Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

David Savage with The LA Times:

The 2nd Amendment’s “right to keep and bear arms” is proving to be a right to keep a gun at home, but so far not a right to bear a loaded firearm in public.

The Supreme Court breathed new life into the amendment when it struck down strict handgun bans in Washington and Chicago and spoke of the “inherent right of self-defense.”

But to the dismay of gun rights advocates, judges in recent months have read those decisions narrowly and rejected claims from those who said they had a constitutional right to carry a loaded gun on their person or in their car. Instead, these judges from California to Maryland have said the “core right” to a gun is limited to the home.

Now, the National Rifle Assn. is asking the high court to take up the issue this fall and “correct the widespread misapprehension that the 2nd Amendment’s scope does not extend beyond the home.”

Stephen Halbrook, an NRA lawyer, said “some judges have buried their heads in the sand and have refused to go one step further” than saying there is a right to have a gun at home.

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence hailed the trend and called the high court’s rulings a “hollow victory” for gun enthusiasts. “The gun lobby has tried to expand [the 2nd Amendment] into a broad right to carry any type of gun anywhere. And they have been almost unanimously rejected by the courts,” said Jonathan Lowy, director of legal action. He conceded, however, that “this battle is far from over.”

The uncertainty began with the Supreme Court itself. In 2008, Justice Antonin Scalia said the history of the 2nd Amendment shows it “guarantees the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.” But other parts of his 5-4 opinion stressed there is no right to “carry any weapon in any manner,” and that bans on “carrying concealed weapons were lawful” in the 19th century.

Since then, hundreds of lawsuits have been filed to challenge gun restrictions. In California, federal judges in San Diego and Yolo counties rejected suits from law-abiding gun owners who were denied “concealed carry” permits.

“The 2nd Amendment does not create a fundamental right to carry a concealed weapon in public,” U.S. District Judge Morrison England ruled in May.

“That’s the cutting-edge issue: whether the 2nd Amendment applies outside the home,” said Chuck Michel, an NRA lawyer in Long Beach who has appealed the question to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

State judges in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts and New York have also ruled recently that there is no constitutional right to carry a loaded gun for self-defense. And in Virginia, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the federal conviction of a man who fell asleep in his car near Washington’s Reagan National Airport with a loaded gun.

So what is Savage talking about?  The best summary statement can be found directly in the Petition for Write of Certiorari to the Supreme Court on behalf of Sean Masciandaro.

Heller and McDonald left open important questions regarding the scope of the self-defense right beyond the home and the appropriate method for evaluating government regulations affecting it. The lower courts have struggled mightily with these issues. See, e.g., Masciandaro, 638 F.3d at 467 (“But a considerable degree of uncertainty remains as to the scope of that right beyond the home and the standards for determining whether and how the right can be burdened by governmental regulation.”); United States v. Skoien, 614 F.3d 638, 640 (7th Cir. 2010) (en banc) (“Skoien II”) (Heller creates an individual right that includes keeping operable handguns at home for self-defense but “[w]hat other entitlements the Second Amendment creates, and what regulations legislatures may establish, were left open.”), cert. denied, 131 S. Ct. 1674 (2011).

The highest state courts that have considered the issue unanimously decided that the Second Amendment right is limited to the home. Maryland, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Kansas have all limited Heller to its holding. 9 For example, the Maryland Court of Appeals upheld Maryland’s firearm permitting statute, concluding that the right is unavailable outside the home. Williams v. State, 417 Md. 479, 496 (Md. 2011) (stating that “[i]f the Supreme Court, in this [Heller] dicta, meant its holding to extend beyond home possession, it will need to say so more plainly”), petition for cert. filed, 79 U.S.L.W. 3594 (Apr. 5, 2011). That court noted that Illinois, the District of Columbia, and California also limited the right in similar cases. Id. at 496-99. Given this trend, state courts that confront Second Amendment issues in the future will likely limit its protection to the home.

Other state and federal courts have held that even if the right might exist outside the home, it is substantially weaker than the right enjoyed in the home.

So there are massive problems with Heller and McDonald.  While I am a huge fan of Justice Scalia, he let America down on the issue of gun rights.  Heller was too narrowly decided.  To be sure, there is a second amendment right, and it applies to individuals, personally, and not just in the home, but everywhere else as well.  I see bans on concealed carry, bans on high capacity magazines (e.g., California), bans on firearms based on type or function, bans on carry in places of worship, and so on, in the same category.  They all violate the Second Amendment.

