Obama's Gun Problem

Sometimes, I find that I am operating in a different world from some of my friends. I recently was engaged in an exchange on numerous topics with an old friend -- and former girlfriend -- who lives in New York state. I mentioned, as if it were common knowledge, the current BATFE scandal originally known as "Fast and Furious." She wasn't familiar with it. Even my wife, who is a sharp woman, didn't recognize the name, although when reminded, did remember that there was a scandal over some weapons that had been "walked" to Mexico. So, I will try not to overstate the case by explaining, briefly, some of what happened.

There has been some concern by the Obama administration, among others, about the possible involvement of guns acquired through retail sales in the US in the violence in Mexico. BATFE came up with some figures, which many dispute, claiming at one point that as many as 90% of the guns used by the cartels had come from here.

One field office of the BATFE began an operation that they codenamed "Fast and Furious" a rather telling title and, indicative, I think, of the fast and loose way in which it was undertaken. In short, they were going to encourage -- facilitate, even -- the purchase of military-style weapons in gun stores in Arizona which they knew would be taken to Mexico and resold to the cartels. They planned -- or outlined; this operation seems bereft of much real planning -- to track these weapons, much as the DEA tracks shipments of drugs, hoping to find the end-users and get a line on the chain of command, the lines of authority of the operation.

That's fine, if it works. But from the start, is seems that the BATFE lost sight of the guns, or a majority of them. And they began to show up among weapons captured at crime scenes in Mexico. And, in at least one case so far, at the crime scene of a murder on US soil of a CPB agent, Brian Terry. And from that point on, it all went downhill

A couple of gun-rights bloggers and activists, David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh, got wind of the operation and blogged about it. Eventually, the mainstream media, who had ignored it until then, decided to air a story. CBS put the story out there and, eventually, seemed to take credit for "breaking" the story.

So, are you with me so far? (If not, read David's and Mike's blogs; they explain it more deeply and better than I can in a quick overview) Everyone on both sides of the gun-rights issue and on both poles of the political spectrum seems to have an opinion on this. There are investigations of the operation in Congress. It is discussed in the blogosphere ad infinitum and it even gets some mainstream ink and air-time.

One person who weighed in was a law professor from UCLA, Adam Winkler. He wrote, in part, in a Huffington Post editorial http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-winkler/obamas-growing-gun-proble_b_917104.html:

'The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive ("ATF" ...

"Operation Fast and Furious" ... allowed approximately 1,700 guns to be

sold illegally to suppliers of the [Mexican] cartels and then failed to

keep track of the weapons. Many of the guns have since been recovered at

crime scenes, including two guns recovered at the scene of a fatal

attack on a U.S. border agent ... Fast and Furious may have been a bad

idea, but Americans can understand the dire situation that led to the

program ... Although Fast and Furious hasn't garnered much attention so

far in the mainstream press, it's become the talk of the gun rights

community ... Unfortunately, the early signs are that Obama is going to

handle this controversy as poorly as he handled the debt ceiling debate.'

Now, I don't have much of an argument that the Obama administration has handled the ATF scandal poorly. My quibble -- or maybe it's a quarrel -- with Professor Winkler is that the problem that ATF was trying, poorly, to address was "dire." He seems to have bought into the government's conclusion -- or fantasy -- that the major supplier of weapons to the cartels was the US retail firearms market. So, I wrote to Professor Winkler and said this:

"Professor Winkler,

I fully agree with your statement that Obama and his administration have caused themselves no end of trouble by stonewalling on "Fast and Furious." I don't see it as a legitimate sting, since there appears to have been poor oversight -- something necessary to an effective sting --  and no end-game. The very name selected for the operation -- "Fast and Furious" -- seems to indicate a rather cowboy approach to the perceived problem. And the magnitude of the problem before ATF allowed so many guns to walk across the border is debatable, too.

Like many people who seem to oppose the free and uninfringed exercise of the 2nd Amendment, you "miss" a few salient points. While there may be some guns being used by the cartels that originated in the US through retail channels -- we know of some 2,000 that did, with the help of ATF --  many of the weapons are not military-style semi-auto weapons, but full-auto military weapons, rocket propelled grenades and the like,. So, another source for those is obvious. Given the number of weapons floating around on the black market that originated as military aid by either the US, the Soviet bloc or China, one must draw the obvious conclusion: there are corrupt police and military people in Mexico and elsewhere who are the source of those truly military weapons. These unfortunate truths are overlooked by the Obama administration, it seems.

I will quickly admit that the very existence of a drug problem in Mexico is a result of the drug laws in the US. We have repeated the errors of the Volstead Act and prohibition, creating another criminal enterprise as bad or worse than the ones created back then. We also refuse, it seems, to acknowledge the levels of corruption inherent in the Mexican system, where the mordita, the "little bite" or bribe is universal. In a poor nation, just as in the ethnic neighborhoods from which the Prohibition Era gangsters largely came, any quick route to great wealth will be exploited by any and all comers. Just as we created wealthy and powerful men like Al Capone from the poverty of Chicago's Italian neighborhoods -- who without Prohibition would have been a relatively minor criminal -- the US and Mexico have done the same with the narcotraficantes.

Placing even some of the blame on the legitimate sources in the US seems overly disingenuous. And, for those of us who do not trust government -- especially a Democratic one -- where our 2nd Amendment rights are concerned, imputing a hidden agenda, an agenda that includes infringing on those rights, is not a stretch.

I'd love to hear you and Eugene Volokh, also a UCLA professor, discuss the issue. I've had the privilege of corresponding with Professor Volokh and know that he could set you straight on some things. He could even get you to use the correct nomenclature for the device that holds the ammunition in a firearm. It is a magazine, not a clip."

The Professor Volokh to whom I referred is considered an expert on Constitutional Law, especially the First and Second Amendments. He maintains a web log at http://www.volokh.com/ which is always an interesting read.

So, I seem to be involved in the discussion of this matter even more widely than I had intended to be. I am not, let us be clear, a fan of the BATFE. They have been used in the attack on the individual right to keep and bear arms (RKBA) for decades. Usually, it is either at the behest of the administration or, in some cases, in the attempt to curry favor and larger budget allotments from the Congress.

Check out the various sources, if you want to know more. And stay tuned, since I doubt that this will be the last you hear from me in the subject.