(GunReports.com) — David Kopel, adjunct law professor at Denver University and co-author of “Firearms Law and the Second Amendment”, wrote in the Washington Times this week: “Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s visit to Washington last week featured his usual lecturing of Americans about gun control. This time, he had some good ideas, although he remains wedded to many bad ones, too. A polite guest, Mr. Calderon did not mention the “Fast and Furious” operation during his public events with President Obama. But reports indicate that he did bring it up privately, and he was furious – justifiably so.”
Kopel continued, “If Mr. Obama gave Mr. Calderon the same explanations that his administration has been propounding since last year, there was no reason for Mr. Calderon to take Mr. Obama seriously. The administration’s all-purpose excuse of ‘It’s Bush’s fault’ has been applied to Fast and Furious.”
The rest of Kopel’s piece generates some questions:
- Did Mr. Calderon have sufficient briefing to ask Mr. Obama about the cover-up? The Obama administration has stonewalled many congressional subpoenas.
- Did Mr. Calderon ask whether there will be prosecutions under the Arms Export Control Act, which prohibits firearms exports without a U.S. State Department permit? Unlike most gun control laws, the Arms Export Control Act has no implied “law enforcement” exception.
- Does Mr. Calderon plan to initiate lawsuits – or even criminal charges – against the Americans who intentionally conspired to promote illegal gun-smuggling into Mexico? For that possibility, Mr. Calderon retained the New York/Texas firm of Reid Collins & Tsai LLP, on Nov. 2, 2010.
- Why does Mr. Calderon ignore the right to arms found in the Mexican Constitution: “The inhabitants of the United Mexican States have a right to arms in their homes, for security and legitimate defense, with the exception of arms prohibited by federal law and those reserved for the exclusive use of the Army, Navy, Air Force and National Guard. Federal law will determine the cases, conditions, requirements and places in which the carrying of arms will be authorized to the inhabitants.”
- Why are carry licenses in Mexico granted only to the wealthy and the politically connected? In a nation of 105 million people, there are only 4,300 carry licenses.
- Why does Mr. Calderon blame Mexican crime on expiration of the U.S. ban on “assault weapons” (ordinary firearms with politically incorrect cosmetics). Mexico had thousands more homicides from 2001 to 2003 when the ban was in full effect.
