Posts Tagged ‘gun control’

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Documents Shows Fast and Furious WAS About Promoting Gun Control

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

Continuing her excellent reporting on the issue, Sharyl Attkisson drops another bombshell: Just like us “paranoid” right wingers thought all along, Fast and Furious was about promoting gun control:

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation “Fast and Furious” to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales.

[snip]

ATF officials didn’t intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called “Demand Letter 3”. That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or “long guns.” Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.

On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF’s Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:

“Bill – can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks.”

On Jan. 4, 2011, as ATF prepared a press conference to announce arrests in Fast and Furious, Newell saw it as “(A)nother time to address Multiple Sale on Long Guns issue.” And a day after the press conference, Chait emailed Newell: “Bill–well done yesterday… (I)n light of our request for Demand letter 3, this case could be a strong supporting factor if we can determine how many multiple sales of long guns occurred during the course of this case.”

Read the whole thing.

The best, most favorable explanation is that Fast and Furious was instituted for some still-undisclosed purpose, and that some ATF agents saw it as a ghoulish opportunity to promote gun control.

The worst: The Obama Administration designed and implemented Fast and Furious in a premeditated fashion, breaking the law and helping kill hundreds of Mexican citizens and U.S. border patrol agent Brian Terry, all for the sole, express purpose of promoting gun control.

They had to kill people with guns in order to save them from getting killed by guns.

It shows that just because your paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

Hat tip: Powerline, where John Hinderaker says: “If the Obama administration did arrange for the shipment of arms to Mexican drug gangs, not for any legitimate public purpose but in order to advance a left-wing political agenda, and those guns were used to murder hundreds of Mexicans and at least one American border agent–which they were–then we are looking at a scandal that dwarfs any in modern American history.”

Indeed.

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Guns, Obama Scandals | 2 Comments »

Fast and Furious Update for November 10, 2011

Thursday, November 10th, 2011

Been a while since I put one of these up, and since I start a new job today, I thought it high time to catch people at least semi-up-to-date on Fast and Furious developments:

  • The complete text of Eric Holder’s testimony before the Senate judiciary committee. Count the red herrings, and notice, as always, the push for more gun control. Because all the old laws were so effective at keeping Holder and the ATF from breaking them in the first place.
  • Once again, CBS’ Sharyl Attkisson is the only MSM member covering Fast and Furious.
  • The family of murdered U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry were not impressed with Holder’s testimony: “I thought he was very evasive. I thought that this was his second time around, and I still didn’t get anything out of it — at all. Seems like all the questions that he was asked, he was evading or throwing someone else underneath the bus.” Also: “We’ve heard five different stories, and every time we hear (a new) one, (it) is different. We never got a straight answer.”
  • Neither was ranking Senator Charles Grassley: “We have his criminal assistant attorney general knowing about it way last year. How could it be that the attorney general didn’t know about it?”
  • “Former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, who resigned in August, admitted late Tuesday that he leaked a document aimed at smearing Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent John Dodson, an Operation Fast and Furious whistle-blower.”
  • Sipsey Street provides a handy link to Texas Sen. john Cornyn’s graphical timeline of Eric Holder’s strange memory problems.
  • Cornyn also provided an admirable takedown of the MSM “Fast and Furious Was Exactly the Same of Bush’s Wide Receiver” talking point.

    • Tags:, , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Guns, Media Watch, Obama Scandals, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Fast and Furious Update For October 10, 2011

    Monday, October 10th, 2011

    You know, when I started doing Fast and Furious updates, I didn’t realize I’d have to update this daily. But events are moving at a pretty brisk pace:

  • Rep. Daarrell Issa says to Holder that he owns Fast and Furious, no matter how much distance he may put between himself and the scandal.
  • Sipsy Street puts up a third post on Hillary Clinton’s possible involvement.
  • In the Washington Post, Marc A. Thiessen calls Eric Holder “Obama’s albatross,” and lists a litany of bad decisions coming out of his office.
  • You know what’s worse for Obama than if Eric Holder is lying? If he’s telling the truth.
  • The Truth About Guns explores why Fast and Furious seemed to be arming the Sinola cartel in particular.
  • M. Catharine Evans compares Holder to Anthony Weiner.
  • She also links to this April 2009 transcript of a joint White House press conference with Mexico President Felipe Calderon, in which arms being smuggled to Mexico is the central topic.
  • Investors Business Daily says that “Either Holder is the most aloof attorney general in American history or the most incompetent — or worse.”
  • Large swathes of the press may love Obama, but David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun says that Fast and Furious shows that Obama doesn’t return the favor, at least when reporters actually do their jobs. “Team Obama is in full campaign mode, and because of their fundamental contempt for the press, that means they reward those who come on bended knee and they punish those who dare to question them. The bended knee boys include Brain Williams, the bowing anchorman. Have you noticed how many “exclusive” interviews Obama has given NBC recently? Oh yeah, NBC is kowtowing to Obama.” Zing!
  • The economics behind weapon smuggling. Don’t expect anything to change soon…
  • Indirectly related: Jeremy Schwartz at the Statesman has been doing some interesting reporting on the La Familia cartel, which has been using Austin as a base of operations.

