“ATF’s ability to stem the flow of guns from the United States into Mexico suffers from a lack of effective enforcement tools,” Holder told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today. “Unfortunately, in 2011, a majority of House Members – including all members of the majority on this Committee – voted to keep law enforcement in the dark when individuals purchase multiple semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, and long guns – like AK-47s – in gun shops in four southwest-border states.”

No one this guy won’t step down, he seems to actually believe the things that come out of his mouth!

In a democracy, nothing is supposed to matter more than the will of the people.

So it was painful to watch last week as the will of the people was overturned and one of Arizona’s duly elected representatives was forced from office. It wasn’t a recall vote or scandal that did it. No, the people’s will was overturned by a gun.

Here we go, another anti-gun type who somehow thinks the “will of the people” must be for gun control, but somehow the gun lobby has too much power. The irony here is that he even says, “In a democracy, nothing is supposed to matter more than the will of the people,” so why doesn’t he accept that the will of the people is for their Second Amendment rights?

And normally we don’t respond to editorials, but Pitts is ripe with errors, half-truths and utter misunderstandings. So much so we’ll take them one at a time. He notes:

This episode (in Tucson) joins a long list of elections overturned and social movements derailed by men with guns, as in the shootings of Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, Huey Long, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, the Kennedy brothers, George Wallace, George Moscone, Harvey Milk andMartin Luther King Jr. Somehow, people who should never have guns never have trouble getting them. John Kennedy’s assassin, a disaffected former Marine who had once defected to the Soviet Union, bought his by mail order. King’s assassin, a wanted fugitive, bought his over the counter.

Today, you cannot easily buy a gun mail order without a Federal Firearms License. Either Pitt doesn’t know this or chose to ignore this fact, but it does deflate his argument. Likewise, background checks are now done when buying a “gun over the counter.” The vast majority of crimes are committed with “illegal guns,” so how does changing the laws as they have been changed really going to stop gun violence?

Likewise, Pitt doesn’t note the cases where guns have been used in self defense? He chooses to ignore such examples as well. Not exactly the fairest argument but we’ll move on. Pitts adds:

After all, the solution here is not rocket science.

We need meaningful background checks on all gun purchases — no loopholes. A mentally unstable man should not have legal access to a gun, period.

Actually we have these background checks in place, with a few exceptions. But it wasn’t actually a loophole that allowed Jared Lee Loughner to obtain a gun. It was a failure in the mental health system, not the background check system. So here we agree, a mentally unstable man should not have access to a gun, but why blame gun laws when he did everything legally?

Pitts also adds:

We need to ban fully automatic weapons from private use. The hunter who needs a gun that fires hundreds of rounds a minute isn’t much of a hunter.

This passage pretty much loses us, as the truth is that “fully automatic weapons” are essentially banned and have been since the 1934 Federal Firearms Act. While some states do allow residents to own fully automatic weapons these individuals must pass detailed background checks and pay for a transfer stamp. There is no example of a legally owned fully automatic weapon being used in a crime. Additionally, these would not be ideal for hunting.

What we think Pitts really meant to comment on was “semi-automatic” firearms. But to suggest these be banned isn’t just silly it is unreasonable. Likewise, this isn’t just an issue about hunting. The Second Amendment of the Constitution doesn’t provide for the right to hunt, it provides for the right to keep and bear arms.

Finally, Pitts closes with a semi-rant:

At the very least, we need to have a serious national dialogue about these and other possible solutions.

But we won’t. Too many on the political left still seem to harbor a fantasy of getting rid of all guns and refuse to distinguish between responsible gun owners and those criminals or deranged people who have no business with firearms. Too many on the political right still harbor the paranoid delusion that any talk of gun control is code for confiscation by jackbooted thugs riding black helicopters.

So nobody talks. Nobody listens. Meantime, our unwillingness to get serious about an epidemic of gun violence brings us the equivalent of 11 Columbine massacres every week — three9/11s every year. Every once in a while, as now, it even overturns an election. The carnage goes on, and on.

We respond by saying, why do we need a serious national dialogue? The truth is that we aren’t seeing Columbine massacres every week. Nor does evoking 9/11 have any place. The hi-jacking on 9/11 was not accomplished with any firearms. Using 9/11 as a call for gun control is insulting to those who died that day.

But yes, there is concern from gun-owners – not just those on the right – that gun control is code for confiscation. This is because the anti-gun crowd calls for it. There are those who suggest that only the police and military should have guns.

