Austin woman who smuggled guns to Mexico gets 30 years

[jpak]

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/austin-woman-who-smuggled-guns-to-mexico-gets-1775556.html

Calling it reprehensible that American citizens would sell firearms to the drug cartels that continue to kill innocent people in Mexico, U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel on Monday sentenced the woman authorities said led an Austin-to-Mexico gun-smuggling ring to 30 years in prison.

"It's disturbing that we would provide both ends of the drug pipeline," Yeakel said in sentencing Aurelia Ochoa Hernandez, 55. "We provide the market for the drugs here, and ... we send the weapons back to allow the cartels to control their territories and kill innocent people and keep the supply of drugs coming to this country."

Hernandez, a U.S. citizen who lived in Austin before her arrest, is among 20 people convicted and sentenced in the case. Prosecutors said she enlisted her son, Jose Lira, who paid others to buy guns for him at Central Texas gun stores and gun shows.

Hernandez drove the guns to Mexico, where she sold them to Juan Carlos Ramirez Zuniga , a member of Los Zetas drug cartel, prosecutors said.

<more>

but...but...but... the GOP/NRA sez this can't happen!!111

nevermind

yup

[gejohnston]

1. who said it could not?

We, along with Wikileaks and BATFE, simply said that is not how they get the majority of the guns.

[SteveM]

9. Uh, I think it was the OP who claimed that.

[Tejas]

2. The ATF hates competition.

[ileus]

3. Keep American firearms in America where they belong...should have been 60 years.

[gravity556]

4. Who says this can't happen?

Dude the cartels are great at getting shit across the border no matter what. I do hope that the federal agents who smuggled guns and drugs across the border get the same ammount of time, and I hope their fucking boss gets twice that. Anyone who lives in a border state can tell you that the "Our borders are more secure now than they were." fucking bullshit. Napolitano was all kinds of ready to start billing the feds for incareration costs, the whole nine yards, then she gets tapped for ICE/BP/HS boss and magically those problems vanished.

Except to bitch at AZ for letting all those guns through her supersecure border.

Sorry. Pet peeve.

[PavePusher]

11. Fuck Napolitano.

Political opportunist hypocrite....

[aikoaiko]

5. You're masterful at defeating the strawmen you create.

:sarcasm:

[AtheistCrusader]

6. Holy shit, we can see this strawman from orbit with the naked eye

[Katya Mullethov]

7. How many rifles ?

Was it more than 2 or 3 thousand ?

[DWC]

8. The Judge Nailed It !

"We provide the market for the drugs here, and ... we send the weapons back to allow the cartels to control their territories and kill innocent people and keep the supply of drugs coming to this country."

Consumption of Illegal Drugs is the root cause of most violence in Mexico and the USA. Anyone who uses illegal drugs, even casually; or knows anyone who uses is a co-conspirator to thousands and thousands of murders by every method imaginable.

Semper Fi,

[SteveM]

10. With respect, buy local...

Upon learning that I was raised in Florida, some "expert" on pot asked where the best place to grow pot was. I answered: the Jacksonville warehouse district. That was years ago. With the rise of G. H. W. Bush, the laws were contrived to seize assets involved with growing, processing, shipping illegal drugs. This caused a lot of the domestic production of pot to wither, to be taken up by the industrial farming in Mexico. Now that the abusive seizure laws have been tamed, there is a return to local production; some in the outdoors, some in "hot houses." In this manner, the trade can return to a comparatively safer domestic operation. The best thing, however, is to legalize and regulate what are now illegal drugs.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

12. Maybe ATF had her arrested for muscling in on the market they intended to corner themselves

just sayin'

[Glassunion]

13. +1

how's hubby and the cat?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

14. Hubby is awesome in sooooo many ways

but we've had some very profound sorrow a few months ago and we still grieve from time-to-time - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=9744908&mesg_id=9744908

Thankfully the cat belonged to my former roommate and he's welcome to stay with her.

I missed you guys.

[Glassunion]

16. I'm sad to hear that.

Your writing always tears me up... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=9431250#9431466

Missed you too...

[Nuclear Unicorn]

17. Wow! How can a year seem so long ago?

I feel like I've changed so much in that time that I'm reading about another person.

Thank-you, sincerely, for bringing that back.

[Glassunion]

18. I remember exactly where I was when I read it.

Sitting at the bar, eating my dinner, trying to look like a man and not a bubbling idiot... HA!

[Spoonman]

15. The saying goes something like....

"you really put your foot in your mouth"

Only this time it would be a gross understatement!

Your GOP/NRA conspiracy theory might take a hit on this one........

U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel - nominated to the bench by President Bush on May 1, 2003 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on July 28, 2003.

Not advocating support for Bush in any way, just pointing out the fallacies of your assertions!

[AtheistCrusader]

19. 30 years is not enough, by the way.

[spin]

20. You blame the GOP/NRA but let me ask you this question ...

Why don't you give the Justice Department and the ATF some credit for not stopping gun smuggling?

ATF's gun surveillance program showed early signs of failure
By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau

August 11, 2011

***snip***

Fast and Furious was a highly secret undercover program begun with great ambition. The border was out of control, and the new Obama administration wanted to stop U.S. guns from crossing into Mexico and arming drug cartels.

The Justice Department, which oversees the ATF, was pushing for agents to stop arresting small-time gun smugglers and concentrate instead on the big-name cartels.emphasis added
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-atf-guns-20110811,0,7349292.story

To me that's like the police chief telling his cops to ignore muggings and convenience store robberies and concentrate on catching bank robbers.

Let me assure you that I want to stop the straw purchase and the smuggling of firearms to Mexico, Canada and to the streets of cities in the United States. I'm sure all other responsible gun owners feel just as I do. We have laws to stop such activities but they have to be enforced and when convicted the people who engage in such activities have to receive sentences long enough to discourage others from breaking the same laws.

And just how much punishment was dished out to the participants in the straw purchasing and smuggling ring in the case mentioned in the article in the OP?

Calling it reprehensible that American citizens would sell firearms to the drug cartels that continue to kill innocent people in Mexico, U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel on Monday sentenced the woman authorities said led an Austin-to-Mexico gun-smuggling ring to 30 years in prison.

***snip***

Hernandez, a U.S. citizen who lived in Austin before her arrest, is among 20 people convicted and sentenced in the case. Prosecutors said she enlisted her son, Jose Lira, who paid others to buy guns for him at Central Texas gun stores and gun shows.

***snip***

Of the 21 people charged in a March indictment, Zuniga is the only one who has not been arrested. Hernandez and Tovar were the only two to go to trial, where they were each convicted of numerous criminal counts, including conspiracy to smuggle firearms.

The other 18 defendants pleaded guilty. Some of the gun buyers received sentences of probation. Lira was sentenced to nine years and two months in prison.
http://www.statesman.com/news/local/austin-woman-who-smuggled-guns-to-mexico-gets-1775556.html

In my opinion probation is far too light of a sentence for straw purchasing weapons and 30 years in prison is far more appropriate.

I would also like to see any straw purchaser being charged as an accessory to any crime where a firearm he purchased is used. If a few of these fools are convicted as an accessory to murder and the verdict is publicized, that should inhibit the activity.

Both those who oppose RKBA and those who support it should be outraged at the ATF management for its total failure to enforce the law.