The lower courts’ confusion is simply because they are confused.  The Supreme Court shouldn’t have to spell it out that this extent.  But moderately vague language in the SCOTUS decisions, progressive tendencies among the judiciary, and laziness of the American people to assert their constitutional rights, have led us to the point again where the stolid judges, lawyers, politicians and law enforcement officials everywhere must be told that Americans have a God-given right to self defense, at all times, in all circumstances, and by any means.

In what could masquerade as a sad Orwellian novel if it weren’t true, an Idaho man defended his family from a potential grizzly bear attack, and is now in court defending his freedom.

A man charged with unlawfully shooting and killing a grizzly bear had so many supporters at his arraignment Tuesday in federal court that the judge had to move the hearing to a larger courtroom.

Even there, every seat was taken as his family, friends and neighbors, young and old, squeezed in.

Jeremy M. Hill, 33, pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court to killing the animal with a rifle on his 20-acre property near Porthill, Idaho, at the Canadian border. He lives five miles from the closest grizzly bear recovery zone.

The grizzly bear is classified as a threatened species in the lower 48 states, according to the Endangered Species Act, and protected by federal law. Hill’s charge is a misdemeanor.

Magistrate Judge Candy Dale set trial, at least for now, for Oct. 4.

Hill has declined comment. His lawyer, Marc Lyons of Coeur d’Alene, said he plans to defend Hill on the basis of self-defense and protection of family.

Following the hearing, his father, Mike Hill, of Athol, said, “This whole thing is a waste of taxpayer money.”

He said his son was concerned for the safety of his children playing outside when a mother grizzly and two cubs wandered onto his property on May 8.

Jeremy Hill has six kids, ranging in age from 14 years old to 10 months old. At least five were home when the grizzly was killed, Mike Hill said.

The bears had gone after some pigs in a pen that the kids had been raising, Mike Hill said.

He said his son shot one of the bears, then called authorities to notify them of the kill. The other two bears ran off.

He said his son could have just buried the animal and not said anything to law enforcement. He said his son is being penalized for coming forward.

State Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, attended the hearing in full support of Jeremy Hill.

“The charges are simply unjust,” she said following the hearing. “Hopefully common sense will prevail. It’s clearly an issue of protecting the family.”

She predicted that punishing someone who reported killing a grizzly will damage government efforts to protect the animals.

She said nearly $20,000 was raised by community members for Hill’s defense.

Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho was asked about the case while appearing in Sandpoint on Tuesday.

While Labrador said he needed to be careful in dealing with the prosecutorial side of things, he did have this to say:

“Clearly, we have a problem with the ESA when situations like this happen.” He later added, “We’re doing everything we can to make sure this man is treated fairly.”

Based on a subsequent report, it isn’t clear whether it was Jeremy Hill or one of his sons who killed the bear, or if it was the mother or a cub.  It doesn’t matter.  There is a lot of local support for Jeremy, and in fact, Idaho Governor Butch Otter is appealing to Obama to look into the facts of the case.

It’s ridiculous that it has gotten this far.  The fact of the matter is that regardless of whether the federal government comes to its senses now or soon, some federal prosecutor (U.S. Attorney Wendy Olson?) made the sophomoric decision to carry this case forward.  How embarrassing this decision must be for this attorney.

It is said that exception makes bad law.  Perhaps.  But failure to address the exception makes for bad justice.  Jeremy isn’t a poacher hunting bear in this area.  He is a father and husband, defending his children and wife.  It hurts progressives to hear it, but man is made in God’s image.  Animals are not.  The only evil that could possibly have happened that day would have been if Jeremy had failed to defend his family.

When the framework for righteousness is found in the myriad rules and regulations that pass through the Federal Register every day as lawyers promulgate an increasingly burdensome bureaucracy on a hapless American public, America has lost its way, and has forgotten what true righteousness is all about.  The justification for regulations has become deonotological, needing no foundation outside themselves, and the means has become the end without regard for consequences or affect.  And it is all without heart or soul.

Dennis A. Henigan, acting President of the Brady Campaign, waxes breathless in his most recent hysterical rant at Huffington Post.

Remember two summers ago when most Americans were appalled by the sight of guns openly carried by protesters at presidential speaking events and town hall forums on the health care issue? Now it’s not just the protesters bringing guns to political events. Now it may be the candidates themselves.

