Letter to Editor Shows Naivety to Gun and Drug Laws
We normally don’t respond to letters to the editors, but recently one to Centredaily.com titled “U.S. policies prove fatal,” offered a few points that show that the perception of the issue of drugs and guns is far from the reality. In it the writer offered this thought:
“The majority of profits feeding the Mexican mafia derives from the sale of marijuana to U.S. markets. This is profitable because marijuana is illegal, just as rum running was profitable during the era of alcohol prohibition. The mafia uses these profits to buy powerful weapons that are readily available in the U.S. I lived in Colombia during the cocaine wars of the 1980s and saw firsthand the devastating effects of the toxic combination of the U.S. drug war and gun policy on that nation.”
This reader thinks that ending the prohibition of drugs would end the problem? But he makes the assumption – wrongly – that “powerful weapons” are so readily available in the United States. Clearly he believes the hype that 90 percent of guns come from the United States, a number widely debunked. Moreover, he fails to note that many of the guns that did flow south were because the AFT!
He then adds:
“As we continue to incarcerate citizens for possession of small amounts of marijuana and continue to deregulate the sale of powerful weapons, we should be conscious of the collateral damage these policies cause for our Latin neighbors and, increasingly, for our own security.”
Here is the problem with this line of thinking. Today in America it is legal to buy a semi-automatic rifle, provided you are legally entitled to do so (in other words not a criminal), but it is illegal to buy or possess marijuana. This is a simple fact. But people such as this author have a problem with this fact. This is because they don’t like guns, and they want to smoke weed.
So they try this logic that somehow this isn’t right, and that if we legalized the latter and criminalized the former all would be set right. They’d rather see a world where you can buy marijuana but not buy guns. And they’d think that was fair. But the point is that it isn’t the way it is, so again they offer this logic that blames the former because they want the latter. Maybe they’ve just been illegally using too much of the latter in the first place.
Who Guards the Guards: Agency Show Down
KPHO is reporting that “DEA Agents Refuse To Turn Over ATF Guns.” The story offers this information about guns recovered from the “Fast and Furious” program:
“In an Arizona drug bust last month the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration confiscated more than druga [sic]. Federal agents accidentally came upon two giant garbage cans filled with assault rifles, and they just uncovered some of those guns that had been in the hands of the drug runners once belonged to their brother agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
“The federal drug agents discovered the AK-47-type assault rifles wrapped in cellophane and hidden inside two giant trash barrels. Agents believe the confiscated weapons were heading to drug cartels in Mexico. Problem is, a serial number on at least one of the weapons traces back to the ATF.”
The story adds that the DEA did not know about the gun operation.
Who Guards the Guards: San Ramon Officer Charged with Gun Crimes
The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that San Ramon police officer Louis Lombardi has been charged with a number of disturbing crimes, including “stealing guns, selling drugs, illegally possessing an assault rifle and conspiracy.”
He is the second member of an anti-drug enforcement squad to be charged. Once again, we ask who guards the guards?
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.
New York Daily News Says “Guns Killing New York”
Have guns suddenly developed sentience? Can guns suddenly think for themselves? No, but to read the headline in a piece in The New York Daily News you might think otherwise.
We’re making light of a real tragedy, but the fact is that the sensational headline is almost a throwback to the days of yellow journalism. The piece titled “Drugs and guns are killing New York – two thirds of murder victims are black, drugs involved,” tells the story of how those with a history of drug crimes and who hang out with friends who illegally pack heat are more likely to be murdered. Read more
NPR: Mexico Blames America for Guns (Again)
The mainstream media continues to parrot what the Mexican government is saying on the issue of guns. This weekend, National Public Radio offered a piece that included commentary from Mexico, with of course no response. So what did the Mexicans have to say:
“The Mexican ambassador to Washington again blamed lax American gun laws for fueling the drug conflict in Mexico.
“Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan also said the U.S. could do more to limit the sale of weapons that eventually end up in the hands of the cartels.”
How many years have gone by where we in the United States could say, “Mexico is supplying drug dealers in the United States,” or “Mexico could do more to limit the sale of drugs that eventually up in the hands of dealers?”
Our stand remains the same. We should tell Mexico to stop the flow of drugs, which will stop the flow of money and with it the flow of guns south.
Washington Times Notes Facts Missing in other “Guns to Mexico” Stories
Numerous outlets are again jumping on the bandwagon that is putting the blame of violence in Mexico on American guns. While reporting on a recent report on firearms traveling into Mexico, only The Washington Times seems to have offered a crucial piece of information:
“It (the report) also said the majority of recovered guns in Mexico were not traced, although trace requests to ATF for guns recovered in Mexico increased from 5,834 in fiscal 2004 to 22,000 in fiscal 2009.”
This fact, namely that the majority of recovered guns in Mexico were not traced, is a key component that is continued to be ignored by the mainstream media. Thus no matter how great the number of guns that are sent for tracing, there is a far greater number that is never traced – because it is obvious that these guns are not from America.
This implies that the America is not even the key supplier, but yet we continue to get the lion’s share of the blame.
AFP: “US guns body doesn’t work closely enough with Mexico: report”
Another mainstream media outlet that shows it bias by saying that the “US doesn’t work closely enough with Mexico.” A story from AFP doesn’t pull any punches, offering this commentary:
“Insufficient cooperation between the top US body for gun rules oversight and its counterpart in Mexico is undermining Project Gunrunner, which seeks to curb US-Mexican cross-border arms traffic, a US report found Tuesday.”
But we ask, why is this an American problem? As we’ve asked before, isn’t the problem really the drugs flowing north, not the guns flowing south? Stop the drugs, and there is no money to buy guns.
New York Post: “Guns to Mexico flowing like drugs in the other direction”
The story won’t die, and this week The New York Post picked up on it, with a rather biased headline: “Guns to Mexico flowing like drugs in the other direction.”
We at FirearmsTruth.com first dispute the claim that guns are flowing as rapidly as drugs to the north. That is simply absurd. If this were the case there would be enough guns for every man, woman and child several times over in Mexico at this point.
But let’s assume it is true, which is a greater problem for America? Seriously, are guns, which are bought and paid for in the United States, really as much of a problem as the drugs heading into this country. Yes, we’re being serious in asking this question.
Consider this point. If the drugs were to stop there would be no reason why the guns would flow south. It isn’t guns that are paying for the drugs. It is drug money that is really fueling this war, not American guns. So the real problem remains the drugs. Stop the drugs, and there is no money to buy the guns.
LA Times: “U.S. effort to slow flow of guns into Mexico failing”
Here we go again. Once again the United States is being blamed for the violence in Mexico. A story this week from The Los Angeles Times noted “an inspector general’s review finds that a once-praised federal program is too narrowly focused, fails to share information with law enforcement agencies and does not adequately trace U.S. guns in Mexico.”
The paper further noted, as has been noted time and time again that there are a lot of gun dealers near the Mexican border. But could it be there are numerous major cities not all that far from the Mexican border, including San Diego and El Paso, which are right on the border? The paper offered this thought:
“About 7,000 licensed U.S. gun dealers operate near the 2,000-mile border, and cartel leaders often hire straw buyers to purchase firearms and pay others to transport the weapons into Mexico. Just as the drugs flow steadily north, the guns reach Mexico secreted under truck beds or stashed in car trunks, sometimes even hidden in clothing.
So what is the solution? Telling the gun shops to close shop? Or how about making gun laws tougher in the United States so that law-abiding citizens can’t own guns. That will show those Mexicans we mean business. Seriously, why doesn’t this story die?
