From a Campaign Spot reader in England:
re. the spectacle yesterday with Calderon. I have spent most of the last 49 years living overseas (12 countries, 5 continents). What they told you in Turkey holds true anywhere you go. No one, no matter how corrupt the country is, no matter how screwed up, likes to hear a foreigner throw stones at their country. Calderon was wrong and stupid. The action by the Democrats in applauding was unforgivable. They will pay. I have already donated more this election than in any other in my adult lifetime – they have spurred me on to do more.
There are diplomatic ways to address these issues. Speaking before a foreign legislature and declaring that one law must be reinstated (the so-called “Assault Weapons Ban”) and one law must be repealed (Arizona’s wildly popular new approach to illegal immigrants) is the height of arrogance and a supreme insult. Even if you agree with Calderon’s positions on these issues, you ought to recognize that when a foreign leader is invited to address our legislative branch from the floor of the House, basic respect requires him to refrain from denouncing the decisions of his hosts. And the audience, whose job is to represent Americans, ought to sit on their hands if not emulating Joe Wilson.
As recently as 2006, the official says, the average time to crime for guns seized in Mexico was between six and seven years, suggesting that the weapons had gone through several buyers and sellers before ending up in the hands of Mexican drug traffickers.
That would mean these guns were purchased before 2001; the Assault Weapons Ban was in effect from September 1994 to September 2004. In other words, most American guns seized in Mexico were purchased while the Assault Weapons Ban was in effect. This is not about stopping drug traffickers’ access to guns; this is about officials on both sides of the border being able to say, “See! We’re doing something!”
That Newsweek article reports that recent seizures indicate some guns are getting to Mexico much more quickly now, pointing to organized gun-smuggling efforts. (I, for one, would love to build a fence or wall along our southern border to help impede gun-smuggling efforts, but somehow I suspect Calderon wouldn’t approve of that.) If gun smugglers are the problem, then target gun smugglers (who, presumably, are obtaining these firearms in large quantities); don’t attempt to restrict the rights of law-abiding gun owners who are, generally, purchasing firearms one gun at a time.