Gun Control 11

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Posted 10/23/11

THERE’S NO ESCAPING THE GUN

A prosperous community discovers that mass murder is an equal opportunity threat

By Julius (Jay) Wachtel. A paunchy middle-aged man turned away from the grisly scene and headed for his car. Eight were dead or dying, including his ex-wife. Scott Dekraai had just set a record that would go down in infamy.

Acquaintances said that Dekraai, 41, had been a pleasant, easy going man until a 2007 tugboat accident that killed a shipmate and left him partly disabled. His life quickly unraveled. Within months a court order was filed directing him to stay away from his father in law, who claimed that Dekraai had beat him up. (The order, which required that Dekraai temporarily give up his guns, expired one year later.) Dekraai’s wife Michelle, a hair stylist, filed for divorce, and they became embroiled in a child custody dispute that would drag on for years. She told coworkers at a beauty salon that she feared he would kill her.

No one took it seriously. After all, this was Seal Beach, a tony Southern California coastal community of 25,000 where such things don’t happen. Who could predict that Dekraii would don a bulletproof vest, invade Salon Meritage and blaze away with three large-caliber pistols?

But on October 12, 2011 that’s exactly what he did.

“He stopped to reload, and then continued gunning people down,” said Orange County D.A. Tony Rackauckas. “He was not satisfied with murdering his intended target, his ex-wife. For almost two minutes, Dekraai shot victim after victim, executing eight people by shooting them in the head and chest. He was not done. He then walked out of the salon and shot a ninth victim, a male, who was sitting nearby in a parked Range Rover.”

In addition to Michelle, who was first to be gunned down, Dekraai murdered the shop owner, Randy Fannin, stylists Victoria Buzo and Laura Elody, Christie Wilson, a nail artist, customers Michele Fast and Lucia Kondas, and David Caouette, 64, a passer-by whom Dekraai encountered in the parking lot. Laura Elody’s mother Hattie Stretz, who was visiting the salon, was gravely wounded but survived.

Dekraai (he quickly surrendered) wasn’t a criminal in the conventional sense. Neither was Orange County’s previous record holder. In 1976 Edward Charles Allaway, a 37-year old custodian at Cal State Fullerton, turned a semiautomatic rifle he bought at K-Mart on fellow employees, killing seven and wounding two. Allaway’s wife had just sued for divorce. Psychiatrists diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a mental hospital, where he remains to the present day.

Los Angeles County’s mass murder record is held by Bruce Pardo. He, too, was no ordinary criminal. On Christmas eve 2008 the 45-year old, freshly divorced engineer barged into the residence of his former in-laws with five pistols and a homemade flamethrower that he had concealed under a Santa suit. By the time he was done nine were dead including his ex-wife, her parents, a sister, a nephew, and two brothers and their wives. Like Dekaai and Allaway, Pardo had no criminal record. Unlike them, he had the good sense to kill himself.

Learning theory says that behavior is shaped by watching others. While America isn’t the only place where disturbed persons use guns to release their demons (keep in mind the recent massacre in Norway) the frequency of these events – what we’ve referred to as their “ordinariness” – suggests that there’s a lot of monkey-see, monkey-do going on in the U.S.A. In March we wrote about the Tucson massacre, where an college dropout with mental issues shot and killed six and wounded thirteen including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D - Ariz.) A post in August 2010 spoke of a disaffected truck driver who shot and killed eight co-workers after being fired for stealing beer. We took that opportunity to review six other multiple-victim shootings between January and July 2010 that seemed motivated by no purpose other than letting off steam.

Here is an update. Keep in mind that this is only a sample, as to list all such incidents would take a lot more than a blog post.

We’ve long argued that the availability of guns overwhelms our ability to prevent their misuse. According to the NRA there are nearly 300 million firearms in the U.S., including 100 million handguns, with about 4 million new guns entering circulation each year. That may actually be an underestimate. According to ATF in 2010 American gun makers produced a whopping 5,403,714 firearms. Only four percent were exported.

Here’s one old refrain: “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Here’s another: “Let’s enforce the laws we have.” Federal and state laws bar convicted felons, persons adjudged as mentally defective and individuals under active restraining orders from possessing firearms. But our examples aren’t about ordinary criminals. Our chronology of terror includes only one ex-con. True, some of the shooters were emotional basket cases, yet none had been adjudicated mentally ill, the threshold before laws kick in. And while three were under active restraining orders, trusting in a piece of paper to convince an embittered man (all the killers were male) to give up his guns seems a very, very long shot.

