BELLEVUE, WA – President Barack Obama was right when he told a Mexican audience Friday that many of the guns used in crime south of the border came from the United States, and he should know since his administration allowed thousands of those firearms to walk during Operation Fast and Furious, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms observed.
“The Obama administration should accept full responsibility for illegally flooding Mexico with guns that are now being used by drug cartel gunmen,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “But he has deliberately told his audience half a story about how many of those guns made it into their country.”
The president told a crowd at Mexico’s Anthropology Museum that he will “continue to do everything in my power to pass common-sense reforms that keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people.”
“Mr. Obama talks a good game,” Gottlieb said, “but once again he may be hitting only two of 22 tries to score. If he were really interested in keeping guns out of the wrong hands, he would instruct the Justice Department to enforce existing laws.
“One thing to keep in perspective,” he continued, “is that all of these guns were purchased at retail and the gun traffickers passed background checks, and retailers were instructed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to allow the sales to go ahead.
“If there is a loophole in the current background check system,” Gottlieb noted, “it should be called the ‘administration loophole’ because they’re the ones responsible, not firearms dealers, gun shows or law-abiding U.S. citizens.
“The measures being proposed by the president will not prevent a single crime in Mexico and he knows it,” Gottlieb continued. “The president would have Mexico believe that the reason for their crime is our gun laws and the Second Amendment. It’s another blame game approach where Mr. Obama points fingers at everyone but himself and the horrid handling of a disastrous gun trafficking effort in which firearms retailers followed the law and his own people didn’t.”
