Fast and Furious was merely a pretext for imposing stricter gun laws

[NaughtyGeek]

Link

A federal judge has forced the release of more than 20,000 pages of emails and memos previously locked up under President Obama’s phony executive-privilege claim. A preliminary review shows top Obama officials deliberately obstructing congressional probes into the border gun-running operation.

Fast and Furious was a Justice Department program that allowed assault weapons — including .50-caliber rifles powerful enough to take down a helicopter — to be sold to Mexican drug cartels allegedly as a way to track them. But internal documents later revealed the real goal was to gin up a crisis requiring a crackdown on guns in America. Fast and Furious was merely a pretext for imposing stricter gun laws.

I guess the NYPost has gone full tin foil hat now huh? When a government is this hell bent on getting the people to voluntarily relinquish their arms, what in God's name are they preparing for us?

 

[woolfe9998]

But internal documents later revealed the real goal was to gin up a crisis requiring a crackdown on guns in America. Fast and Furious was merely a pretext for imposing stricter gun laws.

What internal documents? Can we get a quote? You'll pardon me if I don't take the allegations in this obviously biased article seriously until I've actually seen the evidence.

 

[glenn1]

What internal documents? Can we get a quote? You'll pardon me if I don't take the allegations in this obviously biased article seriously until I've actually seen the evidence.

Yes, and speaking as someone who opposes most gun control efforts I also want to see what context the quotes are in and who they're from. Even if the quote is accurate it could be a junior analyst laying out a negative business case for approving the program (e.g. "if we do this then ___ might happen that causes a reputation risk or perceived goal of furthering gun restrictions.")

 

[thraashman]

From looking up other articles from this one's author, I'm gonna need some exact excerpts from these "internal documents" instead of just taking his word on what things say.

 

[werepossum]

I don't disagree with the author's conclusions, but this article really belongs in an opinion section. Perhaps he is 100% correct, but there's very little here that could accurately be termed reportage. If it's as clear cut as he represents, he should be able to amply support his point with examples.

 

[Fern]

What internal documents? Can we get a quote? You'll pardon me if I don't take the allegations in this obviously biased article seriously until I've actually seen the evidence.

I've noticed a bit about this issue in the past few months. By "issue" I mean the court challenge to the Obama's attempt to assert exec privilege ("EP) re: Fast & Furious. The last thing I read was that the court struck down EP. At the time the judge gave the admin another chance to validate EP.

I just googled and it looks like the Obama admin decided not to fight it any further. They released thousands of doc (IIRC 20,000 or so emails and internal memos) last month. Indications were that this release still did not fully comply, however, given the number of docs it will likely be at least a little while before they are fully digested and reported on more broadly.

Fern

 

[Jhhnn]

Accusations that Fast & Furious was anything other than botched by the regional BATFE & the AZ federal attorney's office at the time are mere innuendo.

Not even Darryl Issa could make it into more than that.

 

[master_shake_]

so the american government sells high powered weapons to mexican drug cartels to track them gets caught then they ban guns in the states?

that's really some kind of logic.

 

[michal1980]

But liberals are pro gun. /s

 

[Knowing]

so the american government sells high powered weapons to mexican drug cartels to track them gets caught then they ban guns in the states?

that's really some kind of logic.

The idea was to link the illegal sales here to violence there. This implying that our loose rules were to blame, simultaneously making the case that we need stricter gun laws in the US and that violence in US cities is the fault of permissive laws (that need to be made more strict) in regions near those cities where they don't have problems with violence.

I'll see of I can dig up some talking points, I know they were running that story, and the latter is still used today.

Also, something I found curious about the invocation of executive privilege in this case:

6. Does executive privilege cover testimony or documents about decision-making within the executive branch not involving confidential advice communicated to the president himself?

With respect to the “core” of executive privilege, the Supreme Court has not resolved this question, and reasonable people have debated it. My view is that executive privilege generally depends on the involvement of the President and the White House.

http://archive.boston.com/news/politics/2008/specials/CandidateQA/ObamaQA/

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[master_shake_]

The idea was to link the illegal sales here to violence there. This implying that our loose rules were to blame, simultaneously making the case that we need stricter gun laws in the US and that violence in US cities is the fault of permissive laws (that need to be made more strict) in regions near those cities where they don't have problems with violence.

I'll see of I can dig up some talking points, I know they were running that story, and the latter is still used today.

Also, something I found curious about the invocation of executive privilege in this case:



http://archive.boston.com/news/politics/2008/specials/CandidateQA/ObamaQA/

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

that is all kinds of fucked up...

 

[Meghan54]

that is all kinds of fucked up...

As fucked up as Iran-Contra?

