Doctor Fate wrote:How does that make the GOP responsible for the porous border?

The issue at hand isn't border security, it's gun control. Surely you'd admit that the GOP is less in favor of strict gun control than the Dems. Now you may very well argue that preventing Mexican gangs from getting guns isn't of sufficient importance to justify making it harder for Americans to purchase multiple automatic weapons in one transaction, or that the 2nd amendment makes any and all efforts to control guns unconstitutional. But the border isn't the point. Mexicans who are legal could come over and buy guns - they don't need a porous border.

steve

How does that make the GOP responsible for the porous border?

How long has the border been porous?

Fate

How would that solve the problem when the government is giving the cartels guns anyway?

Gun walking was originated as tactic under the Bush administration. Wouldn't it be interesting to interview the architects of the tactic then to discover what it was suppossed to accomplish? And then to interview the DOJ staff who resurrected the tactic and ask them why they thought it was so sucessful the first time that they should try it again?
Unfortunately that isn't the focus of issa's commission.

According to even the alternative study that Archduke refers to ; at least 1 out of 5 weapons found at Mexican crime scenes have an American starting point. (Archduke, I remember that the claim was that a lot come from South American armed forces, and from other foreign sources. However, I think the idea that guns, especially automatic rifles, can easily be purchased in Texas and smuggled is undeniable.

recently a border agent was caught smuggling guns that can be converted to grenade launchers...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/ ... 3I20120411

Purple - I'm hoping that Russell will see his two errors. Firstly in fact (the ATF report you link to has not been debunked here before)m and secondly in slightly overbearing and patronising manner. Not a great way to welcome someone to the boards.

Purple wrote:Mexicans who are legal could come over and buy guns - they don't need a porous border.

Well, it depends on whether they would need permits to export them back out again and don't have them.

I don't think the US searches you when you leave, and the Mexican border patrol is hardly above bribery. But I'm just guessing.

Yes, but do you need a permit to take guns out of the US? Maybe not. Freedom and the 2nd Amendment and all that...

danivon wrote:secondly in slightly overbearing and patronising manner. Not a great way to welcome someone to the boards.

I didn't think I was being overbearing or patronising. I was trying to explain the history of the site that he would not be aware of.

Is that the retraction Purple requested?

It did come off as a bit dismissive, especially in the follow-up.

This is the kind of thing I hate, so I'll do this once and then I'm outta' here.

Doctor Fate wrote:

Purple wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:You offer the Brady Campaign, noted for its balance as a source?

No, the source of the 3% figure, which seems to be what you're criticizing, is actually the ATF. You saw the word "Brady" and had a brainfart. Please re-read my post. If you do, you'll see this also...

Oh, well, I do apologize . . . for assuming you knew what you meant when you wrote:

Answer: The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives, at least according to the Brady Campaign, who note that the guns sent south by FaF represent just 3% (at best, I would note) of the guns crossing that border. Mexico "recovers" firearms and sends them to ATF for tracing.

Yeah, someone had a brain, er, freeze, but it was you. I bolded the part in which you feel you erred, so feel free to correct yourself. Frankly, someone needs to take you to the woodshed and you seem to want to play the part.

My "answer" was to your question: "...what kind of messed up organization allows guns to go to murderers, kidnappers and drug cartels?" The Brady guy criticized the GOP House, and noted the data about the guns. He was not the source of that data. The Brady Campaign is not the source of the ATF data. In fact, right below the quote from the Brady guy I had provided the link to the ATF press release.

Further, notice that I used the words "at least" when I indirectly ascribed some blame for border-crossing guns to the GOP House. How do you interpret that inclusion?

I retract my statement. I should have written more clearly. When Dr. Fate asked "what kind of messed up organization allows guns to go to murderers, kidnappers and drug cartels?" I should have written: According to an anti-gun nut at the radically anti-gun Brady Campaign, the GOP-led US House is partially responsible. He notes that way more guns get into Mexico from the US than were involved in Fast and Furious (a fact borne out by the ATF - see link). He describes a program the Obama Admin. instituted to try to limit that number by a "regulatory requirement that multiple sales of semi-automatic rifles in the border states be promptly reported to ATF to give the law enforcers real-time notice of the suspicious gun sales that are feeding the cartels". This program has, according to the guy I'm quoting, who some may believe to be so biased that he's outright lying, led to numerous investigations and referrals to prosecutors. And the critical point: he says (though I cannot prove he's not lying) that the GOP House has twice voted to block implementation of this regulation. It is in this sense that I half-humorously name the GOP House as a "messed up organization".
Clearly I'm just not a good enough writer to function here. No one wants to read long back-and-forths of the I-said/you-said variety.

http://tijuana.usconsulate.gov/tijuana/warning.html

http://www.panda.com/mexicoguns/

The two sites above explain Mexican gun laws and importing guns.
Don't import guns, you'll land in jail if caught. In Canada the guns are confiscated and you are immediatly deported. At the US border you go into custody and then I'm not sure... Anyone know?

