Whittling Away our Freedoms

Originally posted at American Thinker.

In the aftermath of the tragic murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Barack Obama, together with a supportive left-wing media, has called for “meaningful action” to address the problem of mass shootings. Since that heartbreaking episode, the president has been publicly weeping, praying, pontificating, quoting Scripture, and poetically sharing verbal vignettes on the responsibilities of fatherhood. He’s been so convincing that pro-gun Democrats are abandoning their former commitment to the Second Amendment, crossing over, and siding with liberals on gun laws.

Meanwhile, despite all the passionate rhetoric, except for passing blame, Obama has yet to fully acknowledge his administration’s participation in the failed gun-walking operation called “Operation Fast and Furious.”

The orchestrated scheme called “Fast and Furious” started in the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency. That year, federal officials decided to allow straw buyers to visit gun stores in Arizona and Texas, load up vans with weapons like the AK-47 and drive them back across the border into México, straight into the hands of vicious cartels.

Rather than arrest the “trafficking kingpins” and confiscate the guns, the federal authorities that conducted the operation were instructed to allow “straw gun buyers for a smuggling ring to walk away from gun shops in Arizona with weapons,”so they could then be tracked. The problem is that, as usual, inept government bureaucracy lost track of the weaponry and the guns purchased illegally have been showing up at crime scenes along with dead bodies ever since.

The gun used in the shooting death of former Marine/U.S. Border agent Brian Terry was traced back to an Arizona gun shop. ICE agent Jamie Zapata was murdered by a drug cartel and the gun that took his life was traced to a gun shop in Dallas.

In total, “Operation Fast and Furious” allegedly allowed approximately 2,000 still unaccounted-for weapons to walk across the southern border. México’s former Attorney General Victor Humberto Benítez Treviño guesstimates that “Fast and Furious” guns, to date, have also killed more than 300 Mexicans.

The irony is that Mexican drug cartels sought out guns in the U.S. because Mexican gun laws are restrictive. Cartel members from a country with the same kind of laws currently being proposed murdered two U.S. Border agents and shot to death hundreds of Mexican civilians and soldiers with firearms obtained with the full knowledge and permission of the U.S. government.

At the Sandy Hook vigil, a teary-eyed Barack Obama stressed that “[t]he majority of those who died were children — beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old. They had their entire lives ahead of them — birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own.”

Yet, after tugging at America’s heartstrings, it appears the president’s gun safety concerns remain exclusive to American guns, gun owners, and people.

If that weren’t true, then why, in 2010 when “Fast and Furious” weapons gunned down 14 teenagers and wounded 20 attending a birthday party in Ciudad Juarez, didn’t Barack Obama — who is now so concerned about missed “birthdays, graduations, weddings” — address the Mexican bloodbath? Why hasn’t the Obama administration accepted any responsibility or even suggested locating the still missing U.S. weapons?

As Obama manipulates tragedy to advance Second Amendment restrictions in the U.S., guns walked across the border with his approval are still taking lives.

Case in point: another “Fast and Furious” gun was recently found at the scene where a beauty queen died as a result of a shootout between a Mexican drug cartel and soldiers.

The day after Thanksgiving, in the mountainous area of Sinaloa, México, home to México’s most powerful Sinaloa drug cartel, 20-year-old Maria Susana Flores Gamez’s body was found together with an assault rifle that has since been revealed was walked across the border.

In February, the beauty pageant winner was awarded the title of 2012 Woman of Sinaloa. By November she was riding in a vehicle that engaged Mexican soldiers in a gun battle. Just as the 20 children who died in Newtown, Connecticut had nowhere to hide from Adam Lanza’s bullets, neither could Maria Susana Flores Gamez hide. Police believe she was used as a human shield and perished when Mexican police returned fire on gang members using an illegal firearm provided compliments of the gun-control obsessed Obama administration.

In the meantime, for four months, former U.S. Marine Jon Hammar is chained to a bed in México’s notorious CEDES prison. Jon is being held for declaring a legal antique Sears Roebuck shotgun to Mexican customs officials on his way to surf and hunt in Costa Rica. What is curious about Hammar’s situation is that after México was systematically flooded with illegal weaponry, the Obama State Department now claims they are powerless to help.

Maybe that’s because after the horrendous nature of the shooting in Connecticut, Barack Obama would rather not spoil the mood by calling attention to a legal gun owner rotting away in a Mexican jail on trumped-up gun charges. After all, why chance losing the emotional capital he needs to convince America that it’s time to moderate firearms?

Nonetheless, for the president to exploit tragedy for political gain while knowing full well that innocent people are being killed with the guns his administration placed in the hands of dangerous gang members is downright reprehensible. Someone needs to ask President Obama to clarify how he justifies condemning assault weapons, especially after his administration intentionally armed Mexican drug kingpins with the weaponry he now blames for the chaos and death we recently witnessed in Connecticut.

Therefore, rather than sitting idly by while freedom continues to be whittled away, it’s up to Americans to demand accountability. It’s time that Time magazine’s Person of the Year explains why he continues to insist that stricter gun control laws will save American lives when he’s well aware that his Justice Department, headed up byAttorney General Eric Holder, purposely and illegally furnished lethal firearms to murderers in México.

 

Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook