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Nice. The Feds deliberately and illegally flood the Mexican border with American firearms, leading to the deaths of at least two American law enforcement officers and countless Mexican civilians, then impose new regulations on firearms sales to stem the tide of American firearms to Mexico.
Gee! Who could have seen that coming? Is there any ( Read more... )
Gee! Who could have seen that coming? Is there any ( Read more... )
Back to the 2,500 guns that allegedly "flooded" Mexico - according to CNN, "More than 70% of 29,284 firearms submitted to the U.S. Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for tracing by the Mexican government during 2009 and 2010 originated in the United States, according to the report."
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-06-14/us/mexico.guns_1_mexican-drug-drug-cartels-drug-gangs?_s=PM:US
So, 70% of 29,284 = 20,498 of the guns (a) recovered by the Mexican government and (b) submitted to the BATF in a two year period were from the U.S. According to the website cited by the Sispey Street Irregulars (which does not, for the most part, cite sources), less than a third of the guns the Phoenix ATF office let into Mexico have been recovered. That means that at best roughly 833 of the 20,498 guns submitted by the Mexican government were part of the Fast & Furious sting, or roughly 4% of the total. Some "flood" - more like a trickle.
I didn't see a citation for the statement that the majority of guns being used by criminals in Mexico are not American in origin, so I can't fact-check that. Still, it certainly looks like this "scandal" is being a bit over-hyped.
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I can’t even say that you’re simply buying what mainstream media has to say, since some of them have been covering this story for months and nearly all of them are on it now. Hell, even the LA Times is talking about what’s been happening! I’ve no idea how you can have your head in the sand about this.
So, I’ll just point out a couple of items.
The Mexican Government says it has seized more than a hundred and fifty thousand guns in the past few years of their drug war. Of those, less than four thousand have been traced to US civilian gun stores. What a coincidence, four thousand guns were walked to Mexico during this scandal! Of course, not every one has been recovered, so a lot of them are still outstanding. Every time someone says that 90% of the guns in the Mexican drug war come from America, they are either ignorant or lying. That myth has been debunked countless times already, even by mainstream media.
While a lot of them have come from US government sales to the Mexican government, the majority have obviously come from someplace else. That, and the simple fact that during these press conferences where they talk about the evil American gun stores, they show tables full of Soviet-era belt-fed machine guns, automatic rifles with grenade launchers, submachine guns, and all sorts of things you simply can’t buy in American gun stores, should be enough of a clue to anyone that when someone says that the problem is American gun stores, they are full of it.
Congressman Darrell Issa is the one who’s actually been pushing for the Congressional Hearings that are now ongoing. They’re really interesting stuff… he’s also the one who’s been hitting the ATF with a stick for attempting to fire several agents who have come forward and gone on the record during this mess. ATF seems to think that whistleblowers aren’t protected by Federal law.
Speaking of the ATF, the Director of the ATF is resigning after repeatedly denying knowing anything about this mess and trying to pin it on the local agents who were complaining all along to their management that this was a disaster waiting to happen. Now documents have come forward indicating that he was in the middle of it, and he even watched streaming video in his office of live illegal gun purchases being made over the objections of both the local gun stores and ATF field agents.
As for the whole thing being a sting to track down the bigwigs, well, the problem with that is that you need to follow the contraband. If you follow it to the border and then let it go since you can’t operate in Mexico, any case you might have been pretending to create is gone. When the guns turn up next to dead American law enforcement agents or piles of dead Mexicans, you only have a case against the triggerman and the original buyer, not some cartel boss. What, we’re to believe that a Cartel boss would be busted with a gun bought in El Paso a year after it vanished across the border and hasn’t been seen since, and then we can go “AHA! Go ya!!!”? It doesn’t work that way.
Finally, investigative reporters don’t typically blow their sources, so it’s tough to provide cites. Hell, Deep Throat’s identity remained a secret until he died of natural causes… the reporters responsible for bringing this to light can hardly be blamed for not naming names, especially since the ATF is actively trying to fire agents who have publicly “blown the whistle”. Years from now, when this is over and books have been published, it’ll be easy to cite references… but since it’s still ongoing, you can either take the reporter’s words for it or not. Since everything that has been reported so far has been borne out during the congressional hearings (although not everything has been addressed yet), they seem to have been doing a decent job of fact checking on their own. There are piles of documentation that’s been turned over for the hearings, now…
(snipped due to length)
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So, maybe this thing is being overhyped, but frankly when something is done that has no chance of achieving what it’s claimed goals are, and field agents say not only won’t work but will lead to dead Americans (not to mention dead Mexicans), and low and behold that’s exactly what happens... I think it deserves the spotlight.
Here’s a few links if you’re interested... feel free to peruse them or not…
http://www.cbsnews.com/sharylattkisson
http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/a-journalist-s-guide-to-project-gunwalker
https://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/a-journalist-s-guide-to-project-gunwalker-part-two
http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/a-journalist-s-guide-to-project-gunwalker-part-three
http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/a-journalist-s-guide-to-project-gunwalker-part-four
In any event, it’s not my job to convince you of anything. You can find your own sources of news and believe them or not. I find my own, and since they’ve yet to be proven false and a lot of what they claim has been verified, I’ll keep believing them until that changes.
Sheesh, here I am, approaching two pages again… whatever. You drove me away from my LJ for several years and when I dare to try to start using it again, thinking I didn’t even have any followers aside from folks who follow links back from my Twitter stream or Facebook, here you are again. Go find someone else to harass, I’m done with you.
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