Lax U.S. laws help arm the Mexican drug cartels. So who does the U.S. gun lobby blame?

[jpak]

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/10/the_nra_guns_for_holder/singleton/

While an apologetic Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. went before a Senate committee this week to talk about a failed gun-walking program, the National Rifle Association (edit: morans) was gearing up its campaign to get Holder fired.

In a new, slick 1 minute and 55 second television ad flush with with Fox News (edit: morans)footage, the NRA expressed outrage over the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearm’s gun-running operation known as Operation Fast and Furious. Under the supervision of ATF officials, the operation let guns get into the hands of criminals on both sides of the Mexican border. The NRA claimed Holder perjured himself before Congress and lied about what he knew about the operation and urged the White House to fire Holder. Holder has adamantly denied lying.

The NRA has homed in on Operation Fast and Furious in order to advance its agenda of undermining not just Holder but the president. The misguided operation, run by ATF officials reporting to the Justice Department, encouraged Arizona gun dealers to sell weapons to “straw purchasers,” with the hopes of tracing the weapons to the Mexican cartels. ATF lost track of many of the guns, and some surfaced at crime scenes on both sides of the Mexican border, including one involving the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry last year in Arizona.

Bent on getting this latest ad circulated, the NRA is soliciting funds to air it, and has posted this on the website: “Watch the video and see how Eric Holder’s lies are destroying freedom and costing lives. Please make a donation to help NRA-ILA air this video across America. And please, forward this video to family and friends!”

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[Scuba]

1. I agree that Holder should be fired. n/t

[Tejas]

2. ...then charged, arrested, and tried.

Hey, it could happen.

[Hoopla Phil]

4. And sent to Mexico for trial there. Did you know that Mexico has asked for several

FF participants to be sent there for questioning? So far the U.S. has not even responded to the request.

[Tejas]

5. Yikes!

[ObamaFTW2012]

14. Your title is incorrect

"Lax gun laws" have nothing to do with Fast & Furious, nor could they have stopped it. This was a criminal conspiracy by the federal agency tasked with overseeing federal firearms regulation. Eric Holder may very well have had a direct involvement in this conspiracy. The BATFE clearly used it's authority over FFL's to force them into making transactions they suspected might be illegal.

Our gun laws usually restrict the people, but make exceptions for law enforcement, so it seems to me that blaming "lax gun laws" for the BATFE's actions in Fast & Furious is just idiotic. That's like finding out the DEA is pumping cocaine into poor neighborhoods and then blaming it on our "lax drug laws". It just doesn't make any sense at all.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. Holder has any number of f*ckups on his watch, including illegal gun running

and should go. He is also attacking Medical Marijuana in direct opposition to Obama's stated policy

[jpak]

6. Yeah - and Gungeoneers were soooo incensed when Bush did the same thing

wait!

they weren't

nevermind

[gejohnston]

7. yeah Wide Receiver was all over the news then

Oh wait! It wasn't.
Since it wasn't, we Gungeoneers (including you) did not know
How do you become incensed about something you don't know that is happening?
How about this question: Why did not the whistle blowers come out then?

[jpak]

8. Yeah Faux News wasn't whoring it 24/7

turn them off

yup

[gejohnston]

9. as far as I know CBS broke

F&F, not Faux. Does Faux have any actual journalists or is it just a bunch of talking heads with the occasional anchor reading copy bought off of UPI or some other wire service? You probably watch it more than I do (don't have cable).

[spin]

12. I believe that you are right that CBS broke the story...

It took a while for Fox to devote a large amount of coverage to it, but they have focused on it recently.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

10. Bush never claimed to support MMJ, Obama has

The issue with Holder are more than just F&F. Even Democratic commentators are saying he should not continue into a 2nd term.

[spin]

13. That's totally incorrect ...

I have posted numerous times that I opposed the operations run by both administrations.

I also strongly support ATF efforts to stop straw purchases and gun smuggling. The agents on the ground who fight this activity on a daily basis deserve both credit and support. The higher up management in the ATF and other agencies are to blame for the poor decisions that led to this scandal.

I also support many existing gun laws and would like to see them improved to be more effective. For example, I would like to see the NICS background funded to make to more reliable and effective. I also would like to see this system being used as a requirement for all private sales. I would also like to see stricter penalties for anyone caught trafficking guns.

However, the most important item is that existing laws have to be strongly enforced and not bypassed by government agencies. It is possible that as many as 200 Mexican citizens have died because of the weapons that our government allowed to "walk". I can not excuse either the Bush administration or the Obama administration for their failures in this scandal.

The sad part is that these weapons will continue to be misused to cause more crime and quite possible to kill more people both here in the United States and in Mexico.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

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[SteveM]

15. Holder left himself wide open for this...

as do most gun-controller/prohibitionists. Running gun-smuggling operations through the government without keeping tabs on it, and denying you didn't know anything about it, but reminding Americans that he supports yet another so-called "assault weapons ban," and advocating as well non-legislative "administrative actions" to restrict border state gun shops.

You have to run this through a wringer-washer to get anything out of it which supports your view. But prohibitionists rarely see anything beyond their pet cause, and never contemplate consequences.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DissedByBush]

17. Holder has shown the laws aren't that lax

Otherwise, the ATF wouldn't have had to tell gun stores to let through purchases they would have otherwise denied according to the law.