Earlier this week I brought you a clip of President Obama talking about the use of gun tracing during a press conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon in April 2009. A reader has alerted me to the clip below, where Obama says gun tracing back to "unscrupulous gun dealers" is a common sense way to deal with crimes committed with guns.
"The efforts by law enforcement to obtain the information required to trace back guns that have been used in crimes to unscrupulous gun dealers."
So here we have it, the President blaming gun dealers for crime rather than holding criminals accountable for their actions. Not surprising coming from a man with a long anti-Second Amendment history. As we've seen through Operation Fast and Furious, the federal government isn't exactly good at "tracing" guns, instead they are very good at losing them and deliberately putting them into the hands of violent criminals. Yes, the NRA, and many mebers of Congress are against gun tracing for this exact reason Mr. President, it doesn't work. Focusing on the gun never has solved the problem of gun crime and it never will. Focusing on criminals is the only way to prevent crimes.
Fast forward to July 11, 2011:
After using law abiding gun shop owners as a scape goat for their deadly Operation Fast and Furious, the Department of Justice has issued more regulations for gun shops operating near the U.S.-Mexico border.
Deputy Attorney General James Cole issued the following statement today regarding information requests for multiple sales of semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines in select states along the Southwest Border:
“The international expansion and increased violence of transnational criminal networks pose a significant threat to the United States. Federal, state and foreign law enforcement agencies have determined that certain types of semi-automatic rifles – greater than .22 caliber and with the ability to accept a detachable magazine – are highly sought after by dangerous drug trafficking organizations and frequently recovered at violent crime scenes near the Southwest Border. This new reporting measure -- tailored to focus only on multiple sales of these types of rifles to the same person within a five-day period -- will improve the ability of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to detect and disrupt the illegal weapons trafficking networks responsible for diverting firearms from lawful commerce to criminals and criminal organizations. These targeted information requests will occur in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas to help confront the problem of illegal gun trafficking into Mexico and along the Southwest Border.”
