ATF raid in Lewisville. Guns, ammo confiscated.

[Keith B]

What's a "sealed federal search warrant"? What's the point of sealing it, which I presume means nobody can know what's in it.
Is that so you can change it later to match whatever you find in the search?

Sometimes a sealed warrant means somebody snitched and they don't want an identity revealed as there is an ongoing investigation.

Yeah, I understand that LEOs wouldn't have as many good "busts" if people didn't snitch on each other...but that sealed warrant stuff is EXACTLY the kind of thing that ticks people off. Its not that any of us have a problem with ACTUAL CROOKS like this man getting arrested for stealing government property. But if the BATFE had a pretty good idea the guy had a bunch of stolen machine-gun barrels, then they should have just busted him for the barrels instead of playing all this cloak-and-dagger behind the scenes stuff. If the system is so twisted they feel they HAVE TO play these sorts of "games" to "win", well they need to take a good long look at how it got that way in the first place...mostly because of people of the same political persuasion as they are working for right now.

When you are dealing with these types of cases there are networks, and the sealed warrent many times is to help cover up what they actually have found and help get them leads on where the stuff came from and where it was going to without tipping off the metwork members. Undercover work is a lot more complex than just going in Rambo style and 'busting' the one guy.

[Heartland Patriot]

What's a "sealed federal search warrant"? What's the point of sealing it, which I presume means nobody can know what's in it.
Is that so you can change it later to match whatever you find in the search?

Sometimes a sealed warrant means somebody snitched and they don't want an identity revealed as there is an ongoing investigation.

Yeah, I understand that LEOs wouldn't have as many good "busts" if people didn't snitch on each other...but that sealed warrant stuff is EXACTLY the kind of thing that ticks people off. Its not that any of us have a problem with ACTUAL CROOKS like this man getting arrested for stealing government property. But if the BATFE had a pretty good idea the guy had a bunch of stolen machine-gun barrels, then they should have just busted him for the barrels instead of playing all this cloak-and-dagger behind the scenes stuff. If the system is so twisted they feel they HAVE TO play these sorts of "games" to "win", well they need to take a good long look at how it got that way in the first place...mostly because of people of the same political persuasion as they are working for right now.

When you are dealing with these types of cases there are networks, and the sealed warrent many times is to help cover up what they actually have found and help get them leads on where the stuff came from and where it was going to without tipping off the metwork members. Undercover work is a lot more complex than just going in Rambo style and 'busting' the one guy.

Okay, I understand what you are saying. It just seems that machine-gun barrels wouldn't be that hard to track back to where they came from. It almost certainly had to be from a military unit and they have to keep records. I was an equipment custodian for hundreds of thousands of dollars in electronics and test equipment at a couple of different bases and had to do annual inventories. I was responsible for that stuff after I signed for it and it was my paycheck, stripes, and career on the line if any of it wasn't accounted for. I know machine-gun barrels are consumables, so to speak, but someone is supposed to be tracking that stuff, you can bet on it. Maybe that's why I'm wound up, because in my mind, I'm thinking of some dirty service-member enabling this kind of thing. And then, of course, it just gives the press another opportunity to smear "gun people".

[C-dub]

Or maybe they are still protecting someone undercover somewhere. Or maybe I watch too much television.

[baldeagle]

What's a "sealed federal search warrant"? What's the point of sealing it, which I presume means nobody can know what's in it.
Is that so you can change it later to match whatever you find in the search?

Warrants are usually sealed for one of two reasons; to protect a witness, undercover officer or suspect's identity (innocent until proven guilty, remember?) or to prevent the information from leaking to the parties subject to the search so they can escape before the warrant is served.

[rationality.rebooted]

Okay, I understand what you are saying. It just seems that machine-gun barrels wouldn't be that hard to track back to where they came from. It almost certainly had to be from a military unit and they have to keep records. I was an equipment custodian for hundreds of thousands of dollars in electronics and test equipment at a couple of different bases and had to do annual inventories. I was responsible for that stuff after I signed for it and it was my paycheck, stripes, and career on the line if any of it wasn't accounted for. I know machine-gun barrels are consumables, so to speak, but someone is supposed to be tracking that stuff, you can bet on it. Maybe that's why I'm wound up, because in my mind, I'm thinking of some dirty service-member enabling this kind of thing. And then, of course, it just gives the press another opportunity to smear "gun people".

I hate to make anyone doubt the military, but I could see this happening. I just came out of command with over $100 million on my property book and am entering a command with twice that. The spare barrels are accountable but they're not tracked by any sort of serial number. All of our weapons, high dollar items, and sensitive items (night vision, thermals, commo) is checked by serial number 100% every month, but by regulation, we're only required to account for (as commanders at least) all of the components and basic issue items for each end item once per year (there just isn't enough time to look at every property book item and every component of that item every month; some units will do 10% of the whole property book every month, which ends up allowing you to see everything in 10 months). Regulations say that the person who is directly responsible for that item, i.e. the armorer, is accountable at all times, but eh...

The good thing is that the barrels are considered non-expendable and in order to order another one, it would take significant authorization and questions would have to be answered and someone's feet are getting burned if it were lost, but that's not necessarily as true for weapons that spent a lot of time rotating from unit to unit in Iraq or Afghanistan. There is theater-provided equipment (TPE) that gets signed over from one unit to the next like a rental car, and we all know how people treat rental cars... I'm absolutely positive that someone could have brought back a lot of spare barrels they weren't supposed to and then slowly siphoned them off without anyone noticing and there's no way to track them back to a particular unit.

Sorry, hopefully I didn't get too off topic, just thought I could add a unique perspective.