The Real Reason for Fast and Furious

By Warren Beatty (not the liberal actor)

Percentage Keeps Dropping

First, the Obama administration (and Hillary Clinton) claimed that 90% of the guns used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States. There was just one problem with the 90% “statistic” – it’s not true. The number of guns arriving in Mexico from the U.S. has been controversial ever since a June 2009 report said that 87 percent of guns seized in Mexico came from the United States. What’s true, an ATF spokeswoman said, “is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S.” In 2007-2008, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced, and of those, 90 percent were found to have come from the U.S. But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

When that percentage was investigated and eventually discredited, it mysteriously dropped to 70%. The key to understanding the 70% claim is the phrase, “Of the weapons recovered.” The firearms that have been recovered in Mexico represent only a small fraction of the total number of weapons used in criminal activity in the country. But the dropping percentage and facts did not stop Mexican President Felipe Calderon. In June, 2011, he said, “I accuse the U.S. weapons industry of [responsibility for] the deaths of thousands of people that are occurring in Mexico. It is for profit, for the profits that it makes for the weapons industry.”

Now we find that only 17% of guns recovered from Mexican crime scenes can be traced to the U.S. And only 8% of weapons recovered in Mexico came through licensed U.S. gun dealers.

The Real Motive

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that lax gun control laws was the real problem uncovered by Operation Fast and Furious. “My concern, Mr. Chairman, is there’s been a lot said about Fast and Furious, and perhaps mistakes were made, but I think this hunt for blame doesn’t really speak about the problem. And the problem is, anybody can walk in and buy anything, .50-caliber weapons, sniper weapons, buy them in large amounts, and send them down to Mexico. So, the question really becomes, what do we do about this?” When asked how gun control laws would have prevented the abuses in Operation Fast and Furious when the law enforcement agents responsible for upholding gun laws were the individuals giving the weapons to drug cartels, her staff refused to answer.

During a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism on Wednesday, November 2, 2011, former Assistant Attorney-General Lanny Breuer provided testimony that confirms that the information presented to Congress by the Department of Justice, that guns were not being allowed to walk, was false. But when Senator Feinstein started to question Breuer, her focus was on the ‘need for gun control’ and bans of so-called ‘assault weapons’ rather than on Brewer’s statement. Feinstein wasted no time in zeroing in on the idea that the flow of guns across the border into Mexico from the United States must be stopped. Not only did Feinstein initiate the subject of gun control, she repeated the misrepresentations the Administration used from the beginning to justify its operation in the Gun walker scheme, that the majority of the guns used by Mexican drug cartels come from the United States.

The Real Reason for Fast and Furious

One of the worst aspects of Fast and Furious is that it appears to have been carried out with the intention of increasing border crime and chaos to levels sufficient to persuade Americans to embrace more gun control. In an e-mail, sent in July, 2010, Mark Chat, ATF’s assistant director of field operations, asked William Newell, special agent in charge in Phoenix during Fast and Furious, to pay special attention to multiple long-gun sales at gun stores because the ATF was already “looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long-gun multiple sales.” It appears the passage of more gun control laws was the goal all along. The requirement for a special form on multiple long-gun sales to law-abiding Americans was already being contemplated.

But that’s just my opinion.

Crosslinked to RWNO, my personal web site!

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