On Monday, we discussed the overwhelming, bipartisan vote in the U.S. House, to block the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) from requiring gun dealers to report multiple rifle sales. Forcible citizen disarmament advocates are, predictably, unhappy. The Brady Campaign is, in fact, mad as hell and is not going to . . . well, come to think of it, they don't have much choice but to take it.
They don't have to like it, though, and by golly, they aren't going to. President Paul Helmke, we're told, "expressed outrage" yesterday about that vote.
Not only are we ignoring gun violence in our country, we are contributing to the disintegration of the nation directly on our southern border," Helmke said. "The ATF is already woefully under-funded, understaffed, and leaderless. Making the work of these agents harder will do nothing to decrease the violence we have seen from the drug cartels, which is taking more lives on both sides of the border.
How not changing the rules can be construed as "[m]aking the work of these agents harder," rather than leaving that level of difficulty unchanged, is left unexplained.
As Seattle Gun Rights Examiner Dave Workman discussed yesterday, Brady Campaign's Dennis "What People?" Henigan is equally outraged, and wants Huffington Post readers to know about it. He is, in fact, apparently too angry to be bothered with limiting himself to the truth:
It is now beyond dispute that more than 60,000 guns -- primarily military-style semiautomatic assault rifles -- have moved from American gun shops in the border states into the hands of the murderous Mexican drug cartels, and more are moving every day.
Hmm . . . "beyond dispute"? Let's see. That "60,000 guns" figure links to the Washington Post. That paper, in turn, draws its numbers from a report by Colby Goodman and Michel Marizco, written as part of a joint project undertaken by the Woodrow Wilson Center and San Diego University. We have looked at that report before (and discussed this correspondent's Huffington Post debate with one of the report's authors)--and found its conclusions sorely wanting. There's not enough space to go through the whole thing again, but since we keep seeing the "60,000 guns" (or "65,000 guns," yesterday), it's probably worth a brief recap here.
The number comes, ultimately, from a speech that Mexico's President Felipe Calderón delivered to the U.S House of Representatives, on May 20, 2010. Here's the relevant portion:
Just to give you an idea, we have seized 75,000 guns and assault weapons in Mexico in the last 3 years, and more than 80 percent of those we have been able to trace came from the United States.
80% of 75,000 is indeed 60,000, but now we're completely ignoring the "those we have been able to trace" part. If "we have been able to trace" 100% of the recovered Mexican "crime guns," the "60,000" figure would be accurate. Now, let's look at the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General Evaluation and Inspections Division Review of ATF’s Project Gunrunner, from November 2010:
Although requests from Mexico increased from FY 2005 through FY 2009, most traces were unsuccessful. Further, the success rate of Mexican crime gun trace requests has declined since the start of Project Gunrunner. As illustrated in Figure 8, in FY 2005, 44 percent (661 of 1,518) of Mexican crime gun traces were successful. The success rate fell to 27 percent (4,059 of 14,979 in FY 2007 and remained only at 31 percent (6,664 of 21,726) in FY 2009.
The total number of successful traces in the five-year period spanning from 2005 to 2009 is 18,585. 80% of that would be 14,868. Far fewer than "60,000 guns," and the five-year period is longer than is usually cited by those who think Mexican drug war violence should justify more infringement on that which shall not be infringed in the U.S. Remember, by the way, that a Joyce Foundation-funded study claims fewer than 3,000 guns from the U.S., over the last four years.
It's almost as if a lot of the firepower used by the Mexican narco-thugs is given to them by corrupt elements within the Mexican government, isn't it? As Charlotte Gun Rights Examiner Paul Valone pointed out in private correspondence, that U.S. Embassy cable is dated January, 2009, meaning that when, a couple months later, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blamed violence in Mexico on "[o]ur inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals," she was well aware that the drug syndicates were not depending on the U.S. commercial gun market for their weapons.
Back to Henigan's latest Huffington Post column. He points out that some of the victims of the drug cartels are U.S. citizens:
Last week a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was killed, and another was wounded, in an apparent drug gang attack in the northern Mexican state of San Luis Potosi. Last month a Texas missionary was shot to death in northern Mexico. In March of last year, a U.S. employee of the American consulate in Ciudad Juarez and her husband were killed when drug gang members fired on their car as they left a children's party.
What? No mention of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry? Why would that be, one wonders? Something to hide?
Oops--never mind; there's a mention of Agent Terry, way down in the last paragraph.
Since 2006, 14 U.S. Custom and Border Patrol Agents have been killed, most recently Brian Terry, fatally wounded in December of last year with an AK-47. There is little doubt that more courageous federal officers will be struck down, with assault rifles trafficked from American gun shops.
No mention, though, that the "American gun shops" involved are cooperating with the BATFE, and making these sales at that agency's behest. Certainly no mention of a more recent allegation, that at least one gun dealer making these BATFE-sanctioned "straw sales" is doing so not only with the BATFE's blessing, but is being paid as a confidential informant.
Of course, for someone who would quote the Second Amendment, omitting the "of the people" part, when he just happened to be making the argument that the right protected by the Second Amendment was not a right "of the people," it's hardly surprising that he would neglect to mention that Agent Terry's death was brought about with a firearm that (along with perhaps as many as 3,000 others) the BATFE deliberately allowed to be trafficked to Mexico.
See National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea's call to "gun control" groups, to show some outrage over "Project Gunwalker."
See also:
- A journalist's guide to 'Project Gunwalker
- Why the silence on what percentage of Mexican 'crime guns' are traced?
- Numbers game: Justification for 'assault weapon' import ban doesn't add up
- Where is the 'gun control' movement's outrage over 'Project Gunwalker '?
- Congress fights back against BATFE's power grab
- CBS News video report: "Project Gunrunner" drug cartel scandal
- Bellevue v. Beltway: Gottlieb tells Holder ‘Investigate ATF or resign’
- Anti-gun groups silent on ‘Project Gunwalker’
Comments
I've just thought of why the "gun control" crowd is silent on this issue:
"It is better to keep silent and be thought an idiot, then to open one's mouth and prove it."
There is NOTHING they can say that could improve their agenda in light of these facts, so they're not saying anything.
That explanation is as good as any, Anon. Archer.
Evidently there’s no limit to just how outraged certain people can be over ‘GUN crimes’ , but there obviously is an extent as to what certain types of individuals are actually willing to do themselves about the problem.
For instance, consider the notion of an adult male so acutely aware of criminal activity involving use of GUNS, as to be able to cite statistics, give speeches and write articles espousing opinions on the necessity for enactment of more GUN CONTROL LAWS, but of their own accord volitionally refuse to assume the Moral obligation and the most fundamental duty of all American Men to provide themselves with, and to keep and bear ‘arms‘, ( as in, ‘fire-arms‘.)
Since American Men have been assuming this Moral obligation and solemn duty to provide, to keep and bear ‘arms’ for more than 400 years now, considerations in regard to those adult-age males who would refuse to do so might be thought about by many in terms of immaturity, irresponsibility, irrationality or perhaps even cowardice.
I tend to think along the lines that such persons--and others of their ilk--do indeed value their own opinions quite highly.
However, those having assumed this ultimately indefensible position as unarmed, victims-in-waiting, have in effect and knowingly or not, essentially rendered the actual worth of their own Life to no more than the price of a 10 cent bullet.
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