I WONDER IF THE PEOPLE WHO COMPLAINED ABOUT TIPS will complain about this use of snitch-on-your-neighbors data?

Montgomery County police said yesterday that they will use tens of thousands of tips from the October sniper hunt to track down those who violate Maryland gun laws.

“Our goal is to reduce illegal firearm possessions and violent crimes,” said Capt. Nancy Demme, spokeswoman for the Montgomery County Police Department. She also said the intensive crackdown would begin in the county in a few weeks.

The mission will be carried out by a task force of county and state police officers, as well as federal agents of the Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

This is sure to produce less cooperation in the future. And it explains why so many gun owners don’t trust the authorities: They’ve seen things used as excuses for anti-gun sweeps in the past.

Couple this sort of thing with the abusive behavior exhibited by FBI agents toward gun owners when the sniper investigation was underway, and it seems evident that the ham-handed incompetence of the FBI is, once again, damaging the war on terror and creating a locus of opposition in the United States.

This is just pathetic. How stupid do you have to be to do this kind of stuff? Not too stupid to have a management position at the FBI or ATF, apparently.