Mexico still waiting for answers on Fast and Furious gun program

Top Mexican officials say the U.S. kept them in the dark. One official was stunned to learn that the cartel hit men who killed her brother had assault rifles from Fast and Furious in their arsenal.

By Ken Ellingwood, Richard A. Serrano and Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times
5:00 PM PDT, September 19, 2011
Reporting from Mexico City and Washington

Last fall's slaying of Mario Gonzalez, the brother of a Mexican state prosecutor, shocked people on both sides of the border. Sensational news reports revealed that cartel hit men had tortured Gonzalez, and forced him to make a videotaped "confession" that his high-powered sister was on the take.

But American authorities concealed one disturbing fact about the case from their Mexican counterparts: U.S. federal agents had allowed AK-47 assault rifles later found in the killers' arsenal to be smuggled across the border under the notorious Fast and Furious gun-trafficking program.

U.S. officials also kept mum as other weapons linked to Fast and Furious turned up at dozens of additional Mexican crime scenes, with an unconfirmed toll of at least 150 people killed or wounded.

Months after the deadly lapses in the program were revealed in the U.S. media — prompting congressional hearings and the reassignment of the acting chief of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — top Mexican officials say American authorities have still not offered them a proper accounting of what went wrong.

Marisela Morales, Mexico's attorney general and a longtime favorite of American law enforcement agents in Mexico, told The Times that she first learned about Fast and Furious from news reports. And to this day, she said, U.S. officials have not briefed her on the operation gone awry, nor have they apologized.

"At no time did we know or were we made aware that there might have been arms trafficking permitted," Morales, Mexico's highest-ranking law enforcement official, said in a recent interview. "In no way would we have allowed it, because it is an attack on the safety of Mexicans."

Morales said she did not want to draw conclusions before the outcome of U.S. investigations, but that deliberately letting weapons "walk" into Mexico — with the intention of tracing the guns to drug cartels — would represent a "betrayal" of a country enduring a drug war that has killed more than 40,000 people. U.S. agents lost track of hundreds of weapons under the program.

Concealment of the bloody toll of Fast and Furious took place despite official pronouncements of growing cooperation and intelligence-sharing in the fight against vicious Mexican drug-trafficking organizations. The secrecy also occurred as President Felipe Calderon and other senior Mexican officials complained bitterly, time and again, about the flow of weapons into Mexico from the U.S.

Patricia Gonzalez, the top state prosecutor in Chihuahua at the time of her brother's 2010 kidnapping, noted that she had worked closely with U.S. officials for years and was stunned that she did not learn until many months later, through media reports, about the link between his death and Fast and Furious weapons.

"The basic ineptitude of these officials [who ordered the Fast and Furious operation] caused the death of my brother and surely thousands more victims," Gonzalez said.

Fast and Furious weapons have also been linked to other high-profile shootings. On May 24, a helicopter ferrying Mexican federal police during an operation in the western state of Michoacan was forced to land after bullets from a powerful Barrett .50-caliber rifle pierced its fuselage and armor-reinforced windshield. Three officers were wounded.

Authorities later captured dozens of drug gang gunmen involved in the attack and seized 70 weapons, including a Barrett rifle, according to a report by U.S. congressional committees. Some of the guns were traced to Fast and Furious.

Email traffic and U.S. congressional testimony by ATF agents and others make clear that American officials purposefully concealed from Mexico's government details of the operation, launched in November 2009 by the ATF field offices in Arizona and New Mexico.

In March 2010, with a growing number of guns lost or showing up at crime scenes in Mexico, ATF officials convened an "emergency briefing" to figure out a way to shut down Fast and Furious. Instead, they decided to keep it going and continue to leave Mexico out of the loop.

Communications also show that the U.S. Embassy, along with the ATF office in Mexico, at least initially, was also kept in the dark.

In July 2010, Darren Gil, the acting ATF attache in Mexico City, asked his supervisors in the U.S. about guns in Mexico but got no answer, according to his testimony before a U.S. congressional committee investigating the matter.

"They were afraid that I was going to either brief the ambassador or brief the government of Mexico officials on it," Gil said.

