“Holder? Holder?”
They ask to an empty room…
Firearms from the ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious weapons trafficking investigation turned up at the scenes of at least 11 violent crimes in the U.S., as well as at a Border Patrol agent’s slaying in southern Arizona last year, the Justice Department has acknowledged to Congress.
Morality, Nanny State, People, Politics | tree hugging sister | 
August 17, 2011 5:18 pm
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Let’s see……
1418 weapons “circulated” through F&F, with 59 weapons confirmed with violent crimes, including murders.
That comes to 41.6078984 firearms per 1000 violent crimes in the United States.
The per capita murder rate by firearms in the United States is .0279271 per 1000 people.
41.6078984 > .0279271, by a factor of 1490, a significant difference by any measure.
Now, the astute among the readers of this blog will notice that this compares “weapons and crimes” against “people and crimes”. Those same astute readers may object to this comparison, as it could be statistically and logically invalid. Those astute readers would have a point.
To those astute readers I would reply that one aim of “Project Gun Runner” and “Operation Fast & Furious” was to pin gun violence in Mexico on the Second Amendment rights enjoyed here in the United States. Rights exercised by honest and responsible Americans every day, to the point that while America has the highest gun ownership rate in the world, we are but #8 on the murder by firearm rate list. That’s a pretty lame effort of framing, given the overwhelming evidence against it. But they did try, and try hard.
Hence, I feel that this comparison is proper if somewhat emotive, especially given how the BATF and other Federal agencies have screwed up the lives of thousands so badly. Not to mention the diplomatic relationships with Mexico. I would also note that the common element of these two datums is “crimes”, which certainly describes the behavior of many Federal officials in this matter. Including Attorney General Holder.
So I stand by my calculations.
Astutely done Jeff…
Good job, Jeff. The implication is that the feds have a lot of blood on their hands.
Just remembered. This isn’t the first time the feds bootlegged guns to bad guys south of the border. Back in the ’80s, Ocean Township (NJ) cops raided a factory that was knocking off Tech 9s and Uzi copies. They were making hundreds of them based on designs stolen (?) from Eagle Arms Co. of North Carolina. The operator allegedly was a Lithuanian immigrant engineer.
The detectives working the job ran into a wall put up by ATF. Years later, he discovered the story was bogus: the feds were running the guns to the Contras using Iranian oil money. I know this because I worked the story when I was a reporter and knew the detectives very well. Nobody knows what happened after that. Maybe ATF’ll come clean about that someday, too.
Does this site have an interpretative page for non-astutes? You know, like the SAP channel on the television.
I’m just askin’, just for disclosure purposes, you understand.