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on the border line between the US and Mexico
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Tuesday, July 12, 2011

New Reporting Rules on Multiple Sales of Guns Near Border


New York Times by Charles Savage
Published: July 11, 2011

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Monday approved a new regulation requiring firearms dealers along the Southwest border to report multiple sales of certain semiautomatic rifles, a rule intended to make it harder for Mexican drug cartels to obtain and smuggle weapons from the United States.

Under the rule, dealers in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas will be required to inform the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives if someone buys — within a five-day period — more than one semiautomatic rifle that accepts a detachable magazine and uses ammunition greater than .22 caliber. Such weapons include AK-47s.

Dealers nationwide are already required to report bulk sales of handguns, and the A.T.F. applied to impose such a regulation late last year to help detect bulk “straw buyers” — people who say they are buying weapons for themselves but then transfer them to criminals.

In a statement, the deputy attorney general, James Cole, said the regulation was justified by the need to help the A.T.F. “detect and disrupt the illegal weapons trafficking networks responsible for diverting firearms from lawful commerce to criminals” and in particular to “help confront the problem of illegal gun trafficking into Mexico.”

“The international expansion and increased violence of transnational criminal networks pose a significant threat to the United States,” Mr. Cole said, adding that rifles covered by the new regulation “are highly sought after by dangerous drug-trafficking organizations and frequently recovered at violent crime scenes near the Southwest border.”

The proposal has been hotly contested by gun-control advocates, and Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president for the National Rifle Association, said his organization was preparing to sue the government once it tried to begin enforcing the regulation.

Mr. LaPierre contended that it should take an act of Congress to impose such a requirement, not a regulation developed by the executive branch alone. He noted that the similar rule requiring dealers to report multiple handgun sales was part of the Gun Control Act of 1968.

“We view it as a blatant attempt by the Obama administration to pursue their gun-control agenda through backdoor rule making, and the N.R.A. will fight them every step of the way,” he said. “There are three branches of government and separation of powers, and we believe they do not have the authority to do this.”

An A.T.F. spokesman cited a federal statute governing the licensing of firearms dealers as the source of the agency’s legal authority to enact a regulation allowing it to collect the information about bulk sales of semiautomatic rifles.

The A.T.F. unveiled its proposal for the new rule in December, and originally sought permission to impose it more quickly under emergency procedures. But in February, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget rejected that request, saying that gunrunning to Mexico was a continuing problem — not the kind of fast-moving situation that justifies making an exception to the normal process for reviewing new regulations.

The approval for the regulation comes at a time when the A.T.F.’s efforts to combat straw purchasing and gunrunning along the border is under intense Congressional scrutiny because of a botched investigation called Operation Fast and Furious.

In that operation, federal agents, wanting to trace the flow of guns from straw buyers to drug cartels, monitored the purchase of several thousand guns but did not intervene before some were smuggled into Mexico. The bureau then lost track of many of them, and two later turned up at the scene of a shootout in Arizona where an American Border Patrol agent was killed.

31 comments:

  1. All they will have to do is travel up north and buy the guns; big deal!

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  2. And queue the right-wing comments.

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  3. While George W Bush was talking about war of terror and fighting the bad guys in Iraq so that we don't have to fight them on the homeland, Mexico started falling into disaster.

    More people are being beheaded south of the border than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

    Mexico has turned into an Afghanistan in terms of violence and chaos. It is Bush's fault he started operation " gun runner" that let guns into Mexico way before operation fast and furious

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  4. YEAY!!!

    Something is more than nothing... Official actions that publicly recognize and address the problem are always helpful; albeit these will not definitively solve the problem.



    ...and you dumb, petulant gun HOBBISTS need to get a clue and a life that is consumed by something more than an appliance.

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  5. Fuck the NRA, they don't give shit about Mexico or the people that live along the border.

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  6. All they have to do is wait 6 days and that gets them around it. lol way to go Obama!

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  7. It is not Bush's fault. It is not Obama's fault. This is not political in any way and only a hardcore idiot would superimpose their political agenda on this.

    This is a result of decades of corruption of all levels of Mexican society. Politicians, military, police and judiciary corruption of the highest order that was ignored and secretly condoned for decades. It is deals with the cartels that created this monster and the Mexican proclivity for burying their heads in the sand ("as long as it doesn't affect me"). And the cartels grew and grew. And now they are so big and generate so much money that their power is staggering.

    And with the failure of the police and judicial system, there is little deterrent for entering a life of crime.

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  8. @ 7:58 AM

    Well said!!

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  9. The Mexican people need to demand a better government than they have had for decades. The political and police corruption has been tolerated by the people for too long. The Mexican people need to demand a government free of corruption and bribes, that can produce jobs, a safe society, a health care system and and education system that the people deserve. For too long the government s solution to the problems in Mexico has been to export its people. The wealth in Mexico is concentrat ed in the top 2% and the middle class is almost non existent. It is time for the Mexican people to demand more from their leaders.