    • Finally, not related at all (except also involving guns), but I wanted to point out that Adam Winkler, author of Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America, points out that yes, the roots of gun control in America are racist in nature.

    Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Guns, Media Watch, Obama Scandals, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Clayton E. Cramer on The Secret History of Guns

    Friday, August 12th, 2011

    I recently linked to Adam Winkler’s Atlantic article “The Secret History of Guns,” which I found quite interesting, but noted that I was not well-versed enough in gun and gun control history to ascertain the piece’s accuracy.

    So I went seeking the opinions of experts. I emailed several people instrumental in exposing the academic fraud behind Michael Bellesiles’ Arming America to ask for their assessments of the Winkler piece. I’m happy to say that Clayton E. Cramer, one of the first and most persistent critics of Bellesiles, has taken the time to respond to my query on the Winkler piece:

    Here’s what I sent to Professor Winkler:

    I guess the only substantial criticisms I would make of this article are:

    “To the gun lobby, the Second Amendment is all rights and no regulation.”

    I don’t think that’s a particularly accurate description of the position of “the gun lobby.” There are certainly extremists who believe that any regulation of any sort is unconstitutional and unacceptable, but I am not aware that NRA, for example, opposed bans on those convicted of violent felonies from having guns. Similarly, I am not aware that NRA has opposed bans on the mentally ill owning guns. There are differences of opinion about exactly where the lines separating crimes that should be firearm disqualifiers from those that should not. There are differences of opinion as to exactly what standard should be used for determining whether a mentally ill person should be disarmed. But that’s not the same as “all rights and no regulation.”

    Similarly, much of the gun lobby’s opposition to particular regulations is pragmatic: it does not work for its intended purpose, but it does create a serious obstacle to law-abiding adults obtaining a gun. Again, that’s not the same as “all rights and no regulation.”

    Your statement that NRA endorsed the National Firearms Act of 1934 is not a terribly accurate statement. The original law as introduced would have put handguns under the NFA requirements, and NRA was strongly opposed to that. It was because of NRA’s efforts that the focus of the law changed from concealable firearms and automatic weapons to automatic weapons and short-barreled long guns.

    Also, while Frederick may not have considered the constitutional provisions when he testified, take a look at the Ways & Means Committee hearing transcripts; both the A-G and his assistant acknowledged that there was a legitimate Second Amendment question as to whether Congress could simply ban machine gun ownership–hence the elaborate tax stamp provision copied from the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1906.

    I’d like to thank Mr. Cramer for taking the time to respond to my query and Mr. Winkler’s article. Mr. Cramer’s blog can be found here.

    Tags:, , , , , ,
    Posted in Guns | 3 Comments »

    The Secret History of Guns

    Thursday, August 11th, 2011

    Alphecca linked this interesting article on The Secret History of Guns. It talks about some of the ironies of gun control, such as the Black Panthers enthusiastically embracing the 2nd Amendment, while California Governor Ronald Reagan signed a law limiting the bearing of arms in government buildings.

    I don’t necessarily agree with all of author Adam Winkler’s conclusions (such as they are), but he makes an interesting historical case, though I am not an expert. I would be interested to hear the take of some of the more prominent gun bloggers and historians on the piece.

    Tags:, , , ,
    Posted in Crime, Guns | 1 Comment »

    A Disarmed Society is a Violent Society

    Tuesday, August 9th, 2011

    It’s not yet sunset in the UK, so we don’t know if a fourth night of rioting will follow the first three. But the glee and impunity with which rioters torched and looted large sections of London are an indictment of two beloved projects of British and other European elites: a disarmed citizenry and an all-encompassing, cradle-to-grave welfare state.

    It’s hard to imagine riots of these size going on for days on end in the American South or Midwest simply because so many armed, law-abiding citizens would stand ready to defend their lives, liberty and property. Once you’ve shot a few rioters dead, it does rather tend to put a damper on the festive mood of the others. An armed shop owner in Texas or Ohio wouldn’t have to stand idly by while his life work burned, waiting vainly for police that never come.

    But London shopkeepers and home-owners never had that choice. As Instapundit noted, “Unlike L.A., there are no Korean shopkeepers with AR-15s to help contain the looting.” Since handguns were banned in the UK in 1997 (tightening already restrictive firearm laws), their per capita crime rate has skyrocketed compared to ours.

