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.

WASHINGTON: Yesterday Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) announced his opposition to Kagan’s appoint to the Supreme Court. We here at the NIP hope that other Senators will put personal interests aside and remember their oath of office. Hatch enumerates two main objections, lack of experience and a proclivity toward judicial activism. The NFL draft has tighter standards than this judicial process. It’s time to take it seriously.

Orrin Hatch Opposes Kagan as SCOTUS

I have carefully examined Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s record, actively participated in the entire Judiciary Committee hearing, and considered the views of supporters and opponents from Utah and across the country. Qualifications for judicial service include both legal experience and, more importantly, the appropriate judicial philosophy. The law must control the judge; the judge must not control the law. I have concluded that, based on evidence rather than blind faith, General Kagan regrettably does not meet this standard and that, therefore, I cannot support her appointment.

Supreme Court Justices who, like General Kagan, had no prior judicial experience did have an average of 21 years in private legal practice. General Kagan has two. The fact that her experience is instead academic and political only magnifies my emphasis on judicial philosophy as the most important qualification for judicial service.

Over nearly 25 years, General Kagan has endorsed, and praised those who endorse, an activist judicial philosophy. I was surprised when she encouraged us at the hearing simply to discard or ignore certain parts of her record. I am unable to do that. I also cannot ignore disturbing situations in which it appears that her personal or political views drove her legal views. She promoted the Clinton administration’s extreme position on abortion, including the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion. As Dean of Harvard Law School, she blocked the access by military recruiters that federal law requires. And she took legal positions on important issues such as freedom of speech that could undermine the liberties of all Americans.

General Kagan is a good person, a skilled political lawyer, a brilliant scholar, and was a fine law school dean. I like her personally and I supported her to be Solicitor General. But applying the standard I have always used for judicial nominees, I cannot support her appointment to the Supreme Court.  Orrin Hatch

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.

Do Not Pass Go

WEST MIFFLIN, PA: Tuesday the  Bourough of West Mifflin council passed a gun control ordinance 6-1 which makes it a crime to have your gun stolen. The ordinance is not yet posted on their web site but details are reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

The ordinance, which passed Tuesday night by a vote of 6-1, states, “Any person who is the owner of a firearm that is lost or stolen shall report the loss or theft to the West Mifflin borough police department within 72 hours after discovery of the loss or theft.”

It also sets penalties of no more than 30 days imprisonment and/or a fine of no more than $1,000 for violation of the ordinance. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

So let’s get this straight. You own a gun. You keep it at home. A burglar breaks in and steals your gun. You have to report the theft within 72 hours or you pay a fine and you spend 30 days in jail. Shouldn’t the burglar be punished and not you?

We here at the NIP can read. Apparently the West Mifflin Borough Council can’t. Because we can’t find anything in the 2nd amendment that give city councils any rights whatsoever in controlling gun ownership by American citizens. Don’t they have anything better to do?