It’s for such reasons that the NRA promotes gun carry laws. Armed citizens, it insists, can keep shootings from happening in the first place. Well, good luck with that. An armed citizen was present at the Tucson massacre. He didn’t intervene, partly for fear that he might shoot an innocent person, and partly because responding officers might shoot him. As for the episode in Seal Beach, it would have taken snipers lying in wait to repel Dekraai’s attack. And what’s to be done about the many incidents that take place inside a home? Should family members pack guns to the dinner table? Should spouses always be armed? And when it’s time to go night-night, who puts away their Glock first?

Carrying pro-gun arguments to their inevitable, ridiculous conclusion highlights the profound intractability of America’s gun dilemma. But while we can’t rely on the law to work miracles, maybe we can promote the notion of watching one’s temper and using guns wisely.

Consider, for example, that the UCR attributes at least one in four homicides in 2010 to “arguments,” and that these led to the deaths of 323 wives, 60 husbands, 28 mothers, 62 fathers, 39 sons and 15 daughters. NIJ reports that about 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are assaulted by an intimate partner each year, and that as many as half of all female homicide victims (2,918 women were feloniously slain in 2010) were murdered by their partners.

Domestic murder-suicide has become such a common occurrence that it merits its own NIJ page. As one might expect, virtually all are by gun: “More incidents of murder-suicide occur with guns than with any other weapon. Access to a gun is a major risk factor in familicide because it allows the perpetrator to act on his or her rage and impulses.” According to the Violence Policy Center there were 591 such deaths during the first six months of 2005. Three out of four involved an intimate partner, and three out of four happened at home. Researchers coined the category of “family annihilator” to describe men who go berserk and gun down everyone, including the kids and the dog. Nearly all (92 percent) of murder-suicides are done with guns, so their availability is thought crucial:

The most common catalytic component in murder-suicide is the use of a firearm. Firearms allow shooters to act on impulse...The presence of a gun allows the offender to quickly and easily kill a greater number of victims. If there had not been easy access to a firearm, these deaths may simply have been injuries, or not have occurred at all. Efforts should be made to restrict access to firearms where there is an increased risk of murder-suicide, for example where an individual has a history of domestic violence and/or has threatened suicide.

Well, good luck with that, too. We’ll instead peddle our favorite remedy, a national campaign to alert the public to the problems of gun violence. Let’s remind everyone that rage and guns are a lethal combination and that early intervention by friends, family members and mental health professionals is the best preventive.

Friends may not be able to keep angry friends from owning guns, but they can surely do something. In our gun-crazed culture there is really no alternative.

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RELATED ARTICLES AND REPORTS

Violence Policy Center on murder-suicide Gun buyer record checks miss many mentally ill

Homeless, Mentally Ill, Dead The Elephant in the Room Say Something Gun Crazy Disturbed Person

Safe at Home – Not! A Ticking Time-Bomb

UPDATES

01/02/02 Police called to a condominium early New Year’s morning in tony Coronado, California, found four bodies, three men and a woman, all shot dead in an apparent murder-suicide. At least two of the dead are believed to be officers from a nearby Naval base.

01/02/12 Hours after shooting four partygoers, a Washington state man used an assault rifle to kill a park ranger at a roadblock in Mount Rainier. He exchanged gunfire with responding officers, abandoned his vehicle and fled into the back country. Dead is ranger Margaret Anderson, 34, a mother of two.

12/28/11 On Christmas morning a Texas man upset by his failed marriage used 9mm. and .40 cal. pistols that he owned for “protection” to kill six family members and himself. Dead are Aziz Yazdanpanah, his estranged wife, their two children, ages 14 and 19, his wife’s sister and her husband, and the couple’s 22-year old daughter.

12/18/11 A disgruntled Los Angeles-area electric company employee armed with a pistol shot and killed two supervisors and critically wounded two other employees. He then committed suicide. Witnesses say he deliberately targeted his victims.

12/15/11 A man with a prison record for drugs and guns threw grenades and sprayed fire from an assault weapon in Liege, Belgium, killing three and wounding more than 120, several critically. Nordine Amrani, 33, then killed himself. He had been ordered to appear before police about sexual abuse. He has no known extremist ties.