 

[master_shake_]

As fucked up as Iran-Contra?

they're both pretty horrible lapses in judgment.

 

[Jhhnn]

The idea was to link the illegal sales here to violence there. This implying that our loose rules were to blame, simultaneously making the case that we need stricter gun laws in the US and that violence in US cities is the fault of permissive laws (that need to be made more strict) in regions near those cities where they don't have problems with violence.

I'll see of I can dig up some talking points, I know they were running that story, and the latter is still used today.

Yes, those were the conspiracy theorists' talking points.

Also, something I found curious about the invocation of executive privilege in this case:



http://archive.boston.com/news/politics/2008/specials/CandidateQA/ObamaQA/

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

What Obama actually said-

With respect to the “core” of executive privilege, the Supreme Court has not resolved this question, and reasonable people have debated it. My view is that executive privilege generally depends on the involvement of the President and the White House.

 

[Knowing]

Yes, those were the conspiracy theorists' talking points.



What Obama actually said-

I said I'd look for sources. Also, I quoted the president fully and with context so I don't know why you felt the need to quote me quoting him.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Jhhnn]

I said I'd look for sources. Also, I quoted the president fully and with context so I don't know why you felt the need to quote me quoting him.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

Look all you want. You didn't actually quote Obama but rather linked a much larger interview. The part I quoted is the only part relevant to this discussion. It's not like all thread participant will go to the trouble to dig it out but some will just roll with the innuendo they can build from your "curious" comment.

 

[Knowing]

Look all you want. You didn't actually quote Obama but rather linked a much larger interview. The part I quoted is the only part relevant to this discussion. It's not like all thread participant will go to the trouble to dig it out but some will just roll with the innuendo they can build from your "curious" comment.

I was sure that someone would get bent out of shape if I didn't provide the actual question asked. I never anticipated someone getting upset that I provided the context...or implying that I'm burying the lede by providing a link.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Knowing]

The idea was to link the illegal sales here to violence there. This implying that our loose rules were to blame, simultaneously making the case that we need stricter gun laws in the US and that violence in US cities is the fault of permissive laws (that need to be made more strict) in regions near those cities where they don't have problems with violence.

I'll see of I can dig up some talking points, I know they were running that story, and the latter is still used today.

"Link illegal sales here to violence there"

So these first couple of links are from when I was setting my search terms before I date constrained my query which is why they're all recent.

Mother Jones - How a Loophole in US Law Helps Drug Cartels Sneak Guns Into Mexico

These weapons have fueled the ongoing war among the drug cartels
...
The firearms are then illegally shipped across the border.

NPR - In Mexico, Tens Of Thousands Of Illegal Guns Come From The U.S.
Do I really need to quote? It's right there in the headline. Okay, since you asked nicely:

The data was analyzed by the Government Accountability Office, which notes in its report that U.S. police agencies have acknowledged firearms smuggling is fueling violent crime in Mexico.

Now, those are both from 2016. I said "the idea was" implying that the story existed in a similar time domain as the doomed from its inception Fast and Furious program. So, I will now show that the media was reporting on how ebul gunz from the US were killing babby in Mexico around the time that Fast and Furious broke.

"implying that our loose rules were to blame"

The Washington Post - In Mexico, only one gun store but no dearth of violence
December 29, 2010

Yet Mexico is awash in weapons. President Felipe Calderon reported this month that Mexican forces have captured more than 93,000 weapons in four years. Mexican authorities insist that 90 percent of those weapons have been smuggled from the United States. The U.S. and Mexican governments have worked together to trace 73,000 seized weapons, but both refuse to release the results of the traces.
...
The Mexican military has been handling gun sales in strict military fashion since 1995. "Only a tiny percentage of our weapons end up in the hands of criminals," Manzano said. That percentage, he said, is less than 1.

Mexico's problems with gun crime can't possibly be due to their laws because only 1% of the guns that they sell end up in criminal hands. The problem according to the article is that our laws are too permissive.


This article was published before Grassley officially inquired about the program.


The Washington Post - As Mexico drug violence runs rampant, U.S. guns tied to crime south of border.
December 15, 2010

No other state has produced more guns seized by police in the brutal Mexican drug wars than Texas. In the Lone Star State, no other city has more guns linked to Mexican crime scenes than Houston.

BONUS:

Gallery
Mexican violence, American guns
Authorities have struggled to keep U.S. retailers' firearms from falling into the hands of drug cartels as violence increases south of the border.

Also from before the investigation.



NPR - How Thousands Of U.S. Guns Fuel Crime In Mexico
January 5, 2011
Basically a rehashing of the Post story.

