong conferences for employees at resorts like the Hard Rock Casino in Los [sic] Vegas."

Stay tuned.