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/ ... n-violence

The next link (above) is Archdukes "study" on the validity of the claims that the US is the source for illegal gunbs in Mexico.
You'll note that it makes a few invalid assumptions. The first is the assumption that if a gun has not been submitted for tracing that the gun came from other sources. The problem with this is that the facility to trace guns was limited, and not all Mexican enforcement participated in the program. There is no way of knowing what percentage of the weapons not submitted were US origin or not.
And yet, the claim is "other sources:" Simply false. .
Then the study isolate the 7,200 submitted for tracing... Again the erroneous assumption is that if a gun can't be traced, and 3,200 couldn't, that the origin is then defnitely NOT the US. Not true. All we know is they can't be successfully traced.
They are right when they say that of those that are successfully traced 90% came from the US.

The claim then that 90% of guns found at Mexican crimes scenes is correct only if one assumes that the 4,000 traced guns are a legitimate sample that would represent a genuine random sample.
I think critics that say no, have ground to stand on that it doesn't. It is likely that if authorities know the source of guns are South American armed forces, or Mexican armed forces, they are not likely to submit for tracing....
However the study also doesn't invalidate the claim that the US isn't the main source for guns used in Mexican drug cartels.
Remember the study does not exist in isolation. There is a large amount of evidence presented by Mexican authorities, the ATF, and journalists that American gun shops are the primary source for automatic weapons.
The problem for conservatives is that the evidence that weak US gun laws contribute to the horrendous violence in Mexico is great. Therefore the side show into Holder's "contempt of Congress" (Joining 85% of Americans in that view apparently), has to be very narrow. Elst it starts a genuine discussion about the base problem of cartel violence and the US's contribution to the deaths of thousands... Not just a single ATF agent.

Issa, and others, worried about defending 2nd Amendment rights at all costs (and by costs we can say the deaths of hundreds in Mexico...) they can't let the examination of F&F become a comprehensive study of the problem of gun smuggling into Mexico, or they would be forced to acknowledge that almost unlimited access to high powered weapons has lead to almost unlimited use of these weapons by criminals in Mexico.
Its quite a magic act. Trying to blame Holder, the DOJ and the ATF for the death of an ATF agent because of the weapons lost in F&F, but ignoring all the other thousands of smuggled guns and deaths because that might start people wondering about American gun regulation in general.

Purple, please persevere. Perhaps your admonishments might help us to improve. This site has become a smaller place, and the political threads more so, over time. We have here a small number of regular commenters who have been debating things for years, and unfortunatley no small amount of bickering and personal history.

So, it is perhaps difficult for us to react with respect and courtesy and some of us clearly need to be led by example. Equally, the tit-for-tat hole-picking can be too much and we have an unfortunate habit of falling into it sometimes.

Perhaps we are beyond redemption, though. Or at least some of us. I plead guilty myself for getting carried away with things. Here is an opportunity for us to think things through.

The question is why you spend time here. Is it to place a stake in your bit of turf and defend it to the death? Or is it to share info and points of view and perhaps learn and grow in the process? When it's the first, people tend not to read the little essays of anyone with a slightly differing POV very carefully, or with an open mind. Their purpose is merely to find some weakness to attack and discredit. Unless one is to spend an hour on each paragraph posted here, and write with an eye toward eliminating every remotely possible source of misunderstanding (instead of relying on a reader's desire to understand), these "you said X and that's wrong - no it's not, you misunderstood - no I didn't, you said X" vortexes will be unavoidable.

Communication, especially in a format like this where facial expressions and body language can't help, demands a goodwill effort by all readers to cut the writer an even break. When that doesn't happen, and the response is both hostile and off the mark, the original writer becomes very frustrated, as I did. In my frustration I said Dr. Fate had suffered a brainfart. I apologize for that. But you see how quickly even a well-intentioned newbie can fall into that trap? And you guys have been back-biting each other for years?

Maybe I'll check back in after a month or two and see if anything here has changed. Or maybe I'll just become a hit-and-run poster, giving my two cents and then not even looking back to see what responses I might have generated. It's low, but it eliminates the frustration.

Purple wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:How does that make the GOP responsible for the porous border?

The issue at hand isn't border security, it's gun control.

Hmm, so the walking of guns to Mexico is a gun control issue and not a border security issue? If the border was secure, how would the guns get to Mexico?

Surely you'd admit that the GOP is less in favor of strict gun control than the Dems.

Right. Democrats would like to erase the Second Amendment entirely. What does that have to do with Fast and Furious?

Nothing, but you want to change the subject to unspecified bills Obama submitted and Republicans defeated. That has nothing to do with guns going to Mexico.

Gun control is only a problem to the liberal mind, which insists guns are inherently dangerous. Most rational people, even some Democrats, understand that guns are neither good nor evil--it is the people who wield them.