Law-abiding gun owners don’t want to give an inch because it won’t stop at an inch. It will continue and continue, so the debate will continue. And this brings us back to the first statement that Pitts made:

In a democracy, nothing is supposed to matter more than the will of the people.

Isn’t the will of the people clear?

General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products, a business unit of General Dynamics, was awarded a $7.3 million contract to produce and deliver more than two dozen GAU-19/B Gatling gun systems for use on U.S. Army helicopters. General Dynamics also will provide field support, spare parts and logistics support under the contract.

The GAU-19/B is a lighter version of General Dynamics’ GAU-19/A, a .50 caliber, three-barrel gun which is currently fielded on aircraft, ground vehicles and ships. All of the GAU-19/B gun systems will be delivered in February.

And it seems the nearly century old .50 caliber is getting a makeover as well! Bloomberg reports:

The U.S. Army’s “Ma Deuce,” the .50-caliber M2 machine gun wielded by World War II hero Audie Murphy, is being revamped to prevent malfunctions that have injured dozens of soldiers.

Congress shifted $34 million at the Army’s request to supplement $15 million originally sought in this year’s defense budget for modifications to correct a “safety issue” with the M2, according to the conference report accompanying legislation. The funds may benefit gunmakers General Dynamics Corp. (GD) and U.S. Ordnance Inc.

This just proves that the old technology from Gatling and Browning is still viable today with a few improvements.

Izhmash, the manufacturer of Kalashnikov AK assault rifles, said its sales were up 57.4 percent last year at 5.73 billion rubles (about $190 million).

Civilian weapon sales rose 25 percent and a similar increase is expected this year, Izhmash press secretary Yelena Filatova said.

Production is to increase 30 percent this year, to 5.1 billion rubles, she added.

In September 2011, Chief of the Russian General Staff Nikolai Makarov said the Defense Ministry had stopped procuring AK-74 rifles because of oversupply, indicating that new models of small arms and light weapons would replace it.

The AK-74 is the most widely used and well-known assault rifle in the world. It is used by some 50 armies around the world, as well as countless guerrilla movements.

Now this is worth noting because it does mean that not only is this the most commonly used firearm in the world at present, but is probably the most widely illegally trafficked firearm as well. While fingers continue to point at American firearms, where is the mainstream media reporting on the AK-74 sales? And notice that the Russian military has an oversupply but the sales are increasing, so where are those guns going?

A related story also noted, “Venezuela plant to make 50 million Kalashnikov rounds annually,” which is a huge number. Could those bullets be fueling the cartel wars in Mexico? Just asking…

But another facet of this myth is another myth as well. Movies and TV shows seem to imply that criminals mostly are armed with machine guns. Again, the truth is far from the fiction. Most criminals don’t have machine guns – although as the situation in Mexico has shown, it isn’t for lack of trying, and sadly fiction could become reality.

However, this still doesn’t let the anti-gun crowd off the hook in regards to this myth. As we’ve noted, automatic rifles and machineguns have been tightly controlled since 1934, and since 1986 all importation and manufacture of these weapons for private use has been prohibited. To own a machinegun one must go through deep background checks, and the guns are very expensive. You don’t go to a gun show to buy a machinegun as these cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Despite this fact, more than 100,000 machineguns are in private hands to collectors. And yet these guns pose little if any danger to anyone. Over the past 50 years no civilian has ever used a legally owned machinegun in a violent crime.

Likewise, the semi-automatic versions that are available are not true “assault rifles,” another point we’ve long tried to make. These firearms also fire a less caliber bullet than most hunting rifles – so they may look menacing but again there is a mystique as part of this myth. It is virtually impossible without special tools and a lot of man hours to convert a semi-automatic to fully automatic.

In other words this is about banning something by appearance and spreading fears by myths that actually are closer to outright lies!

The New Haven haul included 34 handguns, 26 long guns (including three sawed off shotguns), two fully automatic assault rifles and one Uzi. Police gave out gun locks free of charge to anyone turning in a weapon, and individuals were asked to fill out a questionnaire explaining the history of the gun and their motivations for bringing it in. All participants agreed to complete the survey.
“A number of elderly people came in,” said Pina Violana, injury prevention coordinator for Yale-New Haven Hospital. She helped coordinate the event. “They said they just wanted the guns out of their house — they had grandkids and worried for their safety but didn’t know how to get rid of them,” she said.
Some of the guns could have been considered collector’s items.

We are scratching our head s on this one. We aren’t sure if this is a mistake in the reporting, but if someone handed in two fully automatic assault rifles, would they really fill out the questionnaire?

