However, an article published by the Mexico City newspaper La Jornada suggests that el Presidente might better serve the good people of his country by looking to his southern border, instead of al norte.

As explained in English by the Latin American Herald Tribune, “The most fearsome weapons wielded by Mexico’s drug cartels enter the country from Central America, not the United States, according to U.S. diplomatic cables disseminated by WikiLeaks and published on Tuesday by La Jornada newspaper. Items such as grenades and rocket-launchers are stolen from Central American armies and smuggled into Mexico via neighboring Guatemala, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City reported to Washington.”

The article also refers to “Fast and Furious,” an element of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ “Project GunRunner” operation that allegedly knowingly allowed more than 1,700 firearms to be smuggled into Mexico from our country, including those that may have been used to murder U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent Jaime Zapata in February.

Increasingly, the question is who knew about the operation, and when.  President Obama has stated that neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder were aware of the scheme.  Holder is said to have told his subordinates that letting guns “walk” to Mexico is wrong and should not be repeated.

The McAllen, Tex., newspaper, The Monitor, quotes the Mexican government as saying that it “did not have knowledge on an operation that included the controlled traffic of weapons in Mexican territory,” and that “The Mexican government has not and will not give any implied or formal authorization for this to happen.”

Meanwhile, Fox News reports that U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, today issued a subpoena to the Justice Department demanding that the BATFE respond to his March 16 request for information about the operation, the deadline for which passed on Wednesday. Rep. Issa is quoted as saying, “The unwillingness of this administration—most specifically the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms—to answer questions about this deadly serious matter is deeply troubling.”

CBS News similarly reported that “The Department of Justice and ATF have missed repeated deadlines to turn over information and documents” to Congress, and further noted that the investigation of Project GunRunner may significantly delay hearings on President Obama’s nomination of BATFE agent Andrew Traver, an activist gun control supporter, to head the BATFE.

The BATFE has until April 13 to respond to Rep. Issa’s subpoena. Stay tuned.

Schumer’s “fix” bypasses the question of gun shows altogether. In fact, the term “gun show” appears nowhere in his bill. S. 436 proposes that virtually all private transfers, regardless of location, be subject to National Instant Criminal Background Check System checks. The exceptions would be extremely narrow; in many cases, even lending someone a firearm would be subject to federal regulation.

So how do you think such a bill would be implemented? Any time any private collector wants to sell his own property he would need to check with the federal government. That will be an aid to the government who wants register all weapons. The next step would be collect all weapons from its citizens. There is no end to the voracious appetite of these people who want to gobble up all of your rights and subjugate the American public.

How can President Obama tell us in his State of the Union speech tonight that “the dreams of a little girl in Tucson are not so different than those of our own children, and that all deserve the chance to be fulfilled,” without talking about the gun violence that destroyed those dreams?

We need the president to push for laws to reduce the gun violence that shattered Tucson, and Christina’s family, and that shatters the lives of more than 100,000 Americans every year.

President Obama tonight failed to ‘challenge old assumptions’ on the need for, and political possibilities of, reducing the gun violence – which he suggested should be done two weeks ago in Tucson. He failed to recognize the power of our laws to set us on a course to reduce gun violence. We are disappointed, but we’re also determined to continue our efforts to help make our nation safer by pushing to strengthen our gun laws.

We need the president’s support now for changes in our laws to ban large capacity ammunition magazines, to tighten restrictions on who can legally purchase a gun, and to require effective background checks before these guns can be purchased.

Newsweek reports that “in the next two weeks, the White House will unveil a new gun-control effort,” and that the White House confirms, “Obama will address the gun issue in a separate speech, likely early next month.” According to Newsweek, Obama believes that gun laws have been “too loose for much longer than just the past few weeks” following the murders in Tucson, Arizona.

The Brady Campaign and other anti-gun lobbyists want to tighten restrictions on all “who can legally purchase a gun.” No wonder the President feels that our Constitution is “an imperfect document.” Its pesky 2nd amendment stands in the way of those who would take away our right to bear arms. With the rioting you see in the world, some of it finding its way into our own state capitols, is this really the time you want to lay down your own firearms?

But as if all that weren’t enough, SF Weekly blogs reported this week that the city of San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) doesn’t allow advertisements with guns in them.  Specifically, SFMTA advertising policy regarding firearms says, “Advertising on Municipal Transportation Agency (“MTA”) property, or as authorized under any contract with the MTA, constitutes a nonpublic forum.  No such advertisement shall:  … appear to promote the use of firearms.”

