We the Well-armed People (gun and knife rights stuff ) Second Amendment

[Crafty_Dog]

"The responses of both presidential candidates to the horror in Colorado feel weak to me. They are characteristic of our culture, which treats each of these grotesque acts of mass killing as 'tragedies.' The proper response to such an atrocity is rage. It wouldn't be out of place for the president and the man who hopes to replace him to refer to the shooter as a 'monster.' We don't do that. Instead, we focus on 'healing.' We've become excellently behaved victims." --columnist Mona Charen

[James Robinson]

Some people are just the epitome of hypocracy. Others are just cowards who get others to do their dirtywork. Moore is seemingly both.

[DougMacG]

I don't follow these tragedies closely but in the hypothetical, if everyone in the front row was a concealed carry holder, the shooting might have stopped sooner.

Still in the hypothetical, if they had a sign saying this establishment bans all guns on the premises, it would prevent defense, not crime.

They didn't have such a sign as far as I know and Colo is a concealed carry state.

[James Robinson]

  I think Doug's analysis makes sense. It may not have killed him, or it may have. It may have bought some people time, or deterred him from continuing the attack. Hard to say in hindsight. Its just sad that that person didnt exist at that time.

[James Robinson]

  I heard an excellent interview with an FBI crime analyst today. His basic message was that of awareness, and that those who have the ability to be aware and vigilant of their surroundings are almost always the ones who take matters into their own hands. This is the number 1 thing that can improve your ability to survive. Good interview and a message that I have always tried to follow. I always subconciously make a note of exits, people, objects, and place myself in a position of quick exit or defense. My wife sometimes gets angry with me because I make her hold my left hand instead of my right. In crowds I wont let her hold my hand sometimes at all. Maybe Im paranoid, but it just feels natural.

[Spartan Dog]

Posted on behalf of Crafty Dog

[James Robinson]

Eric Holder also played a huge role in the cover up of the brutal torture and murder of Jesse Trenadue in the Elohim city operation after the OKC bombing.

[Crafty_Dog]

James:

You're new here so forgive me the gentle reminder to please use the subject line.  The idea is to have the Search function enable this forum to be a tremendous research tool i.e. when someone wants to find a post he can do so.

[Crafty_Dog]

Democrats slip gun control into cybersecurity bill

July 27, 2012
By Anthony Martin


Senate Democrats slipped in a gun control amendment to a cybersecurity bill Friday, claiming that it is time to impose "reasonable gun control measures," according to The Hill.

The cybersecurity bill has advanced to the stage in the process when amendments can be attached. Amendments to bills often have nothing to do with the issue being addressed in the bill itself.

Senators Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., sponsored bill S.A. 2575 which would make it illegal to possess or transfer large capacity magazines, belts, feed stripes, or drums holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

Schumer has been one of the most ardent proponents of gun control in the U.S. Senate, along with Lautenberg and Feinstein.

Anticipating the heated opposition the amendment will encounter from Republicans and gun rights activists, Schumer claimed that both sides can find "common ground." Said Schumer,


Quote:
The basic complaint is that the Chuck Schumers of the world want to take away your guns. I think it would be smart for those of us who want rational gun control to make it know that that’s not true at all. 

But gun rights activists have not suggested that Senate Democrats proposed the repeal of the Second Amendment. The problem, say pro-gun groups, is that politicians such as Schumer gradually render the Second Amendment null and void not by repealing it but by passing a series of laws over a period of time that have the effect of violating the specific wording of the Amendment, "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Gun rights groups such as Gun Owners of America, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, and the NRA have stated that each time politicians pass gun control laws, they infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms -- a direct violation of the Second Amendment.

For example, why should citizens who have never committed a crime be deprived of using magazines that fire more than 10 rounds? If criminals can get their hands on such devices, which they do each day on the streets illegally, then preventing average citizens from purchasing them legally only strengthens the hand of dangerous persons who intend to do harm to others.

Thus, the Second Amendment can be rendered useless by loading it up with various restrictions and limitations passed by Congress that have the effect of nullifying the Amendment without repealing it.

Despite their claims that they would not do so, Democrats have jumped at the chance to implement more gun control in the wake of the Colorado shooting last Friday.

President Obama also waded into the waters of the controversial issue when he stated Wednesday in a campaign speech that only soldiers need to have semi-automatic high capacity firearms rather than criminals.

But the overwhelming majority of persons who own semi-automatic weapons are not criminals but average citizens who bought them legally and use them responsibly. The laws that are already on the books prevent criminals from purchasing these and other weapons, meaning that they get them from the black market on the street.

Thus, why would an American president wish to punish average citizens by banning them from owning such guns, when criminals are going to get them anyway through illegal means?

Although the Senate will more than likely pass the gun ban amendment to the cybersecurity bill next week, the measure will be dead on arrival in the House where Republicans hold the majority.

Most House Republicans strongly oppose gun control measures, and most are fully aware that citizens are in no mood for more gun control, given that firearms and ammo sales have skyrocketed in recent years, especially after the Colorado shooting.

Democrats still hold a 53-47 seat majority in the Senate.

[James Robinson]

Forgive me Im still trying to learn how to post on here.

[bigdog]

http://influencealley.nationaljournal.com/2012/07/the-nras-got-nothing-on-hollyw.php

[Crafty_Dog]

http://smartgirlpolitics.ning.com/group/tennesseesgp/forum/topic/show?id=2488056%3ATopic%3A590826&xg

[Crafty_Dog]

Republicans to issue report blaming five ATF employees for Fast and Furious' debacle

Published July 31, 2012

FoxNews.com


WASHINGTON – Congressional Republican investigators have singled out five employees in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to blame for the botched anti-gunrunning operation known as Fast and Furious, in a report on the scandal obtained by Fox News.

The report, the first of three to be issued from the congressional investigation, concludes that the five employees were responsible for an operation "marred by missteps, poor judgments and inherently reckless strategy." All five have since been reassigned but remain employed in the agency.

The findings, first reported by the Los Angeles Times, put additional pressure on the Obama administration in an ongoing battle over what higher-level officials knew, if anything, about the ATF operation.

For more than a year, Republicans have been leading an investigation into Fast and Furious, which was launched in Arizona in late 2009 by ATF, with help from the U.S. attorney's office there. The operation's targets bought nearly 2,000 weapons over several months. But for reasons that are still in dispute, most of the weapons sold were never followed, and high-powered weapons tied to the investigation ended up at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States, including the December 2010 murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

The Republican-led House voted late in June to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt, but Justice officials since then essentially have said the ball is still in Republicans' court, if they intend to follow through with vows to file a civil lawsuit seeking the remaining documents.

The congressional investigative report, to be issued Tuesday, specifically faults Acting Director Kenneth Melson; Deputy Director William Hoover; William Newell, special agent in charge of the Phoenix Field Division; William McMahon, deputy assistant director for field operations, and Mark Chait, assistant director for field operations.

Melson told investigators he felt the Justice Department was making him a scapegoat for the operation's failure.

"I think they were doing more damage control than anything," he testified, as quoted in the investigative report. "My view is that the whole matter of the department's response in this case was a disaster."

The congressional investigators noted that Melson "was concerned that Fast and Furious did not end sooner", but they also faulted him for never ordering it to be shut down.

The report faults Hoover for knowing Newell had employed "risky tactics" but allowing them to continue. Chait, for his part "paid a surprisingly passive role during the operation," while McMahon seemed to be nothing more than a "rubber stamp" for field operations, the report concludes.

The two other reports being prepared for release will focus more on the Justice Department's oversight role in the operation and its dealings with congressional investigators. Republicans have suggested Justice officials have resorted to political stonewalling in an attempt to cover up the truth, while administration officials have described the Republican investigation as a witch hunt.

But several Democrats joined House Republicans in voting for the contempt resolutions after Holder failed to give congressional investigators documents in response to a subpoena last year. Meetings in the run-up to the vote failed to reach a compromise, after President Obama asserted executive privilege over the documents.

Specifically, the documents at issue are mostly composed of internal Justice Department emails after Feb. 4, 2011, when department officials realized they would have to retract a letter to Congress that denied Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents ever let guns fall into the hands of suspected criminals.

In one email from early 2011, described to Fox News, Holder told subordinates: "We need answers on this. Not defensive BS. Real answers." The email was among several shown in two separate meetings with House Republicans and Democrats last week.

The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., has said it is "critically important" to obtain the post-Feb. 4, 2011, documents at issue because, among other things, they could show whether top officials were "surprised or were already aware" about so-called "gunwalking" in Fast and Furious when confronted with new information. In essence, Republicans say the documents could show whether the false letter was part of a "cover-up."

In a hearing before the contempt votes, Issa insisted Holder offered "to provide subpoenaed documents only if the committee agrees in advance to close the investigation," adding, "No investigator would ever agree to that."

But Justice Department officials have disputed that account. A Justice Department official insisted last month the documents at issue "show no intention or attempt to conceal information or mislead (Congress)."

Nevertheless, Boehner has said that a civil lawsuit to obtain the documents would be pursued.

