In Arizona, everyone is freaked out about the violence by Mexican drug cartels south of their border, which was one of the reasons we repeatedly heard from leading state officials as one of their excuses for passing SB1070.

But then it turns out that the ease with which you can buy a gun in Arizona is fueling that violence directly:

The seizure of more than 700 guns and the indictments of 34 people announced on Tuesday are further confirmation that Arizona has become an iron highway for weapons into Mexico, according to federal authorities.

Many legal purchases by straw buyers at Arizona gun stores are being financed and orchestrated by Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, federal officials said.

The cases announced Tuesday involved the purchases of many AK-47s, .50-caliber rifles and other semiautomatic weapons in single-day transactions at gun stores by straw buyers paid by the cartel, U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke said.

"This is a huge problem in this state. It is a strange phenomenon," Burke said at a news conference at the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives. "Drug cartels go shopping for their war weapons here in Arizona."

At least 17 people were arrested Tuesday in five cases involving a joint crackdown by the ATF, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, the Internal Revenue Service and the Phoenix Police Department.

Gee, I can remember when, a couple of years ago, Obama administration officials pointed out that many of the guns being used by the Mexican drug cartels were being originating in the USA -- and the NRA and Glenn Beck exploded in angry denial, implying that such imprecations upon the fine name of American arms sellers was an attack on the Constitution itself!

DOWNLOADS: (311)

PLAYS: (767)

Embed

[H/t Jamie]

DOWNLOADS: (599)

PLAYS: (1282)

Embed

Fox News' Megyn Kelly invited Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on yesterday morning to explain exactly why she signed into law a bill that effectively transformed her state into a police state for immigrants and Latinos.

As she has done all along, Brewer mostly whined about how mean her critics were, including all of the folks from other cities who are now officially boycotting Arizona. Kelly listed some of them and asked:

Kelly: Do you think that these folks who are all noticeably outside of your state, are the ones that I just ticked off, including the President, have an appreciation, governor, for what Arizona has been going through with respect to illegal immigration?

Brewer: Obviously not. You know Arizona has been under terrorist attacks, if you will, with all of this illegal immigration that has been taking place on our very porous border. ... The whole issue comes back, that we do not and will not tolerate illegal immigration bringing with it very much so the implications of crime and terrorism into our state.

Terrorism? Does anyone have any idea what Brewer is talking about?

I know that much of the hysteria that was whipped up to push this bill through was based on the murder of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz, who was in fact almost certainly slain by a scout for the drug cartels.

Nonetheless, the Right -- embodied by Fox News -- consistently described his killer as an "illegal immigrant" -- even though the man was not crossing the border to emigrate, but to enable drug crossings on the border.

In other words, the Krentz case was not about illegal immigration, but drug smuggling across the border -- an entirely separate issue. Indeed, Brewer and the Republicans would have been far more effective in attacking that problem by passing laws decriminalizing marijuana.

Perhaps more to the point, Brewer is living in another universe if she's trying to claim that the wave off immigration that has hit Arizona in the past decade has produced a crime wave. As Media Matters points out:

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the violent crime rate in Arizona was lower in 2006, 2007, and 2008 -- the most recent year from which data are available -- than any year since 1983. The property crime rate in Arizona was lower in 2006, 2007, and 2008 than any year since 1968. In addition, in Arizona, the violent crime rate dropped from 577.9 per 100,000 population in 1998 to 447 per 100,000 population in 2008; the property crime rate dropped from 5,997 to 4,291 during the same period. During the same decade, Arizona's undocumented immigrant population grew rapidly.

As for terrorism in Arizona, the only case I can recall of any kind of recent vintage was the Viper Militia bunch arrested back in 1996 -- though some of their rabid supporters have been showing up at Tea Party rallies with guns.

The only terrorist of note to come from Arizona was Robert Mathews, the leader of the neo-Nazi gang The Order.

But those folks are all operating at the same end of the political spectrum as their pal Joe Arpaio -- who was the inspiration for this legislation in the first place.

Funny how that works, isn't it?

DOWNLOAD (1177)

PLAY (2071)

Watch Glenn Beck much and you're going to get whiplash.

Like his show yesterday on Fox News: Shortly after appealing to the public not to get all hysterical and overwrought about the AIG Bonus Scandal, Glenn Beck got all hysterical and overwrought with Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association about Obama's evil plot to take away our guns.

Of course, this back-and-forth tone shift comes on the heels of Beck's overtly populist appeals to torches and pitchforks that have largely characterized his first couple of months working the audiences at Fox -- alongside the apocalyptic shrieking, weeping, and teeth-gnashing.

But the gun-grabbing segment yesterday was also a big about-face for Beck: Beck and LaPierre worked themselves into a fine frenzy over President Obama's eeeeevil plans for taking away Americans' guns -- no doubt just the first steps that will eventually lead to eradicating the Second Amendment, rounding up gun owners and placing them in FEMA camps, and installing a blue-helmeted United Nations dictatorship in America.

What's inspiring the recent gun moves? Drug-gang violence on the Mexican border. Yet for much of the past month, Glenn Beck has been bugging his eyes out and flecking his camera lenses with spittle, warning Americans about the doom about to descend on them because of the violence on that border. So when the government pays attention to the problem and tries to find practical solutions, Beck attacks that.

A Fox News piece outlines the issue, as the wingnuts see it:

Continue reading »