Posted : Mar 29, 2009 - Gun Running Into Mexico

[Oscar Knight]

....I had been posting information about Firearms in Mexico, from Mar. 2009. before Agent Terry was killed . This post contains wht I had found, which led up to The "Fast & Furious Scandal.

More Control : Posted Mar 29, 2009 at 10:33pm

handgunforum.proboards.com/thread/2628/more-control

handgunforum.proboards.com/thread/2628/more-control

Fast and Furious investigation started with agent's death

Brian A. Terry was fatally shot in the Arizona desert, just north of the Mexico border, on December 14, 2010, after he confronted a group of bandits believed to be preying on illegal immigrants. Nearly three months later, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, announced that two weapons found near the scene were traced to an ATF gun-running operation, later identified as Fast and Furious.

Fast and Furious was intended to build cases against Mexican drug cartels and the smuggling networks supplying them by allowing illegally purchased firearms to go from the United States into Mexico. In the operation, "straw buyers" – people who buy the weapons for others who might not legally be allowed to buy them – were allowed to purchase in Arizona illegally large numbers of weapons, some of which ended up in the hands of cartels in Mexico.

news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/21/fast-and-furious-investigation-started-with-agents-death/

[Oscar Knight]

Mar 29, 2009 20:33:23 GMT -6 Oscar Knight said:

Have we arrived to the day when foreign governments are invading our borders, and we are told to surrender our arms; by our own government ?

From : U.S. Senator Max Baucus & U.S. Senator Jon Tester

"SENATORS TO ATTORNEY GENERAL HOLDER":
STAY AWAY FROM OUR GUNS"

Baucus And Tester Send Warning Shot To Protect 2nd Amendment

March 3, 2009

(Washington D.C.)- Montana's U.S. Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester sent a simple and clear message to Attorney General Eric Holder today: any new gun restrictions are a non-starter.

In a letter to Holder, Baucus and Tester emphasized the need to enforce current laws on the books instead of passing additional laws which could infringe on Montanans' 2nd Amendment rights.

"We oppose reinstating the ban on the sale of assault weapons, and we call on the Department of Justice to enforce existing laws before it considers imposing any new restrictions on gun ownership," Baucus and Tester wrote.

The letter continued by explaining Montana's proud outdoor heritage and how important gun ownership is to that heritage.

"We value our outdoor heritage, and a large part of that is our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Passing this heritage down from one generation to the next is a sacred part of being a Montanan, and something that we will always fight to protect," the letter states.

The Senators' letter was prompted by recent comments that Holder made about wanting to introduce new gun restrictions.

Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock applauds the stand that Baucus and Tester have taken.

"Max and Jon are exactly right—we need to be enforcing the laws that we have on the books," Bullock said. "These one-size-fits all gun laws might be popular in some parts of the country, but they don't work for Montana."

As senators, Baucus and Tester both are members of the Congressional Sportsmen Caucus, which consists of Senators and Representatives working together to protect public lands so future generations can hunt, fish, hike and enjoy other outdoor activities. Baucus is a past Chairman of the caucus, and Tester is the current Vice-Chairman.

-Letter Below-

Dear Attorney General Holder:

This letter is in regards to your recent comments suggesting the reinstatement of the ban on assault weapons. We oppose reinstating the ban on the sale of assault weapons, and we call on the Department of Justice to enforce existing laws before it considers imposing any new restrictions on gun ownership.

Your comments noted increased violence among international drug traffickers as a reason to reexamine the ban on assault weapons within this country; however, this statement fails to acknowledge laws already in place that work to address this issue. Under current law, both transferring a firearm to someone knowing that it will be used to commit a violent or drug-trafficking crime as well as possessing a firearm in furtherance of a Federal drug trafficking crime are already federal felonies punishable by imprisonment.