Part of the reason for not telling Mexican authorities, Gil and others noted, is the widespread corruption among officials in Mexico that has long made some U.S. officials reluctant to share intelligence. By late last year, however, with the kidnapping of Mario Gonzalez and tracing of the AK-47s, some ATF officials were beginning to tell their superiors that it was time to inform the Mexicans.

Carlos Canino, an ATF agent at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, warned headquarters that failure to share the information would have dire consequences for the U.S.-Mexican relationship.

"We need to tell them [Mexico] this, because if we don't tell them this, and this gets out, it was my opinion that the Mexicans would never trust us again," Canino testified to congressional investigators in Washington.

Atty. Gen. Morales said it was not until January that the Mexican government was told of the existence of an undercover program that turned out to be Fast and Furious. At the time, Morales said, Mexico was not provided details.

U.S. officials gave their Mexican counterparts access to information involving a group of 20 suspects arrested in Arizona. These arrests would lead to the only indictment to emerge from Fast and Furious.

"It was then that we learned of that case, of the arms trafficking," Morales told The Times. "They haven't admitted to us that there might have been permitted trafficking. Until now, they continue denying it to us."

In March, after disgruntled ATF agents went to congressional investigators, details of Fast and Furious began to appear in The Times and other U.S. media. By then, two Fast and Furious weapons had been found at the scene of the fatal shooting of a U.S. border agent near Rio Rico, Ariz.

As well, a second agent had been killed near the Mexican city of San Luis Potosi, sending the ATF hierarchy into a "state of panic," ATF supervisor Peter Forcelli said, because of fears the weapons used might have arrived in Mexico as part of Fast and Furious. So far, all the U.S. government has said in the latter case is that one of the weapons was traced to an illegal purchase in the Dallas area.

In June, Canino, the ATF attache, was finally allowed to say something to Atty. Gen. Morales about the weapons used by Mario Gonzalez's captors, thought to be members of the powerful Sinaloa cartel.

"I wanted her to find out from me, because she is an ally of the U.S. government," he testified.

Canino later told congressional investigators that Morales was shocked.

"Hijole!" he recalled her saying, an expression that roughly means, "Oh no!"

Canino testified that Fast and Furious guns showed up at nearly 200 crime scenes.

Mexican Congressman Humberto Benitez Trevino, who heads the justice committee in the Chamber of Deputies, said the number of people killed or wounded by the weapons had probably doubled to 300 since March, when he said confidential information held by Mexican security authorities put the figure at 150. The higher number, he said, was his own estimate.

A former attorney general, Benitez labeled the operation a "failure," but said it did not spell a collapse of the two nations' shared fight against organized crime groups.

"It was a bad business that got out of hand," he said in an interview.

Many Mexican politicians responded angrily when the existence of the program became known in March, with several saying it amounted to a breach of Mexican sovereignty. But much of that anger has subsided, possibly in the interest of not aggravating the bilateral relationship. For Mexico, the U.S. gun problem goes far beyond the Fast and Furious program. Of weapons used in crimes and traced, more than 75% come from the U.S.

"Yes, it was bad and wrong, and you have to ask yourself, what were they thinking?" a senior official in Calderon's administration said, referring to Fast and Furious. "But, given the river of weapons that flows into Mexico from the U.S., do a few more make a big difference?"

Still, Mexican leaders are under pressure to answer questions from their citizens, with very little to go on.

"The evidence is over there [north of the border]," Morales said. "I can't put a pistol to their heads and say, 'Now give it to me or else.' I can't."

ken.ellingwood@latimes.com

richard.serrano@latimes.com

wilkinson@latimes.com

Ellingwood and Wilkinson reported from Mexico City and Serrano from Washington.

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

Gun seller who helped ATF had doubts about the sting

By TBO.com | Los Angeles Times

In the fall of 2009, ATF agents installed a secret phone line and hidden cameras in a ceiling panel and wall at Andre Howard's Lone Wolf gun store.

They gave him one basic instruction: Sell guns to every illegal purchaser who walks through the door.

For 15 months, Howard did as he was told. To customers with phony IDs or wads of cash he normally would have turned away, he sold pistols, rifles and semi-automatics. He was assured by the ATF that they would follow the guns and that the surveillance would lead the agents to the violent Mexican drug cartels on the Southwest border.

