A Vanguard documentary is saying guns can be sold to criminals w/o ID, paperwork

[gejohnston]

1. ideology before the whole truth, I'm disappointed

Too jaded to be surprised, but still disappointed. The source of your concern is not the second amendment, it is the commerce clause. If you want private sales to be brokered by FFLs, that will have to be passed by the individual states. What would be ideal is to allow private sellers access to NICS or some other way to allow them to do background checks. Perhaps the ATF can change a regulation to allow FFLs or others to do checks without being a administrative hassle. Those can be worked out by reasonable people who know what they are talking about. That won't solve the problem at hand.

Ask yourself this, why would a multi billion dollar enterprise that builds its own submarines buy one or two semi autos at a gun show when they can buy surplus or stolen full autos in bulk for a lot less?

According to Wikileaks, the US guns are ones sold to the military and "diverted".

Selling weapons to Mexico - where cartel violence is out of control - is controversial because so many guns fall into the wrong hands due to incompetence and corruption. The Mexican military recently reported nearly 9,000 police weapons "missing."

Yet the U.S. has approved the sale of more guns to Mexico in recent years than ever before through a program called "direct commercial sales." It's a program that some say is worse than the highly-criticized "Fast and Furious" gunrunning scandal, where U.S. agents allowed thousands of weapons to pass from the U.S. to Mexican drug cartels.

CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson discovered that the official tracking all those guns sold through "direct commercial sales" leaves something to be desired.

One weapon - an AR-15-type semi-automatic rifle - tells the story. In 2006, this same kind of rifle - tracked by serial number - is legally sold by a U.S. manufacturer to the Mexican military.

Three years later - it's found in a criminal stash in a region wracked by Mexican drug cartel violence.

That prompted a "sensitive" cable, uncovered by WikiLeaks, dated June 4, 2009, in which the U.S. State Department asked Mexico "how the AR-15" - meant only for the military or police - was "diverted" into criminal hands.

And, more importantly, where the other rifles from the same shipment went: "Please account for the current location of the 1,030 AR-15 type rifles," reads the cable.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500202_162-57337289/legal-u.s-gun-sales-to-mexico-arming-cartels/

According to a U.S. State Department cable released by whistleblower site, WikiLeaks, via La Jornada, the most lethal weapons used by the Mexican cartels come from Central American arsenals, not from the U.S. La Jornada cites one cable, reference ID 09MEXICO808, reportedly drafted as a briefing for agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), following an arms trafficking conference that took place April 1 and 2 in Cuernavaca, Morelos. La Jornada reports that the cable states that 90 percent of the high-power weapons, submitted by Mexico law enforcement to the U.S. for tracing, were in fact traced to Central America arsenals. Another State Department cable, released by WikiLeaks and dated January 25, 2010, also discusses the problem of arms trafficking across the southern border. "While there are 30,000 U.S. CBP officers on the 1,926 mile Mexican/U.S. border, only 125 Mexican immigration officials monitor the 577 border with Guatemala," the cable notes.

Remember those guns Ollie North sold to the Contras? Some of them are in that mix too.
http://www.insightcrime.org/insight-latest-news/item/724-newsbrief-mexicos-guns-smuggled-from-central-america-says-wikileaks

When the ATF said "90 percent of the guns submitted for tracing" (which is about 12 percent of total guns) that is what they were talking about.



these machine guns were not straw purchased at B&A Stained Glass and Firearms or "no paper trail" at any gun show