Holder wants to explore gun tracking bracelets

[Lanshire]

He should have done that for all those guns he sold to the Mexican cartels.

Look up Operation Gunrunner and Operation Wide Receiver - started by the Bush Administration. Obama was just continuing a program what Bush started. I can see an argument that it was a stupid thing for the Obama administration to do, but they was just continuing a program started by the Bush Administration - so if you're going to criticize one, criticize both.

 

[Lanshire]

Every time the FEDs try to introduce some type of impractical and highly intrusive gun measure, it has the opposite effect. It scares people into record sales.

Sometimes I think the Democrats work for the gun companies because they are the main driver of sales across the country.

Here is a great mostly impartial discussion about guns backed by facts, statistics and history.

This is really the most interesting part of this thread. They bring up great points in that Freakonomics discussion.

I'm a gunowner and a political moderate most would say leans left, but most people on the right turn this issue into such a boogeyman. There are definitely some liberals who want to take away all guns, but they're a small & pretty helpless minority. Hell, a lot of liberals I know are gun owners too. Many liberals seem to want more gun control and I'm ok with that, depending on what it is. Most things suggested for gun control though don't make sense as that Freakonomics show suggests. Still, the liberals who want to ban private gun ownership altogether or even severely restrict them couldn't even get solidarity within their own party, let alone enough votes to create a federal law to do so.

 

[ocfightfan]

He's a typical liberal turd who treats law abiding citizens like they are a criminals and criminals like an oppressed class who deserve the governments help. He gave guns to Mexican drug gangs through gun walker and then has worked overtime to silence whistle blowers and stonewall congressional oversight. That's just one of many ways this lawless jackass has wiped his ass with the constitution.

 

[ruthless robert]

He's a typical liberal turd who treats law abiding citizens like they are a criminals and criminals like an oppressed class who deserve the governments help. He gave guns to Mexican drug gangs through gun walker and then has worked overtime to silence whistle blowers and stonewall congressional oversight. That's just one of many ways this lawless jackass has wiped his ass with the constitution.

wow, someone who tells it like it is and doesn't reword it to sound soft like a childrens book to justify this hypocritical socialist actions.

 

[45ACP]

Look up Operation Gunrunner and Operation Wide Receiver - started by the Bush Administration. Obama was just continuing a program what Bush started. I can see an argument that it was a stupid thing for the Obama administration to do, but they was just continuing a program started by the Bush Administration - so if you're going to criticize one, criticize both.

Maybe you should look them up yourself. In the programs under Bush the guns were actually tracked, not just allowed to simply disappear across the border, and the programs were discontinued after they were shown to be ineffective.

Get your facts straight next time please.

 

[Dolomite]

Look up Operation Gunrunner and Operation Wide Receiver - started by the Bush Administration. Obama was just continuing a program what Bush started.

So I looked it up - seems like you are off more than a wee bit there.

Politifact gave it one of those 100% false meter thingys.

When Obama made that "this is all Bush's fault" line up regarding F&F, he was being interviewed by Jorge Ramos on Univision - he probably was counting on nobody watching that interview.

Also, some other big differences of Wide Receiver compared to F&F:

- in WR, they communicated to and co-operated with Mexican law enforcement
- they actually tried to interdict the guns before (or after) they crossed the border
- The White House Cabinet at the time was not actively seeking new ways to re-instate the 1994 Assault weapons ban

 

[UpaLoompa]

So I looked it up - seems like you are off more than a wee bit there.

Politifact gave it one of those 100% false meter thingys.

When Obama made that "this is all Bush's fault" line up regarding F&F, he was being interviewed by Jorge Ramos on Univision - he probably was counting on nobody watching that interview.

Also, some other big differences of Wide Receiver compared to F&F:

- in WR, they communicated to and co-operated with Mexican law enforcement
- they actually tried to interdict the guns before (or after) they crossed the border
- The White House Cabinet at the time was not actively seeking new ways to re-instate the 1994 Assault weapons ban

There are indeed some differences but it is not incorrect to say that F&F was a continuation of previous programs (your third point about AWBans is irrelevant by the way).
I highly recommend this recounting of actual evidence:
http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fast-and-furious-truth/

 

[LucasWithLidOff]

Look up Operation Gunrunner and Operation Wide Receiver - started by the Bush Administration. Obama was just continuing a program what Bush started. I can see an argument that it was a stupid thing for the Obama administration to do, but they was just continuing a program started by the Bush Administration - so if you're going to criticize one, criticize both.

Good thing Obama
promised change.

 

[ruthless robert]

Good thing Obama
promised change.

 

[iceman67]

I wouldn't mind if he suggested using bracelets as voter I.D.'s.

 

[Dolomite]

I highly recommend this recounting of actual evidence:
http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fast-and-furious-truth/

Meh. I think you lean on that 2 year-old article too much.

It seems her conclusion (Eban's) just parrots what .gov pro-gun controllers want, namely "a comprehensive electronic database of gun sales". Put another way - until we start a registry, the US Government can't be expected to act rationally.

The Fortune article plopped the old "Case Closed" rubber stamp on F&F too early. I mean, Ex-U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke resigned did he? Might be worth a mention that it was over his vengeful actions against a F&F whistle-blower. Or maybe she could have mentioned that Burke (along with Rahm Emanuel) helped craft the '94 AWB? I just don't know. It's probably nothing.

Anyway, The Fortune article isn't much more than a summary of a letter attorney Joshua Levy wrote to Issa and Grassley in defense of his client, ATF Phoenix supervisor David Voth (it's on scribd - search for "Voth Lawyer Letter" - be forewarned: it is 27 pages of indignant lawyer whining).

Sadly - it ain't over. "Fast and Furious" guns are still showing up in Mexico - and now in Columbia.

Society will have to wait a decade or so before they learn who Obama is trying to protect by playing the executive privilege card. Holder will be long forgotten by then - nothing bad is going to happen to Holder, ever.

 

[UpaLoompa]

The fact that Issa--who is a fucking moron and cares solely about pumping up controversy even when there isn't any--has continued to push the story doesn't mean there's more to it. Nor do politically motivated resignations.
Notably you don't discount the assertions that are made in that piece, then again neither has Issa.

 

[Dolomite]

Notably you don't discount the assertions that are made in that piece,

Like what? The "they were hamstrung by prosecutors" line and the "gun trafficking laws don't exist in the US" bullshit?

Here's an assertion -
"But in Phoenix, days turned into weeks, and Group VII's wiretap application languished with prosecutors in Arizona and Washington, D.C." - well obviously, at this point, either Burke or someone at DoJ (OCDETF) had no interest in stemming the flow of guns across the border. Boom. I just wrote that.

Here's another fav: There are no laws against gun trafficking.

Well what about the Gun Control Act of 1968? How about Title 18 U.S.C. Sections 921,922 &924? Want to cross borders with them? There's ITAR(International Traffic in Arms Regulations).

How/why people still spew that there are no laws against gun trafficking (using THIS Fortune article as proof of that fact) drives me nuts. (In all fairness tho - you, Herr Doktor, have never made that claim to my knowledge.)

 

[UpaLoompa]

As I recall that article doesn't anywhere say there are no laws against gun trafficking. It does make the point that for a variety of legal and, frankly, political reasons it can be difficult to both prosecute and stem trafficking.

So, in short, you're still not really arguing against anything in that article. That's fine as long as you don't try to make F&F to be more than it is, which you already failed at with your silly comment about an AWB pushing administration.

 

[Dolomite]

with your silly comment about an AWB pushing administration.

Well to be accurate, it will only be silly when the DoJ turns over all the requested documents related to Operation Fast and Furious.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

I laughed slightly.

As I recall that article doesn't anywhere say there are no laws against gun trafficking.

Some things can be easy to misunderstand and at the bottom it even has this retraction.

Update: An earlier version of this story said that no federal statute outlaws firearms trafficking. In fact, no federal statute outlaws firearms trafficking within the U.S. The story has been clarified.

And the story still says the part below in the first paragraph, which I think could have been made much clearer by qualifying it with something along the lines of ...or catch people smuggling them across the border where the laws can be more definitively applied.

No federal statute outlaws firearms trafficking within the U.S., so agents must build cases using a patchwork of often toothless laws.

I'm also not sure this quote below helps, depending on your level of confusion or understanding of the laws that exist (or your general disposition on more or less gun laws?). If the article was initially run with it stating there weren't trafficking laws (presumably outside the country since the article is about them going to Mexico) then I think that may be indicative of a general viewpoint being presented that this is all the fault of not enough regulation. That and political lack of will at the court and legislative level. It's a good read and interjects a perspective no matter what.

But because the straw purchasers, by definition, have no criminal record and there is no firearms-trafficking statute that would allow prosecutors to charge them with conspiracy as a group, the penalties remain low.