Austin Police behaving badly – Updated and Bumped

The Austin Police acting with the BATF are reportedly pressuring a gun show promoter to only allow sales to and from licensed FFL dealers at local gun shows.

The Texas Gun Shows website has this notice:

Also this flyer was handed out at the show:

A commenter on the TexasBowhunter.com forum was at the show in Austin:

I was at the Austin show on Saturday, and talked to several people, including some associated with the show promoters. The story I got…

The FFL rule at the Austin show was a condition of the lease on the building from the venue owners (HEB Grocery). There is no State/local law mandating FFL only firearm sales. The property owners were within their rights to institute the FFL requirement

Supposedly…HEB met with APD and the ATF and they “urged” HEB to institute the FFL rule, based on their outstanding investigations from prior shows of “questionable gun sales”. The LEO’s supposedly hinted at potential liability issues for HEB’s continued running of this venue if they didn’t institute the FFL rule. The people we talked to felt it was an over zealous reaction from the local LEO agencies to pressure the venue owners.

I don’t think this is an indication of a larger action. I think it’s just some local officials getting too big for their britches!

If the shows in Austin continue the way this one was run, the only people who will attend it are uninformed newbies.

Granted, Austin is a liberal cesspool but this is bad even for them. Interfering in lawful commerce is not good. I’d expect no less from the BATF but I thought the Austin PD would have known better.

I’ve contacted the promoter asking for more info. I’ll update when/if I talk to them.

UPDATE:

I received this reply from the promoter:

Thank you for your response. If you have the time, please go to:

www.gcnlive.com/directory.php

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