12/11/11 The Milwaukee Journal reports that legal standards requiring that persons be proven dangerous beyond a reasonable doubt to compel their treatment makes it difficult to help the seriously mentally ill before it’s too late.

12/07/11 A woman who had been denied food stamps stormed a Laredo, Texas welfare office, took the manager hostage at gunpoint, then held off a SWAT team for hours. She eventually shot and killed herself and critically wounded her two children, a boy, 10 and his sister, 12.

11/22/11 Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, 21, the man charged with shooting at the White House with an AK-47 type rifle, was suffering from delusions that an expert said were consistent with paranoid schizophrenia. He bought the weapon in Idaho last March for $550 from Jake Chapman, another 21-year old who was known as “the gun guy.”

11/15/11 Despite Federal regulations requiring them to do so, few States share information about adjudicated mentally ill persons with the NICS, the Federal database used to check whether prospective gun buyers are prohibited from acquiring firearms. Many don’t know what’s needed; those that do usually have laws that mandate reporting.

11/02/11 Scott Dekraai told police that he argued with his ex-wife over the phone before the shooting. He said he shot her first, then Christy Wilson, who testified at a custody hearing, then the salon owner, who came at him with scissors, then the others as “collateral damage,” then the man outside because he seemed to be reaching for a gun.

10/26/11 According to the 2011 Gallup Crime Poll, only 26 percent of Americans favor banning handguns. That continues a long trend, with the pro-handgun majority dating back to 1975. But a slight majority now also opposes a ban on assault rifles, a relatively recent flip-flop from 2001, when 59 percent favored a ban.

10/25/11 States with the highest rates of gun ownership have far higher gun death rates that states with low gun ownership according to data compiled by the Violence Policy Center. High gun ownership states also tend to have far weaker gun laws. Full chart - all states

Posted 3/13/11

LETTING GUNS WALK

Pressed to make a really big case, ATF managers went for broke

By Julius (Jay) Wachtel. “If you’re going to make an omelette, you’ve got to break some eggs.” That, said ATF special agent John Dodson, was his agency’s excuse for allowing more than 1,700 firearms, including scores of AK-47 clones and .50 caliber, armor-piercing rifles, to land in the lap of Mexican cartels. “The day I started, there were 240 guns they had [let out]...Guns they were purchasing were showing up on both sides of the border already. I mean...a guy comes in and purchases 10 AK-47s, and four of them he purchased last time have already shown up on the other side of the border? And you keep going?”

The flow of guns from the U.S. to Mexico is a long-standing problem. With laws that forbid private citizens from possessing handguns beyond .38 caliber and rifles beyond .22’s, our Southern neighbor has long been a favorite destination for American hardware. (For an English-language summary of Mexican gun laws click here.)

Your blogger, a retired agent, worked on many such cases in Arizona during the 1970’s. (For an example, click here.) Then, as now, traffickers got local residents to act as “straw buyers” and buy large-caliber handguns and rifles at gun stores on their behalf. In the nineties, when Mexico moved in earnest against the cartels, wars for supremacy broke out and arms smuggling reached a fever pitch. Much of the flow turned to military-style rifles such as the WASR-10, a Romanian AK-47 clone that is apparently imported into the U.S. for the main reason that it’s such a desirable commodity in Mexico.

Most states, including the primary sources of guns smuggled to Mexico, Arizona and Texas, impose neither quantity limits nor waiting periods on gun purchases. Ordinary persons can walk into a gun store and leave with an armful of rifles in minutes. All they must do is show a local ID, pass an automated criminal record check and certify on a Federal Form 4473 that they are “the actual buyer/transferee of the firearm(s) listed on this form.” That’s right: no matter how many guns they buy, it’s all on the honor system. (For more about the ease of purchasing guns click here.)

Dealers don’t report long-gun sales to ATF, so it usually only learns of a bulk transaction when police or a foreign government trace a recovered gun. However, Federal regulations require that dealers who sell more than one handgun to the same buyer in a five-day period promptly report the transfer to ATF. Multiple sales are common, and by the time that agents learn of them it’s too late to intercede.