[Crafty_Dog]

from www.yahoonews.com
*****
By JOHN R. LOTT JR.
In the wake of the recent mass shooting in Colorado, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called on police to join him in fighting for more gun control: "I don't understand why the police officers across this country don't stand up collectively and say we're going to go on strike." It is illegal for police to go on strike, and Mr. Bloomberg later backed off his statement. But the mayor is just as far off the mark in his assumption that police agree with him on gun control.
Take the annual survey by the National Association of Chiefs of Police of more than 20,000 chiefs of police and sheriffs. In 2010 it found that 95% believed "any law-abiding citizen [should] be able to purchase a firearm for sport or self-defense." Seventy-seven percent believed that concealed-handgun permits issued in one state should be honored by other states "in the way that drivers' licenses are recognized through the country"—and that making citizens' permits portable would "facilitate the violent crime-fighting potential of the professional law enforcement community."
National surveys of street officers are rare, but they show officers to be overwhelmingly in favor of law-abiding civilians owning and carrying guns. A 2007 national survey of sworn police officers by Police Magazine found that 88% disagreed that "tighter restrictions on handgun ownership would increase or enhance public safety." In the same survey, 67% opposed tighter gun control because the "law would only be obeyed by law-abiding citizens."
Regional or local surveys show similar patterns. For example, a 1997 survey conducted by the San Diego Police Officers Association found that 82% of its officers opposed an "assault weapons" ban, 82% opposed a limitation on magazine capacity, and 85% supported letting law-abiding private citizens carry concealed handguns.
These are not views consistent with Mayor Bloomberg's assertion: "The bottom line is if we had fewer guns, we would have a lot fewer murders." Police generally understand that too often the laws disarm law-abiding citizens, not criminals, and thus make it easier for criminals to commit crime. Police are extremely important for reducing crime, but they know that virtually always they arrive at the crime scene after the crime has been committed. When victims face a criminal by themselves, guns are critical for self-defense.
Mr. Bloomberg's claims about guns are mere hypotheticals, apparently based on guesses and little knowledge of what happens in real life. He also uses inaccurate, scaremongering terminology that suggests he doesn't even understand how guns operate.
He seems to dismiss the idea of letting people defend themselves when he speculates that if concealed-handgun permit holders had been present at the Colorado attack, the crossfire between permit holders and the killer would have been even worse than the mass shooting itself. But we have the evidence of multiple occasions when mass shootings were prevented by civilians.
One incident took place at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs in December 2007. There were 7,000 people inside when an armed man came on the church's property and began shooting, killing two people and wounding others. What stopped him was a parishioner who had permission to carry her permitted concealed weapon on church property. Despite this and other incidents—preventing shootings in schools, a mall and other public places—there is no case on record of a permit holder accidentally shooting a bystander.
Mr. Bloomberg keeps pushing for renewing the federal ban on assault weapons, which expired in 2004 after being enacted during the Clinton administration in 1994. What the mayor ignores is that no published peer-reviewed research by criminologists or economists—even that funded by the Clinton administration itself—found reductions in violent crime from the 1994 ban. It is particularly noteworthy that the law's sunset in 2004 was not followed by the bloodbath that Mr. Bloomberg and so many others predicted.
As for assault weapons, the AR-15s or AK-47s used by civilians are indeed "military-style weapons." But the key word is "style," since the weapons look similar but operate differently. The guns covered by the federal assault-weapons ban were not the fully automatic machine guns used by the military but semiautomatic versions of those guns, meaning they fire only one bullet per pull of the trigger. If the mayor wants to ban all semiautomatic guns—meaning a vast number of civilian-owned weapons that can fire a number of bullets without reloading—he should say so.
Mr. Bloomberg complains that "gun manufacturers flooded the market with the type of high-capacity magazines [the killer in Colorado] used." But we have already tried a magazine ban as part of the assault-weapons ban, and it won't be any more helpful now. A magazine, which is basically a metal box with a spring, is trivially easy to make in any size. Even if large magazines are banned, they will always be readily available on the illegal market.
Although Mr. Bloomberg wants to ban "armor-piercing bullets," he doesn't seem to know much about them, either. First, nobody can get them legally for handguns except the police. Then the mayor claims that: "The only reason to have an armor-piercing bullet is to go through a bullet-resistant vest." That is just not so. Rifles with standard ammunition often can penetrate such vests, because their bullets travel faster than those fired from handguns. Yet if the mayor had said that hunting rifles can penetrate these bullet-resistant vests, his comments wouldn't have generated the same support.
Mr. Bloomberg's emotional responses are understandable. But facts matter. The mayor should take a private lesson from his police officers on gun basics.
Mr. Lott is a former chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission and the author of the expanded third edition of "More Guns, Less Crime" (University of Chicago Press, 2010).

[Crafty_Dog]

*ATF head Jones avoiding volunteered evidence about earlier gun operation 'Project Gunwalker' (http://www.examiner.com/article/atf-head-jones-avoiding-volunteered-evidence-about-earlier-gun-operation?CID=examiner_alerts_article)*

August 5, 2012
By: David Codrea

 
Acting Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Director B. Todd Jones has failed to acknowledge overtures by the confidential informant at the heart of Operation Wide Receiver to give him detailed information about the failed gun smuggling investigation, Gun Rights Examiner learned over the weekend. Firearms dealer Mike Detty, who sold about 450 guns to straw purchasers under the assurances of his ATF handlers that they would be under surveillance, attempted to give Jones operational information both in person and by letter earlier this year, only to be ignored.
 
*“I met him in the Sig booth at SHOT this year,” Detty told this correspondent. “I asked one of his people if he had time to say hello to another former Marine. He came over with a big smile and shook hands. I handed him a business card and told him, ‘If you're serious about getting to the bottom of the gunwalking scandal you'll need to start at the beginning--that's me and Operation Wide Receiver.’
 
“He nodded and said he'd be in touch,” Detty continued. “Several weeks later I sent him a letter with my contact info and offer to help. Nothing.”*
 
Gun Rights Examiner has obtained a copy of that letter, written on February 27, as well as the certified domestic mail return receipt, providing proof of delivery on March 5.
 
“There are currently something like 30 people serving prison sentences because of my involvement to help end illegal gun trafficking to Mexico,” Detty informed Jones, giving him a means of validating his credibility with an easily verifiable claim. “Not one case has gone to trial because of the overwhelming and indisputable documentation of these transactions--often videotaped in the living room of my home.”
 
“Operation Wide Receiver accounted for 450 guns being lost across the border but there were two other major cases that I brought to ATF that accounted for at least another 200 guns that are now in cartel hands,” Detty related. “As a CI it was not my place to question ATF’s motives or demand a detailed plan of action. I had assumed that my efforts would truly be used to help take down a powerful cartel.”
 
“If you’re sincere in wanting to get to the bottom of the gunwalking scandal then you’ll need to start at the beginning and that is me and Operation Wide Receiver,” Detty advised Jones. *“Throughout my time as a CI, I kept meticulous notes--some 600 pages worth. In fact, it was my journal that raised the ire of SAC Newell. Once he learned of my documentation he ordered the field agents not to accept any new cases from me. He knew immediately that my records, irrefutable and unimpeachable, would prove troublesome for him at some point in the future.”*
 
Repeating his offer “to help you in any way possible, Detty pledged to make himself available and “to share any of my documentation with you,” reminding Jones “It seems odd to me and even sad that when top officials at the ATF and DOJ came out, after Agent Terry’s murder, and said that guns had never been allowed to cross the border as part of any investigation, that only ONE field agent between the Phoenix and Tucson offices had the [courage] to step forward and correct this.
 
“It should be obvious to you why I have lost faith in the very agents I once trusted with my life and why I am now embarrassed for the role that I played in this huge mess,” Detty confessed. “The lack of integrity that ATF has displayed at all levels is disappointing! I am hoping that your leadership will correct this!”
 
To date, Jones has ignored this resource who can provide not only vast and detailed personal recollections, but actual documentation to back up his testimony. Instead, the acting director has pursued a course to relegate the actions of ATF managers involved in Operation Fast and Furious to a personnel issue instead of a criminal matter, and recently stirred up controversy with an in-house video widely perceived to be a chilling warning to whistleblowers.
 
The unwillingness of the acting director to even have a subordinate contact Detty is revealing, particularly since Jones publicly laments his agency is “under the microscope” and that running it is “testing all of [his] skill sets.” It’s also curious, as the former confidential informant has first-hand information about his dealings with former Phoenix Field Office Special Agent in Charge William Newell, one of five ATF careerists identified as culpable for Fast and Furious gunwalking in the Congressional joint staff report recently prepared for Rep. Darrrell Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley, who “quickly forwarded information about such recoveries to ATF headquarters, where ATF senior officials became fully informed of the early ‘successes’ of the operation.”
 
That Jones does not wish to create a record of receiving information from any source outside his control indicates many things, but a commitment to use all means to determine the truth does not appear to be one of them.
 
“*Whoever said he was a placeholder is correct,” Detty has sadly concluded in a private correspondence to Gun Rights Examiner. “He doesn't care a bit about changing anything at ATF*.”

[Crafty_Dog]

Drug cartel operatives used weapons from Operation Fast and Furious in a failed attempt to assassinate a high-ranking Mexican law enforcement official, the El Paso Times reports in an article that follows up on an initial report from Breitbart News’ Mary Chastain.
The gun — which “was seized in Tijuana in connection with a drug cartel’s conspiracy to kill the police chief of Tijuana, Baja California, who later became the Juárez police chief” — is tied to Fast and Furious.


“The firearm was found Feb. 25, 2010, during an arrest of a criminal cell associated with Teodoro ‘El Teo’ García Simental and Raydel ‘El Muletas’ López Uriarte, allies of the Sinaloa cartel,” Diana Washington Valdez wrote on Monday for the El Paso Times. “Tijuana police said they arrested four suspects in March 2010 in connection with a failed attempt to take out Julián Leyzaola, and that the suspects allegedly confessed to conspiring to assassinate the police chief on orders from Tijuana cartel leaders.”


“Leyzaola, a retired Mexican army officer, reportedly survived several attempts on his life while trying to bring order to Tijuana, a city torn apart by turf battles following the arrests and deaths of Arellano Felix cartel leaders,” Valdez added.