When Howard heard nothing about any arrests, he questioned the agents. Keep selling, they told him. So hundreds of thousands of dollars more in weapons, including .50-caliber sniper rifles, walked out the front door of his store in a Glendale, Ariz., strip mall.

He was making a lot of money, but he also feared somebody was going to get hurt.

"Every passing week, I worried about something like that," he said. "I felt horrible and sick."

Late in the night on Dec. 14, in a canyon west of Rio Rico, Ariz., Border Patrol agents came across Mexican bandits preying on illegal immigrants, authorities say.

According to a Border Patrol "Shooting Incident" report, the agents fired two rounds of beanbags from a shotgun. The Mexicans returned fire. One agent fired back with his sidearm, another with his M-4 rifle.

One of the Mexicans, Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, a 33-year-old from Sinaloa, was wounded in the abdomen and legs. Agent Brian Terry — 40, single, a former Marine — also went down. "I'm hit!" he cried.

A fellow agent cradled his friend. "I can't feel my legs," Terry said. "I think I'm paralyzed." A bullet had pierced his aorta. Tall and nearly 240 pounds, Terry was too heavy to carry. They radioed for a helicopter. But Terry was bleeding badly, and he died in his colleague's arms.

The Mexicans left Osorio-Arellanes behind and escaped across the desert, tossing two AK-47 semi-automatics from Howard's store.

000 firearms from the Lone Wolf Trading Co. store and others in southern Arizona were sold under an ATF program called Fast and Furious that allowed "straw purchasers" to walk away with the weapons and turn them over to criminal traffickers. But the agency's plan to trace the guns to the cartels never worked. As the case of the two Lone Wolf AK-47s illustrates, the ATF, with a limited force of agents, did not keep track of them.
 

Some 2,

The Department of Justice in Washington said last week that one other Fast and Furious firearm turned up at a violent crime scene in this country. They have yet to provide further details. They said an additional 28 Fast and Furious weapons were recovered at violent crimes in Mexico. They have not identified those cases either. Mexican government officials maintain that Fast and Furious weapons have been found at some 170 crime scenes in their country.

* * * * *Howard said he does not own a gun, does not hunt and does not belong to the National Rifle Association. His love is helicopters. A former Army pilot, he gives flying lessons. He said he fell into the gun-dealing business 21 years ago only to help support his career as a flight instructor. Howard spoke to a reporter for the first time in depth about why he cooperated with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.


He said he supported law enforcement and never imagined a thousand weapons, or half of the entire Fast and Furious inventory, would "walk" out of his store. And when arrests were not forthcoming, "every passing week I was more stunned," he said.

According to a confidential memo written by assistant federal prosecutor Emory Hurley, "Mr. Howard had expressed concerns about the cooperation he was providing and whether he was endangering himself or implicating himself in a criminal investigation."

Other firearms dealers shared his concerns. At the nearby Scottsdale Gun Club, the proprietor sent an email to Agent David Voth. "I want to help ATF," he said, "but not at the risk of agents' safety because I have some very close friends that are U.S. Border Patrol agents in southern AZ."

Howard recalled that a chubby, bald and "very confident" man named Jaime Avila walked into the store on Jan. 16, 2010, and bought the AK-47s. Under the Fast and Furious protocol, agents were supposed to use the video cameras, surveillance, informants and law enforcement intelligence to follow the weapons and hope they led to drug cartels.

No agents were watching on the hidden cameras or waiting outside to track the firearms when Avila showed up. Howard faxed a copy of the sale paperwork to the ATF "after the firearms were gone," assuming they would catch up. They never did.

From November 2009 through June 2010, according to an ATF agent's email to William Newell, then the special agent-in-charge in Phoenix, Avila walked away with 52 firearms after he "paid approximately $48,000 cash. The firearms consisted of FN 5.7 pistols, 1 Barrett 50 BMG rifle, AK-47 variant rifles, Ruger 9mm handguns, Colt 38 supers, etc."
In spring or early summer 2010 — the exact date is unknown — U.S. immigration officers reportedly stopped Avila at the Arizona border with the two semi-automatics and 30 other weapons. According to two sources close to a congressional investigation into Fast and Furious, the authorities checked with the ATF and were told to release him with the weapons because the ATF was hoping to track the guns to cartel members.

