Everyone here should take a few minutes to read the article you linked to your post. It's very revealing on several levels. Here, we have a retailer that allegedly committed multiple violations of Federal Firearms law, yet was allowed to continue to be engaged in the business. That suggests to me that the Feds were either lax in their enforcement and prosecution efforts, or that the whole thing was grossly exaggerated. And why would we need more gun laws if the ones we have are not being enforced?
Another thing that jumps out at me is the number of firearms and the types of firearms involved that were said to be unaccounted for. The numbers included every type of firearm they sold. Contrast that with an almost identical number of large capacity semi-auto assault style guns that were allowed to be illegally transported into Mexico under Operation Fast and Furious under the Obama/Holder Justice Dept. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
Then there's the fact that such a high volume store close to Seattle never had an ATF Inspection until 2005. Contrast that with th number of very small dealers who were routinely inspected, audited, and harassed until they simply quit the business under the Clinton Administration. That kind of discredits the author's allegation that this problem was caused by the Gun Lobby tying the hands of the ATF.
I'd guess that a lot of the problems were caused by simply by a lax sales and accounting system where paperwork just got lost or destroyed, and there was a failure to follow up and record sales in the bound ledger books as required by law. A similar thing happened to the shop run by the old WWII Nazi Veteran German Gunsmith who was located a short bike ride from my Dad's house as I was growing up. If he knew you and had no reason to think you were a bad guy, then he simply sold you the gun and there was no 3 day waiting period. If he didn't know you, then you had to wait. And if there was some reason he didn't trust you, he just plain would not sell you a gun. Because of that, I doubt if many guns sold by him ended up being used in any crimes. His wife took care of the books, but she wasn't always there, so some transactions didn't get recorded properly and he ended up being forced out of the business. It was a cool place to visit.