It’s not simple to prove that someone acted as a straw buyer. Purchasers are under no obligation to answer ATF questions. Neither are gun possessors, nor those to whom recovered guns are traced. Even when someone admits to falsifying an ATF form the penalties (a maximum 5-year prison term) are weak. “Lying and buying” is taken lightly by Federal attorneys, who often decline to prosecute, and by judges, who invariably impose lenient sentences. That’s not just the blogger’s opinion: it comes from no less an authority than the Department of Justice, whose November 2010 review of Project Gunrunner, ATF’s guns-to-Mexico interdiction program, declared the pursuit of straw buyers a dead cause:

Because there is no federal firearms trafficking statute, ATF must use a wide variety of other statutes to combat firearms trafficking. However, cases brought under these statutes are difficult to prove and do not carry stringent penalties – particularly for straw purchasers of guns. As a result, we found that [Federal prosecutors] are less likely to accept and prosecute Project Gunrunner cases. And when these cases are prosecuted and convictions obtained, Federal Sentencing Guidelines categorize straw-purchasingrelated offenses as lesser crimes.

Since drug trafficking crimes are much more popular with prosecutors and carry far harsher penalties, auditors urged that ATF stop spinning its wheels on minor cases and partner with DEA to pursue the cartels. Forewarned that criticism was coming, ATF had already published a new set of guidelines, “Project Gunrunner – A Cartel Focused Strategy,” laying out the new approach:

While our strategy will remain multi-faceted and continue to include the inspection of licensed gun dealers and the targeting and arresting of straw purchasers, our revised approach will place greater emphasis on investigations that target specific cartels and the persons responsible for organizing and directing firearms trafficking operations in the United States. We have come to understand that we can best impact firearms trafficking to Mexico and Southwest border violence by linking our investigations to drug trafficking organizations and where possible to specific Mexican cartels. Our efforts will also be enhanced through increased coordination with our Federal counterparts.

Prophetically, the writers threw in a few words of wisdom along the way:

There are also practical considerations that may require bringing investigations to a conclusion or dictate a change in investigative tactics prior to the identification of persons directly affiliated with the [drug trafficking organizations.] Examples include high volume trafficking investigations in which numerous diverted firearms identifiable with one or more purchasers are being used in violent crimes and recovered by law enforcement, and high volume trafficking investigations in which over an extended period ATF cannot reasonably determine where or to whom such firearms are being trafficked. SACs must closely monitor and approve such investigations, assessing the risks associated with prolonged investigation with limited or delayed interdiction....

In the real, messy world of investigating gun traffickers the “egg-breaking” that agent Dodson spoke of is hard to avoid. When your blogger established a gun trafficking group in 1993 (yeah, that’s a ways back) the very first case demonstrated the difficulties of keeping track of small, lethal objects. Police caught a parolee with a gun. It was traced to a small, home-based dealer who had been buying dozens of handguns at a time from a distributor. We got the seller to let us know when the buyer returned. Alas, the first notice came late and the load was lost. But the next time we were positioned well in advance. We followed him from the premises and watched as he met with others, then trailed one of these third parties to a small restaurant. Later that evening, agents intercepted its manager – the fourth person in the chain – as he delivered five pistols (all that was left from an original load of thirty) to residents of a gang-infested neighborhood.

It wouldn’t be the only time that guns would slip through our fingers (for a published account of the years-long project, click here.) But the losses were usually small, and considering the fact that local cops were recovering north of 10,000 guns a year there was little choice but to plod on.

Well, back to the future. In October 2009, nearly a year before it formally adopted a cartel-centric strategy, ATF had implemented a pilot program in Arizona. In an operation dubbed “Fast and Furious” agents tracked the activities of a group of gunrunners who had already bought 200-plus guns from Phoenix retailers. Hoping to bring down a cartel, agents clued in the dealers, and with their assistance monitored and videotaped gun purchases for the next fifteen months, letting a stunning 1,765 guns pass under their noses.

Not everyone on the F&F team was a happy camper. Its most outspoken former member, special agent John Dodson, insists that four of the seven agents assigned to the project opposed letting guns “walk.” Objections were voiced by other ATF insiders, including the attaché in Mexico City. He was right to worry. ATF estimates that to date at least 195 F&F guns have turned up in Mexico. A furious Mexican legislator has claimed that these weapons have been involved in “150 cases of injuries and homicides.”