One victim of the policy (other than the First Amendment rights of advertisers) is a subway poster for the action-comedy movie “The Other Guys.”  The official poster for the movie shows Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg (their characters are law enforcement officers, no less) flying through the air with guns drawn. Typical movie stuff.  But not for SFMTA, which apparently finds the poster threatening and will only allow a revised poster, featuring Ferrell holding a can of pepper spray and Wahlberg sporting only his fists, as they supposedly take on the bad guys. The anti-gun lobby presumably would be happy if real cops had to use pepper spray instead of firearms.

Ads like the official movie poster pose no threat to anyone.  The ridiculous SFMTA policy, as applied to movie ads, is not only unconstitutional, but is another example of anti-gun paranoia and political correctness.  And that makes it an outrage.

However, on Monday the FBI released crime statistics that should cause the applauding anti-gunners to sit on their hands. The statistics indicate that between 2008 and 2009, as gun sales soared, the number of murders in our country decreased 7.2 percent.  That amounts to about an 8.2 percent decrease in the per capita murder rate, after the increase in our nation’s legal and illegal population is taken into account. And it translates into about a 10.5 percent decrease in the murder rate between 2004, when the ban expired, and the end of 2009. And finally, it means that in 2009 our nation’s murder rate fell to a 45-year low.

If you have a desire to protect your 2nd amendment rights you need to do all you can to oust those from office who seek to take them away from you, like Dianne Feinstein:

WASHINGTON

Calderon also misinformed Congress, claiming that violence in Mexico rose significantly after the U.S. ban expired in 2004. In fact, Mexico’s murder rate has been stable since 2003 and remains well below rates recorded previously. However, he did not explain why violent crime has declined significantly in the U.S. since the ban expired, or how a ban on flash suppressors and bayonet mounts relates to drug thugs in Mexico or anywhere else.

Notwithstanding the Washington Post’s judgment that Calderon “made a powerful case,” we suspect his speech fell on mostly deaf ears in Congress and in Arizona, which he inappropriately criticized for having an illegal immigration enforcement law that is similar to Mexico’s. But it had some effect, however. New York Democrat Rep. Carolyn McCarthy issued a statement incorrectly claiming that she has repeatedly introduced legislation to “reinstate” the ban. She has repeatedly introduced legislation, of course, but not to reinstate the ban. Rather, her bills have proposed to apply the “assault weapon” label to far more firearms than were covered by the expired ban, including the M1 Garand service rifle, the ubiquitous Ruger 10/22, and any semi-automatic shotgun or rifle a future attorney general might claim is not “sporting.”

This week, Daley called for “redress against the gun industry” in the World Court, in The Hague, Netherlands. Wrapping up the sixth annual Richard J. Daley Global Cities Forum:

Daley convinced more than a dozen of his counterparts from around the world to approve a resolution urging “redress against the gun industry through the courts of the world” in The Hague.

“This is coming from international mayors. They’re saying, ‘We’re tired of your guns, America. … We don’t want those anymore because guns kill and injure people,’ ” Daley told a news conference at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Fran Spielman, Chicago Sun-Times

Daley’s global gun control fantasy received the endorsement of Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (D), whose enthusiasm for international law is apparently matched by his novel interpretation of the United States Constitution.  “I love the Second Amendment,” Nutter recently said, but “I have a First Amendment right not to be shot.”  Nutter’s utterly ignorant statement proves that in our country, you can be elected to public office while knowing remarkably little about the Bill of Rights.  Nutter acknowledged that the Daley’s scheme is a “long shot.”  But, he said, “you never know until you try,” adding “The political establishment in many state capitals—and certainly in Washington [is] so deathly afraid of the NRA that people cannot make the right decision for their own constituents.”

And that’s not the only outrageous proposal put for forth by Chicago politicians of late.  Illinois State Representatives John Fritchey (D) and LaShawn Ford (D) have decided that the best way to battle crime in “gun-free” Chicago is to militarize the city.  The two legislators recently called on Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (D), Mayor Daley, and Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis to bring in the National Guard in an effort to thwart crime.

So in a city that is quickly starting to sound more like a banana republic, law-abiding citizens are denied the means to defend themselves, while the best suggestion anti-gun lawmakers can come up with to address crime is to emasculate the Chicago police department, and bring in soldiers to occupy the city and patrol the streets!

It’s a sad day in America when lawmakers would rather turn to National Guard patrols of city streets than to allow law-abiding citizens the choice to legally own and carry firearms for self-defense.

The truck was legally parked off-campus, on a public street, and the guns were in the truck because Tudesko had gone hunting that morning before school.  All those factors just show the school’s lack of common sense in enforcing its “zero tolerance” policy; according to guidelines from the California Department of Education, administrators don’t have to recommend expulsion unless a violation is committed at school or at a school activity.  Even that agency’s website notes widespread criticism of “zero tolerance” policies.