Texas governor and newly-announced presidential candidate Rick Perry has taken the incendiary mixture of guns and politics to a new level. When it comes to carrying concealed weapons, Perry certainly walks the walk. He has a concealed carry permit and proudly says that he carries a gun when he is out jogging.

Briefly commenting at this point, I’ll observe that I don’t ever recall in my entire life being appalled at the sight of weapons being carried by anyone, at any time.  But as for the concealed carry of weapons while jogging, I guess I have to weigh in with Henigan on this one.  I don’t jog.  I do lift weights and engage in open carry while I’m walking my dog.  But continuing:

Perry recently was asked if he is armed while campaigning. He didn’t respond by saying the question is ridiculous. He didn’t say that in the close quarters of a rope line, with a multitude of people pulling and tugging at him, a gun could easily drop to the ground or be taken from him. He didn’t say that an armed candidate would be a nightmare for the Secret Service. He didn’t say any of those things. Instead, he smiled and refused to say whether or not he carried while campaigning. He added, “That’s why it’s called concealed.”

Rick Perry apparently doesn’t think the question is ridiculous. In fact, his sarcasm suggests he has no objection to political candidates carrying guns to campaign events; he seems to imply that he may do so himself. One thing is clear. The governor has been so thoroughly marinated in pro-gun ideology that he is unashamed about taking it to its logical extreme. If it is true that more guns in public places make us safer, why shouldn’t political candidates carry guns? Isn’t it the least they can do for their own safety?

Something tells me that Perry wouldn’t be ashamed of taking gun ownership to its logical end, whether Henigan wants to call that “extreme” or not.  But Henigan is getting increasingly worked up and hysterical over things, and he eventually drops this bomb.

Yes, it is a good thing that senators can’t carry guns onto the Senate floor because the presence of guns, even carried by well-meaning, law-abiding citizens, increases the risk that arguments and conflicts will escalate to lethal violence. It is the same reason that our national parks are less safe because (due to legislation sponsored by Senator Coburn himself) concealed carry of weapons is now permitted within their borders.

There you have it.  There in a nut shell is the Faustian bargain that gun control advocates are willing to make.  They don’t really believe that an individual cannot protect him or herself or family with a weapon.  They don’t really believe that an individual is less safe with a weapon, regardless of what they might claim.  What they believe is that there is a greater good to be served, and that greater good lies in not allowing provocations to escalate into deadly incidents.  It’s their solution to original sin.  Allow weapons and violence escalates.  Remove weapons and utopia flourishes.

But even here, Henigan cannot help but spuriously link an article that does nothing more than report that weapons are now legal in national parks.  He claims that our national parks are less safe than they were because of this new latitude.  And the article has nothing to do with this claim.

Oh, but he has no evidence.  In fact, I do.  Several months ago I completed a FOIA request to the national parks service, and they returned to me an Excel spreadsheet with crimes outlined by type and delineated per year in the national parks.

11-409 Smith NPS&USPP LE CRIME REPORT 1995-2010

It doesn’t show what Henigan wants it to.  In fact, our national parks are not less safe than they were prior to 2010 when firearms were made legal.  And I did research most of the homicides (through local news accounts) and they mostly have to do with situation-specific (and sometimes bizarre) incidents involving individuals who had no right to carry a firearms anywhere because they were convicted felons, or prisoners on the run, or other such exigencies.  Not one incident that I researched had to do with an otherwise law-abiding citizen who suddenly went berserk because he had a gun in a national park.

Myths die hard.  They are usually built on lies, and Henigan and the Brady Campaign freely traffics in them.  Something as simple as a FOIA request can usually dispel silly myths like this one, and yet we know of at least one instance in which a man’s life was saved from a bear attack because of the new rule in national parks.  He used a .45 handgun to drive the bear away.  I’ll side with the new rule and gun ownership any day.

Robert Farago has a hard hitting report at The Washington Times.

Why did the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) let criminals buy firearms, smuggle them across the Mexican border and deliver them into the hands of vicious drug cartels? The ATF claims it launched its now-disgraced Operation Fast and Furious in 2009 to catch the “big fish.” Fast and Furious was designed to stem the “Iron River” flowing from American gun stores into the cartels’ arsenals. The bureau says it allowed gun smuggling so it could track the firearms and arrest the cartel members downstream. Not true.

