New York Post: “A ‘Furious’ revelation”
FoxNews isn’t alone in noting the latest twist and turn in Fast and Furious. This week Michael A. Walsh, writing for The New York Post noted:
“This just might be the smoking gun we’ve been waiting for to break the festering “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal wide open: the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives apparently ordered one of its own agents to purchase firearms with taxpayer money, and sell them directly to a Mexican drug cartel.
Let that sink in: After months of pretending that “Fast and Furious” was a botched surveillance operation of illegal gun-running spearheaded by the ATF and the US attorney’s office in Phoenix, it turns out that the government itself was selling guns to the bad guys.”
The New York Post also noted that Eric Holder must have known something, but when? The story adds:
There’s none from the feds. Attorney General Eric Holder has consistently stonewalled Rep. Darrell Issa, Sen. Chuck Grassley and other congressional investigators.
In a constantly evolving set of lies, Holder has denied knowing anything about Fast and Furious while at the same time withholding documents from the House and Senate committees looking into the mess while muzzling some witnesses and transferring others.
But Walsh also offers a thought that might seem like something out of one of his own spy thrillers, and that would be that were it not a thought was shared by many others. In fact, Walsh offers what he calls two possible explanations for why and how this was allowed to happen
“The first is that the anti-gun Obama administration deliberately wanted American guns planted in Mexico in order to demonize American firearms dealers and gun owners. The operation was manufacturing ‘evidence’ for the president’s false claim that we’re to blame for the appalling levels of Mexican drug-war violence. If this is true, then Holder & Co. have got to go — and the trail needs to be followed no matter where it leads. For the federal government to seek to frame its own citizens is unconscionable.”
We’ve long maintained that this is an incredible stretch. But at the same time, it is curious that the President maintained that the U.S. was the source of the guns, and in recent months there have been calls for the re-instatement of the assault weapon ban by key U.S. Senators including Dianne Feinstein, Sheldon Whitehouse and of course Charles Schummer. So this theory is out there we admit, but sadly all too plausible given the evidence.
And yet Walsh isn’t done. He adds:
“A second notion is that the CIA was behind the whole thing, which accounts for all the desperate wagon-circling. Under this theory, the Agency feared the los Zetas drug cartel was becoming too powerful and might even mount a coup against the Mexican government. So some 2,000 weapons costing more than $1.25 million were deliberately channeled to the rival Sinaloa cartel, which operates along the American border, to keep the Zetas in check.”
This is an interesting stretch too, of course the CIA wouldn’t do something like this… it would like helping toppling a democratically elected government, or like helping foreign exiles try to start a revolution in their country, or would somehow end up be involved in drug smuggling. Of course those things did occur in the past.
Walsh makes one final point:
“Of course, there’s a third explanation — that both scenarios are true, and that those in charge of Fast and Furious saw an opportunity to shoot two birds with one Romanian-made AK Draco pistol.”
Could it really be that simple? Stranger things have happened. But all jokes aside, the truth is that American guns were allowed to “walk” to Mexico. People are dead and Eric Holder is still dodging the issue. In a work of fiction he’d already be serving time.
National Association for Gun Rights
National Association for Gun Rights:
Operation Fast & Furious – or as we have been calling it, “Project Gunwalker” – is becoming a large scandal very fast and most furiously.
One media outlet referred to it yesterday as “worse than Iran-Contra.”
As you know, the anti-gun brass at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) conspired to force gun dealers to sell firearms to criminals who in turn walked those firearms across the border into Mexico and into the hands of dangerous drug gangs. Read more
Other Outlets Jump on 70 Percent Number
It didn’t take long for the anti-gun media to jump on the report released by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-California), Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) that claimed that 70 percent of the guns used in crimes in Mexico came from the United States.
The Huffington Post picked up on the piece, and included this photo below. Take a close look at the photo. There are at least three assault rifles with grenade launchers, something only for sale to the military. There is a Soviet RPG standing at attention near the right side. Again, not exactly something you buy at a gun show – at least not a working one, and something tells us the cartels aren’t displaying those guns. We see a couple of other interesting guns, including a belt-fed MG-34. In other words, even if these guns came from the United States, they didn’t come from the run of the mill gun shop.
These aren't exactly "gun show" guns
WTMA.com also offered a headline, “Report: Majority of Guns Used in Mexico’s Violence Come From U.S.” and included this image below. Again, we’re seeing machine guns, and grenade launchers. Does the media not bother to vet the photos they use, or do they look for sensational photos to make a story? Wait, why are we asking?
We count two grenade launchers in this photo, and what appears to be a SAW (Sqaud Assualt Weapon). This isn't merely military style, this is military grade!
