When Obama was running for president in 2008, he promised to “fundamentally change America” – a phrase which lucid Americans took as meaning he was going to bring his leftist agenda to bear on us all. And if Obama has had any success as president, it’s certainly been his success in changing us fundamentally from a nation under law to a nation that often looks lawless. From a nation in which one feels secure into a nation in which more and more people are feeling that their security is in their own hands (literally). And this has led not only to record breaking gun sales since Obama’s election, but also to changes in state laws around the country to make it easier for law-abiding citizens to carry a handgun for their own protection.
As a result of this, Wisconsin, which was one of the few states to not have some form of concealed carry law within its borders, now has one thanks to their much maligned Republican legislature and Gov. Scott Walker. With the stroke of a pen in July of 2011, Walker made Wisconsin the 49th state in the union to allow the concealed carry of handguns. (Only Illinois, Obama’s old stomping ground, continues to deny its citizens this option right.)
FN Five-sevens were among the weapons allowed to walk. Photo: Wikipedia
Arizona’s state legislature will open its own investigation into the Obama administration’s disgraced gun-running program, known as “Fast and Furious,” the speaker of the state House said Friday.
Speaker Andy Tobin created the committee, and charged it with looking at whether the program broke any state laws – raising the possibility of state penalties against those responsible for the operation.
It’s a turnaround from the rest of the immigration issue, where the federal government has sued to block the state’s own set of laws.
A law requiring businesses to check new workers’ legal status was upheld by the Supreme Court last year, and the court has agreed to hear the case of Arizona’s crackdown law that makes being an illegal immigrant a state crime and gives state and local police the power to enforce that law.
Patrick Cunningham, the chief of the Criminal Division of the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office, is refusing to testify before Congress regarding the botched federal scheme known as Operation Fast and Furious. The gun-running scandal conceived in 2009 by the Phoenix Division of ATF – a Justice Department agency – was responsible for supplying U.S.weapons to Mexican drug cartels.
The operation which U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder now acknowledges was “fundamentally flawed,” occurred under his watch with his Department’s knowledge and approval. The program’s guns have been linked to countless murders in Mexico, and was only shut down after the death of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in the Arizona desert. The two guns recovered at the murder scene both traced back to Fast and Furious. Watch here as Eric Holder actually refused to apologize to Brian Terry’s family.
A top official with the U.S. Attorney’s office in Phoenix, AZ who has repeatedly declined to voluntarily testify to Congressional investigators about Operation Fast and Furious has been subpoenaed, according to the office of Congressman Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
The development comes as the American firearms industry is gathered here at the Sands Convention Center for its annual Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show, and Fast and Furious is a hot topic. This announcement will make it hotter, primarily because the industry, and particularly gun dealers from across the Southwest, have been blamed by the Obama administration for the flood of firearms heading south to Mexico.
Congressman Darrell Issa
Attorney General Eric Holder will testify about Operation Fast and Furious before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Feb. 2.
According to a release from committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, Holder will be asked to testify on what happened during Operation Fast and Furious and how the Department of Justice has responded to the congressional investigation into the program.
Holder’s DOJ recently withdrew a February 4, 2011 letter it sent to Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley because it contained false statements.
Holder has refused to comply with a subpoena from Issa’s committee that lawfully requires the DOJ to provide Congress with Fast and Furious documents created after that false letter was sent last year.
A politician is described as a “lame duck” once he or she has been defeated or announced their retirement, and is simply finishing out the remainder of their term in office. And even after Nov. elections are over and a large number of Senate and House members are voted out, the lame duck Senators and House members are usually just that – lame. But occasionally, they are fierce because the defeated office holder is bitter and has approximately two months to wreak havoc with his or her vote before leaving DC. When this happens, ideologues will use the time where they’re completely accountable to voters to score points for their side. We saw this after the Nov. 2010 elections when defeated Senators and House members banded together in late Dec. to repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” so homosexuals could serve openly in the military. Yet as bad as this is, the opportunities for a lame duck office holder to attack our freedom grows exponentially when said office holder is in the White House, and when he’s an ideologue who hates private gun ownership, the right to self defense, and the 2nd Amendment.
And this brings us to a crucial point. Namely, that if Obama wins re-election in 2012, he will be awarded four years of lame duck status in which to do anything and everything he wants to lessen our ability to own and use guns. He knows he won’t have to answer for it because he will not be running for re-election in 2016.
The threat of a U.S. double dip recession coupled with this summer’s debt debacle in Washington – and the subsequent failure of the so-called “debt supercommittee” – has many ordinary Americans looking at gold as a safe store of value. However, there’s another commodity that historically has risen in price along with gold – and is potentially more useful in the event of a global crisis: Ammunition.
The possibility of a global financial crisis, accelerating inflation rates, and the failures of the so-called “super committee” last summer have prompted Americans everywhere to invest in gold as the safest way to protect their assets. What’s interesting, however, is that Americans are also buying guns and ammunition more than ever before. This seems to suggest, in short, that there may be an interesting correlation between economic uncertainty and the desire to own two very different (but equally important) commodities.
Walk into your local gun shop and you’re likely to be greeted by some of the hardest working salesmen and women in America. On Black Friday alone Gun dealers flooded the FBI with background check requests for prospective hand gun and long gun buyers, smashing the previous record by more than 30%. Deputy Assistant FBI Director Jerry Pender said the checks, required by federal law, surged to nearly 130,000 during the day, far surpassing the previous high of 97,848 on Black Friday of 2008. The actual number of firearms sold is likely much higher because multiple firearms can be included in a transaction by a single buyer. The FBI does not track actual gun sales.
Gun buyers are more diverse than ever. This however is not the kind of diversity the anti-gun left is happy about. Young professionals, people starting families and women, in greater numbers than ever, are purchasing guns. Dennis Henigan, acting president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said he was “skeptical” of the Black Friday gun surge.
Late yesterday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s office sent me an email with a copy of a letter the Congressman had sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on December 15 – a letter to which the A.G. has yet to respond. In it, Issa informs Holder that the Committee would like him to appear for more testimony on January 24, 2012.
In other words, Fast and Furious isn’t going away any time soon.
Issa wrote:
The hearing will examine flaws in the management structure of the Justice Department as demonstrated in the genesis and implementation of ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious. Specifically, the hearing will focus on what senior Department officials could and should have done to put a stop to this reckless program, as well as the specific areas where failures in communication and management occurred.
Senate Republicans Block Obama Judge Pick Caitlin Halligan
Caitlin Halligan is currently general counsel in the New York City district attorney’s office.
Arguing that she is too activist for a position on the federal circuit court, Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked President Obama’s nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals seat previously held by Supreme Court Justice John Roberts.
The vote Tuesday, 54-45, was far short of the 60 votes needed under Senate rules.
Democrats called Caitlin Halligan, currently general counsel in the New York City district attorney’s office, well qualified for the D.C. Court of Appeals.