Leyzaola has since moved to Ciudad Juarez, a town right across the border from El Paso, Texas, to become the police chief there.
This new information comes on the heels of the release of a lengthy congressional report into Fast and Furious from House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley. That report — the first of three — named five Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives officials Grassley and Issa believe are ultimately responsible for Fast and Furious. On the same day of the report’s public release, one of those officials — former deputy ATF director William Hoover — resigned his position.


That congressional report also saw the release of new evidence that Obama administration ATF officials sought to cover up the Fast and Furious connection to a death other than that of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
Mario Gonzalez, the brother of then-Mexican prosecutor Patricia Gonzalez, was killed with Fast and Furious weapons in early November 2010. According to internal ATF emails congressional investigators obtained and released in this report, one ATF agent had discovered that two of the guns found at Mario Gonzalez’s murder scene were Fast and Furious weapons.


That agent, Tonya English, emailed her supervisors David Voth and Hope MacCallister asking them to “not release any information” on the Fast and Furious connection to that murder.
House Republicans are gearing up their lawsuit against President Barack Obama’s assertion of executive privilege to withhold Fast and Furious documents from Congress and the American people. Because the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia has refused to enforce the congressional citation finding Attorney General Eric Holder in criminal contempt of Congress, the House is moving on the civil contempt of Congress resolution. That civil contempt resolution allows the House to fight the president’s privilege claim in court.


Issa recently said he’s “100 percent” confident a federal judge will force Obama to cough up the documents.


http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/07/re...-plot/?print=1

[Crafty_Dog]

Second post of the day:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/high-ranking-mexican-drug-cartel-member-makes-explosive-allegation-fast-and-furious-is-not-what-you-think-it-is/

A high-ranking Mexican drug cartel operative currently in U.S. custody is making startling allegations that the failed federal gun-walking operation known as “Fast and Furious” isn’t what you think it is.
It wasn’t about tracking guns, it was about supplying them — all part of an elaborate agreement between the U.S. government and Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa Cartel to take down rival cartels.
The explosive allegations are being made by Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, known as the Sinaloa Cartel’s “logistics coordinator.” He was extradited to the Chicago last year to face federal drug charges.
 
Jesus Vincente Zambada-Niebla (Source: MSNBC)
Zambada-Niebla claims that under a “divide and conquer” strategy, the U.S. helped finance and arm the Sinaloa Cartel through Operation Fast and Furious in exchange for information that allowed the DEA, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies to take down rival drug cartels. The Sinaloa Cartel was allegedly permitted to traffic massive amounts of drugs across the U.S. border from 2004 to 2009 — during both Fast and Furious and Bush-era gunrunning operations — as long as the intel kept coming.

This pending court case against Zambada-Niebla is being closely monitored by some members of Congress, who expect potential legal ramifications if any of his claims are substantiated. The trial was delayed but is now scheduled to begin on Oct. 9.
Zambada-Niebla is reportedly a close associate of Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and the son of Ismael “Mayo” Zambada-Garcia, both of which remain fugitives, likely because of the deal made with the DEA, federal court documents allege.
 
Based on the alleged agreement  ”the Sinaloa Cartel under the leadership of defendant’s father, Ismael Zambada-Niebla and ‘Chapo’ Guzman, were given carte blanche to continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs into Chicago and the rest of the United States and were also protected by the United States government from arrest and prosecution in return for providing information against rival cartels which helped Mexican and United States authorities capture or kill thousands of rival cartel members,” states a motion for discovery filed in U.S. District Court by Zambada-Niebla’s attorney in July 2011.
A source in Congress, who spoke to TheBlaze on the condition of anonymity, said that some top congressional investigators have been keeping “one eye on the case.”  Another two members of Congress, both lead Fast and Furious Congressional investigators, told TheBlaze they had never even heard of the case.
One of the Congressmen, who also spoke to TheBlaze on the condition of anonymity because criminal proceedings are still ongoing, called the allegations “disturbing.” He said Congress will likely get involved once Zambada-Niebla’s trial has concluded if any compelling information surfaces.
“Congress won’t get involved in really any criminal case until the trial is over and the smoke has cleared,” he added. “If the allegations prove to hold any truth, there will be some serious legal ramifications.”
Earlier this month, two men in Texas were sentenced to 70 and 80 months in prison after pleading guilty to attempting to export 147 assault rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition to Mexico’s Los Zetas cartel. Compare that to the roughly 2,000 firearms reportedly “walked” in Fast and Furious, which were used in the murders of hundreds of Mexican citizens and U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry, and some U.S. officials could potentially face jail time if they knowingly armed the Sinaloa Cartel and allowed guns to cross into Mexico.
If proven in court, such an agreement between U.S. law enforcement agencies and a Mexican cartel could potentially mar both the Bush and Obama administrations. The federal government is denying all of Zambada-Niebla’s allegations and contend that no official immunity deal was agreed upon.
To be sure, Zambada-Niebla is a member of one of the most ruthless drug gangs in all of Mexico, so there is a chance that he is saying whatever it takes to reduce his sentence, which will likely be hefty. However, Congress and the media have a duty to prove without a reasonable doubt that there is no truth in his allegations. So far, that has not been achieved.
Zambada-Niebla was reportedly responsible for coordinating all of the Sinaloa Cartel’s multi-ton drug shipments from Central and South American countries, through Mexico, and into the United States. To accomplish this, he used every tool at his disposal: Boeing 747 cargo planes, narco-submarines, container ships, speed boats, fishing vessels, buses, rail cars, tractor trailers and automobiles. But Guzman and Zambada-Niebla’s overwhelming success within the Sinaloa Cartel was largely due to the arrests and dismantling of many of their competitors and their booming businesses in the U.S. from 2004 to 2009 — around the same time ATF’s gun-walking operations were in full swing. Fast and Furious reportedly began in 2009 and continued into early 2011.
According Zambada-Niebla, that was a product of the collusion between the U.S. government and the Sinaloa Cartel.
 
Soldiers and police officers guard packages of seized marijuana during a presentation for the media in Tijuana, Mexico. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)
The claims seem to fall in line with statements made last month by Guillermo Terrazas Villanueva, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state government in northern Mexico who said U.S. agencies ”don’t fight drug traffickers,“ instead ”they try to manage the drug trade.”
Also, U.S. officials have previously acknowledged working with the Sinaloa Cartel through another informant,  Humberto Loya-Castro. He is also allegedly a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel as well as a close confidant and lawyer of “El Chapo” Guzman.
 
Joaquin Guzman Loera, aka "El Chapo" (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
Loya-Castro was indicted along with Chapo and Mayo in 1995 in the Southern District of California in a massive narcotics trafficking conspiracy (Case no. 95CR0973). The case was dismissed in 2008 at the request of prosecutors after Loya became an informant for the United States government and subsequently provided information for years.
In 2005, “the CS (informant Loya-Castro) signed a cooperation agreement with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California,” states an affidavit filed in the Zambada-Niebla case by Loya-Castro’s handler, DEA agent Manuel Castanon.
“Thereafter, I began to work with the CS. Over the years, the CS’ cooperation resulted in the seizure of several significant loads of narcotics and precursor chemicals. The CS’ cooperation also resulted in other real-time intelligence that was very useful to the United States government.”
Under the alleged agreement with U.S. agencies, “the Sinaloa Cartel, through Loya-Castro, was to provide information accumulated by Mayo, Chapo, and others, against rival Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations to the United States government,” a motion for discovery states.
In return, the United States government allegedly agreed to dismiss the charges in the pending case against Loya-Castro (which they did), not to interfere with his drug trafficking activities and those of the Sinaloa Cartel and not actively prosecute him or the Sinaloa Cartel leadership.
Taken directly from the motion filed in federal court:
“This strategy, which he calls ‘Divide & Conquer,’ using one drug organization to help against others, is exactly what the Justice Department and its various agencies have implemented in Mexico. In this case, they entered into an agreement with the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel through, among others, Humberto Loya-Castro, to receive their help in the United States government’s efforts to destroy other cartels.”
“Indeed, United States government agents aided the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel.”
The government has denied this and says the deal did not go past Loya-Castro.
Zambada-Niebla was arrested by Mexican soldiers in late March of 2009 after he met with DEA agents at a Mexico City hotel in a meeting arranged by Loya-Castro, though the U.S. government was not involved in his arrest. He was extradited to Chicago to face federal drug charges on Feb. 18, 2010. He is now being held in a Michigan prison after requesting to be moved from Chicago.
“Classified Materials”
During his initial court proceedings, Zambada-Niebla continually stated that he was granted full immunity by the DEA in exchange for his cooperation. The agency, however, argues that an “official” immunity deal was never established though they admit he may have acted as an informant.
Zambada-Niebla and his legal council also requested records about Operation Fast and Furious, which permitted weapons purchased in the United States to be illegally smuggled into Mexico, sometimes by paid U.S. informants and cartel leaders. Their request was denied. From the defense motion:
“It is estimated that approximately 3,000 people were killed in Mexico as a result of ‘Operation Fast and Furious,’ including law enforcement officers in the state of Sinaloa, Mexico, the headquarters of the Sinaloa cartel. The Department of Justice’s leadership apparently saw this as an ingenious way of combating drug cartel activities.”
“It has recently been disclosed that in addition to the above-referenced problems with ‘Operation Fast & Furious,’ the DOJ, DEA, and the FBI knew that some of the people who were receiving the weapons that were being allowed to be transported to Mexico, were in fact informants working for those organizations and included some of the leaders of the cartels.”
Zambada’s attorney has filed several motions for discovery to that effect in Illinois Federal District Court, which were summarily denied by the presiding judge who claimed the defendant failed to make the case that he was actually a DEA informant.
In April, 2012, a federal judge refused to dismiss charges against him.
From a Chicago Sun Times report: “According to the government, [Zambada-Niebla] conveyed his interest and willingness to cooperate with the U.S. government, but the DEA agents told him they ‘were not authorized to meet with him, much less have substantive discussions with him,’” the judge wrote.
 
