Washington, DC –-(Ammoland.com)- Fast & Furious is in the news again. The Obama Administration this week filed court papers to get the lawsuit filed by the House of Representatives against Attorney General Eric Holder thrown out.
The House lawsuit asks the court to reject a claim of executive privilege by the President, who sealed thousands of documents relating to Fast & Furious, a Justice Department operation that facilitated the smuggling of thousands of U.S. weapons south of the border.
The administration calls the House lawsuit a mere “political dispute” between the branches of government. But this is much more than a political dispute. People died as a result of Fast Furious, which makes it much worse than even Watergate where no one died. Fast & Furious has led to the deaths of more than 200 Mexicans and at least one U.S. federal agent.
On a somewhat positive note, GOA asked you last week to urge Paul Ryan to bring up Fast & Furious in his debate with Vice President Joe Biden and to send your request through the Romney-Ryan website.
Well, Ryan didn’t bring up the point, but Mitt Romney did this week during the presidential debate as he told the American people — some who were probably hearing this for the first time — that Fast & Furious guns were used to kill people on both sides of the border.
“They [drug lords] used those weapons against – against their own citizens and killed Americans with them,” Romney said. “And this was a … program of the [U.S.] government.”
Romney then went on to challenge the President for using executive privilege to cover up the administration’s role in Operation Fast & Furious: “[I]t’s one of the great tragedies related to violence in our society which has occurred during this administration. Which I think the American people would like to understand fully, it’s been investigated to a degree, but [the] administration has carried out executive privilege to prevent all of the information from coming out.”
There it is — the invoking of executive privilege by the Obama Administration, which was simply an attempt to cover up details as to why the U.S. government would help send guns south of the border. Of course, we in the gun-owning community know why. It was an attempt to justify support for new gun regulations.
As stated by Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News: “[Justice Department] emails show they discussed using the sales, including [Fast & Furious] sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called ‘Demand Letter 3.’ That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or ‘long guns.’”
In other words, Operation Fast & Furious was intended to help the administration justify calls for a new gun registration scheme, which was eventually implemented (illegally and without Congressional authority) in four southwestern border states.
Thanks again for your activism last week in encouraging the presidential ticket to bring up Fast and Furious, so that it doesn’t get lost in all the campaigning. GOA is currently traveling across the country and joining with pro-gun candidates to draw attention to Fast & Furious, as well.
Click here if you would like to contribute to GOA’s efforts to keep Operation Fast & Furious and the gun issue “front and center” during this campaign season.
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Gun Owners of America (GOA) is a non-profit lobbying organization formed in 1975 to preserve and defend the Second Amendment rights of gun owners. GOA sees firearms ownership as a freedom issue. `The only no comprise gun lobby in Washington’ – Ron Paul