MSNBC noted “Report: Most guns seized in Mexico from US,” with another photo showing many guns that could likely be military grade and not merely “military style” We see another grenade launcher, along with some extremely expensive firearms. These are not $300 AK-47s, but some of the firearms on the bottom row, such as the Styer AUG and P-90 are several thousand dollars. The caption for the MSNBC story also is telling:
Yet another photo of guns that we doubt were bought at gun shows or American gun shops
“The Mexican Navy lines up suspected members of the Zetas drug gang on Thursday. According to officials, 204 rifles, 11 guns, 15 hand grenades, Mexican navy and U.S. army uniforms, more than 29,000 cartridges and over 441 pounds of cocaine were seized in the operation in the north of Mexico.”
Are we to believe that 15 hand grenades were bought at gun shows? Why is this buried in the caption and not noted in the story?
Mexidata Challenges Mexican Allegations
Last week in a piece titled, “Hypocritically, U.S. Allows Gun Running to Mexico,” author Allan Wall explains some facts in how guns are making their way to Mexico. He notes a fact that much of the mainstream media fails to understand, notably that this is a two way problem:
“The Mexican government wants to have it both ways. Mexican leaders complain about any sort of border control restricting the movement of Mexican illegal aliens northward. Yet they also complain that guns are being smuggled southward. You can’t have it both ways. If the border is porous, it is porous for illegal aliens, drug smugglers, arms smugglers and terrorists. In reality, the unsecured border is a threat to both the U.S. and Mexico.”
Wall also denotes that the 90 percent number is a myth, and that the real source of the bulk of Mexico’s illegal guns isn’t the United States or at least American guns shops. He writes:
“Many of the U.S.-made guns in Mexico were sold directly by the U.S. government to the Mexican government, and somehow wound up in the hands of drug cartels. This was the responsibility of the Mexican government, but it’s easier for Mexican leaders to attack American gun laws and gun dealers than to apprehend corrupt officials of their own government. Other sources of weapons are deserting Mexican soldiers, and arms imported from Central America, Asia and Europe. Mexico is an international arms bazaar and the drug cartels have plenty of money with which to buy the merchandise.”
Finally, Wall is one of the few to call into question Project Gunrunner, also known as Fast and Furious. It is just a shame that Wall’s words aren’t being printed in a major U.S. paper so more people learned the truth.
Townhall.com Gives Peak of Obama Feature Story
Chris Field previewed this month’s issue of TownHall on the magazine’s website, offering a peak at the expose on President Obama and the ATF’s Fast and Furious. Field writes:
“Thousands of guns have been sold to Mexican drug cartels under orders from the Obama Justice Department. Now that Americans have been killed by the department’s failed operation, the White House is blaming law-abiding gun shops for its deadly scandal. But was that the administration’s plan all along?”
This will be one article we think every gun owner should read.
Is Mexico America’s Third War? And Who is Arming the Cartels?
The mainstream media has reported – and sadly continues to report – that it is American gun shops that are fueling the drug war south of the border. In a piece for FoxNews this week, titled “America’s Third War: Is the U.S. Arming Mexican Cartels?,” William La Jeunesse offers some interesting facts.
He notes that the guns aren’t really coming from America – well, actually they are, but not gun shops. La Jeunesse notes:
“…many of these weapons are getting to Mexico via the U.S. government. Tens of thousands of firearms and explosives are sold legally through the U.S. State Department to the Mexican government. These weapons are then funneled to the traffickers and cartels by corrupt officials within the Mexico Ministry of Defense and local and state police departments.”
La Jeuenesse says that , “According to leaked diplomatic cables, there are three sources.” These include
“1. U.S. Defense Department shipments to Latin America, known and tracked by the U.S. State Department as ‘foreign military sales.’
“2. Weapons ordered by the Mexican government, tracked by the State Department as ‘direct commercial sales.’
“3. Aging, but plentiful arsenals of military weapon stores in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua.”
Now the question is whether the rest of the media will pick up on this story or care. And how does this make President Obama look – as he is quoted as saying as recently as February of 2009 that America supplied 90 percent of the guns used by the cartels. He may have only been POTUS for a month, but he has never taken the time to clarify these points.
In fact, Obama has repeatedly dodged the issue. Let’s hope he can’t dodge it this time.
NRA: Mexico Considering Suing USA Gun Manufacturers & Distributors
From our friends at the NRA:
In another chapter in the ongoing attempt to blame the American gun community for Mexico’s internal strife, CBS News reports that the Mexican government has retained the New York City-based law firm of Reid Collins & Tsai to examine its options for suing U.S. gun manufacturers and distributors.