In Washington, ATF officials declined to comment. In Congress, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House investigating committee, and Iowa Sen. Charles E. Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked the Justice Department why Avila was not jailed and the guns seized. They have yet to receive an answer.

The two semi-automatics would turn up again — at the scene of the Terry shooting. According to sources, they were hidden in backpacks and stashed in the desert, ready for Mexican bandits.

When weapons were recovered at the scene of the agent's slaying, ATF officials in Phoenix scrambled. "All these ATF guys were showing up," one law enforcement official recalled. "We were trying to catch suspects and rope up the crime scene, and all the ATF guys were saying they needed the serial numbers! They needed the serial numbers!"

Newell wanted an immediate trace on the semi-automatics, and that afternoon ATF agents showed up at the Lone Wolf store. Howard had heard of Terry's death. "I was scared to death," he said. They asked for his paperwork and matched the serial numbers. "Both of them were in shock, too," he said. "You could tell they were sick."

A little before 8 that night, the Phoenix ATF field office sent out an agency-wide bulletin: The suspect guns were Fast and Furious weapons. In Washington the next morning, then-ATF Acting Director Kenneth E. Melson prepared to notify the Border Patrol.

Avila was arrested and initially held for using a bad address on the purchase form. "This way," Voth emailed the ATF field office, "we do not divulge our current case (Fast and Furious) or the Border Patrol shooting case."

In a subsequent report for Fast and Furious classified "Law Enforcement Sensitive," agents said Avila was buying for a Phoenix-based gun trafficking group that hid the weapons in vehicle compartments and drove them over the border from Arizona and Texas. The trafficking group used cash from drug sales to buy the weapons. The AK-47 was their weapon of choice, bought after cocaine and methamphetamines warehoused in Baja California were shipped north and sold in this country.

Other Avila weapons from Howard's store wound up at a Glendale home and a Phoenix automotive business, both "firearm drop locations," according to the ATF report. Still more were recovered in Sonora, Mexico, not far from Rio Rico.

In January, Avila and 19 others were charged in the straw purchasing. It was the only indictment to come out of 15 months of Fast and Furious. Asked at the news conference touting the charges whether the ATF allowed guns to "walk," Newell, the ATF field supervisor, responded, "Hell no!"

His denial and the agent's death provoked a small group of ATF whistleblowers. They contacted Congress, and investigators asked the agency whether Terry was shot by Fast and Furious weapons.

The ATF replied that neither semi-automatic fired the fatal bullet.
In truth, an FBI ballistics report could determine whether one of the semi-automatics or a third weapon killed Terry.

Avila pleaded not guilty to the firearms charges, was released on bail and has yet to stand trial.

---

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Gun control bill in Gov. Brown's hands

A measure to bar Californians from openly carrying weapons is supported by Sheriff Baca and LAPD Chief Beck, but opposed by 2nd Amendment activists who pack heat in coffee shops and restaurants.

Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times
September 17, 2011
Reporting from Sacramento

On Gov. Jerry Brown's desk is a bid to bar Californians from openly carrying firearms, legislation that could open a new front in the state's decades-old gun control debate.

The measure, aimed at an increasingly popular tactic used by 2nd Amendment activists, would make California the first state since 1987 to outlaw the controversial practice of publicly displaying a weapon.

The governor — a gun owner — has not taken an official position on the bill, passed by the Legislature last week. He has argued both sides of gun control issues in the past.
Existing law allows the open carrying of unloaded firearms. The measure before Brown would thwart activists who stage "open carry" demonstrations and want, ultimately, the right to legally display loaded guns. Such aficionados drew national attention last year when they walked into Starbucks outlets in the Bay Area and elsewhere, pistols holstered on their hips.

Participants in the open-carry movement, contending it is a way to show that normal people pack heat, take advantage of most states' relative silence about the practice. Only seven states, including Illinois and Texas, prohibit the open toting of guns, and most of their laws were adopted in the 1980s or decades earlier, according to the Legal Community Against Violence and other groups involved in the debate.

Gun control advocates hope that California will now pave the way for the rest of the country to outlaw the practice.

