Whois & Analysis for fastbound.com

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is a federal law enforcement organization within the United States Department of Justice.

Its responsibilities include the investigation and prevention of federal offenses involving the unlawful use, manufacture, and possession of firearms and explosives; acts of arson and bombings; and illegal trafficking of alcohol and tobacco products.

The ATF also regulates via licensing the sale, possession, and transportation of firearms, ammunition, and explosives in interstate commerce.

Many of ATF's activities are carried out in conjunction with task forces made up of state and local law enforcement officers, such as Project Safe Neighborhoods.

ATF operates a unique fire research laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, where full-scale mock-ups of criminal arson can be reconstructed.

The agency is led by Thomas E.

Brandon, Acting Director, and Ronald B.

Turk, Acting Deputy Director.

ATF has 4,770 employees, and an annual budget of $1.15 billion (2012).

In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes or letters are joined as a single glyph.

An example is the character æ as used in English, in which the letters a and e are joined.

The common ampersand (&) developed from a ligature in which the handwritten Latin letters e and t (spelling et, from the Latin for "and") were combined.

A contract is a voluntary arrangement between two or more parties that is enforceable by law as a binding legal agreement.

Contract is a branch of the law of obligations in jurisdictions of the civil law tradition.

Contract law concerns the rights and duties that arise from agreements.