Do you think the feds are right in raiding Gibson, one of the oldest guitar makers in our country?

Federal Agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service raided factories and offices of Gibson Guitar in Memphis and Nashville on Wednesday, seizing wood pallets, electronic files and guitars. Federal authorities are apparently investigating Gibson for the alleged importation and use of illegal wood. The Wall Street Journal reported this morning on this highly “aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle.”

The Journal reports that the raid this past Wednesday was not the first time that agents of Fish and Wildlife came after Gibson guitars. Gibson is already fighting a federal lawsuit that stemmed from a 2009 federal raid, but this raid seems to have upped the stakes. The real issue here seems to be the bureaucratic minutia of federal environmental regulations that increasingly pervade all aspects of American life.

Environmental regulations cover your home, your business, and now even your guitar. “It’s not enough to know that the body of your old guitar is made of spruce and maple: What’s the bridge made of? If it’s ebony, do you have the paperwork to show when and where that wood was harvested and when and where it was made into a bridge?

Is the nut holding the strings at the guitar’s headstock bone, or could it be ivory? Certainly, the dedication of federal resources for the harassment of a private musical instrument producer reinforces already negative perceptions about the Obama administration’s hyper-regulatory environment. Given the current economic climate, and the recent Obama administration decision to de-prioritize deportation of illegal immigrants in a way that appears to many as backdoor amnesty, the case against Gibson is raising many eyebrows.