During the course of Operation Fast and Furious, about 2,000 weapons moved from U.S. gun stores to Mexican drug cartels – exactly as intended.

In congressional testimony, William Newell, former ATF special agent in charge of the Phoenix Field Division, testified that the Internal Revenue Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement were “full partners” in Operation Fast and Furious. Mr. Newell’s list left out the most important player: the CIA. According to a CIA insider, the agency had a strong hand in creating, orchestrating and exploiting Operation Fast and Furious.

The CIA’s motive is clear enough: The U.S. government is afraid the Los Zetas drug cartel will mount a successful coup d’etat against the government of Felipe Calderon.

Founded by ex-Mexican special forces, the Zetas already control huge swaths of Mexican territory. They have the organization, arms and money needed to take over the entire country.

Former CIA pilot Robert Plumlee and former CIA operative and DEA Director Phil Jordan recently said the brutally efficient Mexican drug cartel has stockpiled thousands of weapons to disrupt and influence Mexico’s national elections in 2012. There’s a very real chance the Zetas cartel could subvert the political process completely, as it has throughout the regions it controls.

In an effort to prevent a Los Zetas takeover, Uncle Sam has gotten into bed with the rival Sinaloa cartel, which has close ties to the Mexican military. Recent court filings by former Sinaloa cartel member Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla, currently in U.S. custody, reveal that the United States allowed the Sinaloas to fly a 747 cargo plane packed with cocaine into American airspace – unmolested.

The CIA made sure the trade wasn’t one-way. It persuaded the ATF to create Operation Fast and Furious – a “no strings attached” variation of the agency’s previous firearms sting. By design, the ATF operation armed the Mexican government’s preferred cartel on the street level near the American border, where the Zetas are most active.

Operation Fast and Furious may not have been the only way the CIA helped put lethal weapons into the hands of the Sinaloa cartel and its allies, but it certainly was an effective strategy. If drug thugs hadn’t murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry with an ATF- provided weapon, who knows how many thousands more guns would have crossed the U.S. border?

If Robert’s report is accurate, the list of culpability runs from the ATF to the DEA to the FBI and … now … to the CIA as perhaps the ringmaster.  One very astute commenter to one article I wrote about the Mexican cartels adopting military tactics has pressed down on me for details in my recommendation to utilize the U.S. military in response to cartel violence (as he should – I have some of the best readers on the web, and they help keep me honest).  Would I use combat outposts, would I use ex-infantry and role them into the border patrol, would I use invasive techniques, and so on.  I have been struggling mightily to craft a cogent and coherent response, while also keeping in the back of my mind that there are stipulations: Tennessee v. Garner for the use of force, the Posse Comitatus Act, the sovereignty of neighboring nations to consider, the Arms Export Control Act, etc., etc.

It seems that the CIA (and someone higher in the administration?) doesn’t care about the law as much as I do.  We’ve decided to take sides in the Mexican cartel war as a means to keep the current Mexican administration in power.  And this possibly runs to the top of the CIA, and recently confirmed defense secretary Leon Panetta.  This is just a horrible, horrible commentary on the curent U.S. administration and the lengths to which they are willing to go to skirt the law.

UPDATE #1: Agent Terry’s family has been denied crime victim status in Gun Walker case.

Coffey and others wonder if Burke has a conflict. It was his office that led Operation Fast and Furious. The operation, while executed by agents for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was managed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley. Hurley drafted the response to the family’s motion. It was signed by Burke.

Congressional investigators are expected to subpoena both to appear before the House Government and Oversight Committee next month to answer questions about the flawed operation that put some 2,000 weapons in the hands of the Sinaloa cartel.

LaJeunesse goes on to speculate that Avila might have cut a deal with prosecutors that would keep him out of jail, a development that would go over especially poorly if Terry’s family was seated in the courtroom, armed with official crime victim status.  The family may also be considering a wrongful death suit against the federal government, which would involve Burke.  Victim status would pump a lot of energy into that case.

Note again.  His own family has been denied crime victim status.  With this threshold, who could have ever met the criteria, whatever it is, for crime victim?

Remember the Canton, Ohio, police officer who went berserk over a concealed carry issue, threatening to “blast” a guy “in the mouth” and caving in his “Goddamn head?”  Remember the background?  Bigmouth police officer (Daniel Harless) wouldn’t allow the citizen to get the words out that he had a concealed carry weapon.

Well, the president of the Canton city council recently went on a rant over concealed carry.  Listen below.

