Obama Proposes New Gun Controls

Huffington Post is reporting that President Obama will soon unveil new gun control proposals.

"The president directed the Attorney General to form working groups with key stakeholders to identify common sense measures that would improve American safety and security while fully respecting Second Amendment rights," Carney said at Thursday's briefing. "That process is well underway at the Department of Justice with stakeholders on all sides working through these complex issues and we expect to have more specific announcements in the near future."

This would seem to be the same Attorney General, Eric Holder, who is displaying uncharacteristic modesty about his role in "Operation Fast and Furious".The last working group Mr. Holder formed on gun control included such "stakeholders" as the FBI, the DEA, and the Mexican drug cartels. Excluded was the BATF, the agency one would think would play the prime role in any gun control working group. According to report's coming out of Congressman Darrell Issa's probe the buyer of the guns was a paid FBI informant and a member the Mexican cartel but the BATF, not being a stakeholder in Mr. Holder's working group, was unaware of this skullduggery. Yes, this operation was in part funded by The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act aka the stimulus bill but it's not clear how many jobs were created or saved but at least one American life was lost along with those of scores of Mexican nationals. From The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act page 16:

For  an  additional  amount  for  ‘‘State  and  Local  Law  Enforce-
   ment  Assistance’’,  $40,000,000,  for  competitive  grants  to  provide
 assistance  and  equipment  to  local  law  enforcement  along  the
 Southern  border  and  in  High-Intensity  Drug  Trafficking  Areas  to
 combat  criminal  narcotics  activity  stemming  from  the  Southern
 border,  of  which  $10,000,000  shall  be  transferred  to  ‘‘Bureau  of
 Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Salaries and Expenses’’
 for the ATF Project Gunrunner.  

It's not certain how this funding got into the bill but indications suggest that Senators Inouye and Baucus put it in. Neither Senator has a committee relating to gun control but maybe they're citizen stakeholders. The good news is the House is not likely to vote on any new gun regulation but the mystery of "Operation Fast and Furious" deepens with each revelation.