If California Rep. Darrell Issa and other congressional members who are in lock-step with the NRA bosses want to get to the bottom of the ATF gun trafficking operation, they need to start looking at their own actions and lack of action. By blocking and loosening laws to prevent gun violence they, too, are culpable in ATF's "Fast and Furious" apparent debacle.
This poorly-executed operation had agents skulking around gun shops to watch and possibly document numerous illegal firearms sales in Arizona. The unstopped gun runners then resold about 2,000 assault weapons to violent Mexican drug cartels. Further tragedy unfolded when two of the guns were found at the murder scene of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.
On Thursday, I'll be testifying at a congressional forum chaired by Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings on the issues of America's weak gun laws and the ATF operation that has put the spotlight on gun violence that touches too many lives in America and Mexico.
The testimony from Terry's family members during the recent ATF hearing called by Rep. Issa was heart-wrenching. I've witnessed that kind of pain over and over again in the many years I've worked as a mayor and as President of the Brady Campaign -- victims senselessly killed by guns made too easily available to dangerous people and devastated survivors struggling to deal with the consequences of it all.
At the bidding of the gun lobby, a majority of congressional members, Democrats and Republicans, continue to keep the nation's gun laws weak and full of holes that disreputable gun dealers and dangerous people exploit to the peril of citizens on both sides of the border.
Rep. Issa and others can point fingers at the ATF for mounting a failed mission, but it is Congress that prevents the ATF from getting an annual inventory from dealers on guns sales to address the problem of guns "disappearing" from gun shops with no record of sales. That stops the agency from quickly shutting down corrupt shops.
Congress allows dealers to destroy criminal background check records after 24 hours, preventing the ATF from learning how well shops are following the Brady background checks requirements. Through the Tiahrt Amendment, Congress limits the ATF's ability to disclose gun trace data to the public so residents will not know whether there is a dealer in their midst with a track record of selling to dangerous people. ATF trace data have shown in the past that only 1 percent of gun dealers are responsible for about 60 percent of gun sales traced to crime scenes in this country.
Too many federal officials appear deaf to the majority of Americans who want reasonable gun laws so they don't end up becoming targets. These officials appear to respond only to the pleas of the gun lobbyists who are terrified that rapidly declining gun ownership -- as a recent study by the Violence Policy Center found -- will decimate the gun industry's profits.
So, despite the killing of Agent Terry, the vicious murders of thousands of Mexican citizens and the wounding of one of their own, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, lawmakers in Washington, D.C., are pushing even more legislation to protect gun dealers from disclosing to whom they are selling firearms. The so-called "ATF Reform Act of 2011" (S. 835 and H.R. 1093) won't make anyone safer. Instead, it would make it even more difficult for the ATF to stop corrupt gun dealers. The bills would require the ATF to show that a dealer not only violated the law, but had the specific intent to do so. It's another loophole for corrupt gun dealers to snake through.
So rather than look at their complicity in the ATF's record in stopping gun trafficking, predictably, Congress' probe has narrowed to make the acting FBI Director Kenneth Melson the primary target. He's being pressured to resign for not properly managing the operation. But many federal officials, including Rep. Issa, are not doing their part to end the lawlessness along the border and in our communities.
I was on a panel on border issues during the U.S. Conference of Mayors Annual Meeting in Baltimore 10 days ago. It was chaired by Mayor Raul G. Salinas from Laredo, Texas, who is frustrated that congressional members have been horn-locked so long, that pressing borders issues, such as immigration reform and drug trafficking, have been ignored. The trafficking of illegal guns across the U.S.-Mexican border is not usually linked in conversations about immigration reform. But gun trafficking has become another border issue that has gotten out of control.
It is time for Washington's politicians to look out for average people who do not deserve to have unethical gun dealers -- and the gun lobby that shields them -- pushing illegal guns into their neighborhoods.
Follow the Brady Campaign on Facebook and Twitter. This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted at the Brady Campaign online.