In this courtroom artist's drawing Jesus Vincente Zambada-Niebla appears before U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Verna Sadock)
In their official response to Zambada-Niebla’s motion for discovery, the federal government confirmed the existence of “classified materials” regarding the case but argued they “do not support the defendant’s claim that he was promised immunity or public authority for his actions.”
Experts have expressed doubts that Zambada-Niebla had an official agreement with the U.S. government, however, agree Loya Castro probably did. Either way, the defense still wants to obtain DEA reports that detail the agency’s relationship with the Sinaloa Cartel and put the agents on the stand, under oath to testify.
The documents that detail the relationship between the federal government and the Sinaloa Cartel have still not been released or subjected to review — citing matters of national security.
(Editor’s note: The impetus for this article came from author Reed A. Williams, whose upcoming book “The Weed That Just Won’t Die” delves deeply into the Zambada-Niebla court case. Get more details on the book here.)
Follow Jason Howerton (@jason_howerton) on Twitter

[prentice crawford]

Woof,
 I bet that puckered some butts at the AG'S office.
                             P.C.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qesnbpgO304

[prentice crawford]

Woof,
 This confuses me, and when I'm confused about something it usually means there is something really wrong going on.

               http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/17/who-does-the-government-intend-to-shoot/?fb_action_ids=297876136986895&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=246965925417366

                                                                        P.C.

[Crafty_Dog]

PC:   Would you be our point man on this please?

PS:  Shouldn't it be ""Whom" does the govt wish to shoot?" 

[Sheep Dog]

Here is what the Daily Caller Op-ed said:

"The Social Security Administration (SSA) confirms that it is purchasing 174 thousand rounds of hollow point bullets to be delivered to 41 locations in major cities across the U.S.  No one has yet said what the purpose of these purchases is, though we are led to believe that they will be used only in an emergency to counteract and control civil unrest.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/17/who-does-the-government-intend-to-shoot/#ixzz25WESbCvY"

As I posted on FB this is about buying ammunition for use by the Special Agents of the SSA-OIG.

The SSA has a law enforcement division which is part of of the Office of Inspector General (SSA-OIG). SSA-OIG Special Agents are sworn law enforcement officers who conduct violations of SSA focusing on fraud, waste and abuse. They are a relatively small agency but often work cases that go beyond simple social security fraud. Often large criminal organizations are involved in social security fraud as a peripheral part of the larger crime. The special agents of SSA-OIG would go through about 70,000 rounds just qualifying with their weapons each year. Approximately 295 agents qualifying four times a year, 60 rounds per qual. so 295 agents * 60 rounds * 4 annual quals. = 70800. That would be to qual only not including the ammo they carry with them, as well as ammo used for training. There is nothing at all surprising that a law enforcement agency would need that many rounds. At the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center a trainee may go through thousands of rounds while doing his criminal investigator training program (refered to as CITP).

As to why "hollow-point", generally speaking in the federal government you qualify with what you carry.

[Crafty_Dog]

Sheep Dog:

Your contributions are appreciated.

Marc/Crafty Dog

[Crafty_Dog]

Second Amendment: When Self-Defense Matters
When it comes to bearing arms in self-defense, it seems the Brits would rather have someone dead and robbed than alive and armed. This past week, a businessman and his wife across the Pond were arrested after the man shot intruders breaking into his home. Never mind that he successfully foiled the robbery attempt. Never mind that the would-be robbers will never try that home again. Never mind that the man and his wife escaped injury. In Britain, gun bans have effectively criminalized the innocent and victimized the guilty.
Yet while the Brits have all but abandoned the centuries-old Castle Doctrine -- which asserts the right to use force to defend one's home -- 92-year-old Earl Jones of Kentucky has not. Jones, a World War II veteran, this past week shot and killed an intruder who had entered his home. "It was simple," Jones said. "That man was going to take my life. He was hunting me. I was protecting myself." Our Founding Fathers recognized the God-given right to bear arms in self-defense and codified it in the Second Amendment of our Constitution -- a Constitution Jones fought to preserve. "I didn't go to war for nothing," he said. "I have the right to carry a gun." When it comes to who we want guarding our back, we'll take Jones any day over the entire British government.

[Crafty_Dog]

Posting this here on Big Dog"s behalf

"That is why I took up the gun — not to shoot, not to kill, not to destroy, but to stop those who would do evil, to protect the vulnerable, to defend democratic values, to stand up for the freedom we have to talk … about how we can make the world a better place.”

http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_van_uhm_why_i_chose_a_gun.html

[bigdog]

I understand why you moves it here, but the talk is given by the Netherlands' chief of defense and really does focus on military issues. Hence, the reason why I posted under military matters to begin with.

Posting this here on Big Dog"s behalf

"That is why I took up the gun — not to shoot, not to kill, not to destroy, but to stop those who would do evil, to protect the vulnerable, to defend democratic values, to stand up for the freedom we have to talk … about how we can make the world a better place.”

http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_van_uhm_why_i_chose_a_gun.html

[Crafty_Dog]

Ah, I skimmed too quickly and did not notice that.  Your call was correct.

[JDN]

"Move to strike you honor as non-responsive!" 

"Granted."

While certainly you are entitled to your opinion JDN, right now it is not measuring up to the standards around here.  Please cease posting on OFF on this thread.

Thank you,
Marc

Vindication?        I guess it really was just a sting gone bad?
I guess I was right all along huh?   



"A reading of the Inspector General's report appears to corroborate that there was no conspiracy to walk guns, no higher-up plan to do so and that walking guns was not the goal of the investigation, but rather a response to "legal and tactical" circumstances on the ground, as the report states."

The Inspector General's doorstop of a report, at 471 pages, blames agents at ATF's Phoenix field division, prosecutors at the United States Attorney's office in Phoenix, and officials at their respective headquarters in Washington D.C. for a poorly conceived, executed and supervised investigation that failed in the primary mission of law enforcement -- to prioritize public safety. The report argues that a strategy of deferring overt enforcement -- and not immediately approaching straw buyers to seek confessions -- allowed the frenzied gun buying to continue, relatively unchecked. In December 2010, two of the guns purchased previously by a suspect in the case were found at the site of a shootout where Mexican bandits killed U.S. border patrol agent Terry. ATF whistleblowers subsequently alleged that ATF supervisors had directed them to "walk guns," or to allow the guns to flow into the hands of Mexican drug traffickers, as a tactic to build a bigger case.

http://documents.latimes.com/fast-and-furious-oig-report/

[Crafty_Dog]

Until Holder/Obama cough up the documents subpoenaed by Issa's committee then the report can only report on the info it has.

[Crafty_Dog]

Darrel Issa last night on Bret Baier pointed out one of the dismissed/resigned was a right hand man of Holder, reporting directly to him.  Issa still thinks Holder guilty.

[Crafty_Dog]

Bullets Follow Guns to Mexico
Ammunition Is Easier to Buy and Hide Than Weapons; Smuggling Is Harder to Stop .
By ANA CAMPOY
 

 
Agents unload ammunition following an April bust that discovered some 280,000 rounds of ammunition in a truck heading to Mexico from Texas.
.
Congressional hearings have put gunrunning to Mexico in the headlines, but the parallel flow of ammunition across the border is proving to be more difficult to stop.

In a series of arrests this year, U.S. agents in New Mexico and Texas seized hundreds of thousands of rounds bound for the border—many of them bullets for the AK-47 and M16 assault rifles favored by Mexican drug cartels.

Bullets are much easier to buy, hide and smuggle than guns, and federal and state laws require relatively little tracking of their sales. That makes ammunition smugglers particularly difficult to catch.

Such cases also get little publicity compared to gun trafficking. That is especially true since members of the U.S. Congress and a Justice Department watchdog this year criticized the department's "Fast and Furious" sting operation, which allowed smugglers to buy hundreds of weapons without tracking whose hands they ended up in. Some of the guns later turned up at crime scenes in Mexico and the U.S., including one where a U.S. border agent was killed.

Federal agencies including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have been trying to crack down on ammunition smuggling with operations that include elaborate undercover investigations as well as routine border stops. In some cases the agencies work with state and local authorities.

"The bottom line is a gun is worthless if you don't have a bullet to put in," said Jerry Robinette, a federal special agent with Homeland Security Investigations in San Antonio.

Mr. Robinette said his agency is trying just as hard to stop ammunition from illegally entering Mexico as it is weapons.

Unlike gun dealers, sellers of bullets in most places don't need a license and aren't required to verify whether a buyer qualifies to own ammunition. Federal law bans the sale of ammunition to certain people, such as those younger than 18, felons and illegal immigrants.

In contrast to gun sales, which must be tracked by law, no record keeping is required for ammunition purchases. Most U.S. states impose no limits on how many bullets a person can buy. The U.S. forbids the export of ammunition without a license, and Mexico prohibits its import. Mexican law limits ammunition purchases, and violations are punishable by up to six years in jail. Clandestinely bringing bullets into the country carries a sentence of up to 30 years.  But the dearth of information available on ammunition sales can make it difficult to pursue smuggling cases.

"You can't track ammunition the way you can AK-47s," said Eric Olson, a senior associate with the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. The think tank, which focuses on U.S.-Mexico relations, has recommended that the U.S. change its laws governing ammunition to make it easier to track sales.

There are few statistics to quantify how much ammunition is smuggled. But a string of recent cases suggests a steady southbound flow of bullets and magazines, from piecemeal shipments to large orders.