"Openly carrying a gun with [an ammunition] magazine in your back pocket into Starbucks and other establishments creates a culture of fear and intimidation,'' said Brian Malte, director for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "It is irresponsible and dangerous.''

"People in other states look to see what California does,'' he said. If Brown signs the bill, "other states will follow suit.''

Open-carry proponents say that the practice is harmless and that California lawmakers are pursuing an agenda to disarm the public.

"There is no reason to do this other than a general dislike of gun rights," said John Pierce, a spokesman for OpenCarry.org, an online clearinghouse for the movement.
He said no crimes have been committed in the name of open-carry advocacy in recent years as the movement has gained national attention. And he noted that activists have enshrined the right to openly carry firearms in Alaska, Arizona and Wyoming.

If California prohibits the practice, he said, it will be going against the grain. "The national trend is exactly the opposite direction."

The Legislature's proposal, by Assemblyman Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge), would make public display of a firearm punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine, with some exceptions — for uniformed police officers, for example, and military personnel in parades. It would not alter citizens' right to obtain permits from local police agencies to carry concealed weapons.

Portantino said open-carry supporters don't realize how they complicate matters for police, who can have a hard time distinguishing between armed criminals and armed activists.

"Open carry puts law enforcement and families at risk on Main Street, California," the lawmaker said. "It wastes law enforcement time and attention dealing with unnecessary 911 calls about gun-toting men and women in coffee shops, restaurants and malls."

His measure was endorsed by Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, the California Police Chiefs Assn. and Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck.

"We need to limit the number of guns in public, not increase them by wearing them on our hips," Beck said. "This is not Dodge City…. We are a modern civilized community, and we should work on peaceful solutions to end criminal behavior."

This summer, former LAPD officer and county fire captain Gene McCarthy walked into Tony's Italian Deli in El Segundo with dozens of other open-carry advocates, wearing a holstered 9mm Glock and a magazine of ammunition. He said no patrons seemed disturbed by the display of firepower.

McCarthy contended that California will be safer if upstanding citizens can continue to display their guns, because criminals will be less likely to act if their potential victim is armed.

"I personally saw the grief and misery caused by violence," he said in a recent interview. "We have to protect ourselves and our families."

Brown has until early October to act on the bill, and his past comments and actions on the issue of guns have sent a mixed message. In April, he told a gathering of police officers that it is natural for people to have guns in their homes, and said he owned three firearms.

During a 1992 presidential debate, he argued for a moratorium on gun sales. In 2009, then-Atty. Gen. Brown filed a brief favoring the National Rifle Assn.'s attempt to overturn a gun ban in Chicago. "California citizens could be deprived of the constitutional right to possess handguns in their homes," he wrote.

Last year, when Brown was California's attorney general, his office filed a brief to uphold the Riverside County conviction of a man for breaking the law by carrying a loaded, concealed weapon in a vehicle, despite the man's argument that the law infringed on his constitutional right to bear arms.

Asked last year about a bill similar to Portantino's, Brown told the Contra Costa Times, a Bay Area newspaper, "I want to know how many abuses there have been" that justify the bill. He added, "I always look with some skepticism on changing the way things have been done."

Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor who has written about the history of gun control in California, said there is an ironic parallel between the open-carry zeitgeist and the event that led to the state's first modern gun control laws.

In 1967, armed members of the Black Panthers marched through the state Capitol to protest police attempts to disarm them. A provoked Legislature responded by passing what was then one of the most sweeping gun control measures in the country, banning the carrying of a loaded gun in public.
patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-guns-20110917,0,7196292,print.story

Federal Judge Bars Enforcement Of Doctor Gun Question Law

September 15, 2011

A new state law prohibiting health care providers from asking patients about guns cannot be enforced while the merits of the new law are being litigated, a federal judge in Miami ruled Wednesday in a temporary victory for physicians in the battle between the First and Second Amendments.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke granted a temporary injunction to a group of physicians who filed suit over the Firearm Owners Protection Act, which was passed by lawmakers in May and signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott.

In a 22-page ruling, Cooke dismissed the argument that allowing health care providers to query their patients on gun ownership violated the patient’s Second Amendment right to bear arms under the U.S. Constitution.

