Dems Call for More Gun Control in Light of Operation Fast and Furious

Townhall.com ^ | June 30, 2011 | Katie Pavlich

[Kaslin]

What’s the answer to failed government? More government!

In the June Issue of Townhall Magazine, I wrote Misfire: Obama's Scandalous Secret Gun Control Agenda, about how Operation Fast and Furious would result in calls for more gun control and I questioned whether officials in the Obama Justice Department purposely allowed thousands of semi-automatic weapons to flow into the hands of dangerous drug cartels in order to meet President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder’s goal of re-instating the ban on assault rifles and other forms of harsh gun control.

During an Oversight Committee hearing on June 15, Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings stated the following: “No legitimate examination of this issue will be complete without analyzing our nation’s gun laws, which allow tens of thousands of assault weapons to flood into Mexico from the United States every year, including fifty caliber sniper rifles, multiple AK variants and scores of others. When Mexican President Calderon addressed Congress in May, he pleaded for us to stop fueling a full-scale drug war with military-grade assault rifles.”

The problem is, as Mr. Cummings failed to point out, many of these weapons were been provided directly to violent cartel members courtesy of the U.S. government, not because of “lax” gun control laws.

Today, democrats on the House Oversight Committee, led by Rep. Cummings, issued a report calling for more gun control in light of Operation Fast and Furious. Their solution to the Obama Justice Department’s Operation Fast and Furious scandal is to give the same officials who purposely broke U.S. federal law within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) overseen by the Justice Department, even more power and control over American gun rights, stomping on the Second Amendment to defend government incompetency rather than placing responsibility on Washington bureaucrats.  

During the same hearing on June 15 we found out ATF Director Kenneth Melson watched a live video feed from his cushy Washington D.C. office of straw purchasers in Arizona, who he knew were working for Mexican drug cartels, buying mass amounts of weapons, but democrats like Cummings are blaming the Second Amendment for the lethal consequences of the operation.

The report executive summary outlines “three specific improvements to current law that would allow law enforcement to more effectively counter firearms trafficking by Mexican drug cartels,” including calls for Congress to increase criminal penalties for illegal straw purchases, enacting a dedicated firearms trafficking statute, requiring reports of multiple long gun purchases and a Congressional delegation to Mexico.

The report calls for improvement of the nation’s gun laws “to assist law enforcement agents in their efforts to counter drug violence and firearms trafficking by Mexican drug cartels,” stating these are “common sense” ways to help.

“ATF tracing data indicates that the number of U.S. firearms seized in Mexico is increasing dramatically,” the report states.

Once again, U.S. government officials have been illegally trafficking the firearms, therefore more gun laws won’t stop illegal trafficking and will only punish law abiding citizens and impose on Second Amendment rights.

The report claims 75 percent of guns traced to Mexico were originally purchased in the border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

“ATF’s chief intelligence analyst in Mexico, Dennis Fasciani, confirmed for the delegation that the vast majority of weapons recovered at crime scenes in Mexico do come from the United States,” the report states.

Again, considering the U.S. government was illegally trafficking these guns south of the border, it makes sense data indicates the number of U.S. firearms seized in Mexico has increased significantly thanks to the Obama Justice Department. This data doesn’t even take into account the number of guns lost in Mexico since the only way the U.S. government can trace firearms is when they are found at final crime scenes. The rest are lost until someone is killed.

The report also accuses the United States of  “fueling a torrent of violence in Mexico.”

According to Dr. Arturo Cervantes Trjo who contributed to the report, “there have been at least 34, 550 homicides in Mexico from 2006 to 2010. The number of homicides has increased dramatically, from 8,868 in 2007, to 14,007 in 2008, to 19,804 in 2009, to an estimated 15,000 for the part of 2010 included in the data. According to his report, the number of drug-related killings has also increased during this time, from 2,773 in 2007, to 5,661 in 2008, to 8,281 in 2009.”

Operation Fast and Furious started in 2008, yet even with the homicide data clear, Rep. Cummings doesn’t draw the conclusion that maybe, just maybe this had something to do with ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious instead of U.S. gun laws. The idea that providing violent criminals with high powered weapons would result in an increase in homicides doesn’t make sense to Cummings, but blaming U.S. gun laws does.

The report also cites the June 27 smear job of an editorial from the Washington Post, the same newpaper that smeared Carter's Country Gun Shop in Texas after they were forced by ATF to sell to criminals. The editorial read, "Lawmakers should give the ATF the tools it needs to fight illegal gun trafficking. They should enact stronger penalties for straw purchases and craft a federal gun-smuggling statute; close the gun-show loophole, which allows buyers under certain circumstances to purchase weapons without a background check; resuscitate the ban on assault weapons; and give the ATF the authority to collect data on multiple sales of long guns in border states. The Senate should move quickly to confirm a director for the long-leaderless bureau."

