Great Falls Gun Shop Owner Feels He Was Raped By The Federal Government.

Wednesday morning at 7:30 twenty IRS agents showed up at the Highwood Creek gun shop telling the owner of the store that he was under investigation for criminally hiding money.   That's what store owner Tom VanHoose told us in an exclusive interview.  The gun shop owner says the IRS agents were either carrying handguns or AR-15 rifles, "they're what the libtards call assault rifles," he said. VanHoose believes the 20 agents with guns was an attempt to intimidate.

In all, the agents spent ten hours at the gun shop going through computer records and paper records looking for evidence that might show VanHoose has been hiding money (income) from the IRS.  He said the agents were nice but that "still doesn't mean that I didn't feel like I was raped by our government, because I do."

VanHoose says this is not the first time the feds have poked around his business.  He says an FBI agent was outside his building a while back taking pictures of his business.  He says Homeland security has also been poking around.   The gun shop owner feels he may have been targeted because of the type of guns he sells and the fact that he sells silencers.

What about a search warrant?  Vanhoose says they would only show him the front page of the search warrant and not the other pages that spelled out exactly what they were looking for.  VanHoose says the IRS agents were from Denver, Missoula, Billings and Helena.

We also talked to Cascade County Sheriff Jesse Slaughter to ask him about comments from the public yesterday that said he was suppose to be notified ahead of time about the IRS raid.  He said there is no law that says he has to be notified.   Efforts were made last legislative session to pass such a law but it failed in the house.  Slaughter says one of the reasons the public might want him notified is because he is the top elected officer in the county.  Great Falls Police were the only ones notified prior to the raid.  The sheriff was notified after the raid began.