We need to keep an eye on our Second Amendment rights

Bryce Lambley/Tribune correspondent | Posted: Saturday, July 16, 2011 3:00 am |

We’re certainly fans of the Second Amendment in this corner, as well as the First Amendment which allows us to discuss a story still flying under most folks’ radar.

President Barack Obama’s support for the Second Amendment has long been suspect, and he’s shown a basic lack of understanding for why it’s in the Bill of Rights. When combined with other quotes (“people cling to guns or religion”), there is good reason to regard warily the current administration.

When you factor in the United Nations Small Arms Treaty (an effort to disarm the world’s citizenry) with Obama’s penchant to please foreigners and apologize for American actions, skepticism should not be limited to card-carrying members of the National Rifle Association.

In 2009, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) embarked on Fast and Furious, an undercover operation designed to trace the trafficking of illegal guns into Mexico. This after Mexican President Felipe Calderon claimed that more than 90 percent of guns used in crimes in Mexico came from the United States, and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton repeated.

Closer scrutiny shoots holes in this claim. From ’07-08, more than 29,000 firearms (and 2,000 grenades) were picked up at Mexican crime scenes. About 38 percent of these guns were submitted to the U.S. for tracing. Of those 11,000, about 6,000 were successfully traced and only 5,114 (less than 18 percent of the total) were found to come from the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security later indicated only 3,480 guns could be traced back to the U.S.

Whichever stat you choose, between 31 and 46 percent of the guns investigated could be proven to be American in origin, and you have to assume the guns submitted for tracing were the guns they figured they had the best chance of getting a hit on. So whether you like 18 percent – or 31 or 46 – it’s a far cry from the 90 percent figure touted by Clinton and Calderon.

Regardless, the ATF operation that followed purposely put many hundreds of guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartel members in the last 18 months. It’s a dangerous game called letting guns “walk” that even many insiders felt was just wrong. The program came under public scrutiny this past December when Border Agent Brian Terry was killed, and at the scene were two guns linked to Fast and Furious. Immigration Agent Jaime Zapata was killed similarly with weapons allegedly allowed to walk across the border so they could be traced (as per Department of Justice orders). These guns originating from an ATF sting has backfired on the very organization that is supposedly trying to control these weapons.

Truth of the matter is that lack of control would be more accurate. Of the 2,020 guns used in the ATF probe, only 363 have been recovered in the U.S. and 227 in Mexico, leaving 1,430 guns unaccounted for. Rene Jaquez, the ATF’s former attache in Mexico City, told CNN the operation never should have happened. One member of the Congressional committee investigating the incident called the whole thing “felony stupid.”

These probes, led by Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley and California Rep. Darrell Issa, have already found that on at least three separate occasions, federal firearms investigators wanted to “intervene and interdict” loads of guns, but were ordered to stand down and allow suspected smugglers to carry weapons across the border.

Acting ATF director Ken Melson was sneaked into an interview with congressional investigators on July 4, two days ahead of schedule. He accused the Justice Department of obstructing the investigation. The lawmakers have urged Attorney General Eric Holder to cooperate and turn over subpoenaed records that might reveal the scope of any coverup, with the ATF, FBI and DEA all in their crosshairs. With Melson already apparently singing, it may be too late for Holder and Obama to quietly replace him at the ATF helm.

So why is this important to the average American who sees the Bill of Rights as integral to our freedoms?

Because, in the wake of the afore-mentioned mess, President Obama is preparing to issue executive orders that would bypass Congress and write new gun legislation. The Justice Department says all gun shops in four Southwest border states will be required to alert the federal government to frequent buyers of high-powered semi-automatic rifles (frequent being two within five days, and high-power being any caliber greater than .22). ATF estimates it would generate 18,000 reports a year, with the information purged after two years if no investigative leads are realized.

The Daily Beast says the orders will go further, including a handgun background check that would create an electronic paper trail. It seems interesting to me that our current administration seems bent more on appeasing a foreign country on our border by going to great lengths to curb the flow of guns into Mexico, than it does the copious flow of drugs and criminals from that same country into our own. It also seems to place American gunowners on a more slippery slope toward gun registration, which can lead to confiscation, and is therefore exactly what founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson warned us against.

Bryce Lambley is the outdoors columnist for the Tribune. He columns normally appear in the Sports section.

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