Mexico took the brunt of it. But F&F guns inevitably started turning up in the States. In May 2010 a Border Patrol agent recovered several during a tense confrontation with bandits. Then in December two F&F guns were found at the scene of the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry. While it’s not thought that they were used in his killing [but see 07/26/11 update] the recovery brought the ill-starred project to an end. In January 2011 Federal prosecutors indicted thirty-four suspects, mostly straw buyers and moneymen, on gun charges. Surprisingly, a few were also accused in a drug and money-laundering conspiracy.

You see, “Fast and Furious” was never meant to be just a gun case. True to its ambitions, ATF had partnered with DEA to go after the Sinaloa cartel. It may be that the unseemly delay in shutting down the iron pipeline was influenced by hopes that, given enough time, agents could hook the big fish. Well, they got away, but there was apparently enough evidence, perhaps in the form of wiretapped conversations, to snare a few lesser players on drug charges.

So was waiting worth it? According to Attorney General Eric Holder the answer is a resounding “no.” As he recently pointed out, guns are different. “I’ve...made clear to people in the department that letting guns walk … is not something that is acceptable. Guns are different than drug cases, or cases where we’re trying to follow where money goes.” Well said. Now if the A.G. would only get Federal prosecutors to take ordinary gun cases more seriously, we’d be all set.

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RELATED ARTICLES AND REPORTS

Details about shootout that led to death of Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry

Los Angeles Times full coverage on Fast and Furious Los Angeles Times documents on Fast and Furious

Washington Post long-form article about Fast and Furious Arizona Republic overview of Fast and Furious

House Oversight Committee Report on Fast and Furious The Militarization of the U.S. Civilian Firearms Market

2011 Senate report on gun smuggling to Mexico Sources of Crime Guns The Iron River

America, Gun Purveyor to the Cartels Gun Show and Tell Where Do They Come From?

UPDATES

01/13/12 Democratic members of the House released “Fatally Flawed,” a report criticizing four ATF investigations during 2006-2010 that let guns fall into the hands of criminals. Agents complained that US Attorneys had created nearly insuperable obstacles, requiring that guns had to be recovered before buyers could be charged.

12/09/11 Rep. Darrell Issa, chair of a House committee investigating F & F, accused Attorney General Eric Holder of being like John Mitchell, Nixon’s A.G. who went to prison for lying about Watergate. Holder fired back with “have you no shame?”, the words that propelled Senator Joe McCarthy into infamy. And no, Holder won’t resign.

11/01/11 DOJ official Lanny Breuer said that he didn’t sound the alarm about “Fast and Furious” because he didn’t realize its tactics were similar to those used in “Wide Receiver.” “The tragic truth is that if those criminals who killed Agent Terry had not gotten the guns from this one source, they would have gotten the gun from another source.”

10/06/11 ATF’s acting director, Todd Jones, calls for calm as he reshuffles management ranks in response to Fast and Furious. So far he has reassigned two key HQ staffers, the Deputy Director and the agent in charge of enforcement to field positions. Meanwhile AG Eric Holder is accused of having known that guns were being allowed to walk.

10/04/11 Recently surfaced e-mails show that months before ATF’s “Fast and Furious” was shut down top DOJ officials were mulling over possible reactions to the operation, which let about 2,000 guns go to Mexico. And it wasn’t the only such example: between 2006-07 “Operation Wide Receiver” in Tucson had used the same strategy.

09/29/11 Unbeknownst to ATF, a major F&F straw buyer, Manuel Celis-Acosta, was under investigation by the FBI and DEA for running drugs. Their information came from a paid informer, also unknown by ATF, whom the FBI and DEA knew was running Celis-Acosta’s guns across the border and delivering them to the cartels.

09/29/11 Forty guns bought by Sean Steward, one of the F&F straw buyers, were recovered by El Paso, Texas police from a drug mule who said he was supposed to hold the guns at his house until they were picked up by a third party and transported to Mexico. The mule later pled guilty to Federal gun charges and got 6 1/2 years.

09/20/11 Mexican officials were not told about Fast and Furious, supposedly because of corruption in Mexico. It was wrong, said an unnamed Mexican official, who also held out little hope about the larger problem. “But, given the river of weapons that flows into Mexico from the U.S., do a few more make a big difference?”

