“If Congressional Republicans are really intent on getting to the bottom of an ill-conceived sting operation along the border by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives,” nytimes.com opines, “they should call President Felipe Calderón of Mexico as an expert witness.” So far, so good. I would really like to hear what the Felipe has to say about the ATF’s Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious. Under oath. For example, did any part of the Mexican government have any knowledge of Uncle Sam’s anti-gun running gun running misegos? Where do the Mexican drug cartels get the majority of their weapons, including fully automatic rifles, grenades and grenade launchers? The Times and I have different ideas of what FC’s testimony might reveal, apparently . . .
Mr. Calderón has the data showing that the tens of thousands of weapons seized from the Mexican drug cartels in the last four years mostly came from the United States. Three out of five of those guns were battlefield weapons that were outlawed here until the assault weapons ban was allowed to lapse in 2004. To help him stop the bloody mayhem, he is pleading with Washington to re-enact the ban and impose other needed controls.
I’ll spot the Times the “right” to call modern sporting home defense black long guns “assault rifles.” But labeling them “battlefield weapons” is the worst type of gun control agit-prop. ARs are not military weapons. Although we know for a fact that the Mexican drug cartels are using, guess what? Fully automatic military weapons. I wonder where they got those from? Bob’s Gun Store? I don’t think so.
Nor does anyone with half a brain and even the smallest interest in the truth about the drug cartels’ arsenal. I know! How about we call NY gun grabber Senator Chuck Schumer to the witness stand and ask him what he knows about [his friends at] Bushmaster’s full-auto rifle sales to the Mexican government and the controls that prevent these guns from falling into cartel hands? Or the lack thereof.
Anyway, have the Gray Lady’s editorialists even glanced at the pie chart IDing the source of cartel guns [below]? God knows TTAG readers have. And anyone else who’s been briefed about the facts of the matter. Which raises an interesting question: is The New York Times throughly corrupt, blinded by ideology or just fucking stupid? To which the only possible answer is yes.
According to the Times, the ATF’s extra-legal stingless sting op isn’t the real problem. Nope. It’s gun-clinging Republicans. So, how to frame the ATF’s increasingly obvious malfeasance? Gently . . .
That [the supposed role of U.S. gun laws in arming Mexican drug cartels] is the last thing Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican, wants to hear. He and Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, issued a report last week castigating the A.T.F. for an operation in which federal agents, hoping to track guns to Mexican cartels, monitored but did not stop gun sales to people suspected of obtaining weapons for those criminal groups. Two of the American-sold guns showed up at the scene of a fatal shooting of an American border patrol agent in Arizona last year.
The guns didn’t “show up” in the Star Trek transporter sense of the word. A federal agency allowed – maybe even encouraged – these rifles to be sold to criminals, who then used at least one to murder an American law enforcement official. Not to mention dozens of Mexicans including a lawyer whose torture video was posted on YouTube by a cartel.
What exactly is the Times’s problem with the Congressional investigation into the actions of a federal agency that armed drug thugs that killed a U.S. Border Patrol Agent? What should they be doing?
The Justice Department has ordered an investigation, and it must be candid in assessing what happened.
Congress needs to be candid about how loophole-ridden laws have created a huge market for assault weapons, which end up in Mexico. At a hearing, Mr. Issa insisted, “We’re not here to talk about proposed gun legislation.” Federal officials in February sought authority to require gun dealers to report bulk sales of assault rifles only to have it blocked by a provision in the Republican budget. A responsible Congress would re-enact the assault weapons ban, outlaw uncontrolled gun-show sales and reform regulations that allow corrupt dealers to stay in business.
WTF? Would those ATF gun registry laws have stopped the ATF from selling guns to gun smugglers? And would those corrupt gun dealers be the same gun dealers that alerted the ATF to gun smugglers; the gun dealers that the ATF then pressured into selling guns to gun smugglers who used them to kill a U.S. Border Patrol Agent? And what do gun shows have to do with ANY of this?
Agent Terry’s family deserves better than this mealy-mouthed misdirection. And it’s official now: the New York Times is a joke. Only I’m not laughing. At least the Times will fade into irrelevance as the free market thrusts their lies into the limelight. The ATF needs to be forcibly (albeit legally) dismantled by We the People, lest more innocent lives are put at risk by what is clearly a rogue agency that turned into a criminal conspiracy.
Shame on all of them.