ATF Figures Already Grow in Media
Last week the ATF released numbers, which suggested that American guns were being used by Mexican cartels. This “refresh” of a story that has been reported for years, was heavily picked up by the media last Friday and over the weekend.
Well the percentage is around 66 percent – according to the ATF – some media outlets have already rounded figure up, in an attempt to suggest that even more guns somehow came from the United States. TheHill noted:
Nearly 70 percent of all guns found in Mexico came from the U.S. over the past four years, according to data released by the federal government on Thursday.
More than 68,000 of the 99,691 firearms that were recovered between 2007 and 2011, and submitted to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for trace testing, were either made in the U.S. or legally brought into the U.S. at one point, according to the agency.
Fuzzy math rears its ugly head it seems.
Sen. Chuck Grassley Downplayed ATF’s Statics
Last week the ATF once again try to suggest that American gun shops with the source of firearms used by Mexican cartels.
Sen. Chuck Grassley responded:
“Thorough gun statistics are hard to come by and tricky to interpret,” he said in a statement Thursday night. “The key to this data is that most of these guns can’t be traced to U.S. gun dealers. And, some of those would actually trace back to the United States because of the federal government’s own gunwalking scandal.
“We also have to remember that the only guns Mexico is going to submit for tracing are guns they know are from the United States, which clearly paints an incomplete picture of the firearms found in the Mexico.”
However, the media will likely stick with the 66 to 70 percent figure released in the ATF. We assume by summer that number will grow to 90 percent.
ATF Now Claims 68,000 Guns Came From America
In what seems a bit like déjà vu, the ATF released figures last week that somehow once again suggest America is the source of guns being used by Mexican cartels. The Associated Press reported:
Mexico has provided ATF information on 99,691 guns. ATF determined that the source for 68,161 of the weapons was the U.S, 68 percent of the total. For the remainder, ATF was unable to determine a U.S. source or was unable to trace the request to a country of origin. The 68 percent figure is down from estimates of 90 percent in years past when Mexico was sharing less information with the U.S.
It is interesting to note that the AP failed to address that the 90 percent number was greatly exaggerated. We can only imagine – even assume – that this 68 percent figure is also exaggerated.
Katie Pavlich ‘Fast And Furious’ Book Acknowledges Efforts By Others
David Codrea:
“In Interviews, Author Doesn’t Credit Reporters Who Broke Fast and Furious,” M. Catherine Evans of American Thinker posted today.
She’s referring to Katie Pavlich’s media tour promoting her new book, “Fast and Furious,” and specifically to work by this correspondent, Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars, and Seattle Gun Rights Examiner (among his many other journalistic hats) Dave Workman going unacknowledged.
Ms.Pavlich’s reply was posted as a follow-up, where she cites references crediting us for our work.
Because this has been brought to my attention before, and because it appears to be one of contention among our respective readerships, it’s appropriate that it be addressed in this column.
Continue reading on Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/article/katie-pavlich-fast-and-furious-book-acknowledges-efforts-by-others
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He is a field editor for GUNS Magazine, and a blogger at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance. Read more at www.DavidCodrea.com.
NRA: Katie Pavlich on Her New Book About Fast and Furious
Cam Edwards talks to Katie Pavlich from Townhall about her new book, Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up
David Codrea: Gunwalker Johnny-Come-Latelies Helping To Give Holder An Escape Route
“Michigan Republican Rep. Justin Amash added his name to the chorus of legislators demanding Attorney General Eric Holder resign over Operation Fast and Furious,” The Daily Caller reported Sunday.
“On Monday, Texas Republican Rep. Randy Neugebauer joined the surge in demands for Attorney General Eric Holder’s resignation over Operation Fast and Furious,” a related story informed us.
Those dragging this story kicking and screaming into the public consciousness since the beginning might be inclined to channel Bruce Willis’s “Die Hard” character and say “Welcome to the party, pal.” But a more appropriate response might be “Hold the phone.”
AWOL-to-date Republican opportunists resolutely licking their fingers and holding them up in the air to determine which way the political winds are blowing serves whom, exactly? This is a gift horse that needs to be looked squarely in the mouth—first, because what the hell took them so long to weigh in, and more seriously, is a non-commitment like “I think that maybe it’s time for Mr. Holder to step down” the hardest line these new evangelists are prepared to take?
Guns were walked, people are dead and he “thinks maybe”?
Continue reading on Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/gunwalker-johnny-come-latelies-helping-to-give-holder-an-escape-route
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He is a field editor for GUNS Magazine, and a blogger at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance. Read more at www.DavidCodrea.com.
NRA News: Senator Chuck Grassley with the Latest on Operation Fast and Furious
Ginny Simone talks to Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
NRA News: Family of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry Issues Statement
Cam Edwards talks to Lana Domino, friend of the Brian Terry family, who released this statement: “The Terry Family, like most of America, is sickened to read the latest revelations relating to ATF’s error-plagued and misguided Fast and Furious Investigation. It is beyond our comprehension that U.S. federal law enforcement agencies were not talking with one another. American citizens deserve better from their public servants; the FBI, DEA, ATF and U.S. Attorney personnel in Arizona should have been coordinating their investigative and prosecutorial efforts. This coordination should have started and continued with basic information sharing and deconfliction. One can only imagine that if the FBI, DEA, and U.S. Attorney personnel had only shared their information with ATF agents that the Miramontes brothers were FBI informants than the entire Fast and Furious debacle could have been avoided. With this single piece of information, ATF could have chosen not to proceed with Operation Fast and Furious which ultimately put almost 2,000 assault weapons into the hands of some of the most dangerous criminals in North America. Had this simple piece of information been shared among the different federal law enforcement agencies in Arizona, some 200 Mexican citizens would not have had to lose their lives in needless violence and U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry would still be alive.”
Even The Moral Liberal Calls Out Obama and Holder on Fast and Furious
When a website named The Moral Liberal calls out Eric Holder and President Obama you know something is very interesting – and in the case of Holder very wrong. The article, titled “Mexican Drug Lord Freed After Pledging To Cooperate, Keep In Touch,” offered this passage:
Just when you think you’ve heard it all involving the Obama Administration’s disastrous Mexican gun-running experiment, new details surface to illustrate a new level of negligence and incompetence on the part of federal authorities orchestrating the scandalous program.
Known as Fast and Furious, the federal experiment allowed Mexican drug traffickers to obtain U.S.-sold weapons so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels. Instead federal law enforcement officers lost track of more than 1,700 guns which are believed to have been used in an unknown number of crimes.
And when the Feds had alleged drug lord Manuel Fabian Celis-Acosta, how did they handle it? The story describes how:
The top Fast and Furious investigator, Special Agent Hope MacAllister, scribbled her phone number on a $10 bill after Celis-Acosta promised to cooperate and keep in touch with investigators. Then Celis-Acosta disappeared into Mexico and later slipped back and forth across the border, illegally buying more American weapons and financing others. It’s all in the government records. You can’t make this stuff up.
Now if only this story made the mainstream media for the whole country to hear.
Dave Workman: Another F&F ‘doc dump’ as interest renewed in probe
Our friend Dave Workman continues to follow Fast and Furious, and this weekend offered a post titled “Another F&F ‘doc dump’ as interest renewed in probe.”
He writes:
The late Friday document dump — presumably so it will get lost in the weekend — has become a habit of Eric Holder’s Justice Department in the on-going Congressional probe of Operation Fast and Furious, so yesterday’s reported delivery should be nothing new.
The controversial Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives gun running sting has been under scrutiny for more than one year.
Kudos to Workman for continuing to follow this story the media continues to ignore.