09/13/11 Two F&F guns, a Beretta pistol and an AK-47 type rifle were seized from the scene of an armed confrontation between Department of Public Safety officers and two suspects driving a stolen truck in a remote desert area. The suspects tried to get away by brandishing the guns and ramming the DPS vehicles. Both were arrested.

09/04/11 DOJ announced there are 2,000 guns in the Fast and Furious database. “Several hundred” were purchased before ATF’s involvement. F&F guns have been recovered at two violent crimes in the U.S., including the scene of the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry. Twenty-eight F&F guns have been used in violent crimes in Mexico.

09/02/11 ATF’s former head in Arizona was sending unauthorized emails about Fast and Furious to White House advisors. The emails remained positive even after the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry. One of their purposes was to get Mexican authorities to let ATF agents recover guns found in their country. He didn’t succeed.

08/30/11 Kenneth Melson, ATF’s embattled acting director, is out. He is being replaced by B. Todd Jones, the U.S. Attorney in Minneapolis. Melson is being transferred to an office job at DOJ. Dennis K. Burke, the U.S. Attorney in Phoenix is also leaving, and for the same reason - letting guns walk, all the way to the Mexican cartels.

08/16/11 Fast and Furious guns were recovered from at least eleven “crimes of violence” in the U.S. according to ATF. Forty reportedly turned up at one location in El Paso.

08/16/11 Three key ATF employees who managed Fast and Furious, including the Western regional director, the agent in charge of the Phoenix office and one of his supervisors have been reassigned to Washington in moves characterized by the Los Angeles Times as promotions. [Note: on 8/18 the L.A. Times reported that according to ATF these were in fact reassignments, with no change in salary or grade.]

08/11/11 Worried by the many guns already being recovered in Mexico, ATF’s number two man moved for the speedy conclusion of Fast and Furious only five months into its operation. But other officials, including a Justice Dept. representative, demurred. “I probably should have been a lot more strident,” conceded William Hoover.

08/09/11 Fast and Furious’ biggest buyer, Uriel Patino, was allowed to purchase, with ATF approval, nearly 700 guns in 10 months, including 20 handguns on one day and 72 AK-47 clones in 12 days. Many were recovered in the U.S. and Mexico. He has since been charged with dealing in firearms without a license and other violations.

08/06/11 DEA’s head conceded that her agency was involved in the drug aspects of “Fast and Furious” and lent field support to ATF. However, she emphasized that DEA had “no decision-making role in ATF operations.”

07/27/11 At a Congressional hearing ATF’s former Arizona head agreed he didn’t adequately monitor “Fast and Furious” but insisted going after the cartel was better than picking on straw buyers. A panel member suggested a law to make gun trafficking illegal, but the chair disagreed. A top ATF official apologized for losing track of so many guns.

07/26/11 ATF’s assertions that the “Fast and Furious” guns recovered near the scene of Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry’s murder were not used in his killing were brought into question by a leaked government report. According to an FBI firearms examiner, the bullet that killed Terry was too deformed to allow a comparison.

07/25/11 U.S. Embassy officials in Mexico City didn’t know about “Fast and Furious.” But they knew that ATF in Phoenix was targeting the cartels. Thinking that wrong, they sent a cable with examples showing that numerous small-time operators were responsible for the flow of guns South, and that going after them and straw buyers was crucial.

07/21/11 Government e-mails reveal that ATF executives tailored their responses to Congressional inquiries so as to minimize the possible role that guns from “Fast and Furious” may have played in the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry and congratulated each other when they thought that was accomplished.

07/19/11 ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson reportedly told Congressional investigators that in order to protect high-level political appointees the Justice Department was not being candid about its role in approving “Fast and Furious.” He also acknowledged that ATF should have acted to stop at least one gun shipment but did not.

07/17/11 In February ICE agent Jaime Zapata was shot and killed and another agent was wounded in an ambush while driving in Mexico. One of the guns, an AK-47 clone, was traced to a gun store in Texas. Zapata’s family now wants to know where all the guns used in the assault came from and whether any were from “Fast and Furious.”

07/12/11 Under a new rule licensed gun dealers in Arizona, California, Texas and New Mexico will be required to report to ATF the sale to a private party, within a five-day period, of two or more semiautomatic rifles greater than .22 caliber that use a detachable magazine. The purpose is to alert agents of possible gun trafficking to Mexico.

