The Truth about Fast & Furious

[DirkGently]

51. It's a fascinating lie to protect shady American gun sellers.

So, the reality, as the article points out, is that it is virtually impossible to stop gun traffic into Mexico, because most of what constitutes gun trafficking is actually legal, thanks to the overwhelming success of pro-gun lobbyists. ATF agents, already hampered and largely defanged by the relentless "jackbooted thugs" campaign carried on by the NRA, went as far as New York to try to get the obvious trafficking they were witnessing prosecuted. But they couldn't. It's not illegal for an 18-yr-old to, say buy $20,000 in weaponry, repeatedly, on the theory it might be for "personal use," and then sell them all the next day having "changed his mind."

So, the reality is that gun laws are so weak that Mexico is flooded with American guns in a process that essentially isn't illegal, because gun rights are so broad here. That's what's actually happening. ATF can't arrest anyone because you basically would have to witness someone saying, "Here, let me illegally traffic this firearm to you, hahahahahahaha!"

The conspiracy theory cooked up to deal with this is a gob-smacking piece of cognitively dissonant genius. It's just so bald-faced nuts that it makes perfect sense, if you just invert reason entirely. You just have to believe that law enforcement agents never wanted to do their jobs, bust people and stop weapons trafficking -- how naive! Nooo, they wanted to FAIL, so gun trafficking would get bad, so we'd all THINK we needed better enforcements and / or legislation. Because law enforcement agents think like that, and readily agree to engage in complex conspiracies involving deliberately letting their comrades be murdered, just to please President Obama and his secretly anti-gun stance that he has never revealed in speech or policy. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHA!

Wow. This is exactly the same flavor of proving-something-via-its-utter-nonexistence that NRA President / gibbering nutwad Wayne Lapierre introduced a while back, where Obama has been soft on gun control, BECAUSE HE WANTS TO BE HARD ON GUN CONTROL!!

It's perfect logic, if you're insane. And the best part is yet to come. You see, as soon as it sort of sinks in that the ATF was actually (gasp) trying to do its job, and not pretending to not be able to do its job in order to ... TAKE OUR GUNS! someone will be tempted to suggest that maybe we need some kind of database to track gun sales, instead of those boxes of forms the article talks about agents having to painstakingly review by hand. Or, maybe there could be some kind of limit on large sales to individuals. Or something. Anything. But they won't be able to, because as soon as anyone tries, a trillion screaming NRA acolytes will shout ...

AHA! WE KNEW IT! Look at the gun grabbers, using the ATF's "fake" failure to stop guns from going to Mexico to falsely try to justify laws to actually stop guns from going to Mexico! !!! !!! !!!

So at last we scrape down through all the crazy slogans and pseudo-logic, and unending hysteria about jack-booted G-men coming to take Grandma's shotgun and we see what's really most important to the mega-powerful gun lobby in America.

Gun-running to Mexico. All of this nonsense, from Lapierre to Issa, and this galactically impossible non-scandal, is aimed at protecting gun shops that sell a hell of a lot of weaponry to mules headed to Mexico. It has nothing to do with the Second Amendment. Nothing to do with self-defense, or hunting or target shooting, or a Swiss-like ideal of every citizen being prepared to defend the homeland.

Gunrunner profits. That's what matters here. That's what all the screaming and sweating and false visions of gun-stripping apocalypsi are about. They knew people were wondering why there is a steady river of arms flowing from Arizona directly to Mexician drug lords, and got worried someone might eventually want to do something about it. So we all got Congressman Car Thief Issa's epic hearings, the first attempt to hold a USAG in contempt of Congress, and the "Fast and Furious scandal."

But no talk so far of doing a single thing to stem the flow of illegal American guns. Because once again, when it comes to firearms in America, crazy works just fine.