That’s quite the whitewash of the Fast and Furious scandal. Those “people” murdered a Border Patrol agent with the guns the ATF allowed them to straw purchase.
Quite the turnaround from the usual tooth-and-nail fighting they do for the NRA, eh? But then that was a Democratic President.
But that’s impossible! If they had guns, didn’t that reduce violence? That’s what the Republicans are always telling us, isn’t it?
Your impression is that Republicans are happy about the fact that the Obama administration let the Mexican drug cartels obtain a bunch of guns?
The ATF didn’t let them straw purchase. The laws allowed them to straw purchase.
The ATF was just trying to track where these straw purchased weapons were going, as such, they attempted a bit of a sting operation.
Are you going to try to say that if the ATF wasn’t doing this program, then the cartels just couldn’t have gotten any guns?
I see your Fast and Furious and raise you Wide Receiver.
Your first point is incorrect. Numerous retail outlets—Carters Country in Houston is the one I’m familiar with hearing about, there were others—reported the buyers to the ATF, suspecting that they were straw purchasers. The ATF told the retailers to let the purchases go through anyway.
I agree with your last point though. The Mexican cartels are not getting the bulk of their arms from US dealers. Not when they can get military grade small arms and rockets from Mexican Army sources.
Really though, I came into the thread to answer the headline (and call my shot 2.5 years early). After Trump signing this spending bill, and being for gun control in the weeks before that, not only will all the 2016 states remain blue, you’re going to get a lot more to flip blue in the next four years. I wouldn’t be surprised to see NC, AZ, and maybe GA go blue. This is Trump’s “Read My Lips” moment.
I can’t overstate how much a lot of his vocal base hates his guts, and the rest of the Republican Party, right now. You don’t need them to vote D, you just need them to not show up. I don’t think the D’s will take the Senate—just too many D seats up for grabs in this election—but I think you’ll get the House, handily.
I only ask that you guys nominate someone halfway sane for the Presidency in a year or so. Though really, as demoralized as I think Trump’s base is now—and this before whatever war ends us getting started in 2019, to put some lead back in the national pencil, post 2018-electoral bloodbath—the Dems can run just about anyone and win.
Of course not: They’re furious about it. My impression is that, if the Republicans actually believed the things that they said, that they wouldn’t have been upset about it. But Republican hypocrisy long ago ceased to surprise me.