07/06/11 Jesus Aguilar, a recently-captured Mexican cartel leader wanted in the U.S. for murdering an ICE agent, told Mexican officials that “all the weapons are bought in the United States,” that “even the American government itself was selling the weapons,” and that, "Whatever you want, you can get.”

07/06/11 ATF acting director Kenneth Melson told Congressional investigators that ATF was not told that some cartel leaders it had targeted in the controversial “Fast and Furious” operation, where agents allowed guns to go to Mexico, were paid DEA and FBI informers, and that had he known he might have shut off the operation much sooner.

07/05/11 Will ATF’s present “rough-patch” lead to the agency’s dissolution? Those who would like to see better gun law enforcement urge that its functions be absorbed by the far more prestigious and powerful FBI. That’s unlikely, say others, who assume that the NRA prefers the agency weak and ruderless.

06/30/11 Weighing in on “Fast and Furious,” Senator Charles Grassley (R - Iowa) challenged the notion that 70 percent of guns recovered in Mexico come from the U.S. ATF had previously downgraded the proportion from ninety to seventy percent. But Grassley points to another ATF estimate, of twenty-five percent, as perhaps more credible.

06/27/11 Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson is resisting pressure to resign over “Fast And Furious.” According to the Los Angeles Times he refuses to be the “fall guy” for the botched operation. Melson has volunteered to testify about the program before Congress but has yet to receive permission to do so from his superiors.

06/15/11 The House Committee on Oversight released a report calling ATF’s decision to let gun walk a “likely” contributor to the killing of a border patrol officer. Four ATF agents told investigators that they had begged to make arrests at various points but were turned down by their supervisor.

06/14/11 At least 70 percent of guns recovered in Mexico come from the U.S. according to a Senate report. Many originate in Europe and pass through U.S. dealers, where they are bought by straw purchasers. It suggests that the U.S. enforce a ban on importing military-style weapons and reinstate the assault weapons ban.

06/14/11 “The Militarization of the U.S. Civilian Firearms Market,” a report by the Violence Policy Center, accuses the gun industry of searching for profit by manufacturing and importing highly lethal clones of military firearms, including AR-15 and AK-47 variants, that wind up being used against police officers and smuggled to Mexico.

06/09/11 Five Romanian AK-47 type rifles bought by traffickers during “Fast and Furious” were recovered in Mexico. They were part of a stash that authorities described as an illicit “arsenal.”

05/04/11 Members of the House and Senate are severely criticizing ATF for letting large quantities of guns go to Mexico. It has turned into the biggest scandal to envelop the agency since WACO. At a House hearing on 5/3 AG Eric Holder said that “under no circumstances should guns be allowed to be distributed in an uncontrolled manner.”

04/15/11 ATF’s decision to allow thousands of straw-purchased guns to go to Mexico drew objections from a gun store owner who was concerned that the guns might be turned against U.S. officers. Even though the store got written assurance that its actions were legal, on two occasions employees refused to make straw sales that ATF had approved.

03/03/11 One of the weapons used by cartel gunmen to murder ICE agent Jaime Zapata and wound his partner in Mexico this February was bought in the U.S. by a gun smuggling ring last October. ATF arrested three of its members, who were under investigation at least since November, two days ago.

Posted 1/11/11

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Restrict the possession of “ordinary” guns or get used to regular massacres

By Julius (Jay) Wachtel. “I have a Glock 9 millimeter, and I’m a pretty good shot.” That’s what Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D - Ariz.) told a New York Times reporter last year. Only months later she would be fighting for her life, shot through the head with the same brand and caliber of pistol.

On January 8, Jared Loughner, 22, opened fire with a Glock 9mm. pistol during the Congresswoman’s “Congress on your Corner” event at a Tucson supermarket. The unemployed, sometime student – he got booted from college for disruptive behavior – killed six, including a 9-year old girl and a Federal judge. He wounded thirteen, including Ms. Giffords.

Loughner was tackled by citizens while reloading his pistol. A search of the home where he lived with his parents yielded a prior letter from the Congresswoman and several notes suggesting his intent to carry out the assassination.

