Strangely, the phrase “Operation Fast And Furious” is never mentioned
(LA Times) There are plenty of reasons right here at home to support President Obama’s effort to reform the nation’s gun laws. But if Congress requires additional arguments, it should consider that easy access to guns is also undermining the United States’ avowed goal of combating drug trafficking and transnational gangs abroad.
The U.S. has sent nearly $2 billion in aid to Mexico since 2007, much of that as part of the Merida Initiative, a counter-narcotics program designed to provide aid and equipment for that country’s drug war. Yet that assistance has been undermined by lax U.S. gun laws, which allow members of the drug cartels and their associates to buy weapons here and smuggle them across the border. At least 68,000 of the firearms seized in Mexico between 2007 and 2011 — and probably quite a lot more — came from the United States, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
And yet the Obama admin. still walked guns into Mexico without approval of the government of Mexico, and didn’t even bother to notify Mexican officials. The guns weren’t even tracked. Diane Feinstein’s bill would ban the sale and transfer of guns, which is already illegal.
The NRA’s arguments are scare tactics, designed to distract from the facts and inspire fear. The current efforts to limit gun violence don’t trample the Constitution. Rather, they aim to protect Americans at home and our interests abroad.
That’s always how it starts: it’s for your own good and the “greater good.” Pretty soon you wonder where your liberty went.
