Total bull(*)(*)(*)(*), try again: Straw purchases are illegal, end of story, and your little dance ain't gonna work
the ATF "purposely allowed licensed firearms dealers to sell weapons to illegal straw buyers, hoping to track the guns to Mexican drug cartel leaders and arrest them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandalBologna!!! They can't stop straw purchases unless they have proof. There was no way they could have prevented those purchases. And if they did, conservatives would have had a panic attack. Just another fake outrage by conservatives.
This is bullshit, and not how the law works. Law enforcement KNEW these people were criminals but asked the dealers to supply the weapons anyway so they could try to track them (and fail every time because of lack of coordination and enforcement from Mexico).
Your little pathetic diversion from the fact that Obama and Holder failed stupid program just shows what a kool aid drinker you are and what inept pathetic lying leadership you elected. I guess it's natural for someone like you to try and divert this thread, you must be embarrassed
Au contraire, mon ami, the pathetic little distraction comes from right-wingers bleating chicken little hysterics when a Mexican kills someone with a gun while tripping over themselves to make excuses when domestic right-wing extremists massacre innocent people with guns that they obtained legally because of the insane gun laws that the nra and its idiot lapdogs promote.
You people are so fond of repeating the nra mantra that guns don't kill, people do. Well, billy, why are you blaming the gun now?
Nobody is buying the hypocrisy that right-wingers are peddling.
Not everyone that is against gun control is a "right winger". The right to defend ones self is not exclusive to your political bend. The guns were NOT obtained legally, because the retailers did their due diligence and reported these buyers and would have otherwise denied the sales BASED ON THEIR OWN PERSONAL LIABILITY, but the ATF asked them to go thru with the sales. You are acting as if this is proof the laws are flawed when the ATF PURPOSELY CIRCUMVENTED THE LAW in order to allow these purchases to happen, then failed to monitor the weapons repeatedly, in the long run making this operation all risk with no benefit. To me it sounds like you are too busy jerking yourself off over politics to ever look at any of the facts of these circumstances critically.
Who didn't call him a loon?
Exactly. Thanks for playing.
Right-wingers trip over themselves trying to paint all the racist mass murderers as loons and quickly dismiss them instead of facing the problem of our gun laws allowing nutters to buy weapons, and dealing with the racist, intolerant, violent culture that the right promotes that enables and inspires these so-called loons.
Meanwhile any Mexican or Muslim that commits a crime is hysterically heralded as irrefutable evidence of the utter depravity of their entire culture and the need to deal with all of them very harshly.
The hypocrisy from the right is nauseating.
Nuts will be nuts no matter what weapon they get a hold of. Furthermore more laws doesn't magically make the illegal weapons go away. Nothing is stopping that same nut from burning down buildings, using cars as weapons, knives, explosives, all things readily available in most parts of the world. The problem is the enormous amount of insane people the US contains, not the guns. Gun control is treating the symptom, not the cause, and the cause is the complete lack of mental health care within the US, along with systematic over-prescription of psychiatric medications to millions of people.
Do you realize about 9 out of 10 of these shooters were on some kind of psychiatric drug? Some of these drugs designed for depression even warn of side effects of suicidal tendencies, yet no one is even discussing this! Pull your head out of your politicized ass for a moment and stop being a useful idiot for these political parties. None of them have your best interest in mind, NONE OF THEM. The unfortunate reality of abandoning the binary bullshit system is you now have to think for YOURSELF.
"What is "gunwalking"?
"A primer on the "Fast and Furious" scandal
Gunwalking" is law enforcement vernacular for the concept of allowing criminal suspects to "walk" off with guns, without police interdicting or tracking them. It's widely considered taboo, since "walked" guns may be used in violent crimes, including murders.
What is "Project Gunrunner"?
"Project Gunrunner" is a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) national initiative under the Justice Department started in 2006 aimed at reducing US-Mexico cross-border drug and gun trafficking and violence.
What is "Fast and Furious"?
"Fast and Furious" is the name ATF assigned to a group of Phoenix, Arizona-area gun trafficking cases under Project Gunrunner that began in fall of 2009. It's the largest of several known operations in which ATF employed gunwalking, involving more than 2,000 weapons, including hundreds of AK-47 type semi-automatic rifles and .50 caliber rifles. According to sources who worked directly on the case, the vast majority of guns were not tracked and Mexico's government was not fully informed of the case. The ATF Special Agent in Charge of the operation was Bill Newell.
Complete coverage of the "Fast and Furious" scandal from CBS News
What is "Wide Receiver"?
"Wide Receiver" is the name ATF assigned to a group of gun trafficking cases investigated out of the Tucson, Arizona office beginning in 2006. Like Fast and Furious, it was supervised by ATF Special Agent in Charge Bill Newell. Sources indicate it involved about 275 "walked" guns. According to sources who worked directly on the case, the vast majority of guns were not tracked and Mexico's government was not fully informed of the case. Apparently worried that the gunwalking tactics could be viewed as inappropriate, federal prosecutors in Arizona abandoned the case. Then, in fall of 2009, Justice Department officials decided to go ahead and prosecute the case.
How did Fast and Furious start?
A number of Federal Firearms Licensed (FFL) gun dealers in the Phoenix area routinely contacted ATF when they noticed suspicious customers attempting purchases; for example, someone ordering large numbers of AK-47 variant rifles and other so-called "weapons of choice" used by the Mexican drug cartels, and paying with large sums of cash brought in a paper bag. But starting in fall 2009, instead of stopping the transactions or questioning the customers, ATF often encouraged select gun dealers to go ahead and complete suspicious sales. ATF further asked the gun dealers to continue to cooperate by selling to the suspicious customers repeatedly, and providing ATF with names and weapons' serial numbers. Several gun dealers expressed concerns to ATF: they worried if they cooperated in selling guns to suspected criminals, they would later be unfairly blamed or even prosecuted, and that some of the weapons might be used one day to murder federal agents.
What was the motivation for ATF to employ such a controversial tactic?
Many U.S.-sold guns were being trafficked to Mexico and used in drug cartel violence. Though the exact percentage and number is the subject of debate, ATF was tasked with trying to stop the flow of guns. A year after Fast and Furious began, ATF remained under pressure from a Nov. 2011 Inspector General review (PDF) of Project Gunrunner that criticized ATF's focus on low level gun dealers and straw purchasers "rather than on higher-level traffickers, smugglers, and the ultimate recipients of the trafficked guns."
ATF officials who supported "gunwalking" say they thought that by seeing where the guns later "ended up" in Mexico would help them take down a cartel big fish."
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-primer-on-the-fast-and-furious-scandal/