By any measure Loughner is a very sick puppy. His MySpace account was full of disconnected thoughts and delusional ramblings about off-the-wall subjects like government thought control. He wrote about returning to the gold and silver standards – with him in charge of the Treasury. “Mein Kampf” was listed as one of his favorite books, which might seem insignificant until one considers that his intended target, Ms. Giffords, is active in Judaism.

Loughner fits the archetype of the murderous loner to a tee. Past acquaintances described him as odd and reclusive. His in-class rants at Pima Community College frightened classmates and instructors. A video he posted about the college was the last straw. He and his parents were called in and told that Loughner couldn’t return unless he was psychologically cleared. In his one known run-in with the law police cited him for scrawling the letters “C” and “X” on a street sign, which he said symbolized Christianity.

Loughner might have been a very odd duck, but he was nonetheless qualified under Federal law to buy a handgun. He was a legal U.S. resident, over 21 years of age (the minimum to buy a handgun), not a convicted felon, not under indictment, and was never adjudicated (meaning, in court) as mentally defective. On November 30, 2010 Loughner walked into Sportsman’s Warehouse in Tucson and purchased a Glock 9mm. pistol. Arizona has no state waiting period or gun-training requirement, so Loughner left with the gun right after passing the criminal record check. Oh, yes. Thanks to a 2010 amendment to state law, as a legal possessor over the age of 21 he was also automatically entitled to carry the weapon either openly or concealed on his person, no permit required.

But it’s not just Arizona. Ordinary handguns like the Glock 9mm. can be purchased anywhere in the U.S. In California, which is considered the most restrictive state – magazine capacity is limited to ten rounds and a permit is required for concealed carry – buyers must pass a brief safety exam and wait ten days to pick up their gun. And that’s it.

It’s really quite convenient.

Actually, what most stands out about the events in Tucson are their ordinariness. In “Say Something” we pointed out that “shootings by purportedly ‘ordinary’ people have become such a common feature of American life that we seldom give them much thought.” Troubled young males who use guns to give vent to their demons are nothing new. Prior examples include the April 1999 Columbine (Colo.) High School massacre, where two male students killed 13 and injured 21, the March 2006 Capitol Hill massacre, in which a deranged 28-year old man opened fire at a youth party in Seattle, killing six and wounding two, and the April 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech, where a mentally disturbed 23-year old college senior killed 32 and wounded 25.

Virginia Tech has remarkable parallels to the Tucson massacre. Its perpetrator, Sung Hui-Cho, was armed with two pistols that he had recently bought at gun stores. One was a Glock 9mm (the other was a Walther .22). Cho also had mental problems; indeed, his were so serious that a judge had ruled him mentally ill. Unfortunately, Virginia’s procedure for entering that information into the database used to clear gun purchases was lacking, enabling Cho to buy guns.

Reaction to the Tucson shooting was swift. Many observers, including outspoken Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, laid blame on a “toxic political environment” that replaced reasoned discourse with posturing and threats. During last year’s Congressional races Sarah Palin’s political action committee televised ads to which Congresswoman Giffords objected: “The way that she has it depicted has the cross hairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize there’s consequences to that.” Sheriff Dupnik and others also blame lax gun laws and the expiration of the assault weapons ban, which also prohibited high-capacity ammunition feeding devices such as the 30-round magazines used by Loughner.

But if we’re seeking to prevent wackos from going on a rampage, all the half-hearted “bans” and regulatory initiatives in the world would make little difference. Ordinary guns are the elephant in the room. Medium-caliber semi-auto pistols such as the Glock 9mm. are exceedingly lethal regardless of magazine capacity. And that’s to say nothing of the increasingly popular and even more deadly .40 caliber pistols (yes, Glock makes those, too.) Or the wildly popular “Big Boomer” handguns, whose projectiles pierce ballistic vests as easily as knives cut through butter.

What’s needed, of course, is a fundamental reset in our attitude about firearms. Unfortunately, guns, politics and ideology have become impossibly conflated. What’s more, in 2008 the Supreme Court decided in Heller that having a gun, at least in the home, is an individual right. While the Justices suggested that they would support “reasonable” regulation, their decision put proponents of gun control on the defensive. It’s no longer about moving forward: it’s about not losing any more ground.

Bottom line: without severely restricting the kinds of guns that citizens can possess (which, by the way, isn’t going to happen) there’s no way – none – to prevent massacres. Don’t believe it? Read the posts linked below.

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