Guns, Cartels, and Stealth

The Supreme Court Decision? Yeah, next blog post.

Meanwhile, nearly under the radar, Attorney General Eric Holder has been held in Contempt of Congress for doing what any underground sting operation has to do on a daily basis. Namely, allow some small-fish sales to take place in order to get the big fish. This is true of vice ops on drugs, sex, or in this case, guns.

As I've read it, some gun sales were allowed to take place in Arizona under the nose of an anti gun-running operation known as Fast and Furious. Some of the guns from those sales then turned up in the hands of drug cartel thugs in Mexico, where they were used to kill some people. The take on this, say the conspiracy theorists, is that this was allowed so as to make guns look bad so that anti-gun legislation could be enacted here in the U.S.

Okay, time to call bullshit. Illegal guns killing Mexicans in Mexico doesn't make guns look bad. Legal guns killing people in cities all over the U.S. makes guns look bad. And if Obama wants a reason to ban guns, he has only to look to any inner city and find the latest headline, usually no more than two or three weeks old, of some poor, black kid who got shot in the crossfire of a gang war.

So why are we persecuting Eric Holder?

Basically, it's because the assault weapons ban that was enacted under Clinton was allowed to expire in 2004 when George W. Bush failed to extend it. When that happened, automatic and semi-automatic assault rifles became legal, along with some things which have very little to do with home defense, such as grenade launchers. No, you read right. Grenade launchers! They're legal! Along with Uzis, flame-throwers, and other weaponry designed to do nothing more than turn human flesh into hamburger, such as AR-15s, AK-47s, Carbines, M16 rifles... the list sadly goes on.

Don't get me wrong. I'm in favor of firearms for personal and home defense. Outlawing things like tasers, switchblades, butterfly knives and pepper spray is insane, to say nothing of pistols and rifles. But seriously, who needs a semi-automatic to keep his front porch clean of tresspassers? What moron needs an AK-47 to shoot deer? Who stashes an Uzi just to shoot burglars? Whatever happened to the old Texan's trick of a shotgun shell full of rock-salt? Or even a Saturday night special? Yes, let's keep firearms legal. But Jesus fucking Christ let's renew the ban on assault weapons, at the very least!

The argument is put forth that we legalize assault rifles because the citizens need to be armed against an overbearing government. Okay. That was a good argument Tom Jefferson made back when the height of technology was a musket. But now, our government has at its disposal howitzers, harrier jets, aircraft carriers, stealth aircraft, night vision, infrared vision, pinhole-sized surveillance equipment, satellites that can pinpoint a penny on a sidewalk, smart bombs that can hit a mosquito in the eye, napalm...  No, we've lost the ability to defend ourselves against our government if it decided one day to become George Orwell's 1984. All we can do now is draw the line somewhere between hunting rifle and Abrams tank. I say, if it sprays bullets instead of merely fires them, it needs to be illegal.

As for legal, let's license folks. Honestly, that level of common sense is beyond obvious. We need a license to drive a 1000lb. piece of metal at 60 MPH. Why shouldn't we need a license to propel a 60 ounce piece of metal at 1000 MPH? Meanwhile, we live in a nation where we ban toy guns and keep the legal ones real! Our gun stores have a database of fraudulent credit cards, but lack a database of fucking psychopaths!

Bottom line was that Holder's sting operation didn't let anybody buy guns. The gun laws in Arizona are so incredibly weak that they couldn't stop the sale and resale of military caliber rifles. Remember, this is Bush's fault. But we prefer to accuse the man whose hands were tied of swinging his fists, apparently. Holder got a raw deal.

Look, here's the big picture: Here in the U.S., guns are legal, thanks to the NRA. In Mexico, guns are illegal, and drug cartels need to arm themselves. So they sell people in the U.S. drugs, and people in the U.S. sell them guns. Meanwhile, small amounts of Marijuana are legal in Mexico and illegal in the U.S. The market forces make the cartels incredibly strong. Those cartels then ruin Mexico's security and economy, which makes many Mexicans flee to the north. And the same NRA and anti-drug nuts who perpetuate the cycle persecute the immigrants, as if the migration weren't somehow their own damn fault. 'Round and 'round the cycle goes.

Again, I'm not saying citizens shouldn't have guns. I'm even open to the possibility that someone may even be able to own a military-caliber firearm. But don't you think that anyone who buys 15 assault rifles at a time is trouble?

Eric Holder thought so. Just for that, he's on our nation's shit list. What a crock.

You disagree? Well, shoot me. If you can. I carry a gun.


Eric. (No, the other one.)