Now you may very well argue that preventing Mexican gangs from getting guns isn't of sufficient importance to justify making it harder for Americans to purchase multiple automatic weapons in one transaction, or that the 2nd amendment makes any and all efforts to control guns unconstitutional.

Nope, I am arguing that if the border is sealed, they can buy 1M automatic weapons, but they can't get them to Mexico. Guns aren't the primary problem; the lack of border security is. It's a bit like running a prison without walls--you can complain about prisoners escaping, but that's not the problem; it's the lack of walls. Put up walls and it's going to be difficult or impossible to escape.

But the border isn't the point. Mexicans who are legal could come over and buy guns - they don't need a porous border.

Wrong. How do you get the weapons into Mexico without the porous border? They don't have Star Trek transporters, so to take them over land requires . . . porous borders!

Purple wrote:My "answer" was to your question: "...what kind of messed up organization allows guns to go to murderers, kidnappers and drug cartels?" The Brady guy criticized the GOP House, and noted the data about the guns. He was not the source of that data. The Brady Campaign is not the source of the ATF data. In fact, right below the quote from the Brady guy I had provided the link to the ATF press release.

We disagree, obviously. You believe the straight Democrat line: guns are the problem. If only we can restrict them to nice people, under ideal conditions (locked, unloaded, maybe with the firing pins in another State), we'll all be safe.

I believe we have a Constitutional right to guns. I believe restricting the lawful appropriation of guns will not stop crooks from getting and using them. They're crooks. They break laws, even with enhancements for using guns.

Furthermore, if only "nice" people are allowed to buy guns, they'll still get to Mexico unless we close the border. You're trying to make F and F about gun control or to claim that lack of gun control is the problem. Again, if we had massive gun control--if the Democrats got everything they asked for--would it stop the weapons from going to Mexico? Probably not--and I can guarantee gun control laws would not stop our government from giving guns to the cartels.

Further, notice that I used the words "at least" when I indirectly ascribed some blame for border-crossing guns to the GOP House. How do you interpret that inclusion?

Gun control is an extraneous issue to F and F. Maybe you think we'd all be safer if only the government had guns. I don't know what your position is. I do know that conflating F and F with gun control is "absurd." The President's spokesman said so.

“The congressman’s analysis has as much merit as his absurd contention that Operation Fast and Furious was created in order to promote gun control.

Of course, if it wasn't about gun control, what was the point of a government agency allowing guns to cross the border without Mexico's knowledge?

If gun control was the key to stopping Mexico's drug cartels from getting weapons, that would be fine--if it wasn't for the Second Amendment. However, there is no Constitutional protection for an open border. We are not required to let people and stuff, especially illegal stuff, flow to Mexico. Close the border and the gun control problem disappears.

I retract my statement. I should have written more clearly.

Sarcasm noted. I'll attempt not to reciprocate.

When Dr. Fate asked "what kind of messed up organization allows guns to go to murderers, kidnappers and drug cartels?" I should have written: According to an anti-gun nut at the radically anti-gun Brady Campaign, the GOP-led US House is partially responsible. He notes that way more guns get into Mexico from the US than were involved in Fast and Furious (a fact borne out by the ATF - see link). He describes a program the Obama Admin. instituted to try to limit that number by a "regulatory requirement that multiple sales of semi-automatic rifles in the border states be promptly reported to ATF to give the law enforcers real-time notice of the suspicious gun sales that are feeding the cartels". This program has, according to the guy I'm quoting, who some may believe to be so biased that he's outright lying, led to numerous investigations and referrals to prosecutors.

He is biased. I googled him. His entire life seems to be devoted to gun control. When one's mission in life is the issue being debated, it's pretty tough to grant the person objectivity. For example, would you take Grover Norquist's word about taxation? Same thing; different issue.

And the critical point: he says (though I cannot prove he's not lying) that the GOP House has twice voted to block implementation of this regulation. It is in this sense that I half-humorously name the GOP House as a "messed up organization".

Well, it's pretty tough to just take his word for it, given his proclivity for traveling around the country to fight to restrict guns (google him).

Clearly I'm just not a good enough writer to function here. No one wants to read long back-and-forths of the I-said/you-said variety.

Your choice. To be fair, you are of the opinion that restricting gun sales will somehow end the ability of drug cartels to get weapons, yes? I am of the opinion that criminals always find guns. They get them in countries that have outright bans on weapons. However, it ought to be clear that the weapons could not get across the border if the border were actually being secured.

fate

Gun control is an extraneous issue to F and F

.

Darryl Issa

Could it be that what they really were thinking of was in fact to use this walking of guns in order to promote an assault weapons ban? Many think so. And they haven’t come up with an explanation that would cause any of us not to agree

.”

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/20 ... d-furious/

I think its interesting that you think it is futile to try and regulate gun ownership but that its possible to seal the 1969 mile border betwen mexico and the USA