Life in the FSA

Katie Pavlich has a funny piece today over at Townhall.com entitled Citizen asks ATF: Do I need a Federal Firearms License to sell thousands of guns to a Mexican Cartel? You can read it at the link.

The reference, of course, is to operation Fast and Furious, in which the ATF ordered dealers to sell guns to straw buyers for the Mexican Cartels, and then allowed those guns to "walk" into Mexico, where they turned up in numerous crimes, including the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.  The major players in that scandal have never been prosecuted.  The Attorney General has been allowed to defy Congress and retire, presumably with his pension intact.  I would also note that the law does not permit the breaking of the law in order to catch those breaking the law.  The ATF knowingly broke the law, as well as various international agreements.  In effect, they committed an act of war against our neighbor Mexico.  This is serious stuff, and nobody has been held accountable. If anyone should lose the right to arms, it should be the individuals who dreamed up this illegal scheme.

Fox News resident legal expert Judge Andrew Napolitano takes a different approach, one more appropriate to a lawyer arguing his case before a court.  You can find his article at The Constitution, the President and Guns. Napolitano is absolutely correct in every detail. Sadly, Napolitano's failure is a common one to lawyers, that of believing that words on a piece of paper mean something when nobody in authority is willing to enforce those words, backed up with force. No, the President "can not" do what he is doing legally, but since no one is going to stop him, realistically he can. And as the Fast and Furious operation shows, the Congress, the Department of (In)Justice, and the Courts are either powerless, of are in agreement with the President, or both.

We, the former citizens of the United States of American find ourselves now living in the Former States of American, a land I no longer recognize.