Oh my, Sen. Kerry-Please get with it.

[Jackson1999]

So in this article, Sen. Kerry, whom I voted for calls for the assault weapons ban quoting the BATF 90% BS. What gets me is that it also includes this little gem.

However, Kerry said that only about one out of every four weapons seized by Mexican authorities last year was submitted to ATF to be traced back to purchasers and sellers in the United States, and he urged the Mexican government to provide ATF with fuller access to these weapons.

full article http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/30/kerry-mexico-failed-state/

[babylonsister]

1. Dissing Kerry and linking to faux? Oy. nt

[Jackson1999]

3. I know...

I feel really slimy doing it, if that makes you feel better. But I've come to the conclusion that we can help our party by calling them out on this stuff.

[jody]

2. Obama needs to say "I will veto any bill that renews AWB". The issue will plague him until he does.

[virgogal]

4. He hasn't beem "with it" since the Manny Ortiz fiasco. eom

[Jackson1999]

7. You are right..

and sound like a fellow member of Red Sox Nation.

[biopowertoday]

5. as long as you atone for your sin it

is not an oy.







sarcasm on.

[sandnsea]

6. What's wrong with enforcing laws?

I thought that was the problem, we don't enforce the laws on the books.

[TheWraith]

8. A lot of people doubt the Mexican government's word on this subject.

They're refusing to release most of the weapon serial numbers that they claim have been smuggled across the border; in fact, I'd be shocked if it was as high as 25%. And they're pretending that drug runners need to come across the border and buy expensive, semi-auto rifles at retail over here, when the Mexican Army is wholesale defecting, cocaine and rocket launchers are coming into Mexico on shipping pallets, etcetera.

In other words, a lot of people think that this is Mexico's way of trying to spread the blame for their current situation around, rather than copping to the fact that they've been heading in this direction for years via institutionalized corruption and borders less strict than cheesecloth.

[slackmaster]

11. That's right, we should enforce our strict laws on the exportation of firearms

I wouldn't object to seeing people subjected to searches as they leave this country. That is already done - the federal government regularly screens people for exporting US currency without declaring it (I believe anything over $3,000 has to be reported).

[slackmaster]

9. The "90%" and "only one out of every four" figures actually do not contradict each other

They are apples and oranges. Most of the weapons that have been captured are indeed of US origin, but they didn't come through the civilian firearms market: They were sold by the US government to other governments and entities including the government of Mexico starting in the early 1980s.

See and hear testimony by two prominent Democratic Senators on the subject.

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=284678-1&showVid=true&clipStart=3428.06&clipStop=3565.55

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=284678-1&showVid=true&clipStart=5150.25&clipStop=5242.91

Senator Feinstein and others who look for every excuse to push for another gun ban are being duplicitous when they quote the 90% figure. That number has little or nothing to do with the civilian sporting arms market.

[Jackson1999]

10. Good point. The problem is...

That the BATF numbers are being used to say that 90% of the guns are flowing across the border. They very well could have been guns sold by the US to the Mexican army...you know, the one with 17,00 desertions a year.

[sandnsea]

13. I don't care how they got to Mexico

What in the hell is wrong with Kerry telling the government to give us the list of serial numbers so we can track them?

Believe me, I am just as sickened by our weapons being involved in killing in Mexico or Darfur as I am in Nashville or Dallas.

[slackmaster]

14. I don't disagree with you at all

Kerry isn't doing anything wrong in asking for the numbers.

I'd like to see the real truth exposed. I have a feeling it's going to look pretty bad for the Reagan and Bush I administrations.

[sandnsea]

15. If anybody knows, it's John Kerry

He's been tracking arms smuggling for decades, including arms we sell to foreign governments that get into the wrong hands. I'm sure you knew that. But if gun owners want to be seen as responsible, this is exactly the time they need to step up and prove it. We need to know where the guns in Mexico are coming from. Period.

[Jackson1999]

16. Nothing is wrong with requesting the numbers...

The point is that he is calling for the AWB, and at the same acknowledging that the actual number of guns from the civilian market going to Mexico is currently in question.

[sandnsea]

17. That makes no sense at all

Where the hell do you think the guns are coming from?

I'd bet it's MORE than one in four, which is why Kerry is encouraging the Mexican govt to work more closely with the ATF.

[slackmaster]

18. The ATF has jurisdiction over military arms and exports thereof as well as civilian arms

Getting the models and serial numbers would be helpful regardless of where they came from.

