Obama Pledges to Review Gun Control in the Wake of Movie Theater Massacre – Says AK-47s Belong in Hands of Soldiers – Coloradans Gun-up in Record Numbers

Not one to let a crisis go to waste, the President touched on the sensitive issue of guns in Aurora, Co,  Wednesday when he called for a “consensus around violence reduction” in the country.

Transcript via Politico:

“I – like most Americans – believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual the right to bear arms,” Obama said. “I think we recognize the traditions of gun ownership passed on from generation to generation, that hunting and shooting are part of a cherished national heritage.

Duh…..(election year boilerplate)

But this is….interesting:

“But I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers and not in the hands of crooks. They belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities,” he added.

Actually, I think most gun owners are scratching their heads, wondering  which soldiers in the US military are using AK-47s.

As Joel Pollack at Big Peace noted:

…the U.S. military does not generally use the AK-47, a weapon originally developed in the Soviet Union that was subsequently adopted by many other communist states.

The AK-47 also became the weapon of choice for guerilla armies and terrorist groups.

Today, AK-47s are typically to be found among enemy forces that U.S. troops encounter on the battlefield. Osama bin Laden was often filmed or photographed near his AK-47 rifle–and was killed by U.S. Navy Seals when he reached for it.

Did Obama mean the terrorist “soldiers” shooting at American soldiers? That’s where they “belong”?

Though President Obama has cultivated an image of a strong and decisive commander-in-chief–partly through apparent White House leaks of military secrets–he has frequently demonstrated an elementary lack of familiarity with the basic facts about the forces he leads. At the National Prayer Breakfast in 2010, for example, he referred to U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsmen as “corpse-men,” mispronouncing the word.

Whether the error of an errant speechwriter, or the choice of the president himself, the use of the AK-47 metaphor in Obama’s speech reveals a lack of knowledge about the U.S. military–and a possible lingering romanticism about the guerilla forces often lionized by the radicals among whom Obama began his political career.

If the Obama administration wants to review anything – how about looking into how it came to be that deranged lunatic like James Holmes got a $26K Grant From Bethesda-Based National Institutes of Health,  part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services?

It gave the graduate student a $26,000 stipend and paid his tuition for the highly competitive neuroscience program at the University of Colorado in Denver. Holmes was one of six neuroscience students at the school to get the grant money.

Meanwhile, via John Ransom of Townhall, we find that the Law of Unintended consequences is in full effect, despite the left’s best efforts:

While the Left looks for more reasons to restrict our right to self defense every time an infamous shooting occurs, the standard reaction of the general population in Colorado is to stock up on guns and ammo in self defense.

It’s a reaction that’s uniquely American, where every man’s a captain. But it’s also a reaction that has a long history in the West, a history we should be proud of.

And when I say the West I really mean everywhere in America. Because at one time or another in our history everywhere from the tidewater on the east coast to the tidewater on the west coast was the West, as civilization pushed further and further westerly. And so, I believe, everywhere remains the West- at least metaphorically.

As the establishment press (hat tip to Dan Mitchell) acts shocked! yes, shocked! that people are buying guns in record numbers in the Denver area as a reaction to last week’s shooting rampage in an Aurora, Colorado theater that killed or injured 70 people who were attending a screening of the newest Batman movie, I’m feeling, um, American about the sales.

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Speaking of AK-47s and gun control…

It should never be forgotten that the Obama administration funneled thousands of weapons – mostly AK-47s to criminal drug gangs in Mexico, resulting in hundreds of dead Mexicans and one – possibly two murdered American agents, Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata. Mexicans and Americans will be staring down the barrels of these guns for many years into   the future…

The Heritage Foundation has a very good summery of the scandal, to date:

In total, over 2,000 weapons—mostly AK-47s, which are civilian versions of military assault rifles—were allowed to “walk” into Mexico as part of Operation Fast and Furious.[20] Mexican Attorney General Marisela Morales told the Los Angeles Times that she first learned about Operation Fast and Furious from news accounts. “In no way would we have allowed it,” she said, “because it is an attack on the safety of Mexicans.”[21] Former Mexican Attorney General Victor Humberto Benítez Treviño estimates that approximately 300 Mexicans were killed or wounded by Operation Fast and Furious guns, which have been found in the vicinity of at least 200 crime scenes.[22]

Even ATF’s Acting Attaché in Mexico, Carlos Canino, was kept in the dark about this operation. Testifying in July 2011 before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Canino noted that “U.S. law enforcement and our Mexican partners will be recovering these guns for a long time to come as they continue to turn up at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States.” Canino also stated that he was infuriated “that people—including my law enforcement, diplomatic and military colleagues—may be killed or injured with these weapons” and noted that the “Sinaloa cartel may have received almost as many guns [as] are needed to arm the entire [U.S. Army’s 75th Ranger] regiment.”[23]

As of July 2011, 227 Operation Fast and Furious guns had been recovered in Mexico and 363 in America; the rest remain unaccounted for.[24] Remarkably, it also seems that two of the targets of Operation Fast and Furious are probably unindictable, having been paid informants of, and designated as national security assets by, the FBI—information that should have been shared within the task force overseeing the investigation.[25]

In January 2012, Patrick Cunningham, Chief of the Criminal Division in the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office and the individual who was allegedly tasked with investigating ATF whistleblower allegations, resigned and invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.[26] Several senior DOJ officials who attended Operation Fast and Furious briefings now claim that they cannot recall key details about what they knew and, in some instances, what they did.[27]

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John E, AoSHQ: Elections and Gun Control:

Gun control is a terrible issue for Obama to tackle this close to an election; hopefully the press can shame him into saying what he really believes.