“A practitioner who counsels a patient on firearm safety, even when entirely irrelevant to medical care or safety, does not affect nor interfere with the patient’s right to continue to own or use firearms,” Cooke wrote.

The lawsuit was filed in June on behalf of a group of physicians who argued their First Amendment right of free speech was being violated if they could not speak freely with their patients about guns. Health care providers sometimes ask patients, especially those with young children, if they own guns and how those weapons are stored.

Witnesses testified during legislative debate that the queries were part of a battery of questions often given to patients to address potential health hazards in the home such as the storage of poisons or whether the patient owns a pool.

“It is hard to imagine that even legislators who voted for this bill thought that the state could legislate the doctor-patient relationship – in this case by imposing a gag order on doctors prohibiting them from asking about firearms and ammunition,” said Howard Simon of the ACLU of Florida, which opposed the law, following the ruling Wednesday.

The measure (HB 155) was backed heavily by the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups.

Cooke said the law doesn’t just infringe on doctors’ speech rights, it restricts the right of patients to receive information about safety issues.

Rep. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, said he stood by the intent of the bill, which he said was to protect the privacy of gun owners. “Direct questions about firearm ownership when it has nothing to do with medical care is simply pushing a political agenda, which doesn’t belong in exam rooms,” Brodeur said. “If physicians are worried about safety then I encourage them to give the safety talk to all patients. It is important to note that firearm safety talks are not prohibited at all.”

That is a reference to the fact that bill was watered down considerably from its original language, allowing for doctors to discuss some safety issues if they believe someone might be in danger because of the presence of a gun. In some discussions of the legislation this year, the example of a suicidal patient who says he plans to use a gun to kill himself was used. A doctor might be justified in that case in asking if the patient actually has a gun.

Brodeur said he thought that if doctors were discussing gun safety with all patients, instead of only with those patients who they know have guns, it would likely make the state even more safe because more people would have that talk with a physician.

Marion Hammer, former NRA national president and executive director of Unified Sportsmen of Florida who lobbied extensively in favor of HB 155 didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But through the debate over the measure, Hammer said the difference between discussion by doctors of guns as a potential safety issue and things like poisons or swimming pools is the constitutional protection afforded by the constitution to the keeping of guns.

By granting the injunction Cooke ruled that the physicians in the case have a substantial likelihood of success in their pending challenge and that granting the injunction would not harm the public interest.

“The state’s interest in assuring the privacy of this piece of information from practitioners does not appear to be a compelling one,” wrote Cooke, noting that states and the federal government already heavily regulate firearms ownership and sales.

“Information regarding gun ownership is not sacrosanct.”
By Michael Peltier
The News Service of Florida

Bloomberg Presses Blueprint for Ending Gun Rights

by Raquel Okyay (more by this author)

Posted 09/13/2011 ET

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is on a war path against gun owners – again. This time he is exploiting an incident that occurred over Labor Day weekend between NYC police officers and one armed criminal gunman that resulted in the tragic shooting and death of an innocent bystander.

Bloomberg is calling for Federal involvement, regulation and enforcement of gun control rules in both NYC and in every city, state, in the Nation. Except he neglects to tell us that gun control rules does not reduce violent crime rates. Instead his real goal is to advertise and promote his personal project “A Blueprint for Federal Action on Illegal Guns” rather than addressing the task of reducing crimes in the city that elected him mayor.

“We cannot tolerate it; there are just too many guns on the streets and we have to do something about it,” he said. Bloomberg was very specific about what needs to be done to tackle the problem: “We need the federal government to step up. Both ends of Pennsylvania Ave., both sides of the aisle.” The New American

MAIG, the outfit created and funded by multi billionaire Bloomberg does just that – it seeks to circumvent Congress through Federal regulation of gun laws by means of 7 Federal agencies of enforcement. In their Executive Summary, they concede “the coalition has identified 40 opportunities in six areas where the Administration could enhance enforcement of existing laws without Congressional action.”

It means having the Obama administration monitor, restrain and prevent private gun ownership, sales, and production without the consent of the People via their representatives in Congress, and worse, with an ultimate goal of participating in a full-ledged gun grab from innocent Americans, arguing all along that criminal behavior is not the cause of violent crime – gun ownership is. We cannot kid ourselves; it can happen if we let our guard down.

