My uncle's ATF(?) story.

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AlanM
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Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2005 1:38 am
Location: Was Stow, OH now Charlottesville, VA

My uncle's ATF(?) story.

Post by AlanM »

This just bubbled up out of my memory (as it does every once in a while) and I've finally decided to pass it on.
Over 50 some years ago the widower husband of my father's sister was visiting us in Spokane and he related this visit from (I'm assuming) a couple of ATF agents.
He lived in Fairbanks, Alaska in a small cabin.
Now, when he told this it was about 1962 and I have no idea if the paperwork he had to fill out was for the state or federal and I don't know if the weapon(s) involved were class 3 or not.
All I know is that two government agents showed up at his cabin with copies of his forms and requested to do an inventory/inspection of the guns listed.
Now, as my uncle related it, on one form for a shotgun, under "location" he had entered "under the bed".
As the agents were doing their inspection one pointed to a curtained doorway and asked, "Is that the bedroom?"
My uncle answered in the affirmative.
"My I?", the agent asked.
"Certainly." was the response.
The agent went in, got down on his knees, lifted the bed spread, looked under the bed and said, "Yep." , and made a check mark on his papers.

A few years after that last visit, just before Christmas my uncle got off work, stopped in a bar for one beer before walking home. He slipped on a ice patch, hit the back of his head on the concrete, and died three days later.

OH, I JUST THIS MINUTE remembered that he had told me that he had gotten his tax stamp to buy a Thompson Machine gun.
I guess that implies that he was a class 3 device collector and the agents were, in fact, BATF.
I have NO idea what happened to his collection. Neither I nor my father heard anything about it.
AlanM
There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men. - RAH
Four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo - use in that order.
If you aren't part of the solution, then you obviously weren't properly dissolved.
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