Federal authorities in Laredo, Texas, earlier this month took four men into custody for allegedly trying to smuggle more than 9,000 rounds of ammunition and close to 1,000 assault-rifle magazines to Mexico. Three of the men have pleaded not guilty; the other hasn't entered a plea. The owners of a Laredo gun shop, who allegedly sold them the goods, also face federal criminal charges. They have pleaded not guilty.

In August, federal agents arrested a New Mexico man after finding in his apartment more than 65,000 rounds of assault-rifle ammunition he had allegedly bought online, as well as three Kevlar military helmets and one ballistic vest. Investigators said the man told them he had purchased about 200,000 rounds since late 2011 and sent them to Mexico, according to court filings by prosecutors.

In June, a federal judge sentenced a pair of smugglers to more than two years in prison for buying ammunition at locations of Academy Sports + Outdoors, which is owned by private-equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., in communities near the border and moving it into Mexico without a license. Academy and KKR didn't respond to requests for comment.

In April, a U.S. trucker crossed the international bridge in El Paso, Texas, with more than 200,000 rounds in his truck, according to Mexican authorities. He was apprehended on the Mexican side and charged with illegal possession of ammunition. His lawyer said the man was carrying legal cargo to be delivered in the U.S., but mistakenly took a wrong turn and ended up in Mexico.

And in February, border officials in Laredo arrested a brother-and-sister team for trying to sneak about 900 rounds of ammunition—some already loaded into high-capacity magazines—into Mexico. The ammunition was wrapped in black electrical tape near the engine of their truck when they were stopped for a random inspection at an international bridge linking Laredo to Mexico.

In August, a federal judge sentenced the siblings to more than two years.

[Crafty_Dog]

That Loaded Gun in My Carry-On? Oh, I Forgot
By JOE SHARKEY
Published: September 28, 2012
•   
The list of potentially lethal weapons was certainly eye-opening: 47 guns (38 of them loaded, including six with rounds in their chambers), three inert hand grenades, supplies of black powder, hunting knives, timing fuses and a sword. Then, consider that the list was compiled by the Transportation Security Administration, of weapons found in airline travelers’ carry-on bags in the seven days that ended on Sept. 20.

In fact, the T.S.A. says the number of guns found at airport security checkpoints has been steadily rising for the last couple of years. Through Friday, 1,105 guns have been found this year, a pace that is higher than last year’s. In 2011, the total was 1,320, up from 1,123 in 2010, the agency says.

Security experts attribute the increase to two factors: a rise in gun sales and the sharp growth of so-called right-to-carry laws across the country that significantly relax regulations on carrying guns in many areas of public life, from colleges to hospitals.  Invariably, according to the T.S.A., travelers at airports with guns in their carry-on bags say they simply forgot they had them. “It’s almost always inadvertent rather than intentional,” said David Castelveter, a spokesman for the agency

Like other professionals in security, law enforcement and firearms safety, Mr. Castelveter was baffled by how anyone could forget that they were carrying a gun. “I’m a Vietnam vet, and when I went through training I was taught that my gun was my best friend — and God forbid you should ever lose sight of that fact. I would never, ever not know that I have a gun in my bag.”

Yet that was the exactly the excuse offered by a 27-year-old flight attendant who was stopped at a checkpoint at the Philadelphia airport on Sunday. The flight attendant, arriving for work on a US Airways flight, had a valid handgun permit — but of course, not a permit to carry it on an airplane. As it routinely does in such cases, the T.S.A. notified local law enforcement. A Philadelphia police officer who responded tried to unload the 38-caliber handgun weapon but instead accidentally fired it. No one was hurt, and the flight attendant was issued a summary citation for disorderly conduct.

   could have seemed like a Keystone Kops episode. Instead, it occurred as air travel has become increasingly tense. The potential for trouble posed by prohibited guns on crowded airplanes is obvious, even beyond any overt issues of terrorism or premeditated crime.    Except in rare instances where T.S.A. officials believe the Federal Bureau of Investigation needs to be notified, local law enforcement officials usually handle reports of guns at airport checkpoints.

“All we’re permitted to do is confiscate the weapon and call law enforcement agents, who then will take custody of it and determine whether or not you’re arrested,” said Mr. Castelveter, who is part of the security agency’s effort to notify local news media to aggressively publicize reports of guns and other prohibited weapons being found at checkpoints.

The growing number of guns being found at airports dovetails with the growth in firearms sales nationally. Last year, requests for background checks for firearms sales submitted under the National Instant Criminal Background Check System of the F.B.I. totaled 16.4 million, up from 14.4 million in 2010 and 8.9 million in 2001, according to F.B.I. data. But firearms safety experts also suspect that some people new to firearms possession may not have basic weapons education, which used to be a stronger focus of gun advocacy groups like the National Rifle Association.  (POTH calling for more NRA? Don't see that very often! Ha!)

Guns at airport checkpoints reflect “the pervasiveness of concealed-carry weapons, which have gone up enormously in the last 10 years because concealed permits have got easier to get,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a Washington research group that promotes what it refers to as centrist views on “divisive social issues,” among them constitutional gun rights.

Page 2 of 2)

“When people become accustomed to carrying their firearms everywhere they go, even in places like churches and schools in certain states, they can just simply forget they have them,” Mr. Bennett said. “Because concealed-carry permits are now so easy to get, it becomes second nature in kind of a bad way — instead of being thought of as a really significant act — carrying any firearm around.”

Finding the T.S.A. screener digging a gun out of your carry-on bag at the airport “does get to the heart of the matter, in that it shows a lack of focused training” in gun handling, said Ron Danielowski, a former Marine marksman and security consultant in the Middle East, and a founder of Pulse O2DA Firearms Training, an Illinois company that provides intensive weapons and self-defense instruction.  Mr. Danielowski echoed the advice on the T.S.A.’s blog that people can travel with a firearm in a checked bag, provided the airline is notified in advance and the weapon is contained in a hard-locked case. But he and other firearms advocates note that conflicting state and local laws can still cause problems, even for those who comply with the federal regulations, if they arrive with a gun in a location that has different rules.

“That’s a huge mess,” he said of conflicting federal, state and local gun laws that sometimes catch a person otherwise legally transporting a gun. “We’re trying to address that on a local, democratic level. But the first thing right now is, if we’re going to travel with a firearm and plan to go through other states and jurisdictions, we need to make sure that we’re compliant. That’s on us.”

The T.S.A. intends to continue to focus attention on guns at checkpoints, even though Mr. Castelveter said that airports themselves often object because of the effect of the topic on the flying experience.  Once a gun is found, assuming there is no indication of a federal crime, local laws apply. In some locations, “if you come to the checkpoint with a weapon and law enforcement gets involved, they’ll just tell you take it back to your car, because you’re in a state where you’re allowed to carry one” in most places. “But do that in a place like New York and you could be in Rikers Island in about 30 seconds,” Mr. Castelveter said.

“The interesting thing to me is all of these items, from handguns to brass knuckles, a passenger could take from Point A to Point B if it was properly checked” rather than carried through the airport, said Nico Melendez, a T.S.A. official in Los Angeles who posts regularly on the agency’s blog.

“Gun owners should all know where their weapons are, for our own safety and for the safety of those we live with and those around us,” Mr. Melendez said. “I always know where mine is. It’s really kind of basic. Weapons are dangerous.”

[Crafty_Dog]

Watch the video too!

http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/News/57-previously-undiscovered-fast-furious-guns-mexican-crimes/story?id=17361775


Fifty seven previously unidentified firearms linked to Operation Fast and Furious were recovered in sites associated with murders, kidnappings, and at least two gruesome massacres.
 
Univision News obtained the list of Fast and Furious weapons and a list containing almost 60,000 recovered firearms compiled by Mexico's Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional (SEDENA). A cross-reference of the serial numbers of the guns resulted in 96 full matches (several partial matches were discarded). The 96 firearms linked to Operation Fast and Furious all turned up at crime scenes in Mexico from 2009 to 2010.
 
In a report published on July 26, Congress mentioned there were "at least 48 recoveries involving 122 weapons [in Mexico] connected to Operation Fast and Furious." To check whether those were the same guns pinpointed by the data cross-reference, Univision News contacted congressional investigators asking for the serial numbers of the 122 guns in Congress' report. After an initial request by Univision News in mid-September and despite numerous phone calls and emails, there was no further response.
 





The Associated Press

Univision found new evidence of weapons... View Full Size
















 Who are the human faces of the U.S. government's botched Fast and Furious gun-walking operation? Watch Video



 Univision News then gathered all the serial numbers available in the evidence appendixes of the major congressional investigation released by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Iowa Senator Charles Grassley last July. Another data analysis showed that five of the weapons in the list of 96 were already mentioned in the hundreds of emails and the 4473 forms that the Department of Justice had given to Congress. (The 4473 forms, also known as Firearm Transaction Records, are the documents that people who are purchasing guns from a Federal Firearm Licensee must fill.)
 
A search of SEDENA's press releases, which often include the serial numbers of seized firearms, resulted in one more firearm whose serial number matched one of those already in Congress' list.
 
Finally, Univision News compared the recovery dates and locations highlighted in The Department of Justice's Operation Fast and Furious: Fueling Cartel Violence, with those found in the remaining list of 90 weapons. For the cross-reference list and Congress' list, we divided each year's recovered guns by state. After that, we compared the number of weapons found in each state on both lists. That is, we compared the number of guns recovered, say, in 2009 in Baja California, according to lists by Congress and by Univision News.
 
For instance, if Congress had identified seven Fast and Furious weapons recovered in Baja California in 2009, and our list mentioned 24, then we concluded that our list included at least 17 new weapons. In the end, the state-by-state analysis showed that 57 of the firearms in the cross-reference were not included in Congress' report.
 
Univision News started looking for unreported Fast and Weapons after discovering a SEDENA document, which said that three guns from an ATF gun-tracing operation were used in the massacre in Villas de Salvarcar, Ciudad Juarez.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://pjmedia.com/blog/univision-breaks-new-details-of-obama-admins-fast-and-furious-cover-up/?singlepage=true

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/here-are-5-things-you-didnt-know-about-operation-fast-and-furious/

[Crafty_Dog]

The Univision program in Spanish with English substitles

http://videos.univision.com/programas/aqui-y-ahora/video/2012-10-01/operation-fast-and-furious-arming-the-enemy

and some more commentary on it:

 
"We may never know how many deaths, kidnappings and other criminal activities were facilitated by more than 2,000 weapons that were allowed to 'walk' into Mexico under the Obama administration's Fast and Furious program, but a Univision special aired Sunday exposes more of the carnage. The special, put together by Univision's investigative unit and aired as a special edition of Univision's 'Aqui y Ahora' ('Here and Now') identified massacres committed using guns from the ATF operation.... In addition to fueling increased gun violence in Mexico, guns from Fast and Furious previously unreported by congressional investigators found their way into the hands of drug traffickers across Latin America in countries such as Honduras and Colombia, as well as the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Kudos to Univision, which regrettably will not have a reporter at Wednesday's presidential debate to ask the tough questions the administration's media sycophants will not, for pursuing the truth on Fast and Furious with more vigor than most American media outlets. ... Univision found 57 Fast and Furious weapons in addition to 122 specifically mentioned in a congressional report. They included weapons used in the massacre at a party just one year after President Obama's inauguration and less than a year before Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in December 2010 at the hands of an illegal immigrant working for the Sinaloa Cartel just 10 miles from the Mexican border near Nogales, Ariz. ... The report also reveals the botched operation may have played a role in a 2009 massacre, where 18 young men were killed at a rehabilitation center also in Juarez. The massacre was reportedly ordered and carried out by Mexican hit men. Current estimates put the number of Mexican nationals murdered by Fast and Furious weapons at 300. More such evidence will be found and the Fast and Furious body count will rise, ignored by the administration and its media protectors." --Investor's Business Daily

Upright

"[A]BC, CBS and NBC have yet to report the Spanish-language network's findings. ... The blackout on ABC's broadcasts is particularly confounding since they have an excerpt from Univision's September 30 report on ABC's official Web site. The refusal by ABC, CBS or NBC to report the findings is remarkable since the Univision report not only contains politically explosive information to a sitting administration at the height of the election season but also compelling human tragedy. ... The lack of coverage by the Big Three ... networks continues their trend of mostly ignoring major events in the scandal that has led to calls for Attorney General Eric Holder's resignation." --Newsbuster's Geoffrey Dickens

[G M]

Funny how Univision is doing the work the MSM won't do. Must not have a journo-lista email list.

[Crafty_Dog]

Maybe it notices the 300 Mexican citizens thought to have been killed by OFF guns , , ,

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_NDT7am2VWw

[Crafty_Dog]

---Quote---
*Univision Does Its Homework* (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/329145/univision-does-its-homework-john-g-malcolm)
By John G. Malcolm
October 3, 2012 4:00 A.M.


Univision has done some outstanding investigative reporting on Operation Fast and Furious, the ill-conceived and disastrously executed gun-smuggling operation that was designed to identify the kingpins of a Mexican firearms-trafficking network but resulted in the transfer of approximately 2,000 high-powered weapons into the hands of dangerous thugs connected with the drug cartels. A recently issued report from the Justice Department’s inspector general criticizes the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona, and senior DOJ officials for their roles in this botched investi*gation. The report cites “a series of misguided strategies, tactics, errors in judgment, and management failures that permeated ATF Headquarters and the Phoenix Field Division, as well as the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

President Obama remains in denial about Fast and Furious. When asked about it two weeks ago, he responded: “Well, first of all, I think it’s important to understand that the Fast and Furious program was a field-initiated program, begun under the previous administration. When Eric Holder found out about it, he discontinued it.” This is wrong on two counts. First, Operation Fast and Furious began in the fall of 2009, under the current administration. Second, it ended on December 15, 2010, the day it was discovered that two Fast and Furious weapons were found at the scene where U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was murdered. That was two full months before Attorney General Eric Holder claims to have known about the operation.

Operation Fast and Furious began in 2009, after federally licensed firearms dealers informed ATF that several individuals were purchasing large quantities of AK-47-style rifles and FN 5.7 caliber pistols. These pistols are known as “cop killers” in Mexico because the bullets fired from them can penetrate the Kevlar vests worn by law-enforcement authorities. At the time, the northern Mexican states were a veritable battlefield, where the Sinaloa and Juárez drug cartels were fighting for control and the increasingly powerful Zetas were seeking to enlarge their territory. ATF encouraged gun-store owners to continue selling to the straw purchasers it was monitoring to avoid alerting the criminals to the presence of law enforcement.

Former Mexican attorney general Victor Humberto Benítez Treviño estimates that approximately 300 Mexican citizens have been killed with Fast and Furious weapons, and hundreds of guns remain unaccounted for. Some victims had been identified even before the Univision report. For example, there was Mario Gonzalez Rodriguez — the brother of former Chihuahua state attorney general Patricia Gonzalez Rodriguez — who was kidnapped by members of the Sinaloa drug cartel in October of 2010. His tortured body was later discovered in a shallow grave. Following a shootout with Rodriquez’s suspected kidnappers, Mexican police seized 16 weapons, two of which were traced to Operation Fast and Furious.

But Univision has made some startling new and tragic connections. On the night of September 2, 2009, twelve hit men, looking for members of the Sinaloa cartel and carrying AK-47s they had acquired thanks to Fast and Furious, forced open the main door of Casa Aliviane, a drug-rehabilitation center in Ciudad Juárez. Once inside, they sprayed the building with bullets. Of the 19 young recovering addicts, 18 were killed. The massacre was ordered by José Antonio Acosta Hernandez (also known as “El Diego”), the leader of La Linea, the enforcement arm of the Juárez cartel.

At the time, Acosta Hernandez was at war with José Antonio Torres Marrufo, an enforcer — he reportedly once skinned an enemy’s face to make a soccer ball — close to Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the head of the Sinaloa cartel. When Mexican authorities captured Marrufo in February 2012, they found a cache of guns that included powerful anti-aircraft weapons, as well as firearms linked to Operation Fast and Furious.

According to Univision, Acosta Hernandez was behind another bloodbath involving Fast and Furious guns. On January 30, 2010, a commando unit of at least 20 hit men parked outside a house in Ciudad Juárez. A birthday party of high-school and college students was going on inside, but Hernandez mistakenly thought it was occupied by members of the Sinaloa cartel. Around midnight, his men broke into the house and opened fire on nearly 60 teenagers. Outside, lookouts gunned down a screaming neighbor and several students who tried to escape. When the hit men fled, they left 16 young people dead and twelve others wounded. Three of the weapons used that night were traced to Operation Fast and Furious. When Acosta Hernandez was finally captured in July 2010, with Fast and Furious weapons in his possession, he confessed to Mexican authorities that he was responsible for nearly 1,500 murders.

And, as if letting 2,000 high-powered guns “walk” were not enough, it appears that the Obama administration launched other gun-walking operations as well. According to Univision, “weapons from [Florida-based] Operation Castaway ended up in the hands of criminals in Colombia, Honduras and Venezuela.” And the inspector general’s report states that his office is investigating “at least one other ATF [operation] . . . that involves an individual suspected of transporting grenade components into Mexico, converting them into live grenades, and then supplying them to drug cartels.”

The Mexican government has every right to be furious about this matter. If foreign law-enforcement agents had let nearly 2,000 weapons be delivered into the hands of U.S. gang-bangers — without any notice to or coordination with the feds — there would be serious repercussions.

Operation Fast and Furious is a disaster and a disgrace. Univision and the inspector general deserve credit for attempting to get to the bottom of this mess.

— John G. Malcolm is a senior legal fellow at the Center for Legal & Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation.
---End Quote---

[Crafty_Dog]

Remington Arms has already moved much of their skilled operations and management to North Carolina because of the tax policies of New York state, and now it appears to be on the verge of moving the rest of its facilities, all due to microstamping legislation:
 

Microstamping, or ballistic imprinting, is a patented process that uses laser technology to engrave a tiny marking of the make, model, and serial number on the tip of a gun’s firing pin to allow an imprint of that information on spent cartridge cases. Supporters of the technology say it will be a “game changer,” allowing authorities to quickly identify the registered guns used in crimes. Opponents claim the process is costly, unreliable, and may ultimately impact the local economies that heavily depend on the gun industry, including Ilion, N.Y., where Remington Arms maintains a factory, and Hartford, Conn., where Colt’s manufacturing is headquartered.
 
“Mandatory microstamping would have an immediate impact of a loss of 50 jobs,” New York State Sen. James Seward, a Republican whose district includes Ilion, said, adding that Remington employs 1,100 workers in the town. “You’re talking about a company that has options in other states. Why should they be in a state that’s hostile to legal gun manufacturing? There could be serious negative economic impact with the passage of microstamping and other gun-control laws.”

 


Microstamping tooling is extremely expensive, prone to breakage, easily disabled, and ineffective on entire families of weapons. Let’s take a deeper look at what microstamping does, and how easily it is beaten.
 
Microstamping is a series of letters and numbers reverse printed on the firing pin of weapons. In theory, when a gun is fired, the firing pin will leave a mark on the cartridge’s primer (the rim of a rimfire cartridge), and the shell casing recovered at the scene will provide law enforcement information about which gun fired the cartridge. Cops will enter the microstamping code into a computer, which will check it against a database, and the police will know who the shooter is within minutes.
 