We will strongly oppose any legislation that will infringe upon the rights of individual gun owners. We value our outdoor heritage, and a large part of that is our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Passing this heritage down from one generation to the next is a sacred part of being a Montanan, and something that we will always fight to protect. In the light of the Supreme Court's landmark ruling of District of Columbia v. Heller, affirming the Second Amendment right to bear arms as an individual and constitutionally protected right, we urge you to avoid any legislative proposals that would jeopardize the Constitutional right of law-abiding Americans to own firearms.

Sincerely, U.S. Senator Max Baucus U.S. Senator Jon Tester

baucus.senate.gov/newsroom/details.cfm?id=309149

Congressmen Send Attorney General Letter Opposing Reinstatement Of Failed 1994 Gun and Magazine Ban

www.nraila.org/Legislation/Federal/Read.aspx?id=4633

Now Let Us Hear From The Traitors and Conspirators To The Constitution.

The Brady Campaign called on U.S. leaders to strengthen American gun laws to make it harder for Mexican criminals to arm themselves with U.S. firearms at a news conference.

The Brady Center also issued a new report on the problem called Exporting Gun Violence: How Our Weak Gun Laws Arm Criminals in Mexico and America.

Exporting Gun Violence details how America's lack of effective gun laws is helping to create a regional security risk and costing Mexican and American citizens their lives. The same weak gun laws that are enabling the supply of Mexican criminals are supplying criminals in the U.S. as well.

Brady President Paul Helmke said, "For too long, we have been putting our own citizens at risk by making it so easy for criminals to get gun. Now our neighbors are threatened as well, and our national security is at risk." He stated that "'enforcing the laws on the books' will never be enough: we need stronger laws, and strong enforcement of those laws."

www.bradycampaign.org/

[Oscar Knight]

Apr 2, 2009 17:50:16 GMT -6 Oscar Knight said:

A Gun Ban Gets Shot Down

By Michael Isikoff | NEWSWEEK

www.newsweek.com/id/191414

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now the second member of President Obama's cabinet to get shot down by the White House over the politically sensitive issue of assault weapons. After meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderón, Clinton said that reinstating the U.S. ban on assault weapons—which was passed in 1994 and expired in 2004—is one step this country could take to curb the flow of guns to Mexico's drug cartels. "These military-style weapons don't belong on anybody's street," Clinton told NBC. Within hours, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that he was unaware of "any plans" to push for such a ban—even though Obama had backed one during last year's campaign.

Attorney General Eric Holder had a similar experience a few weeks earlier. After he endorsed a ban at a Feb. 25 press conference, Justice officials were instructed by White House aides to drop the issue, according to administration and congressional aides who asked not to be named due to political sensitivities. What's behind the shift? A budding relationship between the gun lobby and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill. After Holder mentioned the ban, the National Rifle Association sent out action alerts to its members and bombarded Hill offices with calls. Sixty-five House Dems dashed off a letter to Holder opposing such a ban, while Speaker Nancy Pelosi—echoing the NRA's mantra on all gun-control issues—said she backed "enforcing the laws we have now."

NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre told NEWSWEEK that Hill Democrats have "learned their lesson" from 1994, when they enacted the ban and subsequently lost control of Congress. They've also learned that cozying up to the NRA can pay big dividends. Last year Democrats received 20 percent of the nearly $1.2 million that the NRA pumped into congressional campaign coffers—more than twice what it gave to Dems just six years earlier. The way things are going, this could be more than a shotgun wedding.

[Oscar Knight]

Apr 2, 2009 17:56:16 GMT -6 Oscar Knight said:

The Myth of 90 Percent:
Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.

"While 90 percent of the guns traced to the U.S. actually originated in the United States, the percent traced to the U.S. is only about 17 percent of the total number of guns reaching Mexico".
By William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott

www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/02/myth-percent-small-fraction-guns-mexico-come/


www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/02/myth-percent-guns-mexico-fraction-number-claimed/

EXCLUSIVE: "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."

-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.

-- CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.

-- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors ... come from the United States."

-- William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."

There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:

It's just not true.

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.

"Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News

A Look at the Numbers

In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced -- and of those, 90 percent -- 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover -- were found to have come from the U.S.

But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.

So, if not from the U.S., where do they come from? There are a variety of sources:

-- The Black Market. Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.

-- Russian crime organizations. Interpol says Russian Mafia groups such as Poldolskaya and Moscow-based Solntsevskaya are actively trafficking drugs and arms in Mexico.

- South America. During the late 1990s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) established a clandestine arms smuggling and drug trafficking partnership with the Tijuana cartel, according to the Federal Research Division report from the Library of Congress.

-- Asia. According to a 2006 Amnesty International Report, China has provided arms to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Chinese assault weapons and Korean explosives have been recovered in Mexico.

-- The Mexican Army. More than 150,000 soldiers deserted in the last six years, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo. Many took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.

-- Guatemala. U.S. intelligence agencies say traffickers move immigrants, stolen cars, guns and drugs, including most of America's cocaine, along the porous Mexican-Guatemalan border. On March 27, La Hora, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported that police seized 500 grenades and a load of AK-47s on the border. Police say the cache was transported by a Mexican drug cartel operating out of Ixcan, a border town.

'These Don't Come From El Paso'

Ed Head, a firearms instructor in Arizona who spent 24 years with the U.S. Border Patrol, recently displayed an array of weapons considered "assault rifles" that are similar to those recovered in Mexico, but are unavailable for sale in the U.S.

"These kinds of guns -- the auto versions of these guns -- they are not coming from El Paso," he said. "They are coming from other sources. They are brought in from Guatemala. They are brought in from places like China. They are being diverted from the military. But you don't get these guns from the U.S."

Some guns, he said, "are legitimately shipped to the government of Mexico, by Colt, for example, in the United States. They are approved by the U.S. government for use by the Mexican military service. The guns end up in Mexico that way -- the fully auto versions -- they are not smuggled in across the river."

Many of the fully automatic weapons that have been seized in Mexico cannot be found in the U.S., but they are not uncommon in the Third World.

The Mexican government said it has seized 2,239 grenades in the last two years -- but those grenades and the rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) are unavailable in U.S. gun shops. The ones used in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey in October and a TV station in January were made in South Korea. Almost 70 similar grenades were seized in February in the bottom of a truck entering Mexico from Guatemala.

"Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semi-automatic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California," according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Boatloads of Weapons

So why would the Mexican drug cartels, which last year grossed between $17 billion and $38 billion, bother buying single-shot rifles, and force thousands of unknown "straw" buyers in the U.S. through a government background check, when they can buy boatloads of fully automatic M-16s and assault rifles from China, Israel or South Africa?

Alberto Islas, a security consultant who advises the Mexican government, says the drug cartels are using the Guatemalan border to move black market weapons. Some are left over from the Central American wars the United States helped fight; others, like the grenades and launchers, are South Korean, Israeli and Spanish. Some were legally supplied to the Mexican government; others were sold by corrupt military officers or officials.

The exaggeration of United States "responsibility" for the lawlessness in Mexico extends even beyond the "90-percent" falsehood -- and some Second Amendment activists believe it's designed to promote more restrictive gun-control laws in the U.S.

In a remarkable claim, Auturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the U.S., said Mexico seizes 2,000 guns a day from the United States -- 730,000 a year. That's a far cry from the official statistic from the Mexican attorney general's office, which says Mexico seized 29,000 weapons in all of 2007 and 2008.

Chris Cox, spokesman for the National Rifle Association, blames the media and anti-gun politicians in the U.S. for misrepresenting where Mexican weapons come from.

"Reporter after politician after news anchor just disregards the truth on this," Cox said. "The numbers are intentionally used to weaken the Second Amendment."

"The predominant source of guns in Mexico is Central and South America. You also have Russian, Chinese and Israeli guns. It's estimated that over 100,000 soldiers deserted the army to work for the drug cartels, and that ignores all the police. How many of them took their weapons with them?"

