Brad Hoffman wrote a letter to the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer allegedly to correct mistakes about Fast and Furious in a previous letter they’d printed. Brad opens with:
I am disturbed by statements from Plain Dealer reader Jeff Longo (Letters, Saturday) who condemns U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder as an ‘enemy of the Constitution‘ over the Justice Department’s attempted Fast and Furious weapons sting in Mexico. Longo plays fast and loose with the facts in libeling an official whose 28 years of public service have been recognized by presidents from both political parties.
I am disturbed that Brad (or anyone, for that matter) can still refer to F&F as some sort of “botched sting.” There was no botching involved, the operation went down exactly as planned. Straw purchasers bought guns, smuggled them into Mexico for delivery to some of the most violent, vicious criminals in the Northern Hemisphere – Mexican narcotrafficantes. The guns were then recovered from crime scenes, adding weight to the bogus claims that border gun stores in the U.S. were major the suppliers of weapons to the cartels.
But what are these fake facts with which Brad says Jeff libeled Holder?
In characterizing the admittedly flawed sting operation as ‘an attack our Second Amendment rights,’ Longo conveniently fails to mention the overwhelming number of guns purchased here legally that are later found in the hands of Mexican drug cartels. A 2010 study by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms suggests that as many as 70 percent of the weapons that circumvent Mexico’s own strict gun laws may originate in the United States.
The ATF study that Brad refers to was actually essentially a press release put together by three notoriously anti-gun Senators; Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California, Charles Schumer of New York, and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. It’s difficult to pin down how many seized guns actually came from the U.S. since they are very careful to specify “guns seized and submitted for tracing,” but looking at Finding #6, we see that
[F]rom January 1, 2010 to October 5, 2010, 5,329 weapons seized in Mexico were traced using ATF’s firearms tracing system, known as eTrace. During the same period, the Mexican Defense Ministry reported approximately 16,000 weapons recovered throughout Mexico.
So over that nine month period, about one-third of seized guns were submitted for tracing, which means even taking the 70% number at face value, less than one-quarter of seized guns came from the U.S. When you add to this the fact that CBS reported our State Department has approved sales of literally tens of thousands of weapons from U.S. manufacturers direct to the Mexican military and police (a fact unmentioned in the FeinSchuWhit report) and that more than 9,000 of those weapons went missing from police inventories you have to really start wondering just how few of these “U.S. guns” came from Bob’s Border Gun Shop.
Now, perhaps, we can see that characterizing F&F as ‘an attack on our Second Amendment rights‘ is not so outrageous, especially when you consider that the (distorted) numbers of US guns showing up at Mexican crime scenes was and is being used to justify ‘renewing’ the Clinton-era Assault Weapons Ban (aka the Scary Black Gun Ban). It’s also being cited as justification (by bureaucratic fiat) for additional sales reporting requirements on border state gun shops, further demonizing them.
Brad goes on:
Longo further reports that ‘hundreds’ have been murdered with weapons used in the U.S. sting operation — weapons that later went missing. This undocumented claim has been attributed to Mexico’s Attorney General Marisela Morales, who is herself accused of mishandling evidence in domestic legal actions and seems a curious source for Longo’s research.
For starters that number is hardly undocumented and does indeed come from the Mexican Attorney General. It also comes from the head of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies’ Justice Committee, Congressman Humberto Benitez Trevino, who believes the number of killed and wounded is closer to 300.
Oh, and those allegations “of mishandling evidence in domestic legal actions?” That was actually Ms. Morales’ predecessor and it is speculated that those allegations were why he resigned. Unless Brad is talking about the videotaped “confession” that the cartels tortured out of Ms. Morales brother (whom they then murdered) after they had kidnapped him with . . . wait for it . . . AK-47s that the ATF had “walked” across the border.
In fact, according to the L.A. Times, Ms. Morales is “a longtime favorite of American law enforcement agents in Mexico” and was honored by Secretary of State Clinton and First Lady Michelle Obama with the 2011 International Women of Courage Award. Finally, if you can’t use a country’s top law enforcement official as a source for information on murders in that country, who in blazes can you use?
Brad’s letter is a good example of what I like to call the Lib-tard Protocol (or would that be Procto-col?) which states that as long as you can parrot the New York Times and Washington Post‘s talking points, no actual thought process is required.
The next thing you know someone will write in saying that all this fuss is do to Holders race.
Lib-tard is hardly necessary and somewhat offensive. Resorting to ad hominems to conclude an argument makes your stance seem incredibly weak.
Point taken, sir. On the other hand, most of the retarded people I know would not defend sending ship truckloads of guns to mass murdering drug lords.
My apologies. Not for stooping to ad hominem attacks, but for not including the link to Brad’s letter. My closing paragraph was meant to mimic his:
but the humor is lost if you don’t get to see his statement.
BTW, love your handle, but I’m a bit curious; I’ve seen vincit omnia veritas wondering why you leave out the omnia.