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  10. WTF it took them this long to just now start doing that? Maybe its just me but if someone came in asking for 10 AR's I would be a little skeptical. I guess the dollar signs outweigh the thoughts of right or wrong

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  11. The NRA will fight anything that might stop gun regulation. Is it so awful we make sure ak47's aren't being bought in bulk? Go ahead sue the government, let the public see the NRA for what they really are.

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  12. Way to go Obama!!! Oh Yeah! Shut those fuckers down!.. NRA you are going down scumbags. Let's also file a law suite on the NRA for making it easier for drug traffickers to obtain weapons and ammo from our country.

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  13. Umm.... the biggest gun supplier to Mexican cartels has been shown to be ATF themselves..

    How ironic....

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  14. For all the Libtards and Non Americans commenting on this blog, get a clue. Where did a large number of automatic weapons come from that have been discovered in the hands of the men who killed border agents and civilians for the last 2 years? The ATF. The same organization that wants to limit your right to keep and bear arms for two years sold thousands of illegal guns to criminals to have them go into Mexico so they could then claim later on that this was a problem that they of course need to pass a law to "fix". Bullshit, this is nothing more than Eric Holder flexing his socialist muscles to try and ban "assault weapons". Not going to happen and we are not going to sit by and let criminals be the only people with the ability to strike back against anyone trying to kill them. After all look how disarming the Mexican people has helped keep the weapons out of the hands of criminals in Mexico.

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  15. This is a binational problem. The same as drugs are in high demand in the US, wepons are in high demand in Mexico. This goes both ways and its not just US or Mexico Govement issue its the whole society. Its all about maing money and keeping the poor down. Just as the Mexican Goverment does it also the US Goverment. Its a plan of both goverment elite to keep the masses under thier control. Just see what the Democrats and Repubicans have done to this country. In the near future we will be like Mexico, run by corroption, wall street great and 2 system dominant party.

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  16. @7:58 am

    The reason the cartels grew was because of the crackdown on the Caribbean corridor and on the Colombian cartels themselves which were replaced by the Mexican drug mules that grew into the Mexican Cartels of today. Sure the Mexican government has some blame and the American government/Americans also carry a huge load of blaming also. When American companies only pay a couple of pesos a day to Mexicans in Ciudad Juarez from American "maquiladoras" and elsewhere in Mexico to provide cheap mass produced products to Americans, you are really choking and exploiting the lives of poor Mexicans that some eventually go into the now accessible crime to gain some extra income. How about the American drug users and the addiction problem in the USA?

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  17. Except for Aleric, every comment on this thread was fuzzy to absent. Does anyone of you dimwits here posting (I already excluded Aleric) believe that any law, any law in any way passed by El Norte will in any way limit the number of weapons the guys in Mexico will get? OK you "Law-and_order-Liberals" what is your dream law? The total outright banning of all firearms for civilians in America? (you liberals and fake conservatives all actually love firearms, as long as they are held by your hero SWAT teams etc.) you just hate civilian firearms.

    Ban and eliminate all firearms sales in the US- and the Narcos, in the first place they already have all the guns they want, and in the second they would be able to buy as many as they want from the military and police from every nearby country including Mex. They are already professional smugglers by trade, the world's best in fact. But you idiots don't care about reality, you just want to feel good about having "tough laws" or whatever nonsense actually motivates you.

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  18. Here come the Assault weapons nuts

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  19. From now on straw buyers will just have to buy the guns in Duluth Minesota or Pawtucket Rhode Island!

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  20. I have a Great Strategy,
    Legalize guns in Mexico, and Legalize drugs in USA. win win...

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  21. Hobbyists? Appliance? (You mean, like a margarita machine?)

    Fuck that! A gun is your freedom's oxygen, boy!

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  22. Im not a gun nut myself but the comments made by them make sense. Funny how now that ATF themselves did the fuck up were they finally able to get the law passed for regulations of guns.

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  23. “We view it as a blatant attempt by the Obama administration to pursue their gun-control agenda through backdoor rule making, and the N.R.A. will fight them every step of the way,” he said. “There are three branches of government and separation of powers, and we believe they do not have the authority to do this.” - Lapierre

    That's true. We lost our democracy the day obama began this "backdoor" bullshit.


    Anonymous said...

    While George W Bush was talking about war of terror and fighting the bad guys in Iraq so that we don't have to fight them on the homeland, Mexico started falling into disaster.