But Tom Diaz, senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, called the "90 percent" issue a red herring and said that it should not detract from the effort to stop gun trafficking into Mexico.

"Let's do what we can with what we know," he said. "We know that one hell of a lot of firearms come from the United States because our gun market is wide open."

[Oscar Knight]

Apr 5, 2009 18:29:51 GMT -6 Oscar Knight said:

"Gun bans off-limits in drug war"

Bipartisan opposition in Congress greets border drug violence
Suzanne Gamboa ASSOCIATED PRESS
Thursday, March 26, 2009

Members of Congress may be alarmed by the surge in Mexican drug violence and its potential to spill across the border, but when talk turns to gun control, opposition from both Democrats and Republicans grows fierce.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. found that out when he proposed reinstituting a U.S. ban on the sale of certain semiautomatic weapons. Many lawmakers balked. The 1994 ban expired after 10 years.

"The Second Amendment Task Force opposes the discussed ban and will fight any attempts that infringe on our Second Amendment rights," said Rep. Paul Broun, Georgia Republican, a chairman of the group. Six Democrats and six Republicans co-signed his statement.

More:
www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/26/gun-bans-off-limits-in-drug-war/

SECOND AMENDMENT TASK FORCE RESPONDS TO ATTORNEY GENERAL’S COMMENTS ON ASSAULT WEAPONS

WASHINGTON D.C. - U.S. Congressman Dan Boren, (OK-2) and U.S. Congressman Paul Broun, (GA-10), Co-Chairs of the Second Amendment Task Force (SATF) in the U.S. House of Representatives, released the following statements regarding Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent comments on the possibility of the Obama Administration seeking to reinstate a ban on sales of assault weapons.

Congressman Boren
“The Second Amendment Task Force is adamantly opposed to reinstating the ban on the sale of assault weapons as it clearly would demonstrate a violation of United States citizens’ right to keep and bear arms. The Constitution absolutely does not outline any provision to restrict ownership of a gun belonging to a specific category. I will diligently work with my colleagues on the Second Amendment Task Force to defeat any form of legislation in Congress that poses a threat to the Second Amendment.”

Congressman Paul Broun
“The Attorney General’s recent comments about reinstating the ‘assault weapons’ ban are extremely troubling since a ban clearly violates our Constitutional right to bear arms. The Second Amendment Task Force opposes the discussed ban and will fight any attempts that infringe on our Second Amendment rights.”

The Second Amendment Task Force was created in the 111th Congress to monitor legislation regarding the Second Amendment in the U.S. House of Representatives. It acts as a unified and proactive force to promote legislation that protects the Second Amendment and to fight legislation that poses a threat to citizens’ Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

The bipartisan task force includes a group of Members from a wide spectrum of backgrounds that represent a large geographical area:

Democrats
Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK), Task Force Co-Chair
Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA)
Rep. Travis Childers (D-MS)
Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-IN)
Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT)
Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-NC)

Republicans
Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), Task Force Co-Chair
Rep. Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT)
Rep. John Carter (R-TX)
Rep. John Boozman (R-AR)
Rep. Steve King (R-IA)
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA)

www.house.gov/list/press/ok02_boren/2009_02_26_assault_weapons.html

[Oscar Knight]

Apr 5, 2009 18:23:37 GMT -6 Oscar Knight said:

Commentary:

U.S. freedoms not to blame for Mexico's drug war

(CNN) -- Here's a summary for the time- or attention-challenged:

Never surrender freedom for laws that can't affect criminals; they disobey laws for a living.

Nobody is surprised that Attorney General Eric Holder wants to make good on his promise to ban guns. We just didn't know whose tragedy he'd seize to advance his agenda.

Now we do. It's the drug-driven death and violence in Mexico at the hands of ruthless criminal cartels.

Barely a month on the job, Holder cited the Mexican cartel killings as the excuse to resurrect the Clinton gun ban.

Though a new face to some, Holder is a rabid Second Amendment foe from the Clinton administration who helped orchestrate the 1994 Clinton gun ban.