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For an additional amount for ‘‘State and Local Law Enforcement
Assistance’’, $40,000,000, for competitive grants to provide
assistance and equipment to local law enforcement along the
Southern border and in High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas to
combat criminal narcotics activity stemming from the Southern
border, of which $10,000,000 shall be transferred to ‘‘Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Salaries and Expenses’’
for the ATF Project Gunrunner.
When the very organization expected to enforce the national firearm laws intentionally breaks the law, how can any honest person argue that the problem is insufficient regulation? The answer to that is simple: no honest person can. Which leaves the Obama administration and dishonest organizations like Brady.
I would doubt that Obama really knew what was going on, however. He isn't known as President Present for nothing!
Apparently, Mr. Melson has become a star witness blowing the whistle on higher-ups! I wonder who was hoping that he would resign. Certainly not Issa's panel. I wonder who is running scared now.
Care to amend your note so that you are not leaving on a low-note AKA business as usual?
He instituted a blog with comments at the Brady Campaign website to garner support for their cause but only found a plethora of rational logical minded individuals able to successfully counter argue his every post.
Not once has Paul EVERY entered the comment section of either blog to provide rational logical support for anything he has stated.
I even remember the one time Sarah Brady came to support the cause. She made three posts that lacked any substance or logical support for the gun-control agenda. She wouldn't even address some of the most basic gun related questions posed to her. Instead, she rambled on about watching sunsets. Ultimately, Paul had to yank the comments sections from the blog, but we migrated over to HuffPo to continue debunking his every column.
The entire gun-control movement is a sinking ship built on empty promises, made decades ago, that most average Americans see has never come true.
Now, Paul has resigned. I wonder if it was his idea. No matter, this is clearly another 'victory' for the BC, if you subscribe the their idea of 'logic'.
Sorry to see you go, Paul. Who's going to replace you, Kelli? ;-)
By the way, daedelus, leeclayton, etc., etc., lasted the longest as 'Guffman', so we have been referring to him (and identifying him for the mods) as 'Guffie' for some time.
It works, because the poor little man can't last longer than a couple of hours, no matter what he calls himself.
Good to hear from you again, Zen.
Oh yeah, I forgot when anti-gunners are incapable of arguing the topic of gun-control using facts and logic they immediately throw out fallacies like appeals to emotion, red herrings, straw men, ad hominem attacks, etc. And of course, one of their favorite red herrings among liberal anti-gunners is a completely unrelated slam on the evil hated one.
This is one reason that the gun-control movement has been losing so much support. Many Americans that have been promised, for decades, that gun control would reduce violent crime are not seeing these results. Instead they are seeing completely hollow arguments supporting a completely ineffective and, in many cases, counterproductive agenda.
http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/weapons-linked-to-controversial-atf-strategy-found-in-valley-crimes
Thanks a BUNCH, Eric Holder!
We need more control of WASHINGTON, not more control of guns.
It's amazing that the gun control lobby can turn a failed effort to cause controversy over guns into another controversy about guns. It's not the US's weak laws, it's not corrupt FFLs, it's not the law-abiding gun owner. The laws don't help, and the ATF is culpable for hundreds of murders it facilitated. But once again, Helmke cares only about his agenda.
Next question is why?
"Who do you think are buying these guns?" I'm not sure what you were implying.
Gun owner = criminal now? Boxer, Feinstein, Sarah Brady all own guns.
That is like saying Brady support = German Nazi Party because they supported gun bans too. Clearly a false connection.
Why?
Because I like to target shoot, collect firearms, and have a means of self-defense.
Why do I have to explain myself to you for exercising a basic human right that has been recognized since the beginning of recorded history?
And one that is now fully protected by the Second Amendment (whether anti-gunners like it or not, thank you Supreme Court).
Why do people drive sports cars when a Prius is more efficient? Do people only buy them to speed and break the law? Or do they mostly enjoy them at normal speeds?
Same thing.