By: Anthony Morelli
Most gun owners who live in Republican states think their gun rights are secure.
But the ATF knows no limits in their crackdown on the Second Amendment.
And they have initiated a major gun control push in the last state you would expect.
Most people think of Alabama as being one of the reddest states in America, with laws that are friendly to gun owners and conservative across the board.
While that is generally true, there are still local officials within Alabama who are more than happy to partner with the ATF to crack down on guns.
This isn’t a phenomenon that is unique to Alabama, either. Just because a state is Republican doesn’t mean it’s always going to be friendly to gun rights.
There are still elected officials with different views on the issue, and some are going to be far less friendly to it than others.
That is unfortunately playing out in a very public way in the city of Birmingham, Alabama, right now.
The ATF has moved in and is cracking down on guns in the city in a way that has shocked people living in the state.
According to WVTM 13, “A federal push to stop gun violence is underway in Birmingham.”
“On Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the ATF joined Birmingham’s police chief and mayor to announce ‘Operation Flip the Switch.’”
“The program will focus on getting machine gun conversion devices like auto sears, also known as Glock switches, off the streets.”
While they are claiming to only be going after certain types of accessories, this is the kind of crackdown that will make gun owners very uncomfortable.
And it is quite disheartening to see it taking place, with the blessing of local officials, in a state like Alabama where guns are such a routine part of the culture.
Here’s what U.S. Attorney Prim Escalona said: “The violence that we are seeing in our communities is flagrant and unacceptable. Machine gun conversion devices have no place in our community. Though small in size, a switch is deadly, and a lot of innocent people can be injured with one pull of the trigger. People should feel safe in their homes, neighborhoods, and public spaces. That is why we will use every tool in our toolbox to aggressively prosecute those who possess such deadly devices.”
What Escalona left out is that gun owners should also be able to feel safe in their homes, neighborhoods, and public spaces, and not feel like they are being targeted.
That doesn’t seem to be a high priority for the ATF, which is devoted as an agency towards cracking down on the Second Amendment.
This type of crackdown is not just happening in states like New York or Massachusetts, as most people would expect, but even in a state like Alabama which is very conservative.
It remains to be seen how long it will take before there is organized political pushback against this program and the officials backing it have second thoughts.