    More people are being beheaded south of the border than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

    Mexico has turned into an Afghanistan in terms of violence and chaos. It is Bush's fault he started operation " gun runner" that let guns into Mexico way before operation fast and furious
    July 12, 2011 2:07 AM

    As for you, really??? Do you really believe the shit that comes out of your mouth? LMFAO maybe you should check when the ATF whistleblowers came forward and said when and WHO let guns walk. If I remember correctly it was holder, and if memory serves me right he was appointed by obama and if my memory still serves me right hispanics voted for him LMFAO and cause of him mexicans are dying. Just so he could make some gun control. Idiotas son idiotas pinches liberals pendejos

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  24. According to Grayson's research, the figures that state that US fire arms represent the majority of weapons used are highly overstated. They represent the majority of weapons that Mexican authorities are able to collect, categorize and trace - not the majority of total weapons confiscated or used by the cartels. At the same time, we cannot deny that many of the weapons used and seized are from U.S dealers and having better controls on the U.S side simply makes sense.

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  25. I guess if we use some of the logic on this board we should ban guns in the U.S much in the same way we have "banned" drugs. We all know how effective that has been :) it also illustrates the hypocrisy of political ideologues on both sides. Conservatives feel the war on drugs should go on while keeping guns legal. Liberals want drugs legalized while banning guns.

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  26. We really should be passing a law about the ATF since they are the major suppliers of the gun cartels with both tax dollars. This law is window dressing and basically does nothing to stop any sort of problems, but it does please clueless liberals and foreigners.

    These are the same types who think the civilian ARs and AKs are fully auto -- and can't put two and two together about where Mexico is really getting all these auto rifles -- or who think that "assault rifles" are some sort of huge part of gun violence in America, when five times as many people are stabbed to death and twice as many beaten to death than actually killed with a rifle in the US according to the FBI.

    This was really all an attempt to justify some fascist anti-gun laws when the majority of the public is against it. Too bad it was exposed and blew up in the faces of Obama, Holder, etc who are still lying and stonewalling the investigation to determine what happened. I love Holder claiming he didn't know about the operation until recently, which has already proven to be a lie. This really is Obama's Watergate, so we will see if the media give it the attention it deserves.

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  27. Thank You ATF & NRA for the weapons. Courtesy of the Mexican Drug Cartels ;)

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  28. It should also be noted that the cartels are active in international arms markets. Hence, while they do indeed purchase and smuggle drugs from the U.S, the majority of their arms likely come from South American, European and Asian arms dealers.

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  29. No, if the cartels thanked anyone, it would be the US federal government for making drugs illegal. Without that, these cartels would have very little power and money.

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  30. The US has many more guns than Mexico. Lots of people in the US have guns. But the US doesn't have rampant kidnapping and extortion. The US doesn't have gunfights with automatic weapons in the street. We don't find people cut into pieces or beheaded in the US.

    So we can try to stem the flow of guns to Mexico but what is Mexico doing to catch guns at the border? I think Mexico will solve this problem before the US does. Guns are allowed in the US - period - and that's probably not going to change soon.

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  31. yeah ..take all our guns away so that we can be at the mercy of corrupt authoritys and well armed criminals...

    will that make you gun control nuts happy?

    i have owned a gun since i was 8 anos de edad..and i have never used a gun in a crime ...or fired one with deadly intent...


    i lived in a place along with my first wife and two babys once ..when some guys were running and shooting at night...they even put tires filled with gasolene against the doors of the house right next door to my house...literally 15 feet away from my house ..and set them on fire...because my ex wife was all religious and was against guns ..i didn't have any guns in the house...when i heard the commotion and stepped out onto my porch..there was a guy with a shotgun standing in my small yard ..i said "what the hell are you guys doing?..get the hell out of here"...he pointed his gun at me at told me to shut the fuck up and go back into the house ..it was none of my business

    i did..and put my little family inside a small closet in the center of the house ..while the shooting and hollering went on for hours..while i guarded the doors with a kitchen knife

    they burnt down the house ..the people who they were trying to burn alive escaped...we didn't have a phone at the time but someone called the fire department in time to stop my house from burning...

    the police never even came at all...even after a big shootout and house burning

    the moral of the story is: never again will i ever trust my safety to police ..or to the civility of my fellow man..

    it is a real bad feeling to be defenseless..at the mercy of armed men ...even thought the guys didn't come into my house ..they didn't really bother us ...but what if they had ...the knife versus gun ends only one way

    for all of you silver spoon protected life people who want to disarm us ...you are living in a dream world...do you really think that you will be exempt from murder, rape , robbery , because you espouse some kind of childish worldview

    do you think the bad guys will just say ..ok ..buddy we will not molest you because are all cool or something?...wake up stupid..this is a violent world ..and is getting even more crazy

    someday all of you will probably be hiding behind some guy who has a gun and is willing to use it to defend what is right in this world

    WAKE UP!!!!!...

    you can blame all the shit in Mexico on US gun law if you want ..but really it is all about GREED ., CORRUPTION, and a population who has neither the will or the means to defend themselves

    is that your vision for this country pendejos?

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