Bloomberg’s plan is another level of bureaucratic censorship that places an additional burden on law abiding Americans who are in the business of owning or selling firearms. Under MAIG guidelines innocent Americans must prove their innocence and answer to unelected Federal agencies, which are making up rules as they go along. This is a clear infringement upon our right to keep and bear arms in the privacy of our own home.

Indeed in violation of the 2^nd and 4^th Amendments to the United States Constitution if enacted, not that Mr. Bloomberg pays much attention to the Constitution, as indicated by his constant bickering of how all Americans should conduct their lives. He is the perpetual gun hating, United Nations’ loving, Nanny-state Mayor.

Select recommendations included in ‘Blueprint for Federal Action’ and the Federal agencies that will enforce the rules:

-Improving gun background checks: Perform background checks on employees of federally licensed dealers during audit inspections -ATF, FBI. (Burden on innocent people.)

-Policing problematic gun shows: Investigate private sellers at gun shows who appear to be unlawfully engaged in the business - ATF. (Violation of 4^th Amendment.)

-Supplementing ATF Resources and Improving Its Structure: Establish an Interstate Firearms Trafficking Unit run by a Deputy Chief for Interstate Firearms Trafficking- ATF, DOJ, OMB. (Yet another layer of control.)

-More Effective Crime Gun Tracing: Create a new Office of Tactical Trace Analysis at the National Tracing Center to determine which dealers have a high number of traces compared to their sales volume - ATF, DOG, OMG. (Big brother watching You.)

-More Effective Partnerships Among Government, Law Enforcement, Community Groups and Responsible Gun Industry Representatives: Increase support for community programs that generate intelligence about firearms trafficking - DOJ, OMB. (Propaganda.)

-Enforcement of Existing Laws on Especially Dangerous Firearms: Resume enforcement of the ban on the importation of non-sporting purpose firearms- DHS, ATF, DOJ. (Violation of 2^nd Amendment.)

Gun control legislation serves one purpose: To limit the amount of guns that are manufactured and distributed to law abiding American citizens. Just because Mayor Bloomberg hates guns does not mean we put the Constitution to the side -- ignore its meaning.  If he thinks with power and money he can bypass the Constitution, he is dead wrong.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=46129

Jeri Muoio's gun ban at West Palm Beach city hall draws fire

By Andrew Abramson

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Posted: 10:55 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011

Mayor Jeri Muoio might negotiate on some issues, but when it comes to guns in city hall, she holds her ground: No weapons allowed.

She has even invoked a rare executive order to ban weapons in the building where the city carries out its business, citing the safety of residents.

"You absolutely cannot come into this building with a gun," Muoio said at a city commission meeting last month. "If you're coming into city hall, leave your guns or weapons at home or in your car."

Muoio's stance is drawing the ire of pro-gun-rights lawmakers and lobbyists, who say she's not abiding by a state law set to take effect Oct. 1.

The legislation says state gun laws override local regulation of firearms and ammunition, and that if any "county, agency, municipality, district, or other entity" doesn't abide by the laws, the official who is responsible can be fined up to $5,000 and removed from office by the governor.

On Tuesday, the West Palm Beach City Commission voted to change its ordinance to meet the state requirements. That meant taking out references to guns in city law and referring residents to state law. Final approval is set for Sept. 19.

Muoio said the city would comply but added, "I think the legislature got it wrong on this." And she and City Attorney Claudia McKenna said they don't believe complying with state law means allowing guns in city hall.

'Meetings' at issue

According to state statute, guns are banned in "any meeting of the governing body of a county, public school district, municipality or special district."

McKenna, at a meeting with commissioners last month, said state law clearly bans weapons in "meetings of government bodies." But she added: "Of course, we have continuous meetings in this building."

Commissioner Kimberly Mitchell said the law should apply to all public meetings in city hall, including citizen task forces, since they make recommendations to the commission. Mitchell said the city doesn't have the manpower to police residents roaming city hall with guns while keeping others out of meetings.

At the same time, Mitchell questioned Muoio's executive order banning guns, saying the mayor can't supersede state law.

"While that might be uncomfortable, if that's what the law is, that's what the law is," Mitchell said.