ETA: I edited the essay to provide the link to Brad’s letter.
Well, it was a botched sting, kinda sorta. ATF and DOJ tried to sting us, and they got caught.
Yep. They were just prayin’ that one of those 50 cal rifles would finally get used in a crime. Poor bastards must feel so let down. Yep, some 50 BMG rifles were sent south as part of the sting. Can’t get more obvious about the intentions.
I think Holder already did pull the race card
Hark back to the days before the story broke and recall the big news stories originating from somewhere about guns being bought here and sold there because of our pesky 2A. They were ginning the American people up for another round of gun bans only this time they were not going to sunset anything. Holder can take his 38 years of public service and retire from it.
I hear Mexico’s Baja peninsula is a popular retirement area, perhaps Eric Holder can escape the institutionalized racism he sees everywhere and retire there where the Mexicans will welcome him with open arms.
Fast & Furious cost the BATF and the Obama Administration some real credibility.
Mexico’s entire problem is their own strict gun laws. The Mexican people have no way of protecting themselves and are forced to rely on corrupt politicians, police and army for protection. Civil unrest in 6o’s led to new restrictions on firearms. Fearing revolution by Anti-government student groups scared the Mexican government into closing firearms stores, and registering all weapons. The Mexican government feared it’s own citizens. (Sound familiar) The US government needs to demand President Felipe Calderón let his people have the power to defend themselves. If he refuses we should allow any Mexican citizen to cross the border and return in order to purchase firearms to protect themselves .
I would actually think that Mexico’s entire problem is the United States’ narcotics prohibition.
“Fast & Furious cost the BATF and the Obama Administration some real credibility.”
My impression from talking to people of various political leanings is, those who disliked Obama before F&F continue to dislike him now, but stronger, and those who liked him before still like him now.
We’ve gone past the age during which there would be one central pool of accepted facts and people would like or dislike someone’s conclusions drawn from those facts. Now, we’re in an age in which everyone has their own facts, all of which prove the Others are deluded scum. I know quite a few otherwise intelligent people who tell me with complete sincerity that almost every scientist believes in AGW, that Rush Limbaugh made up all of the stories about F&F, that the Republicans in the House have stymied Obama at every opportunity while he has been trying, over and over, to negotiate with them in good faith . . .
There are really no more philosophical debates about the best way to handle a problem. Instead, each side hears the other side spout facts which it is certain the other side has fabricated, and so they simply walk away from each other without listening at all. Having no facts left in common, there’s nothing left to discuss, except to joke with your own side about how ignorant the other side must be to believe that _______________.
I’d be willing to bet that the Cleveland letter writer in the post above actually believes that what he wrote is the truth, and that he got most of those “facts” from all of the writers and commenters and pundits at the sites and channels that he regularly visits, and that he’s never been exposed to the full set of facts which drive the conservatives’ anger because CNN and MSNBC have never presented them as facts..
Wars start when nations stop talking. There is now virtually no shared speech between Republicans and Democrats, and there is an instant and constant assumption that the Others are lying and so there’s no point in even talking to Them. In the Civil War, we had “sides” that broke down along rough geographic borders. Now, we have near-warring individuals scattered amongst each other. This could get nasty.
Well written Sir. A RESET button exists in THIS country and, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if somebody pushes it, HARD, soon.
Neat site, I’m hooked.
Biting my tongue with every article that boils my blood.
I live in a state that somehow can’t control “legal” drug dealers from pumping American made narcotics from our very own legalized “cartels” into neighboring states. Sacrificing families, ruining lives, and killing people. Apparently the pharmaceutical giants deserve this payout? The largest city nearest me is famous for pills and heroin, sure there’s crack cocaine too.
When I pass OSP sitting on the major, I speed up by 10mph. They don’t want me. They don’t want to put up with me. They are there to pick up the pawns in the game my local government has provided as job security. “Routine Traffic Stop Yields 330 Grams of Cocaine and 57 Oxycontin Pills…”. Routine my ass. Snitched. I’d say rightly so but snitch deals don’t stop the flow or touch the reality. It’s business, it’s BAD business. Headlines please the masses momentarily and they travel to the local Walmart feeling better or worse yet safer.
The “Pain Management” clinics we have in abundance draw million$. Yeah, my “disabled” SS recipient neighbors of 40yrs. of age or less sacrifice food but they pump all that money right back into what some would call “America”. But are the “doctor” and his family even paying income tax? (biting the tongue)
Opium poppy can’t be grown here as an industry. Coca plant? Nah, not happening. Heroin and Cocaine travel north to us, not south from us.
And I’m to believe that it’s easier to procure military (or military-style) firearms from the Good Ol’ US of A than from the trash cartel folk south of the Mexican border?
Wow.
Guess I need to get on down to the Walmart and boost this fantastic growth. Nevermind me, I was thinking and that’s not what they want.
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