At least, that is the theory. Reality is another matter. For starters: microstamping fails to work on any firearm that already exists, something in the neighborhood of more than 300 million firearms. As firearms last indefinitely, it would be decades before they became a significant number of total firearms — even if the technology was foolproof.
 
But microstamping is not foolproof. Let’s look at the ways microstamping fails, beyond the numbers:
 •Microstamping does not work if shell casings aren’t automatically ejected from the crime gun. Revolvers, derringers, double-barrel shotguns, pump shotguns and rifles, and semi-automatic firearms that can be equipped with inexpensive brass catchers (common among some shooters) would leave no cartridges at the scene of a shooting.
 •Microstamping does not work because firing pins are inexpensive and easy to replace. The firing pin for most weapons are easily replaced by someone with a minimum of ability to read and follow the basic cleaning directions for his firearm. The expense of millions of dollars in retooling is thwarted by the purchase of a $12 part.
 •Microstamping does not work because the stamping is easily defaced. It would take a matter of a half-dozen passes of a standard diamond file, and less than a minute, to eradicate the microstamping.
 •Microstamping is incredibly fragile. The stamping would wear out over time through simple use of the firearm, or be thwarted by the normal powder residue that builds up on small parts.
 •Microstamping could easily be spoofed and waste police time — or worse, send the wrong people to jail. Most shooters do not reload their own ammunition, and leave their shell casings at the range. All it would take to turn microstamping to a criminal’s advantage would be for a criminal or one of his associates to pick up brass from a firing range in the same caliber as the weapon he carries. After he uses a microstamping-free weapon in a crime, he would merely drop the brass he recovered from Joe Citizen at the range at the crime scene. Joe will wake up with a SWAT team crashing through his door at 5:00 a.m., and if he’s lucky, innocent Joe won’t be gunned down along with his family pets.
 
Easily thwarted and capable of being used to a criminal’s advantage, microstamping is a horrible idea as well as an expensive one.
 
Remington and Colt are right to threaten to leave New York and Connecticut if ignorant Democratic politicians push forward with their demands for microstamping legislation. As for Colt and Remington, I’d merely offer that North Carolina is a much more gun-friendly and intelligent state, and they would be more than welcome to relocate here.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/us/with-military-suicides-rising-new-policies-take-shape.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121008

Pentagon and Congress are moving to establish policies intended to separate at-risk service members from their personal weapons.

[prentice crawford]

Yeah, this will stop those gangbangers from wasting ammo. : http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49458564/

                                   P.C.

[G M]

Yeah, this will stop those gangbangers from wasting ammo. : http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49458564/

                                   P.C.

Wait, I thought all those tough gun laws already made Chicago a crime-free paradise. No?

[Body-by-Guinness]

Those who have been following Fast and Furious know that much of the original reporting was developed by sources at Clean Up ATF. ATF officials have been gunning for an ATF investigator who is also a founder of CUATF, Vincent Cefalu, and terminated his employment in a Denny's parking lot several weeks back. Cefalu just one a stay on his termination and has been ordered reinstated. With luck future hearings and law suits will bring the ATF house of cards down.

Order of reinstatement here: http://www.mspb.gov/netsearch/viewdocs.aspx?docnumber=766615&version=769489&application=ACROBAT

[Crafty_Dog]

Reliability of this source is unknown to me:

http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-to-bypass-congress-to-ban-semiautomatic-firearms-warns-expert

[Crafty_Dog]

second post


Times Dispatch

Gun-related violent crime in Virginia has dropped steadily over the
past six years as the sale of firearms has soared to a new record,
according to an analysis of state crime data with state records of gun
sales.

The total number of firearms purchased in Virginia increased 73 percent
from 2006 to 2011. When state population increases are factored in, gun
purchases per 100,000 Virginians rose 63 percent.

But the total number of gun-related violent crimes fell 24 percent over
that period, and when adjusted for population, gun-related offenses
dropped more than 27 percent, from 79 crimes per 100,000 in 2006 to 57
crimes in 2011.

The numbers appear to contradict a long-running popular narrative that
more guns cause more violent crime, said Virginia Commonwealth
University professor Thomas R. Baker, who compared Virginia crime data
for those years with gun-dealer sales estimates obtained by the Richmond
Times-Dispatch.
http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/local/central-virginia/gun-related-violent-crimes-drop-as-gun-sales-soar-in/article_54cca13a-35ee-11e2-83f0-0019bb30f31a.html

[Crafty_Dog]

American Patriots and Guns
All Patriots Are Obligated to Be Armed and Ready
"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic." --Joseph Story
 
On the most recent "Black Friday," the day after Thanksgiving, which has become the biggest commercial sales day of the year, despite the continuing economic decline, there were record sales in one notable product category: Guns.

According to Stephen Fischer, director of the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System, "NICS experienced its highest number of transactions processed since system inception [in 1998], with 154,873, which is nearly 20 percent over the 129,166 processed on Black Friday 2011." This year's total checks will undoubtedly beat last year's record of 16.4 million.

In fact, the top 10 record gun sales days have occurred since Barack Obama's election in 2008, and gun ownership has skyrocketed over the last four years. According to a worldwide survey conducted the year before Obama's election, though the United States had only 5% of the world's population, Americans owned 50% of the world's guns. Of course, unlike virtually every other nation, Americans are ensured the incontrovertible right to arm themselves.

The current estimate of legally and privately held guns in the U.S. is more than 250 million (the average gun-owning household having three guns).

With that as a backdrop, I was asked this week if Patriots have an obligation to arm themselves -- to be gun owners, and be proficient at the use of arms. I thought at first the question was rhetorical, but after some consideration, I realize that there are millions of grassroots Patriots who are NOT among the 60 million plus Patriots who are already law-abiding gun owners.

Apparently, the question needs to be addressed, as the answer may not be as obvious to some folks as it should be. By way of responding to this question, let me first briefly reiterate the historical and enduring case for gun ownership, which is as relevant today and tomorrow as it was at the dawn of our national founding.

There are two foundational tenets of Essential Liberty that all American Patriots must understand and embrace in order to sustain Liberty and extend it to the next generation.
First, it is "self-evident" that Liberty is an "unalienable right," innately assured as "endowed by our Creator." In other words, it is not awarded by men or government; it is the birthright of all people.

Second, as history records countless examples of men using the power of government to arbitrarily revoke Liberty and invoke tyranny, our Founders understood that, in the words of John Adams, "liberty must at all hazards be supported." Adams continued, "We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood."
 
Thus, all American Patriots today, those imbued with the spirit of Liberty that has motivated Patriots since 1776, must be prepared to defend both individual and corporate Liberty, to defend the Rule of Law over the rule of men.

Of the ability to defend Liberty, James Madison wrote, "The ultimate authority ... resides in the people alone. ... The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation ... forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition." (Federalist No. 46)

To ensure that advantage, our Founders enumerated a constitutional prohibition on government interference with that barrier, the Second Amendment, affirming, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

In his exhaustive "Commentaries on the Constitution," Madison's Supreme Court Justice, Joseph Story, wrote, "The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."

In other words, gun ownership is not about "the tradition of hunting" as Barack Obama claimed recently, unless he was referring to hunting those who infringe on the inalienable rights of man. Of course, Liberty is the antithesis of statism, which is why Obama and his socialist Democrat cadres are endeavoring to undermine the Second Amendment.

Obama has asserted erroneously, "The vast majority of Americans would like to see serious gun control, [but] it doesn't pass because there is this huge disconnect between what people think and what legislators think and are willing to act upon." His disdain for grassroots gun owners was summed up in his unguarded remarks to campaign donors in 2008, when he said that they "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Thus, I expect to see new second term Obama administration proposals endeavoring to implement incremental encroachments on the Second Amendment. However, Obama's most coveted gun control objective would be to rally two-thirds of the Senate next year for passage of the United Nations' Arms Trade Treaty regulating small arms. The ATT is a Trojan Horse. While it ostensibly exempts domestic gun sales and ownership in the U.S., with the stroke of a pen, it could implement severe gun restrictions and even confiscations -- an end run on the Second Amendment that would provide political cover for gun-grabbing Leftists in the Senate and House.
 
Indeed, as summed up by Sen. Rand Paul, "The day after his re-election, Obama's UN delegation voted for a renewed effort to pass the Small Arms Treaty. This effort by globalists to undermine our Constitution is set to reconvene March 18th-28th in order to pass the final version of the treaty that will be sent to the Senate for ratification. Make no mistake, they will ultimately register, ban and CONFISCATE firearms owned by private citizens. Not long ago, Obama told Sarah Brady from the anti-gun Brady Campaign, 'I just want you to know that we are working on [gun control]. We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.'"

In regard to gun confiscation, I recommend that Obama pick up an American History text, one that has not been "revised" by teacher or librarian unions, and read about the first American Revolution. He will find that it commenced with "the shot heard round the world," as immortalized by poet Ralph Waldo Emerson -- a shot fired by Patriots at the Massachusetts governor's enforcers, who were sent to Concord with orders to confiscate and destroy militia arms. There is a subtle lesson there...

(Sidebar: On the subject of revisions, next week Obama's UN delegation will meet with the UN agency overseeing global telecommunications, the International Telecommunications Union, to revise Internet regulations.)

Clearly the surge in gun sales and ownership over the last four years has been driven by Obama's agenda to implement new "gun control" measures, which are, of course, not about guns but about control, as tragically demonstrated by the appalling record of genocide meted out by tyrants toward those who had no means of self defense.

