
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 26, 1993                   TAG: 9305270309
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

A `MONSTER' WITH NO RESTRAINTS

IF THE ELEMENT of surprise was so important to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' raid in Waco, Texas, why was the press invited to go? Because the purpose of the raid was to get the agents' pictures taken with some ugly guns. It was a dog-and-pony show for the anti-gun media and the congressional Ways and Means Committee.

The ATF is a bureaucratic monster motivated entirely by the appropriations process. I am glad to see that Paxton Davis (April 30 column, "Scrutinize what agents wrought in Waco tragedy") agrees with me. Most liberals throw their highly vaunted concern for due process out the window where the enforcement of gun laws is concerned. I sincerely appreciate Davis sticking to his principles on this issue.

The shoot-out is the exception that proves the rule. The ATF is accustomed to using these swaggering, intimidating tactics against honest people who would never dream of resisting the serving of a lawful warrant. When ATF agents encountered someone crazy enough to shoot back, they suffered 20 percent casualties and retreated.

The ATF is in the habit of bringing charges against harmless people, and intimidating them into guilty pleas by threatening to ruin them with legal fees. All of this is to pad their arrest numbers with innocent people for the purpose of taking those numbers to Congress to justify budget requests.

When government can pay someone to make a statement against a group of citizens, then serve a warrant by shoving 100 guns into their faces, then seal up the warrant, and for it all to result in 80 people, including children, being burned to death, isn't it time we stopped pretending that our government operates under any restraint whatsoever?

The so-called independent investigation team is headed by a former ATF bureaucrat. If you attempted to serve a warrant (which local law enforcement had done before without incident), had your actions result in the burning to death of children, and if the heat of the fires was felt all the way up to the president, wouldn't you make sure you found something incriminating in the ashes? WILLIAM D. STUMP II DUBLIN

by CNB