Marion Hammer, a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association in Tallahassee and a former NRA president, said that state law bans guns only in official meetings with the city commission - not typical day-to-day staff meetings that take place in city hall. A task force isn't a "governing body," she said.

Florida Atlantic University constitutional law professor Timothy Lenz said he's never seen the law interpreted, and he understands both sides of the argument.

Any public meeting in the state, for instance, has to be conducted in the sunshine, Lenz said. "That's not just like the policymaking bodies, but any official body (like a task force)," he said. However, he added, "whether that would be considered a governing authority, I don't know."

State Sen. Greg Evers, R-Baker, who co-sponsored the state law, said he interprets it to mean citizens can bring guns into city halls. What they can't do is walk into a room where a public meeting is being held, he said.

"When I go into city hall or the courthouse, I always leave my gun in the truck. I always err on the side of caution," Evers said. "But as long as you don't carry that gun into a meeting, they cannot restrict you from having it."

Concern over Giffords shooting

West Palm Beach officials became sensitive about guns in January, when then-Mayor Lois Frankel noticed that William McCray, an off-duty Palm Beach County sheriff's deputy and outspoken city critic, was carrying a gun. Frankel called a halt to the meeting, claiming there were technical difficulties, then ordered Police Chief Delsa Bush to remove McCray.

Asked about it afterward, Frankel cited the shooting at an Arizona political rally a few weeks earlier of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords as a reason for heightened concern. After that West Palm commission meeting, the city posted signs at the city hall entrance, banning guns in the building.

McCray contends state law allows him to have a gun at a city meeting, since he is a law enforcement officer.

Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Teri Barbera, however, said that while her agency allows off-duty deputies to be armed, its policy is to respect the wishes of city and county commissions, as well as courthouse judges, who often don't allow guns while in session.

State Rep. Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach, said "a lot of well-intended laws and ordinances are going to be wiped out because of the change in state law."

Guns allowed at Capitol

But Pafford noted that guns are allowed in the state Capitol in Tallahassee. Residents with a concealed weapons permit go through a metal detector, show their weapon and then are escorted by a law enforcement officer .

Pafford, who was an aide to Frankel when she was a state representative, recalled that she once received a death threat and an officer was stationed outside her legislative office.

Frankel said Friday she didn't recall that incident but didn't doubt it, because there was political heat over abortion then.

As for Muoio, Hammer wants her fined when the new law takes effect.

"The mayor is willfully and knowingly violating the law under the color of authority," Hammer said.

Muoio insists she's just protecting residents and city employees.

"Our intention," Muoio said, "is to keep the people in this building safe."

Florida forces cities to pull local gun laws

State begins enforcing statute that bars firearms ordinances

By LIZETTE ALVAREZ New York Times

Published 12:01 a.m., Sunday, September 11, 2011 MIAMI -- \The signs -- "No Guns Allowed" -- are being stripped from many Florida parks, government buildings, libraries and airports. And local ordinances that bar people from shooting weapons in their yards, firing up into the air or taking a gun into an airport are coming off the books.

Since 1987, local governments in Florida have been barred from creating and enforcing their own gun ordinances.

Few cities and counties paid attention, though, believing that gun laws in places like Miami might need to be more restrictive than the state laws applicable in rural Apalachicola, for example.

But this year the state Legislature passed a new law that forces counties and municipalities to do away with, and stop enforcing, their own firearms and ammunition ordinances by Oct. 1. Mayors, council and commission members will risk a $5,000 fine and removal from office if they "knowingly and willfully violate" the law. Towns that enforce their ordinances risk a $100,000 fine.

To comply with the law, cities and counties are poring over their gun ordinances, repealing laws and removing gun-related signs.

In Palm Beach County, that means removing ordinances that ban people from taking guns into county government buildings and local parks and from firing guns in some of its most urban areas.

State lawmakers who supported the bill, which was backed by the National Rifle Association, said complaining local governments were overreacting.

"The notion that a city ordinance stops violence is patently absurd," said state Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Fort Walton Beach Republican who sponsored the bill. "People lawfully carrying weapons with permits are rarely part of the problem."

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Florida-forces-cities-to-pull-local-gun-laws-2164827.php#ixzz1Xe2lFVI3