Blow to NRA as court allows US to track gun sales in states on Mexican border

[Bjorn Against]

Source: The Guardian

Blow to NRA as court allows US to track gun sales in states on Mexican border
Court rejects challenge to government's requirement for gun dealers to report multiple sales of semi-automatic weapons

Ed Pilkington in New York

The National Rifle Association has suffered a rare setback in its crusade to block new gun regulations after a federal appeals court allowed the US government to go ahead with a plan to reduce the smuggling of semi-automatic weapons across the Mexican border.

The new rules, introduced by Barack Obama under his executive powers in July 2011, require gun dealers located in states abutting the border to report to federal officials any multiple sales of semi-automatic rifles such as AK-47s to individuals within a five-day period. The administration presented the requirement as a justified move to "detect and disrupt the illegal weapons trafficking networks" operating in Mexico.

The obligation to report such multiple sales would apply to all gun dealers in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas in an attempt to cut off the supply of military-style weapons being smuggled into Mexico. The north of Mexico is being sapped by a virtual war between law enforcement and drug cartels.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/31/nra-court-gun-mexico-border?guni=Network%20front:network-front%20full-width-1%20Breaking%20news%20ticker:Breaking%20news%20ticker%20(editable) osition1

[billh58]

1. Great news!

Finally, the NRA is becoming less and less relevant with each new ruling in favor of sanity and public safety.

[mwrguy]

2. Suck it, gun nuts.

Your days are numbered.

[Iliyah]

3. Was this the US Supreme Court?

If not, the NRA will take it there for their (5) paid off justices to vote in their favor. Wasn't this type of shit blamed on Holder re "fast and furious" program that the Bushies started?

[24601]

6. It was not the USSC but a three-judge panel from the DC Circuit.

[CatWoman]

14. maybe this is why the GOP is having (yet ANOTHER) hissy fit over

Obama's plan to nominate judges to fill vacancies in the DC courts.

[Vietnameravet]

4. It just goes to show how nutty this country has become

that there is any controversy at all ..about tracking the sale of military style weapons..Just take a moment and think how crazy this gun culture has become. I guess I am just anti-freedom.. but dont understand the need for military style assault weapons...

[freshwest]

5. You and the GOP's Fast and furious is on the other foot now, huh, NRA? Kiss off.

[DallasNE]

7. Straw Purchases Are Done For One Reason

The person that ends up with the gun(s) cannot legally purchase those weapons themselves so they hire someone to do it for them. This flaunts the private sale provision because these guns are ordered and the private sale law is intended for people that decide they don't want the weapon they bought an avenue to sell the weapon, not to be a dealer as happens in straw purchases like this. And for whatever reason, this is the provision in the background check proposal that the NRA most opposes. And we know why. The gun manufacturers get to sell more weapons and most of these "private sales" transactions are by NRA members. When will the NRA be declared a terrorist organization?

[nakocal]

8. More proof that the complaints about Fast and Furious are without merit

So before this it was not legal to track weapons, and republicans are fighting to be able to track weapons now.

[Sunlei]

9. mexico asked we turn over the straw sellers to their country for mexican court trials.

Their Gov. claims 70% of the guns they recover in mexico came from the USA.

I don't think the new sales rules will slow down at all the smuggling of guns out of America. There are to many ways to buy guns here and there are always used guns.

However turning over a couple hundred of the worse straw sellers to mexico court system will be a heck of a good deterrent and a great start.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

11. Straw sellers are able to buy guns because their records are clean

I'd guess many are law-abiding citizens.

Poverty and coercion by cartels and gangs might be parts of the motive. Let's study this before we start turning victims over to a foreign government.

That's my conspiracy-theory-of-the-day

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

10. ... in states abutting the border ...

So traffickers will take their business one state away. Gun shop owners in NV, CO, LA, UT, are probably stocking up for an increase in business.

[Turbineguy]

12. Holy cow!

tracking gun sales to narco-criminals? It's the thin end of the wedgie I tells ya!

[SlimJimmy]

13. This is good news. The tracking of weapons to Mexico should have been Standard Operating Procedure

I'm surprised it hadn't been enacted before this.