Oh my.  Guns.  In high crime areas.  Sounds like a recipe for disaster as Councilman Schulman says.  We can’t have armed citizens running around in high crime areas.  To be sure, Councilman Schulman supports hunters, but that idea of an armed population (you know, as found in the constitution) is to blame for the danger we face.  Guns cannot possibly help any of us to be safer.

I’ll give the Councilman one thing though.  He has a special dislike for Rugers at 0130 hours.  Okay, I’ll compromise.  I promise to never carry a Ruger at 0130 hours.  I’ll carry something else if I happen to be out at that time (not likely), but it’ll never be a Ruger.  Maybe that will help assuage the Councilman’s anger over this.

The Daily Caller has a report that seems to be evidence that holes are showing in the DoJ story on Operation Fast and Furious.  With these holes is coming new light, and now, names.

House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican, will soon air a different side of Operation Fast and Furious: what Mexico-based U.S. law enforcement officials dealt with. Senior Justice Department leadership in Washington ignored concerns Mexico-based Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) officials raised about the program, according to assertions made as part of the congressional investigation.

A House oversight committee hearing on Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. will examine effects Operation Fast and Furious had on “The Other Side of the Border.”

Former ATF attaché to Mexico, Darren Gil told Congressional investigators that, when he became aware of an “abnormal number of [Fast and Furious weapons] recoveries” in Mexico, he called Phoenix-based ATF officials with his concerns. Gil said they told him they were “working on it” and he was “satisfied” with that first response.

“Unfortunately, my chief analyst and my deputy would come back and say, Darren, these are – we’re getting more and more of these seizures,” Gil said. “And I would make inquiries with the Phoenix field division and I wasn’t getting any responses back.” Gil said he “may have gotten two more phone calls” saying the same thing: “Yeah, we’re working on it, we’re working on it.”

Gil said his analyst and deputy would enter E-Trace data from the weapons they seized in Mexico, but were not granted access to the information about the specific guns. So, because Gil’s colleagues in Phoenix shut him out and wouldn’t answer any specific questions, Gil reached out to Washington-based officials.

He called Dan Kumor, ATF’s chief of international affairs, only to get a similar answer. Gil told Congressional investigators that Kumor said it was “an on-going investigation.” (Issa, Grassley blast Holder in letter after secret meeting with ATF’s Ken Melson)

“They’re looking at straw purchasers, they have cooperative Federal Firearms Licensees and it sounds like a significant investigation,” Gil said Kumor told him, adding that “he didn’t have access to the trace information either.” But, Gil said Kumor told him every official “on the chain” up to Kumor from Phoenix was “aware of the investigation.”

Gil said he wasn’t satisfied with the lack of answers from Washington-based officials, and got into “screaming matches” with Kumor. “Hey, when are they going to shut this, to put it bluntly, damn investigation down, we’re getting hurt down here,” Gil told Congressional investigators he’d scream at Kumor.

Assuming the accuracy of this testimony, “every official on the chain up to [chief] Kumor from Phoenix” was aware of the investigation.  It’s apparent that “the investigation” refers not to some larger program into which Operation Fast and Furious fit as a puzzle piece, but the illegal gun running itself.  Otherwise, there is no need to stonewall and hide information.  The Mexican government already knew about broad-based efforts to interdict weapons transfers.  More evidence emerges.

Gil also told Congressional investigators that Obama administration officials worried he’d tell the Mexican ambassador or brief the Mexican government on the operation. He said that’s why he wasn’t given specifics or details about Operation Fast and Furious. “I can tell you what I was told and they were afraid I was going to either brief the ambassador on it or brief the Government of Mexico officials on it,” Gil said, adding that, “They were just worried about somebody leaking whatever was unique about this investigation.”

Gil said his bosses promised him Operation Fast and Furious would be shut down in the summer of 2010. It did not officially end, though, until the end of 2010, after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s death.

Gil and now-acting ATF attaché to Mexico Carlos Canino also told Congressional investigators high-ranking ATF and Justice Department officials bragged about what they considered successes of Operation Fast and Furious. Officials they said included Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, who oversees the DOJ’s criminal division, and acting ATF director Ken Melson.

“Lanny Breuer says, yeah, there is a good case, there is a good case out of Phoenix,” Canino said of a meeting he and Gil had with Breuer and the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual.

