imported post
There are several good books addressing this issue, erps. Basiclly the argument is that the more "police power" disparit agencies gather to themselves, the more they become the very definition of Jackbooted thugs.
A perfect example is the BATF, a tax agency that is supposed to make sure the little tax stamp is affixed to your cigarette pack, that personal brewers only make less than 100 gal per year and that those that own full auto weapons have a sheet of paper with the Tax stamp affixed to the description of the weapon along with its serial number. Their entire mandate is the Gun Control Act of 1934, most of which is illegal under the Heller decision.
Operation "ShowTime", the raid on the Waco Texas compound of the Branch Dravidian was a culmination of Abuses the BATF had been ringing up. Men sent to jail because a stick of wood was too short or because a number was wrong on a Federal Form, men shot in the head on false information given by an informant. Given these Abuses, Congress was going to snap them back by reducing their funding, so this was to be a big bust to bolster their funding. In the case of Waco, the Dravidian's were supposedly hoarding full Auto weapons (a charge that was later disavowed and dropped by the BATF).
Please note that the charges were not that they Fired the weapons, merely that they possessed them, which is not contrary to Texas law. Their contention was that they had not paid the $200 TAX on the transfer, that they did not have a piece of paper with the TAX stamp affixed to it. If the Dravidians had whipped these documents out, the BATF raid would have ended right there.
Three trailer loads of Agents in black Ninja suits and HK's stormed the compound of the branch Dravidians, throwing flashbangs and screaming and precipitated a fiasco that left 4 agents dead and several wounded (Most from their own weapons!) and a stand off that lasted till the compound burned to the ground and 93 Americans burned up in that fire.
If the IRS seizes assets by Judicial lien, the local sheriff can put a lock on the door. If the IRS wants to examine records, it can have the FBI cart off the records and Laptops. If the IRS wants to accuse me of Tax Evasion, then it can speak to my lawyer. Since they can't even answer simple questions about even their own tax code which has reached beyond human understanding, I think it insane to allow them to point a shotgun at the head of a citizen over what may well be a misunderstanding or a point of tax law.
Arming Federal agencies not in the regular business of hunting down violent criminals is the construction of a police state and should not be tolerated in a free society.
Erps, a good book you should read is "Unintended Consequences" by John Ross dealing with this very subject.