Where the hell do you think the guns are coming from?

I think they are coming from a mish-mash of sources including some from the US civilian arms market, but I would bet that it's going to turn out that most are actually diverted military weapons.

[sandnsea]

19. You and I agree on this

It's obvious that there would be fewer of these rifles in Mexico if it were illegal to manufacture them here, as well.

Regardless of that though, the main point is to track the guns and I suspect that's Kerry's main point too. I would much rather figure out how to shut down the "diversion" of our military weapons anyway.

[slackmaster]

23. I suspect that the lion's share will turn out to be of military origin

So that making it illegal to manufacture them will be out of the question. The military doesn't use and has never used any weapons that were covered by the expired AW ban.

[sandnsea]

26. I hope you will stay on this

It would be wonderful to have this dirty little secret exposed in THIS country. Maybe a few more people would start to figure out why so much of the world hates us.

[TheWraith]

28. They're probably coming from the Mexican military.

They buy their military gear from us, and they have an enormous problem with soldiers deserting and either selling their weapons or joining up as footsoldiers for the cartels: better money.

However, the bottom line is this: any way you slice it, it's unlikely that civilian semi-auto rifles are the cartels' main source of firepower.

[jody]

12. See "Legal U.S. Arms Exports May Be Source of Narco Syndicates' Rising Firepower"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5357829

[spin]

20. Kerry knows as much about cartel guns as he does about deer hunting...

"I go out with my trusty 12-gauge double-barrel, crawl around on my stomach. I track and move and decoy and play games and try to outsmart them. You know, you kind of play the wind. That's hunting," said Kerry. (Craig Gilbert, "Bringing candidate to life," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 7/5/04)

[sandnsea]

21. They hunt with shotguns in MA

Nothing wrong with his remarks at all.

http://www.mvtimes.com/news/2006/12/07/deer_hunting_accident.php

[spin]

24. Some hunters disagree...

"He was in Wisconsin the other day, pretending to be a regular guy, and was asked what kind of hunting he preferred. 'I'd have to say deer,' said the senator. 'I go out with my trusty 12-gauge double-barrel, crawl around on my stomach ... That's hunting.'

"This caused huge hilarity among my New Hampshire neighbours. None of us has ever heard of anybody deer hunting by crawling around on his stomach, even in Massachusetts. The trick is to blend in with the woods and, given that John Kerry already looks like a forlorn tree in late fall, it's hard to see why he'd give up his natural advantage in order to hunt horizontally.
Oh, Pooh

"Possibly his weird Vietnam nostalgia is getting out of control. Still, if I come across a guy in the woods in deer season inching through the undergrowth with a mouthful of bear scat, at least I'll know who it is," Steyn noted.

Considering that these days Kerry looks more like a bunny wabbit than Elmer Fudd, perhaps he could use a refresher course from Gun Owners of America, which, by the way, he still hasn't met with, despite his phony claim that he'd meet with any critical group.

Update from a reader from Minnesota: "The fact that John Kerry claims he crawls around on the ground while deer hunting is less ridiculous than the fact that he claims to hunt deer with a double-barrel 12 guage. Ask any hunter. You hunt deer with either a rifle or a shotgun slug (which you cannot do with a double-barrel shotgun). To a true deer hunter, Kerry's claim is even more ludicrous than Howard Dean stating that the book of Job is in the New Testament and then claiming he is a devout Christian. Kerry's statement clearly shows he has absolutely no clue about hunting."
http://www.gunblast.com/040728-Newsmax.htm (Sorry about the source, but Kerry was trying to impress conservative gun owners and hunters and obviously he failed.)

I personally am not a hunter, although with the current economic situation, I'm starting to see advantages in deer and hog hunting for food.

I do remember the hunters at the range laughing at Kerry. Most of them hunt from tree stands.

[sandnsea]

25. Most of them hunt from tree stands - exactly

My husband never did so I didn't understand the uproar. I always thought it was because they didn't know hunting deer with shotguns is the way it's done in MA, or that beating the brush and scaring deer up a draw, and shooting them from the top of that draw, is also common hunting in some parts of the country.

Woohoo, we got four more years of Bush because a bunch of dumb-ass midwestern hunters got off on a dick-swinging contest. Yeehaw!

[slackmaster]

22. He's an intelligent man and a combat veteran

He's got what it takes to dig up the truth.

It will be interesting to see what he does with it, especially if his work doesn't present any clear justification for banning US civilian arms.

[Name removed]

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