Lanny Breuer.  This Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General.  And here is my bet.  Lanny Breuer is no rougue attorney with the DoJ.  He conspired and acted in concert with others in the administration to violate the arms exports control act.  We need a special prosecutor to expose the truth and full extent of the illegalities.

My regular readers may be wondering why I haven’t weighed in on the horrific killing spree perpetrated by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway.  In fact, I think that it’s important for Christians to engage in honest, open self-examination in light of events such as this, as suggested by one reader at National Review Online’s Corner (in reponse to thoughts by Mark Steyn).  This sort of thing is extremely serious, and for those on the left believe that there is a sense of unease among right-leaning Christians, you are correct whether we admit it or not.  So I may as well engage in open confessions and admit what we all know to be true.

I have made my position clear on personal ownership and carryng of weapons, and Christian scholars far better than I have already made a case against gun control.  But … evil actions like those in Norway, that cause so many people, so young, to perish in such a violent way, should cause soul searching for every sane individual, and especially so for those of us who claim to carry the name of Christ.

So Mr. Breivik was apparently shooting a rifle (perhaps a Ruger Mini-14?).  He was apparently good with it.  I’m good with my rifle too, and I can put a tight group on target at 100 yards, but I don’t engage in open carry of my rifle.  I don’t engage in concealed or open carry all of the time, only when I consider the situation as warranting such security.  But this event goes to remind us that only God knows the future, and thus, my predilections on personal security and when I might need a weapon are not only foolish, but self-deceiving.

After serious reflection, I hereby vow to carry my handguns more often (both concealed and open, depending upon the circumstances).  But he was shooting a rifle, you say.  Yes, and that means that my moderate targeting skills with my handguns (in contrast to my finely-tuned skills with my rifle) need to get much better.  I hereby vow to buy more ammunition and get to the range even more often than I do.  And, I vow to continue my workouts at the gym and practice my tactics and techniques so that when the awful day comes that I need to perform tactical maneuvers against a shooter in order to defend myself or my family or friends, I am capable of doing so.  If I die defending loved ones, then I die.

As for the Mr. Breivik’s prose, I find it so inconsistent, incoherent, incomprehensible and ridiculous that it has no meaning for me at all.  With a short review of Mr. Breivik and after having sworn an oath to shoot better and more often, I think I have done my Christian duty regarding this event.  Oh, and I will pray for the families of the victims too.

From The LA Times:

The Justice Department is trying to protect its political appointees from the Fast and Furious scandal by concealing an internal “smoking gun” report and other documents that acknowledge the role top officials played in the program that allowed firearms to flow illegally into Mexico, according to the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Kenneth E. Melson, the ATF’s acting director, also told congressional investigators this month that the affidavits prepared to obtain wiretaps used in the ill-fated operation were inconsistent with Justice Department officials’ public statements about the program. Justice Department officials advised him not to raise his concerns with Congress about “institutional problems” with the Fast and Furious operation, Melson said.

“It was very frustrating to all of us,” Melson told congressional investigators in a private meeting over the Fourth of July holiday, “and it appears thoroughly to us that the department is really trying to figure out a way to push the information away from their political appointees at the department.”

Not only was the department slow to react, Melson said, but Justice Department officials indicated they did not want him to cooperate with Congress.

A transcript of his comments was released Monday by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Melson said he wasn’t attempting to shield his agency from its share of the blame. He acknowledged an instance in which his agents failed to intercept high-powered weapons when they could have.

“The deputy attorney general’s office wasn’t very happy with us” at the ATF, Melson said, “because they thought this was an admission that there were mistakes made. Well, there were some mistakes made.”

No one is surprised by this information.  As I’ve said before, it isn’t in the DNA of this administration to be forthcoming or accountable in its actions.  It appears that Melson made the decision to “turn state’s evidence,” so to speak.  But I do disagree with one thing.  He admitted to “mistakes.”  The trafficking of weapons in violation of the National Firearms Act and Export Control Act isn’t a “mistake.”  It’s an illegality.

The combination of illegalities and coverups by the administration is why we need a special prosecutor.

UPDATE #1: Media Matters accuses the LA Times of misfiring on this story.  But it appears that perhaps Media Matters is the one who misfired.  Government Accountability Project reports thusly:

Operation Fast and Furious (F&F) – a program run by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) that allowed thousands of lethal weapons to cross the Mexican border – was apparently no secret among high-level political authorities at the Department of Justice (DOJ). Among those in the know? Newly-confirmed Deputy Attorney General James Cole.