America has made this mistake already. So let's learn the lies that led to their gun ban.

"Even Earthworms Learn From Experience"

Ask any anti-gun politician to define an "assault weapon," and the honest answer is, "I know one when I see one."

When cosmetics alone can infringe constitutional freedoms, we're all in trouble. But that's precisely how the 1994 gun ban came about.

The gun-ban lobby and national media lied with lockstep conformity by playing endless footage of fully automatic machine gun fire. They fooled the American people and the U.S. Congress into thinking they were banning "high-powered," "rapid-fire," "battlefield-bred" guns designed to "spray fire from the hip."

None of that was true.

Then Sen. Dianne Feinstein convened anti-gun bureaucrats to conduct a firearm beauty pageant. They browsed photos of hundreds of perfectly legal semiautomatic rifles. They picked 19 they deemed most military looking. And they banned them.

But the guns aren't designed or used by the military. They're commonly owned semiautomatic rifles that fire one shot when the trigger is pulled.

They cannot "spray fire," nor are they designed to be fired "from the hip."

Nor are they the choice of terrorists in Afghanistan or drug gangs in Mexico. They prefer fully automatic machine guns, which our soldiers use.

Congress was so doubtful about the ban's effectiveness, they limited it to a 10-year experiment. So it expired in 2004, and for good reason. It was useless all along.

As the study mandated by that Congress found, "The banned weapons and magazines were never used in more than a modest fraction of all gun murders" in the first place. The ban had absolutely no effect on gun crime.

"But what about Mexico?"

Of course, everyone's rooting for Mexican President Felipe Calderon's government to crush the drug cartels' stranglehold. But our rights are not what's wrong.

Nobody can substantiate claims that U.S. guns cross the border "by the thousands" or "account for 95% of weapons used by Mexican drug gangs." Because it's not true.

Replying to Feinstein in subcommittee hearings last week, William Hoover, assistant director of field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said, "The investigations we have, that we see, for firearms flowing across the border don't show us individuals taking thousands of guns a day or at a time flowing into Mexico."

Yet reporter after politician after news anchor parrot the lie as readily as high schoolers gossip, and with equal disregard for truth.

That's how gun abolitionists claim Mexican gun laws are so strict that our "weak laws" (read: freedoms) are to blame for "fueling the violence" in Mexico.

Well, to believe that:

• You have to believe these butchers and beheaders break every Mexican law they want except Mexican gun laws, which they honor -- while they break America gun laws.

• You have to believe that Mexico's drug cartels, which possess the wealth and armies of nations, prefer American semiauto target and hunting rifles over fully automatic machine guns and any other military arms they want to crush opposition.

• You have to believe Mexican drug lords -- who make Forbes magazine's list of billionaires -- don't get large lots of weaponry on the transnational black market but instead choose to trifle with paperwork at U.S. gun stores.

• You have to believe that narco-terrorists who buy fragmentation grenades, grenade launchers, explosives, body armor, biometric security equipment, infrared surveillance technology and intelligence-grade reconnaissance gear will salute and obey a new American gun law -- if only we'd pass one.

"Get Real, Get Tough, But Get Away From Our Rights"

Everything Mexico's murderous thugs are doing is already illegal. At issue is not the absence of law, but the absence of political will to enforce the laws that both nations already possess.

Even Immigration and Customs Enforcement said, "We have the laws we need. We just need to more effectively enforce them."

Those that make possible Mexico's colossal corruption wear the garb of not only drug lords and gun runners, but also of too many city mayors and police chiefs, state bureaucrats and military officers.

A $40 billion criminal enterprise could not exist without the complicity of these powerful co-conspirators. And these cartels are being abetted by American media and politicians who blame our freedoms for it.

We should seal the border. Punish the guilty. And use existing gun and drug laws against violent drug syndicates here and in Mexico.

But leave American freedoms alone.

www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/03/26/lapierre.guns.mexico/index.html