    As Theodore Dalrymple and others have so depressingly documented, the welfare state has hollowed out the once redoubtable English character and replaced it with crime, inter-generational dole-dependency and general hopelessness. “These youths in hoodies and men in bandanas are not fighting for a principle, they’re trashing neighbourhoods for a plasma telly and a pair of new trainers. Masked gangs are looting department stores, not waving placards.”

    Will this be a wake-up call for those pushing for an ever-larger welfare state? Of course not. My liberal British friends on Facebook are already trotting out the classic liberal phrases. “Underclass,” “powerless,” etc. Why “powerlessness” leads inevitably to someone looting a plasma TV is never adequately explained, nor how an ever-more-expansive welfare state would prevent this, unless they expect that taxpayers buying a plasma TV for every single person on the dole would remove the temptation.

    Edited to Add: Greetings, Instapundit Readers! Take a look around and see if there’s anything else that might interest you, such as updates on the Texas Senate race or some tidbits on Rick Perry.

    Quick update here.

    Second update and videos here.

    More on the nature of the rioters.

    Tags:, , , , , , ,
    Posted in Crime, Guns | 33 Comments »

    Ezell vs. Chicago: An Extremely Lazy Blogger’s Roundup

    Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

    So Ezell vs. Chaicago has been decided, and the three-judge panel basically bitchslapped Chicago into the 21st Century. Basically, Chicago was saying 1.) You have to get firearms training at a licensed firing range to own a gun, and 2.) We don’t need no stinking firing ranges within the city limits, and the court tore them a new asshole for blatantly disregarding DC vs. Heller.

    Even more dramatically, the ruling makes explicit parallels between first Amendment and Second Amendment restrictions, which the Brady Bunch and their liberal Democratic co-conspirators have been denying for years.

    I think any decision where the gun-grabber ordinance in question is actually derided in the decision as “thumbing of the municipal nose at the Supreme Court” has to count as a pretty overwhelming victory for the Second Amendment.

    If I were a hardcore gun blogger, I’d read the entire judgment, quote chunks from it and offer closely reasoned, pithy insights.

    If I were a semi-hardcore gun blogger, I’d skim the decision and offer some quick insights.

    However, because I’m feeling very lazy tonight, I’m merely going to link to the writeup over at Snowflakes in Hell, since Sebastian has provided a far better, and more insightful, post than I could on the subject.

    As a bonus, in the post just below that, he tears into Rahm’s ridiculous shooting range ordinance, another blatant attempt to deprive Chicago residents of their Second Amendment via absurd regulations, such as:

  • Requires that range operators inspect every gun brought into the range for safety, and that the caliber is appropriate for an indoor range.
  • You must have a range master for every three shooting patrons. That range master must be on duty at all times. [Even by the standards of Chicago union featherbedding this is outrageous.]
  • Ranges may only sell ammo for use onsite, and must ensure no one leaves the range with unauthorized ammo.

    • Et Freaking cetera. “Rahm’s ordinance is basically a joke, and an insult. I can’t imagine anyone would even try to operate a range under these ridiculous standards, and I suspect that’s the whole idea.”

    Read the whole thing, on both posts.

    Tags:, , , , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Guns, Supreme Court | 1 Comment »

    Diana Maldonado’s Killer Issue: Gun Control

    Tuesday, October 26th, 2010

    No, seriously.

    I got a 4 panel flyer in the mail today slamming Larry Gonzales for supporting concealed carry on campus, as you can see from my picture of it below (click to embiggen):

    Because, you know, one suicidal student firing an AK-47 (which was already illegal for him to bring on campus) into the ground before killing himself pretty much demands a knee-jerk call for stricter gun control laws.

    Slamming Larry Gonzales for not being pro-gun control is a great tactic…if you’re running against him in the Democratic Primary. In Austin. In 1990. Unfortunately for Maldonado, she’s running in the general election in Williamson County in 2010.

    And we all know what a bloodbath Texas has become since the state started issuing Concealed Handgun Licenses on January 1, 1996. Oh wait, no it hasn’t. Violent Crime numbers have been down to flat across the board even in absolute terms, and even more clearly down on a per capita basis in light of the state’s growing population.

    Democrats at the national level learned that gun control was a losing issue in 1994. Evidently Maldonado didn’t get the memo. I suspect she’ll be getting a good, long vacation in the near future to contemplate that mistake at her leisure.

    Tags:, , , , , ,
    Posted in Austin, Democrats, Elections, Guns, Republicans | 1 Comment »

    How the Washington Post Lies About Guns And Crime Through Omission

    Monday, October 25th, 2010

    Like many liberal publications, the Washington Post has a long history of promoting gun control. Today they published a lengthy, reasonably well researched article by David S. Fallis asserting that Realco, a gun shop in Forestville, Maryland, sold more “crime guns” (i.e., guns used in crimes) than any other dealer.