Prior:

Interpreting and Analyzing Project Gunrunner

Congressman Bilirakis Questions Holder On Tampa ATF Office Gunwalker Allegations

Gunrunner Comment of the Day

Tampa ATF Officer Gunrunner Coverup

Project Gunrunner Category

Media Matters excoriates those who traffic in confusion over Project Gunrunner.

This is starting to get pathetic.

Right-wing media outlets keep dishing out new “evidence” for why senior Justice Department leaders must have known about Fast and Furious, a failed operation of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). All they keep proving is that those officials knew about Project Gunrunner, the high-profile effort begun under President Bush of which Fast and Furious was one small part.

They’ve already used this conflation to baselessly claim that the stimulus included funds for Fast and Furious (the funds were earmarked for Project Gunrunner and were not distributed to the ATF office that handled Fast and Furious) and that a 2009 Holder speech proves that he was aware of the program (the speech references only Gunrunner and was given before Fast and Furious was initiated).

In their latest effort, these outlets are pointing to a two-minute clip of a speech that then-Deputy Attorney General David Ogden gave on March 29, 2009. In the speech, Ogden said:

DOJ’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is increasing its efforts by adding 37 new employees in three new offices, using $10 million in Recovery Act funds and redeploying 100 personnel to the Southwest border in the next 45 days to fortify its Project Gunrunner, which is aimed at disrupting arms trafficking between the United States and Mexico.

ATF is doubling its presence in Mexico itself, from five to nine personnel working with the Mexicans, specifically to facilitate gun-tracing activity, which targets the illegal weapons and their sources in the United States.

Let’s go over this again: Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious are not the same thing, and Fast and Furious wasn’t reportedly begun until six months after Ogden gave this speech.

Nonetheless, in an editorial comparing Fast and Furious to Watergate, Investor’s Business Daily claims that the Ogden video “may rival the tape that turned a ‘third-rate burglary’ into a presidential resignation.” IBD also claims that both the Ogden clip and Holder’s speech show the speaker “taking credit” for both Project Gunrunner and Fast and Furious. They provide text from both speeches in which the speaker references the former and not the latter, because they are lying (and embarrassingly bad at it).

Meanwhile, Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com cites this clip to claim that Ogden left DOJ in late 2009 because he “wanted to reduce his chances of becoming the ‘fall guy’ for the Obama Administration after news of this doomed-from-the-start gun-running operation became public.”

Analysis & Commentary

David Codrea and Bob Owens have both had this in their sights.  David does legitimate reporting as well as analysis and commentary, while I mostly focus on analysis and commentary.  So at times I speculate or infer, usually based on a string of evidence or reports (some published, some maybe not).  But regardless of however much we might like the reporting at Big Government, or Salem News, when they link up video or cite documents demonstrating that so-and-so was aware of Project Gunrunner, and flatly assert that he or she is admitting complicity in the smuggling of weapons to the cartels, it is both sloppy and not necessarily correct (note that I said not necessarily, and I’ll return to this later).  It isn’t necessarily correct, not yet, and not exactly.

We know that Project Gunrunner began in Texas in 2005, and was designed primarily during the Bush administration to include the training of the Mexican authorities in the use of eTrace to track weapons.  It involved a handful of ATF field agents, but until late in the Bush administration it wasn’t heavily resourced or funded.  The Merida Initiative changed that.  There were a number of problems with this initiative, but at the moment, I’m just relaying the facts.

The stimulus of 2009 sent more money in the direction of Project Gunrunner.  When the Obama administration took office, there was increased attention on Project Gunrunner, and most astute readers are aware of Operation Fast and Furious which focused on the Southern border and which was run primarily out of the Phoenix office of the ATF.  Fewer people are aware that there was a similar companion operation (called Operation Castaway) in which weapons were released to MS-13 in Honduras, run primarily out of the Tampa office of the ATF.

More recently, there is e-mail evidence indicating that the ATF was searching for anecdotal support for a demand letter on long gun sales in July of 2010.  And only a few days ago David Codrea published a letter he received concerning the illegality of the trafficking of weapons, a point I have made (albeit not as clearly) before.

“[it] isn’t okay for the ATF to violate the National Firearms Act or the Arms Export Control Act if I must live within its stipulations.”