Bottom line: Officials within the Obama Justice Department have been breaking, not enforcing, current guns laws. It doesn’t matter how many more gun laws the U.S. government imposes on the law abiding public, a government willing to break its own laws for political gain without common sense or basis on factual evidence, will only lead to more corruption and more innocent deaths in Mexico and the United States. Operation Fast and Furious is a result of illegal government activity, not lax gun laws.

[Kaslin]

Second Amendment was primarily intended to protect us from government. People who rail against out-of-control government and always genuflect at the mention of its armed enforcers are delusional.

Exactly, but I hope you did notice that the bold in my post was sarcasm, and since it is a fact that criminals will never turn in their guns, neither should law abiding citizen have to.

[KarlInOhio]

This was the original reason for the Gunwalker program. They really didn't care about drug cartels taking over Mexico. They just wanted to "find" a large number of American sold guns in Mexico, have a few news conferences about it and then demand gun control here. But that idea will fail if it becomes general knowledge that a huge number of those guns went to Mexico with government knowledge and permission. Thus they want to push for controls now before Issa's findings become widely known. When surrounded, charge!

[antiRepublicrat]

three specific improvements to current law that would allow law enforcement to more effectively counter firearms trafficking by Mexican drug cartels

1. Kick Obama out of office
2. Put management of ATF, DHS and Holder in jail
3. Disband the ATF, allow the FBI and state law enforcement to do it

[ExpatGator]

Yeah, but watch out for an executive order in an “emergency”.

[SusaninOhio]

‘How about some Obama and Eric Holder control?’

My first thought exactly.

[Texan]

I think every law abiding citizen should turn in their guns, when the criminals turn in theirs

Nope, not then, not ever.

[Kaslin]

You must have missed the sarcasm

[Roninf5-1]

I'm afraid that Mr. Issa is not doing his job

Issa is doing his job. He is providing cover for his Dumbocan pals. He makes a lot of noise, says a few platitudes and slogans to keep armed right wingers off the street while at the end of the day he lets these traitors conspire to dismantle the 2nd Amendment unmolested. The GOP gets paid to keep conservatives distracted, disoriented, and ineffectual.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

...including fifty caliber sniper rifles...

The number of crimes committed with 50 cal rifles can be counted on one hand with fingers left over.

[redgolum]

Even after the op was blown, they are keeping at it.

Kind of sad in a way. No one is really paying enough attention. I shudder to think about what is coming down the pike.

[VeniVidiVici]

Obama, Holder and Cummings need to arrested. Project Gunwalker was nothing more than an attempt by the Democrats to support their bogus claim that the majority of weapons in Mexico come from the US.

[Joe Brower]

Enemy action ping.

Exactly as we have predicted here for some time now. The Hegelian Dialectic in full effect.

Doom on these treasonous bastards.

[mbynack]

I suspected that this was the motive all along. They prevent the system from working in order to condemn it as ineffective.

I think it's a great reason to implement government control, not gun control.

[Dead Corpse]

The left can not accept that the 2nd amendment is not just words on a page but the law of the land.

And they will continue to do so until someone evacuates their cranial vault with 168gr of Pb moving at 3200fps.

[Dick Bachert]

No nation can tolerate treason,
for traitors are never in season.
But Obozo’s on course,
with Marx as his source,
and when asked, smirks and says “I’ve my reasons.”

[ZULU]

ASTONISHED!!! I am DUMBFOUNDED that the Democrats would conclude from their mismanagement of a bungled operation involving firearms that they would call for GUN CONTROL!!!
(saracsm)

I think the NRA should HIRE that agent who was fired for whistleblowing and BANKROLL his suit of ATF for unlawful discharge and retalliation. My guess is the stream of pollution from that agency (ATF)reaches all the way up to the Obamanation, who had made oblique statements about his administration pursuing methods to effectuate gun control.

More fodder for Impeachment and/or the campaign in 2012.

[SandRat]

and Janet Napaitano control.

[Noumenon]

Right on the money, Joe. And here's the thing about Hegelian triangulation, as I like to call it. The Wikipedia entry sas that, "

The formula, Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis, does not explain why the Thesis requires an Antithesis. However, the formula, Abstract-Negative-Concrete, suggests a flaw in any initial thesis—it is too abstract and lacks the negative of trial, error and experience."

But there are other even more important issues to consider. First, the thesis-antithesis dynamic works best for the Left if one or poth of the opposing pair consists of a strawman argument - and that's one the areas in which the Left excels. The second flaw in the whole thesis-antithesis-synthesis trope is that once hijacked by strawman arguments or other fallacies, it allows the originator to re-frame the whole argument, usually substantially to the left. The corrupt users of this trope are counting on never having any of their premises challenged or their strawman fallacies exposed. That's why we we must always disrupt the method by doing precisely that. The howls of outrage and name-calling are the signs that they've lost the whole argument.

[jospehm20]

I bet the .50s that BATFE sent to the cartels will not be used for only target shooting.

[smoothsailing]

Thought maybe you’d be interested....

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=70d6a3d3-0e2f-4465-9b59-9e0f78b4f0e0