According to gun-rights expert, Professor Raymond Kessler, J.D., "In truth, attempts to regulate the civilian possession of firearms have five political functions. They increase citizen reliance on government and tolerance of increased police powers and abuse; help prevent opposition to the government; facilitate repressive action by government and its allies; lessen the pressure for major or radical reform; and can be selectively enforced against those perceived to be a threat to government."

So, given that Liberty must be supported and defended at all hazards, and given the current assault on gun ownership, consider again the question, "Do Patriots have an obligation to arm themselves -- to be gun owners, and be proficient at the use of arms?"

 
The answer is, emphatically and absolutely, YES. Moreover, I would argue that it is the responsibility of all gun-owning Patriots to educate their like-minded family and friends about the overarching rationale for gun ownership -- the ability to defend Liberty -- and to encourage them to become responsible gun owners.

I know many Patriots who, since Obama's election, have become first-time gun owners. The fact that 49 states authorize carry permits, 41 of those being "shall issue" states providing on-demand concealed-carry permits to law-abiding citizens, has encouraged that trend. The lone state denying the right to carry is, naturally, Obama's state of residence, Illinois.

In recent years, I've proudly encouraged and assisted dozens of Patriot friends to become responsible gun owners. One of those "new" gun owners was my wife, who, along with six other women friends, took the required training and now has her carry permit. Each of my children is also a gun owner. (My oldest son, an Air Force Cadet, is an outstanding shooter. The weapons of my two minor children only come out under strict supervision, but my 13-year-old already shoots a very tight pattern at 100 meters with his M-4.)

One of my wife's friends said that when some of her liberal family members came to visit recently (one of those tragic "mixed families"), they got wind that she now owns not one, but three guns. Her brother inquired, "Why would anyone own three guns?" Without missing a beat, she replied, "Because I can!" (That has got to rank first among the most cutting and concise rebuttals I have ever heard.)

And on that note, three other friends, who grew up in former Soviet satellite states, told me that after becoming U.S. citizens (the old fashioned way -- legally), the first thing they did was obtain their right-to-carry permits. They each have a fuller appreciation for that right.

So, how do dedicated Patriots who are not familiar with firearms make the leap to gun ownership and proficiency?

I received a letter this week from a reader among our Patriot ranks, who included a brief history of how his whole family made the transition from non-gun owners to never leaving home without one. I have included a brief excerpt of his story in order that it might help others make that transition.

He writes, "Growing up in Chicago, where guns were outlawed and only outlaws had guns, when the topic of guns came up, my parents replied, 'Only gangsters and hunters carry guns -- and we are neither.'" Given this prohibitive backdrop, I invite you to read the rest of his Second Amendment testimony.
 
For the record, when it comes to Liberty, I would much prefer constitutional restoration over insurrection -- if the former is achievable. (I've been around a few revolutions in Africa and the Middle East, so I'm well aware of the violence that accompanies the latter course.) But as current day American Patriots, we all have an obligation to not only stand ready to defend our family and property, but moreover to defend Liberty.

I'll leave you, then, with these words from Thomas Jefferson on both the individual right of self-defense, and the corporate responsibility to uphold Liberty.

Quoting 18th-century Italian jurist and philosopher Cesare Beccaria in his "Commonplace Book," Jefferson wrote, "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

Regarding our corporate obligation in defense of Liberty, Jefferson wrote, "What country can preserve its liberties, if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms."

Pro Deo et Constitutione — Libertas aut Mors
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis
 
Mark Alexander
Publisher, The Patriot Post

[Crafty_Dog]

Gun Showdown at Work
GOP's Business Backers Fight NRA Push to Let Employees Leave Firearms in Cars.
By JOE PALAZZOLO

Gun legislation in some Southern states is forcing Republican lawmakers to choose between two core values of their party: the right of business owners to control what happens on their property and people's Second Amendment right to bear arms.

Their dilemma is the result of bills pushed by the National Rifle Association that would let employees bring firearms—ranging from handguns, rifles and shotguns—to work and store them in their vehicles, even against an employer's wishes.

About 20 states have passed so-called parking-lot bills since 2004, including an expansion this year of a gun-rights law in Maine. But a split has started to materialize in GOP-controlled legislatures in some of the country's most gun-friendly states. Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee have refused to support such laws, proving receptive to a push by business groups in those states that have argued that the rules trample on their property rights.

Businesses in other states have sought to oppose parking-lot bills by emphasizing the liability dangers that such legislation could create, but those efforts have been less successful.

"We are opposed to guns people saying what we can do on our property," said Wayne K. Scharber, interim president of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce & Industry. Executives at several large companies such as FedEx Corp. FDX -1.40%and Volkswagen VOW3.XE +0.39%also testified against the legislation in that state earlier this year, saying it would hamper efforts to ensure workplace safety.

The number of victims of workplace homicides aged 16 or older decreased by 57% from 1993 to 2011, the most recent year for which data is available, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Of 458 homicides in 2011, 358 were by shooting.

The NRA argues, however, that many employees, particularly those who work far from home, are vulnerable to violent crime on their way to and from work. If their employers ban guns, they spend the majority of their time unarmed.


Chris Patterson, owner of Hokes Bluff Auto Parts in Gadsden, Ala., said he supported the legislation out of concern for the safety of employees who travel long distances to work. "That's their privilege, being that their vehicle is their personal property," said Mr. Patterson.

But amid Republican divisions on the issue, the NRA, one of the nation's most powerful and well-funded lobbying groups, is having to rely on pro-gun Democrats to carry some of the bills. Democrats in Alabama have already refiled bills for the legislative session that begins in February, and lawmakers are expected to do the same in Tennessee. Democrats carrying the bills say they believe gun rights should trump employers' property rights.

"You're not violating a person's property rights just by keeping a gun locked in your vehicle," said Rep. Craig Ford, a Democrat who in October submitted a parking-lot bill in Alabama.

In addition to forming an alliance with Democrats, the NRA is targeting one-time allies who refuse to back such laws.

When Republican Debra Maggart, a staunch supporter of the gun group over her seven-year career in the Tennessee House of Representatives, decided with other members of her party to hold up a parking-lot bill introduced by Democratic Rep. Eddie Bass this year, she felt the consequences. The NRA spent tens of thousands of dollars on attack ads against Ms. Maggart, the only member of Republican leadership to face a primary challenge. One NRA flier declared: "Debra Maggart wants to shred your Second Amendment rights."

Ms. Maggart said she opposed the bill because it encompassed properties such as day-care centers and colleges. "They singled me out to bully our caucus into voting for a poorly written piece of legislation."

Ms. Maggart, a lifelong NRA member who owns a Remington shotgun, ultimately lost to the NRA-backed candidate by 971 votes in the primaries in August.

The NRA didn't respond to repeated calls seeking comment.

In Georgia, another Republican—state Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers—faced consequences after his caucus rebuffed NRA efforts to provide more protections for gun owners by prohibiting employers from enforcing gun bans in parking lots.

The NRA gave Mr. Rogers only a "B" rating while giving his challenger in the primary race, Brandon Beach, the top rating for a candidate with no legislative record on gun issues. "My voting record on NRA issues is perfect for 10 years," said Mr. Rogers, who is a member of the NRA. He attributed his lowered rating to "tactics used by certain paid lobbyists" that have tarnished an "otherwise outstanding organization."

In Alabama, debate over the gun legislation has consumed more legislative energy with each year, lawmakers and lobbyists said. "The issue has split the Republican Party down here," said Michael Sullivan, an Alabama lobbyist who represents the NRA. Mr. Sullivan has pushed parking-lot legislation in the Alabama house and senate, but never both in the same year, he said. He has tried to persuade Republican lawmakers with the argument that state and federal government impose many workplace regulations on business owners, including anti-discrimination laws and safety regulations, and that the parking-lot legislation is no different.

"To say they can circumvent the Second Amendment right of gun owners is a very hollow argument," he said.

Mike Hubbard, the speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives, said he has asked the business community and NRA leadership in Washington to compromise on a bill.

Prospects for an agreement seem dim, however. "Republicans would rather side with big business," said Rep. Craig Ford of Alabama, adding that Ms. Maggart's defeat in Tennessee "set a precedent for what the NRA is going to do elsewhere."

[Crafty_Dog]

Second post of the day

Report: Security Clearances Revoked, Criminal Charges Pending For ATF Fast and Furious Officials

by Katie Pavlich


Washington D.C. - According to credible ATF sources, officials heavily involved in Operation Fast and Furious and named as partially responsible for the program's failure by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz and the House Oversight Committee have been stripped of their government security clearances while some have been fired, demoted, and transferred. Criminal charges are also reportedly pending.

Former ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Field Division Bill Newell, former ATF Special Agent in Charge of Operations in the West Bill McMahon and former Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Field Division George Gillett have been fired while former Assistant Special Agent in Charge Jim Needles and Field Supervisor David Voth have been demoted. Hope McAllister, the lead case agent for Fast and Furious, has been put on leave and transferred out of Phoenix according to reports. McMahon and ATF came under heavy fire just a few months ago after it was revealed McMahon had been receiving ATF paid leave while pulling a six figure salary from J.P. Morgan, the same bank that owns the bureau's credit cards.

In addition to involvement in Operation Fast and Furious, the consequences for these officials come as a result of their handling of the Jay Dobyns' arson case. All are expected to receive full retirement benefits.

The ATF Public Affairs Division did not return calls for comment. The Department of Justice Inspector General's Office said they would get back to Townhall with a comment "sometime next week."

[DougMacG]

Here's the video of what he said on the NFL halftime show:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/12/03/nbcs_bob_costas_goes_on_gun_control_rant_about_nfl_players_murder-suicide.html

"If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today."

Costas' former broadcast partner disagrees.