Role of Opaque Gun Sales in Mexico
The problem:
Federal authorities say more than 60,000 U.S. guns of all types have been recovered in Mexico in the past four years, helping fuel the violence that has contributed to 30,000 deaths.
Corruption:
As an unprecedented number of American guns flows to the murderous drug cartels across the border, the identities of U.S. dealers that sell guns seized at Mexican crime scenes remain confidential under a law passed by Congress in 2003.
Leads to:
Under federal law, a gun dealer who sells two or more handguns to the same person within five business days must report the sales to ATF. The agency has identified such sales as a red flag, or “significant indicator,” of trafficking. But multiple sales of “long guns,” which include shotguns and rifles such as AK-47s, do not have to be reported to ATF.
As a result:
One of the suspects bought 14 AK-47s in one day from one dealer.
Why:
Over the years, the gun lobby has successfully opposed such a requirement, arguing it is not needed, because long guns are far less likely to be used in crimes. But the percentage of long guns recovered in Mexican crimes has been steadily increasing, from 20 percent in 2004 to 48 percent in 2009, reports show.
To be fair:
Most experts and ATF officials agree that the majority of dealers are law-abiding.
Many dealers tip off ATF when they suspect “straw purchases,” in which a person buys for someone who is prohibited from owning a gun, a common practice in Mexican gunrunning cases. Many of the dealers “view themselves as the first line of defense,” said Lawrence Keane, general counsel and vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearms industry trade group.
Review: Metropia and Code 46
“The Great College Scam”
Here it is: approximately 60 percent of the increase in the number of college graduates from 1992 to 2008 worked in jobs that the BLS considers relatively low skilled—occupations where many participants have only high school diplomas and often even less. Only a minority of the increment in our nation’s stock of college graduates is filling jobs historically considered as requiring a bachelor’s degree or more.
Review: Super Sad True Love Story
This is a pretty entertaining read about falling in love while the world goes mad and consequently falls down around you. In that sense, it’s a novel of a generation, one that will speak to many. Some interesting ideas re: what society looks like when technologically empowered wealth, sexuality, social transparency (and perversely, corruption), are all taken to the N’th degree.
It’s also funny (in its critique of Europeans) and sad (when it covers the problems with a distributed family, the immigration narrative, and sovereign debt.) And both (in its coverage of security theater, marked by a huge national security structure that insists that it does not exist but demands acknowledgement).
Review: Collapse
The content in this documentary is old hat (peak oil, financial fraud, etc), as is the remedy (holons, DIY, gardening etc), and it’s very much over the top at times (the intro references to the intelligence community are irritating). I found myself forwarding quite a bit, though some may be interesting for those who don’t share a background in energy.
Anyway, I’ve never heard of the subject of the documentary before, but Michael Ruppert’s quest to force a rethink will resonate with anyone who has attempted the same. Dismissal by the qualification-toting hacks, the snide remarks of the in-crowd, threatened, cajoled. It’s frustrating, it’s rough, and it’s not for everyone.