Rep. Gabrielle Giffords AZ GOP Auctions Gun Like
The One Used to Shoot Her

http://www.tmz.com/2011/09/03/gabrielle-giffords-congresswoman-shooting-arizona-republican-gun-auction/
So far ... this wins craziest story of the weekend ....The Republican Party in Pima County, AZ is raffling off a gun almost identical to the one used to shoot the Congresswoman in that very same county ... Gabrielle Giffords.

The online newsletter (see below) went out last Friday and features on page 3 a chance to win "a Glock 23 .40 handgun for just 10 bucks." But hang on -- if your name is drawn, you don't just win the gun ... you get "three 12-round magazines, adjustable grips, and a case."


A Glock 19 handgun was allegedly used by Jared Loughner in an attack on January 8, 2011 that injured 13 (including Rep. Giffords) and killed six.

Michael McNulty, Giffords' campaign manager, told the Arizona Republic he was "struggling for the words to describe my reaction" to the raffle.

The interim chairman of the Pima County GOP told the paper he was surprised at the reaction, saying Rep. Giffords owned a Glock herself and was an outspoken supporter of the Second Amendment. He explained, "That Glock is no more responsible for those deaths and the congresswoman's injuries than a Number 2 pencil is responsible for cheating on a test."

Translation -- guns don't kill people, people kill people.

Real translation -- This guy doesn't have a clue.

Report: Manufacturers lost track of more than 16,000 guns since 2009

Washington (CNN) -- Thousands of firearms have gone missing from manufacturers' inventories since 2009 "without a record of being legally sold," according to a report released Thursday by a gun control advocacy group.

The report by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence put the number of missing weapons at 16,485.

"It is shocking that gun makers are so oblivious to public safety that they lose track of thousands of guns every year," Henigan, acting president of the Brady Center, said in a statement. "Given the lethality of its product, the gun industry has a special duty to act responsibly. Instead, it has a scandalous record of carelessness."

The Brady Center report suggests that some guns may never have had serial numbers stamped into them, making them virtually impossible to trace. The group says that the missing guns are often used by criminals precisely because they are so hard to trace.
The report does not mention which manufacturers are reported to having missing firearms. The Brady Center says the data was collected from a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives report that was presented to the gun industry last month.

But the report also states that ATF conducts their compliance examinations at only about 20% of gun dealers and manufacturers each year, and says as a result, "The 16,485 'missing' guns are likely a vast undercount of the total number of guns that disappeared from gun manufacturers in the last two and a half years."

Andrew Molchan, Publisher of American Firearms Industry Magazine, slammed the report in a statement to CNN.

"The Brady spin and implication that some manufacturers, whose names are not mentioned so we can't check the charges, are knowingly selling guns before they are logged into the manufacturer's records is absolutely ridiculous," Molchan said.

According to ATF statistics, more than 5 million firearms were made in the United States in 2008 by about 4,487 manufacturers. The federal law enforcement agency is in charge of inspecting companies that make and sell firearms to make sure they are in compliance with federal laws.

The ATF says about 600 agents did more than 10,000 inspections last year, but the Brady Center says the agency isn't able to do enough because it lacks manpower and money.

The ATF said it had not read the report and would not comment.

The Brady Center is an advocacy group for tightened gun laws and was named after Jim Brady, President Ronald Reagan's press secretary, who was shot in the head in the attempted assassination of Reagan in 1981.

http://cnn.site.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?expire=&title=Report%3A+Manufacturers+lost+track+of+more+than+16%2C000+guns+since+2009+-+CNN.com&urlID=459617937&action=cpt&partnerID=211911&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2011%2FUS%2F09%2F01%2Fmissing.guns.report%2F

Gunning for the truth

By Boston Herald Editorial Staff  |   Thursday, September 1, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com/  |  Editorials

The man on whose watch the now infamous “Fast and Furious” anti-gun trafficking operation went afoul has now been sent off to where he will no longer be an embarrassment to the Obama administration.

Ah, we must be approaching another election season.

Kenneth Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms since 2009, will become a senior adviser on forensic science in the Office of Legal Policy, where presumably he won’t get into any more trouble.

Also being thrown under the Obama re-election bus was U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke, who oversaw prosecutions related to that same operation.