On the legal side, the school made many errors, such as confusing its authority to expel students under California’s Education Code with the district attorney’s authority to enforce the state’s “Gun Free School Zones” law.  Both the district attorney and the local police have said Tudesko would face no criminal charges.

Leading California civil rights lawyer Chuck Michel—a longtime advocate for Golden State gun owners—represented Tudesko.  For more information on the Tudesko case, read the article on ESPN or visit Michel’s website at www.calgunlaws.com.

Understanding the Latest Anti-Gun “Poll”

This week, anti-gun New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, released the findings of a poll conducted by a political consulting firm called “The Word Doctors,” whose slogan is “It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.” Word Doctors’ president is a pollster who has been reprimanded by the American Association for Public Opinion Research and censured by the National Council on Public Polls, and who says that the key to polling is “to ask a question in the way that you get the right answer.”

At some other time in our nation’s history, an organization like this would not have been commissioned to conduct a poll, and perhaps it would not even have existed. At a minimum, its poll would have been considered biased and rejected by every newspaper in the country.

But today, as the distinction between editorials and news has become blurred, information is treated so superficially that a catchy word or two is enough to get someone elected to public office, and some in positions of authority cannot conceive of the concept of shame.

Thus, earlier this week, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) excitedly called attention to the bought-and-paid-for Word Doctors “poll,” which claimed that a majority of NRA members and other gun owners support Lautenberg’s bills to prohibit the possession of firearms by people placed (often mistakenly) on the FBI terrorist watchlist (S.1317), to require gun show promoters to send ledgers of customer information to the federal government (S.843), and to let the FBI retain records for 180 days of every gun purchase approved by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) (S.2820). The poll also claimed support for Bloomberg’s proposal to rescind the Tiahrt Amendment, which prevents unfettered release of BATFE firearm trace data. (Bloomberg, of course, wants to use the data in lawsuits against the firearms industry.)

But did the poll really show such strong support? Certainly the participants didn’t have much information to go on. The poll didn’t explain that the watchlist has been under fire by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General’s office and the ACLU for improperly including the names of innocent people, and that many innocent people have been mistaken for those who are on the watchlist. It didn’t explain that Lautenberg’s gun show bill would do much more than require NICS checks on private gun sales at gun shows.

The poll mischaracterized the issue of NICS record retention. Instead of informing poll participants that the accused Ft. Hood murderer had been investigated by the FBI and found to not constitute a terror threat months before he went through a NICS check to purchase the gun he allegedly used in the murders, the poll simply asked whether “the FBI should be able to access and keep information about gun purchases by terror suspects in cases similar to [the accused Ft. Hood killer's]?” Worse, Word Doctors misinformed poll participants by telling them that the accused killer was still under investigation at the time he purchased the gun.

The poll also asked if participants agreed that “The federal government should not restrict the police’s ability to access, use, and share data that helps them enforce federal, state and local gun laws,” when in fact the Tiahrt Amendment fully allows access to trace information, as long as it’s related to crimes that they’re actually investigating.

And the poll also claimed that a majority of gun owners want to “balance” their rights against the need to stop criminals from getting guns. But what it actually asked was whether gun owners agreed that “We can do more to stop criminals from getting guns while also protecting the rights of citizens to freely own them.” Coupled with the poll’s findings that an overwhelming majority of gun owners believe “Criminals . . . should be punished to the maximum extent of the law” and “Law-abiding Americans should have the freedom to choose how to protect themselves, based on their personal situation,” it’s fair to conclude that gun owners understand the two concepts aren’t mutually exclusive. Since the ideas are compatible, they don’t require a “balance,” as suggested by gun control supporters.

Notably, Lautenberg mentioned none of the poll’s findings that undercut the anti-gun agenda, and Dionne mentioned few. These include findings that an overwhelming majority of gun owners:

• Thinks President Obama will try to ban guns;
  
• Agrees that the Supreme Court’s decision in last year’s Heller case was correct;
  
• Agrees that the Second Amendment should prevent all levels of government from infringing the right to arms;
  
• Agrees that people should be allowed to carry guns for protection in national parks;
  
• Agrees that people should be allowed to transport firearms in baggage on Amtrak trains;
  
• Agrees that gun laws should be less strict or left as they are; and
  
• Opposes or is neutral about gun registration and an “assault weapon” ban.

One final note: Since Word Doctors had no access to NRA membership lists, there’s no way the pollsters could verify that any of the “NRA members” actually were NRA members. While this is a fatal flaw, we mention it at the end only because the poll’s other flaws were even worse.