    The relevant paragraphs:

    86 guns sold by Realco [have] been linked to homicide cases during the past 18 years, far outstripping the total from any other store in the region, a Washington Post investigation has found. Over that period, police have recovered more than 2,500 guns sold by the shop, including over 300 used in non-fatal shootings, assaults and robberies.

    In Maryland, Realco towers over the other 350 handgun dealers in the state as a source of guns confiscated in the District and Prince George’s County, the most violent jurisdictions in the area. Nearly one out of three guns The Post traced to Maryland dealers came from Realco. The rest were spread among other shops across the state.

    Let us for the moment take these figures at face value. However, to my mind the biggest and most obvious problem with the story wasn’t what was in it, but what was missing, the elephant in the room Mr. Fellis failed to mention even once: race.

    Not once do the words “African American” appear in the article, nor does the word “black” appear in reference to race.

    But it is well know to anyone with even passing familiarity with Washington, D.C. that the whites in the District live overwhelmingly in the northwest “white pipeline” that runs from roughly Capitol Hill all the way up through Georgetown to the Virginia border, while blacks predominate in the rest of the city, but especially in the southeast.

    Take a look at this map depicting the ethnic demography of the Washington, DC area created by Eric Fischer:

    In Fisher’s map, white people are red dots, black people are blue, Hispanics are orange, and Asians are green.

    Now take a look at Realco’s location in comparison to Washington DC:

    Realco is not only the closest gun shop to D.C., it is smack dab in the middle of the most overwhelmingly black neighborhood in the greater D.C. area. Also, if I’m reading this map correctly, no less than three Metro bus lines (J11, J12, and J13) run right past the store at 6108 Marlboro Pike.

    The reason this matters is that blacks in the United States commit a disproportionate share of violent crimes compared to the total population. Look at Table 43 of the FBI’s U.S. crime statistics for 2009. 49.3% of those arrested for murder and nonnegligent manslaughter were black, despite blacks making up only 12.4% of the U.S. population. (The reasons black crime rates are so high is are a source of endless debate (see nature vs. nurture, just for starters) and beyond the scope of this essay.)

    So all other things being equal, Realco being the source of so many guns eventually used in crime makes sense, since it is the nearest gun store to the district, as well as the gun store situated most closely to a demographic group that suffers from demonstrably higher levels of violent crime than other demographic groups. Thus Occam’s Razor suggests that we look no further than the obvious for the real facts surrounding Realco.

    It’s a pity David S. Fallis didn’t feel the need to share this most basic demographic context for crime with his readers.

    I have to go off and walk my dog, but I’ll probably post another piece on this subject tomorrow to touch on some angles I don’t have time to address just right now.

    (And if anyone has a better source for comprehensive crime statistics broken down by race specifically for D.C. and Prince George’s County, I’d love to take a look at them.)

    Edited to add: Here’s my followup to this piece.

    And here’s Dwight’s analysis.

    Tags:, , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Crime, Guns, Media Watch | 6 Comments »

    1. Buy Booze, 2. Get Liquored Up, 3. Buy Gun While Drunk, 4. Pass Background Check, 5. ???

    Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

    So the city council of Carrollton, TX, in their infinite wisdom, is trying to decide whether to ban gun stores within a certain distance of a liquor store.

    Like many gun-grabber ordinances, this one has a certain facile logic working on it (liquor + firearms = BAD), but deeper consideration of the subject reveals how illogical and unnecessary such a law would be.

    First, under Texas law, it is already illegal for consumers to even open an alcoholic beverage inside a liquor store, much less drink it. Those same stores are also prohibited from selling alcohol to obviously intoxicated patrons.

    So, apparently the only people this law will actually target are:

    1. Entirely sober people who want to buy a gun in the same center that just happens to house a liquor store, or
    2. People who are buying booze, downing it in the parking lot, and then wandering over to the gun store to pick up some heat because it just seemed like a good idea.

    Somehow, I’m not seeing the sort of person who shotguns a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 in a parking lot as being the same sort of person who has either a few hundred dollars burning a hole in their pocket, or a valid credit card. (The only possible exception I can think of, someone on the gang-banger/drug-dealer continuum, aren’t very likely to pass the automatic background check (or, for that matter, purchase firearms through a legal dealer), now are they?)

    And that’s assuming the store is foolish enough to sell a gun to someone obviously intoxicated.

    The ordinance as described doesn’t make a lick of sense, and should shelved.

    (Hat tip: Alphecca.)

    Tags:, , ,
    Posted in Crime, Guns, Texas | 2 Comments »

    « Older Entries
    Newer Entries »