But we make special note of the final line above, “some of the guns could have been considered collector’s items.” Despite that fact it is likely those firearms will still be destroyed, reportedly crushed and melted down. What a sad fate for “collector’s items.”

“Twin, you know guys [in the U.S. military] coming back from the war,” the lieutenant’s son, Jesus Vincente Zambada Niebla, told Flores. “Find somebody who can give you big powerful weapons, American shit. We don’t want Middle Eastern or Asian guns, we want big U.S. guns, or RPGs [rocket propelled grenades].”

This does not sound like the cartels planned to do their shopping at gun stores or gun shows, but rather were looking for military guns. And yet many still blame “lax American gun laws,” and not a military source!

The story, titled, “How the War on Terror Has Militarized the Police,” suggests this is not likely to change:

(P)olice departments have employed their newly acquired military weaponry not only to combat terrorism but also for everyday patrolling. Before 9/11, the usual heavy weaponry available to a small-town police officer consisted of a standard pump-action shot gun, perhaps a high power rifle, and possibly a surplus M-16, which would usually have been kept in the trunk of the supervising officer’s vehicle. Now, police officers routinely walk the beat armed with assault rifles and garbed in black full-battle uniforms. When one of us, Arthur Rizer, returned from active duty in Iraq, he saw a police officer at the Minneapolis airport armed with a M4 carbine assault rifle — the very same rifle Arthur carried during his combat tour in Fallujah.

The article later suggests:

Americans should remain mindful bringing military-style training to domestic law enforcement has real consequences. When police officers are dressed like soldiers, armed like soldiers, and trained like soldiers, it’s not surprising that they are beginning to act like soldiers. And remember: a soldier’s main objective is to kill the enemy.

This should be required reading for anyone who suggests that only the police and military should have guns in America. And as The Atlantic has suggested this week, they are becoming one and the same.

In fact, according to Morgan O. Reynolds in his study Myths About Gun Control, less than one percent of firearms involved in a crime and used by felons is obtained through licensed channels. In other words, criminals aren’t punished by gun control, yet law-abiding citizens are.

Some figures that Reynolds included show exactly what little impact gun control has on keeping guns from criminals:

-Just over half of the felons (compared to one-quarter of the general population) said that they owned handguns
-Fewer than one in six had purchased their guns from a retail dealer

About the only gun control law that really had an impact on gun ownership and crime was the 1934 National Firearms Act, which tightly controlled the ownership of fully-automatic or machineguns. And yet today, machineguns are legal to own with very special permits and background check. However, criminals seldom – if ever – bother with these checks and many drug cartels and other criminals do manage to obtain illegal fully-automatic firearms, suggesting that the law may have had an effect but criminals still found a work around.

“The weapons, which include 21 MP-5 submachine guns and 12 large caliber handguns, were moved Wednesday night to a multistory building at 14th and San Pedro streets downtown and stored in a locked box on the building’s first floor, said LAPD Deputy Chief Michael Downing.”

This is a shocking turn of events and once again shows that criminals don’t go to gun shows or gun shops when they can instead just steal them from the police. The LA Times added:

“It was no secret that the facility, named the Kennedy Building after its owner, was used by SWAT for training. The officers could be seen coming and going and sometimes put on public demonstrations there. That raised the possibility that the thieves had been surveilling the site.”

It was added that these guns were modified to only fire blanks, and were meant to be used in training, but could be converted back:

“Gun experts and online tutorials suggest, however, that the process is relatively simple and requires only a few parts. The company that manufactures the conversion kits used by the LAPD has an instructional video on its website that walks a viewer through the steps of returning an MP-5 to its original form in about five minutes. The parts required to change the MP-5 back to live firing were for sale on a gun supply website. It was unclear, however, what documentation or background checks would be required to purchase them. The idea that nearly three dozen high-powered submachine guns and .45-caliber handguns could make their way onto the black market or be put to use by criminals worried LAPD officials enough that they notified law enforcement agencies in the region.”

There was other coverage of the story, including this passage from The New York Daily News:

“A stash of high-powered submachine guns and handguns was stolen in a brazen overnight heist from a Los Angeles Police Department SWAT unit training facility.”

We would also like to add that while those are dangerous weapons to have on the streets, technically the MP-5 is not high-powered. It is submachine gun and by no means a toy, but as it fires a 9mm pistol cartridge it is far from “high-powered.” This just shows a basic understanding of the issue. Yes, the guns are very dangerous, but again, high-powered they are not.