‘Real weird’: ATF criticised for Valentine’s message urging exes to report illegal gun activity

‘We would love to met and treat them to a Valentine’s Day surprise,’ the ATF tweets

The US government is celebrating Valentine's Day by asking people to turn their exes in for buying and selling guns illegally.

The official Twitter account of the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agency – the ATF – that investigates crimes tied to those items issued a tweet on Monday calling on exes to turn in their former lovers for illegally buying and selling firearms.

"Valentine's Day can still be fun even if you broke up. Do you have information about a former (or current) partner involved in illegal gun activity? Let us know, and we will make sure it's a Valentine's Day to remember! Call 1-888-ATF-TIPS or email ATFTips@atf.gov" the tweet said.

The tweet accompanied an image showing a broken heart and the contact info for the ATF, as well as a call to action.

"Got an ex who buys or sells guns illegally? We would love to meet and treat them to a Valentine's Day surprise!," the image text said.

That "surprise," of course, would be an arrest and possibly felony charges.

The message sparked some critical response online, largely based on the cheeky nature of the post and less its contents.

"If we forcibly took guns from anyone who abused a partner of any kind or children, we would have way fewer murders," anti-extremism activist Amanda Moore wrote on Twitter. "Real weird for the government to ask those most likely to be victims to do this s*** in a cutesy way. Especially when we had to fight for strangulation laws?"

Another Twitter user likened the tweet to a call for "swatting" – the act of fraudulently reporting someone to the police to elicit an armed response to the individual's home.

"P***ed at your ex? Why not get them swatted?" the user wrote.

Others brought up the ATF's checkered past.

"I know this person that massacred 70 people in Waco and ran illegal guns to Mexican drug cartels that were used to kill a US border patrol agent," Greg Pice, another Twitter user, wrote, invoking the 2012 "Fast and Furious" gunwalking scandal. "Her name is the ATF."

The tweet was retweeted by the US Justice Department, and comes at a time when the Biden White House is focused on cracking down on illegal guns proliferating the US.