There is indeed illegality involved for knowledgeable individuals (the executive branch of the government cannot willingly violate laws legitimately enacted by Congress any more than can I).  So there is a lot at stake to protect information and identities.  It will be some time before everything is uncovered in this scandal.

But if there is sloppiness in some conservative commentary concerning the conflation of Project Gunrunner and Fast and Furious (or Castaway), and even if Media Matters got this one at least partially right, there is another perspective.

There is a lot of dissimilarity between Project Gunrunner during the Bush and Obama administrations.  Project Gunrunner was small during the Bush years, and doesn’t appear to have included any illegal trafficking of weapons.  The Obama administration oversaw a significant expansion of the program, with strategic studies, Office of Inspector General recommendations for more expansion, the training of corrupt Mexican police, involvement of the FBI and DEA, etc.

We know all of these things based on irrefutable evidence.  We can assess, or speculate, that there is cohesion of intent and knowledge of the operations up the chain of command within the administration.  In other words, we can speculate that weapons trafficking was a subset of Project Gunrunner, as it morphed during the Obama administration into something much larger and organized than it was in the Bush years.  Another way of saying it is that equating Project Gunrunner during the Bush and Obama years is inaccurate.  Same words, different meaning.

We can speculate that since Mr. Obama is a statist, or Fabian Socialist in his thinking, his slip concerning bitterly clinging to guns and religion wasn’t really a slip.  It was a glimpse into his soul, the very core of his being.  I tend towards this interpretation, and thus I have no problem surmising that the chain of evidence plus what I know about Mr. Obama and his administration points towards complicity and prior knowledge within his administration.  Mr. Obama is no friend to firearms.

But it’s important that this be stated as surmising at the moment.  There is much investigative work to be done, and hunting for evidence from amongst this administration will be like pulling teeth.  Finding the truth will be hard.  Commentators are best advised to do better research before conflating phrases and terms, and get busy researching and digging.  Personally, I believe that Project Gunrunner isn’t the same thing it once was.  As I said before, same words, different meaning.  But I’m unwilling at the moment to flatly assert much more than what I have said thus far.

David Codrea is reporting that Congressman Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) wrote a letter today to Attorney General Eric Holder and Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Kenneth Melson, expressing deep concerns over the allegations of release of guns to MS-13 from the Tampa ATF office.

“These reports,” Bilirakis writes, “raise troubling questions about the motives, intentions, and competency of the ATF and DOJ.”

“In recent days,” he notes, “it has come to light that the ATF and DOJ may have participated in the act of ‘gun walking’ beyond the acts conducted within the scope of “Operation Fast and Furious’…and that similar programs included the possible trafficking of arms to dangerous criminal gangs in Honduras with the knowledge of the ATF’s Tampa Field Division.”

The complete list of questions is as follows:

1. Can you confirm whether or not the ATF Tampa Field Division and/or the Department of Justice’s Middle District of Florida participated in a “gun walking” scheme that allowed weapons to be trafficked to Honduras?

2. If so, does the ATF or the DOJ have knowledge of any of these firearms ending up in the possession of the notorious MS-13 gang?

3. How many guns have been allowed to pass into Honduras and how many have since been accounted for?

4. Were trafficked weapons subject to any special monitoring processes once they left the United States?

5. Has “Operation Castaway” been terminated? If not, does the DOJ or ATF plan to terminate this program or urge its termination?

6. Has the DOJ or the ATF established any criteria or guidance pertaining to what is admissible for future operations aimed at preventing firearms from being obtained and used by dangerous foreign criminal organizations in crimes similar to the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry?

David Codrea enters a detailed discussion about whether this facet of the scandal is subdivided into “Operation Castaway.”  I think that this is unimportant, and the important thing to follow is David’s reporting on the events and people.  Don’t miss what’s happening here.  It has been said that “Fast and Furious” was separate from Project Gunrunner (or at least, a subset of it).  “Operation Castaway” is supposed to be another subset of Project Gunrunner.  These details will all come to light in the coming days if Congress probes deeply enough, but the important thing now is that their own reporting claims that there is coherence and consistency of effort, a common strategy, and approval of the project – taken as a whole – from the very top levels of the administration.  The subdivided operation at the field offices under which each illegality falls is not currently important.

The scandal deepens and widens, and the depth and extent of the illegalities is only beginning to emerge.  Perhaps Congressman Bilirakis can get to the ATF before they shred all of the pertinent documents.

Prior: Project Gunrunner category