The idea behind Fast and Furious was to go after gun smugglers selling their wares to Mexican drug cartels. That was the idea, anyway. But the execution of the 15-month operation was flawed in the extreme. ATF lost track of at least 2,000 guns sold as part of the program. Two of the guns were found at the scene of a shootout in the Arizona desert last December in which a U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed. Other ATF-bought guns were found at crime scenes in Mexico and on our side of the border.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been investigating the Fast and Furious operation. In the course of that probe they found e-mails indicating that Melson had been regularly informed about problems with the operation. The committee rather wisely isn’t abandoning its investigation just because Melson has been allowed to take the fall.

In fact, when questioned by congressional investigators Melson alluded to his frustration with Justice Department officials who had prohibited him from testifying before Congress for months.

“There are still many questions to be answered about what happened  . . .  and who else bears responsibility,” said Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).

No kidding! The committee shouldn’t stop just when things are getting interesting.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/editorials/view.bg?articleid=1362827

Obama shakes up gun agency over botched Mexico sting

By Jeremy Pelofsky | Reuters – 19 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration announced on Tuesday a major shake-up of the U.S. agency that botched an attempt to track arms flowing to drug cartels in Mexico after weapons were allowed to flow freely across the border.

Kenneth Melson, who has been acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was reassigned after admitting mistakes in the sting operation meant to try to crack down on weapons reaching violent drug gangs from U.S. gun stores.

In further fallout from the operation, the U.S. attorney for Arizona, Dennis Burke, has resigned effective immediately and the lead prosecutor on the case, Emory Hurley, has been reassigned too, according to an Obama administration official.

Another administration official said the shake-up at ATF was a chance for a "fresh start given everything they've gone through lately."

The sting operation, dubbed "Fast and Furious," has spawned congressional and internal Justice Department probes and put the Obama administration on the defensive about whether dangerous weapons were knowingly allowed to cross the border.

Authorities had hoped they would be able to follow the guns to cartel leaders, but ATF agents did not track the weapons after they were transferred from the initial buyer to others who smuggled them across the border. Some agents have testified that they were not allowed to continue the pursuit.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Melson both issued statements but steered clear of any comments about the controversy. Holder has referred the entire matter to the department's inspector general for an investigation.

Melson will be reassigned to the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy as an adviser on forensic science, the Justice Department said. The U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Todd Jones, will serve as acting ATF director starting on Wednesday.

MEXICO COMPLAINS ABOUT GUNS FLOWING

Mexican authorities have complained bitterly about the flow of guns from the United States across the border where gangs have battled with each other and with the Mexican authorities, straining ties between the two countries.

Some 42,000 have died since 2006 as a result of the turf wars. The congressional investigation has turned up evidence that guns sold in the sting have been showing up at numerous crime scenes in the United States and in Mexico.

U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry died in a December 2010 shootout on the American side of the border and two guns found there have been traced to the sting. It is not yet known if those guns were used to fire the fatal shots.

Some of the weapons recovered at crime scenes include powerful AK-47s and .50 caliber rifles.

Republicans in the U.S. Congress have been demanding the Obama administration explain who knew what and when about the ATF program, which was conceived of and run out of the agency's Phoenix division.

"There are still many questions to be answered about what happened in Operation Fast and Furious and who else bears responsibility," said Republican Representative Darrell Issa, chairman of the House of Representatives' Oversight Committee which is probing the matter.

"But these changes are warranted and offer an opportunity for the Justice Department to explain the role other officials and offices played in the infamous efforts to allow weapons to flow to Mexican drug cartels," he said.

For years the ATF has been without a director confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The position has been the source of tension between advocates and opponents of gun control.

President Barack Obama has nominated Andrew Traver of the agency's Chicago office to the job, but the gun industry has opposed him. Melson is a career federal employee.

Obama will need to nominate someone to fill the U.S. Attorney post. Burke previously served as chief of staff to Janet Napolitano when she was Arizona governor. He was interviewed earlier this month by congressional investigators, a spokeswoman for Issa said.

Melson was interviewed on July 4 by congressional investigators. At that time he acknowledged mistakes had been made and other law enforcement agencies had had critical information that they did not share about their

http://news.yahoo.com/atf-chief-reassigned-botched-sting-161949768.html