Part of the problem, Grimaldi says, is straw-purchasing: when legal buyers purchase guns on behalf of illegal buyers, who remain largely untraceable.

So, now that I have documented that what I claimed was true actually was, unequivocally true I'll leave you with yet another bonus!


CNN - Study - U.S. lacks strategy to fight arms smuggling into Mexico
June 18, 2009

Officials told the GAO that some federal firearms laws restrict the collection of information of arms purchases and limit reporting requirements for multiple sales, hindering anti-smuggling efforts.

So, not only was the idea of weapons being smuggled across the border known, it was being studied. One of the problems was that we don't collect enough information about sales to stop them from being smuggled. Which is odd because the excuse for the utter shitshow that was Fast and Furious was that BOOOOSH did it first... which, by definition, means that there must have been a strategy. So before that was all dragged out in a total "not scandal" we have this study suggesting that we collect "more information" in order to interdict smuggling. Now I'm not trying to connect any dots that aren't there but what sort of information aren't they collecting that they would have collected? Short of a registry of course because no one wants a registry. Also, in what way would this increase in information gathered not be an increase in the relative strictness of our gun laws?


Finally, before you start - yes, I fully anticipate you using my documentation of the narrative™ that was spun as evidence that the unmitigated failure of Fast and Furious was necessary. Which of course is completely ignoring the fact that the US is the number one exporter of arms to terrorists and assorted "freedom fighters" across the globe.

 

[Jhhnn]

"Link illegal sales here to violence there"

So these first couple of links are from when I was setting my search terms before I date constrained my query which is why they're all recent.

Mother Jones - How a Loophole in US Law Helps Drug Cartels Sneak Guns Into Mexico


NPR - In Mexico, Tens Of Thousands Of Illegal Guns Come From The U.S.
Do I really need to quote? It's right there in the headline. Okay, since you asked nicely:


Now, those are both from 2016. I said "the idea was" implying that the story existed in a similar time domain as the doomed from its inception Fast and Furious program. So, I will now show that the media was reporting on how ebul gunz from the US were killing babby in Mexico around the time that Fast and Furious broke.

"implying that our loose rules were to blame"

The Washington Post - In Mexico, only one gun store but no dearth of violence
December 29, 2010



Mexico's problems with gun crime can't possibly be due to their laws because only 1% of the guns that they sell end up in criminal hands. The problem according to the article is that our laws are too permissive.


This article was published before Grassley officially inquired about the program.


The Washington Post - As Mexico drug violence runs rampant, U.S. guns tied to crime south of border.
December 15, 2010



BONUS:



Also from before the investigation.



NPR - How Thousands Of U.S. Guns Fuel Crime In Mexico
January 5, 2011
Basically a rehashing of the Post story.



So, now that I have documented that what I claimed was true actually was, unequivocally true I'll leave you with yet another bonus!


CNN - Study - U.S. lacks strategy to fight arms smuggling into Mexico
June 18, 2009



So, not only was the idea of weapons being smuggled across the border known, it was being studied. One of the problems was that we don't collect enough information about sales to stop them from being smuggled. Which is odd because the excuse for the utter shitshow that was Fast and Furious was that BOOOOSH did it first... which, by definition, means that there must have been a strategy. So before that was all dragged out in a total "not scandal" we have this study suggesting that we collect "more information" in order to interdict smuggling. Now I'm not trying to connect any dots that aren't there but what sort of information aren't they collecting that they would have collected? Short of a registry of course because no one wants a registry. Also, in what way would this increase in information gathered not be an increase in the relative strictness of our gun laws?


Finally, before you start - yes, I fully anticipate you using my documentation of the narrative™ that was spun as evidence that the unmitigated failure of Fast and Furious was necessary. Which of course is completely ignoring the fact that the US is the number one exporter of arms to terrorists and assorted "freedom fighters" across the globe.

In no way does any of that show that fast & furious was a pretext for stricter gun laws in this country. They weren't selling guns to cartels to create an incident.

The other side of it is that the sales would have taken place whether the BATFE was paying attention or not. It was only about gun sales from one shop in Arizona, as well. How many gun shops do you figure there might be Arizona, New Mexico & Texas, anyway?

 

[werepossum]

"Link illegal sales here to violence there"

So these first couple of links are from when I was setting my search terms before I date constrained my query which is why they're all recent.

Mother Jones - How a Loophole in US Law Helps Drug Cartels Sneak Guns Into Mexico


NPR - In Mexico, Tens Of Thousands Of Illegal Guns Come From The U.S.
Do I really need to quote? It's right there in the headline. Okay, since you asked nicely:


Now, those are both from 2016. I said "the idea was" implying that the story existed in a similar time domain as the doomed from its inception Fast and Furious program. So, I will now show that the media was reporting on how ebul gunz from the US were killing babby in Mexico around the time that Fast and Furious broke.

