Washington Post Editorial: You Know Who Is To Blame For "Operation Fast And Furious"? The NRA And Gun Rights Nuts, That's Who

The whole editorial reads like a Bill Maher joke...obnoxious, badly misses the point and of course, is not funny (at least not intentionally).

THE GUN RIGHTS lobby has spent considerable time and energy in pursuit of one goal: crippling the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). It has largely succeeded — and with dire consequences.

Concerned to the point of paranoia about the erosion of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms, the National Rifle Association and far too many lawmakers have fought against virtually every proposal to empower the bureau to better track and crack down on illegal firearms. They have won reductions in the ATF’s already meager budget. They have restricted the bureau’s ability to share information with other law enforcement agencies. They have kept the bureau rudderless for the past six years by blocking confirmation of new directors. And they continue to fight new rules that would allow the bureau to track bulk sales of long guns that have played a major role in the drug-fueled violence in Mexico.

Now, the very critics who have tied the bureau’s hands are expressing outrage over a novel, and we would agree questionable, ATF operation intended to curb gun smuggling into Mexico.

It's funny how the answer to every problem is always more and strong government. Assume for a moment the premiss of the editorial is correct, gun rights advocates (isn't interesting there are people who advocate against a recognized constitutional right?) have weakened the ATF to this point, how does it follow that that's the cause of this idiotically run operation? More importantly, if they acted so incompetently and with such disregard for existing rules (one agent charged, "It's like they grabbed the ATF rulebook and threw it out the window."), why in the world would you give this gang more power?

We gave the government more power after 9/11 to conduct airline screenings. Do you feel safer now that unionized government workers are in charge? Clearly expanding government power has led to such improvements as...forcing elderly women to remove their adult diapers prior to boarding a flight.

Jean Weber of Destin filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security after her 95-year-old mother was detained and extensively searched last Saturday while trying to board a plane to fly to Michigan to be with family members during the final stages of her battle with leukemia.

Her mother, who was in a wheelchair, was asked to remove an adult diaper in order to complete a pat-down search.

“It’s something I couldn’t imagine happening on American soil,” Weber said Friday. “Here is my mother, 95 years old, 105 pounds, barely able to stand, and then this.”

Yeah, what could go wrong if we gave the ATF and every federal security bureaucracy even more power? Only a big government liberal would think that, or a Bill Maher joke, is a recipe for success.

posted by DrewM. at 09:38 AM

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