This report describes Mexico’s actions as a “novel approach,” in reality, such lawsuits have been used for decades as a tactic by anti-gun groups and governments in their attempts to bankrupt gun manufacturers and circumvent the political process.
That’s why Congress passed the “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act” in 2005. This act protects firearms manufacturers, distributors, dealers and importers from suits brought about as a result of “the harm solely caused by the criminal or unlawful misuse of firearm products or ammunition products by others when the product functioned as designed and intended.”
The outlook for a Mexican government suit looks dim; since the PLCAA was signed into law by President George W. Bush on Oct. 26, 2005, no federal court has allowed such a suit by a government plaintiff to go forward against a U.S. firearms manufacturer.
The Mexican government’s plans for a lawsuit extend at least back to November 2, 2010, when a contract with the law firm was signed. Unfortunately for the Mexican government, the possible lawsuit has come to light at the same time as diplomatic cables newly made available by Wikileaks, which have shown that drug cartels obtain much of their weaponry from Central American arsenals.
One such cable, recently publicized by Mexico City newspaper La Jornada, addresses a frequently heard claim about the origin of guns used in Mexico’s crime wave.
The cable’s author writes, “Claims by Mexican and U.S. officials that upwards of 90 percent of illegal recovered weapons can be traced back to the U.S. is based on an incomplete survey of confiscated weapons. In point of fact, without wider access to the weapons seized in Mexico, we really have no way of verifying these numbers.”
This information comes to light only weeks after another cable publicized by La Jornada revealed that 90 percent of the drug cartels’ “heavy armament,” such as grenades and rocket launchers, originates in Central America and enters Mexico through its Southern border with Guatemala. Bolstering these claims, IHS Global Insights reported on April 6 that the head of U.S. Southern Command, General Douglas Fraser, testified before the Senate that over 50 percent of the military grade weapons in the region originated from Central America. Read more
Mexico Looks to Sue American Gun Makers
Say it long enough and people will believe that “90 percent of guns in Mexico are from the United State” and if you say it even longer you probably can convince someone you have a lawsuit against U.S. gun makers. That’s exactly what CBS News is reporting this week:
“CBS News has learned that the Mexican Government has retained an American law firm to explore filing civil charges against U.S. gun manufacturers and distributors over the flood of guns crossing the border into Mexico.”
Of course we know that the number – that 90 percent number – has been widely debunked. But still, that’s not enough for Mexico. In fact, the story has gotten a bit surreal:
“On November 5, 2010 President Felipe Calderon expressed his frustration to CBS News correspondent Peter Greenberg: ‘We seized more than 90,000 weapons…I am talking like 50,000 assault weapons, AR-15 machine guns, more than 8,000 grenades and almost 10 million bullets.”
Where exactly are these AR-15 machine guns coming from? If they are true full automatic versions – which aren’t technically machine guns, but rather assault rifles – they are probably from the Mexican Army! Same with the 8,000 grenades. Despite what anti-gun groups would have you believe, hand grenades (at least the live and working versions) can’t be bought at gun shops and gun shows. The only ones you can buy are paper weights. We don’t think the cartels are using these as paper weights for all that drug money.
So maybe Mexico should think about this case again.
Reuters: New Mexico Official Denied Bail
Reuters is reporting this week that Blas Gutierrez, the mayor of Las Cruces, has been denied bail as he is a dangerous flight risk. As we previously reported Gutierrez had helped traffic guns to Mexico drug cartels.
LA Times Runs With Gunrunner Story
For the last couple of weeks the media didn’t really run much on Project Gunrunner, but it is a story that finally is getting some attention. This week The Los Angeles Times noted, “U.S. urged dealer to continue gun sales despite concerns, inquiry finds.”
The paper stated:
“A series of emails released by congressional investigators showed that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives encouraged the gun dealer against his better judgment to sell high-powered weapons to buyers he believed were agents for the drug cartels.”
So is the mainstream media finally going to run with this story? Maybe, and we say about time.
The media couldn’t stop reporting that “90 percent of firearms used in crimes in Mexico were traced to the United States,” even long after that figure was debunked. But suddenly, when it seemed that ATF and President Obama might be involved, the media was mum.
How big is this issue? According to the paper:
“Thousands of guns were sold to straw purchasers under Project Gunrunner. The ATF has acknowledged that at least 195 U.S. firearms sold to suspected straw purchasers have been recovered in Mexico, but agents have said thousands slipped outside ATF oversight.”
But this is a scandal that won’t die. And the media should report on it. This really puts that 90 percent number in new perspective, because it shows that this issue wasn’t about American gun shops supplying guns to Mexico, but rather about the ATF making the gun shops supply the guns to Mexico.
