Man who helped smuggle guns to Mexican drug cartel gets more than 9 years

[jpak]

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/courts/entries/2011/07/01/man_who_helped_smuggle_guns_to.html

A man who federal prosecutors say admitted to recruiting family members and others to buy guns at Austin-area gun stores that were later sold to a member of the Zetas drug cartel in Mexico was sentenced to nine years and two months in prison Friday.

U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel told Jose Lira that he does not know how many people have been killed because of the smuggled weapons, but “There is no doubt in this court’s mind that people have died because of the the actions of these defendants.”

Lira, who pleaded guilty to three crimes, including conspiracy, could have faced up to 25 years. But prosecutors asked Yeakel for a more lenient sentence, citing Lira’s cooperation after the smuggling ring was busted, including his testimony at the May federal trial of his mother and half brother.

Lira was the first of 20 people convicted in the case to be sentenced. His mother, Aurelia Ochoa Hernandez, who sold the guns to the cartel after receiving them from Lira, was convicted of a series of federal crimes and faces sentencing in August.

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Yet more evidence that Border State US gun shops are the preferred source of guns for Mexican Drug Cartels

shut 'em down

yup

[SlimJimmy]

1. Nice try, but not even close to the truth.

You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.
In fact, it's not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.

http://teamstersonline.com/forums/political-arena/18696-only-small-fraction-guns-mexico-come-u-s.html

[Katya Mullethov]

5. The story now is "manufactured"

Bobbing and weaving , bobbing and weaving .

[SlimJimmy]

7. The story is not manufactured. His contention that most of the weapons

come from US border gun shops is wholly manufactured.

[Katya Mullethov]

8. Old and broke : "Weapons found were traced to "

New hotness "Weapons Found were manufactured in " . Dick DeGuerin took the wind out of Operation Screw The FFLs .
But it will reverberate infinitely in the vacuum of nitwittery .

That these FFL's have a great deal more than "18 minutes of lost tape" is a near certainty .
If I will live long enough to see any of it is not .

[rpannier]

2. What a guy

citing Lira’s cooperation after the smuggling ring was busted, including his testimony at the May federal trial of his mother and half brother.

You've heard the saying, "Would sell out his own mother."
Here's the guy they were talking about

[spin]

3. It will help if the ATF actually does their job for a change ...

rather than insisting that store owners sell firearms to people that the owners suspect are smugglers. If "Operation Fast and Furious" was the main part of a plot in a Tom Clancy novel, the publishers would have rejected the book as being unbelievable.

Of course that will do nothing to stop the flow of military weapons from the Mexican military to the drug gangs and the smuggling of weapons into Mexico from South America.

We could shut down all sales of firearms in the United States (which you would love) and the Mexican cartels would still be able to acquire enormous amounts of firearms without a hitch.

[Katya Mullethov]

10. Clancy has grown old and sotted anyway

Sell it as a CIA triple black flag operation coordinated by conspirators in the upper orbits of power , a domestic operation_mongoose as it were .

Simultaneous objectives
1 Take down a fiddle playing Commander In Chief before he completely collapses
the economy of a suddenly and alarmingly violent and militarized state
2 Failing that , prevent reelection .
3 Profit


1a Sow carnage and destabilize a neighboring country
2a Turn thousands of daily refugees into millions
3a Issue and then answer all pleas to authority
4a Reconsider the lax firearms ,drug ,immigration,
voter registration, drivers license ,and money laundering laws that "allowed" it to happen
5a Make things worse
6a Profit


Plan B If cuaght red handed , leave the CIC holding the bag .
2b Profit


Just brainstorming the idea , feel free to edit .

[Hangingon]

4. unrec

[Straw Man]

6. I wonder if he'll share a cell ...

... with the ATF folks whose orders allowed such sales to proceed.

Somehow I doubt it.

[DWC]

9. Less than 100 weapons smuggled & 20 people convicted

My congratulations for a job well done.

On the other hand, the Eric Holder and his people smuggle more than 2,000 weapons to Mexico and just keep getting their Federal paychecks. Irrelevant to politics, this puts a new meaning to the term "Double Standard"

Apparently, it is not What was done but Who did it.

Semper Fi,