"implying that our loose rules were to blame"

The Washington Post - In Mexico, only one gun store but no dearth of violence
December 29, 2010



Mexico's problems with gun crime can't possibly be due to their laws because only 1% of the guns that they sell end up in criminal hands. The problem according to the article is that our laws are too permissive.


This article was published before Grassley officially inquired about the program.


The Washington Post - As Mexico drug violence runs rampant, U.S. guns tied to crime south of border.
December 15, 2010



BONUS:



Also from before the investigation.



NPR - How Thousands Of U.S. Guns Fuel Crime In Mexico
January 5, 2011
Basically a rehashing of the Post story.



So, now that I have documented that what I claimed was true actually was, unequivocally true I'll leave you with yet another bonus!


CNN - Study - U.S. lacks strategy to fight arms smuggling into Mexico
June 18, 2009



So, not only was the idea of weapons being smuggled across the border known, it was being studied. One of the problems was that we don't collect enough information about sales to stop them from being smuggled. Which is odd because the excuse for the utter shitshow that was Fast and Furious was that BOOOOSH did it first... which, by definition, means that there must have been a strategy. So before that was all dragged out in a total "not scandal" we have this study suggesting that we collect "more information" in order to interdict smuggling. Now I'm not trying to connect any dots that aren't there but what sort of information aren't they collecting that they would have collected? Short of a registry of course because no one wants a registry. Also, in what way would this increase in information gathered not be an increase in the relative strictness of our gun laws?


Finally, before you start - yes, I fully anticipate you using my documentation of the narrative™ that was spun as evidence that the unmitigated failure of Fast and Furious was necessary. Which of course is completely ignoring the fact that the US is the number one exporter of arms to terrorists and assorted "freedom fighters" across the globe.

Certainly that was the narrative. Question is, was it an Obama/Holder narrative, or something the BATFE cooked up on their own? They are kind of a loose gun (pun intended) at best.

As far as the US being the number one exporter of arms to terrorists and assorted "freedom fighters" across the globe, you might want to recount the number of Russian, Chinese and Pakistani AK-47 and RPG-7 knock-offs around the world. Methinks you've dropped a few zeros.

In no way does any of that show that fast & furious was a pretext for stricter gun laws in this country. They weren't selling guns to cartels to create an incident.

The other side of it is that the sales would have taken place whether the BATFE was paying attention or not. It was only about gun sales from one shop in Arizona, as well. How many gun shops do you figure there might be Arizona, New Mexico & Texas, anyway?

Um, no. Some of the sales were caught and noted by the sellers as likely straw buyer sales; the BATFE ordered that they be completed. Some of the sales were even funded by the BATFE. Obviously none of the former would have been completed had the BATFE been doing its job, and none of the latter even would have been initiated. Further, there was no tracking mechanism involved beyond showing that these guns originated in America after they were confiscated from criminals or left at a crime scene. No tracking devices were included, no Mexican authorities were let in on the sales, no names were passed to the Mexican authorities. The only possible explanation is that this operation was intended to show our lax gun laws, with the intent of applying political pressure to "fix" those lax gun laws by disarming the American people. And the only way that happens is if a lot of innocent people die.

 

[MongGrel]

Nothing really new to see here.

Onward.

 

[werepossum]

Nothing really new to see here.

Onward.

20,000 previously hidden pages released and "Nothing really new to see here"?

 

[Jhhnn]

Certainly that was the narrative. Question is, was it an Obama/Holder narrative, or something the BATFE cooked up on their own? They are kind of a loose gun (pun intended) at best.

As far as the US being the number one exporter of arms to terrorists and assorted "freedom fighters" across the globe, you might want to recount the number of Russian, Chinese and Pakistani AK-47 and RPG-7 knock-offs around the world. Methinks you've dropped a few zeros.


Um, no. Some of the sales were caught and noted by the sellers as likely straw buyer sales; the BATFE ordered that they be completed. Some of the sales were even funded by the BATFE. Obviously none of the former would have been completed had the BATFE been doing its job, and none of the latter even would have been initiated. Further, there was no tracking mechanism involved beyond showing that these guns originated in America after they were confiscated from criminals or left at a crime scene. No tracking devices were included, no Mexican authorities were let in on the sales, no names were passed to the Mexican authorities. The only possible explanation is that this operation was intended to show our lax gun laws, with the intent of applying political pressure to "fix" those lax gun laws by disarming the American people. And the only way that happens is if a lot of innocent people die.

None of that indicates that it was more than a fuckup at the local level or some nefarious plot to grab yer guns.