During the October 24 airing of the Rush Limbaugh Show, Limbaugh played a clip of President Obama mocking those who feared he would come for guns during the past 7 years. Limbaugh then countered Obama by pointing out that Operation Fast and Furious was, in fact, a focused attempt to make Americans clamor for Obama to come after certain types of weapons via stringent gun control.
Limbaugh summed up the basics of Fast and Furious by reminding listeners it was an operation wherein guns were intentionally purchased in Phoenix, Arizona, to be smuggled into Mexico. The guns would ubiquitously be traced as they went into Mexico, with the stated purpose that this tactic would lead to cartel members who could then be apprehended.
It should be noted that the guns in Phoenix were purchased via “straw purchases,” whereby the buyer knew he was not buying the guns for himself but for the persons to whom they would be smuggled. Such purchases are illegal, but were allowed by Obama’s DOJ/ATF because acquiring the guns was key to the operation. Moreover, it should also be noted that the guns purchased in Phoenix were not only “major assault weapons”–so hated by the left–but also .50 caliber rifles.
Limbaugh indicated that the Obama administration’s real goals for Fast and Furious were not necessarily the stated goals. Instead, he believes the real goal of the operation was to have the guns create enough havoc on the border that Americans would beg for the government to institute more gun control.
Limbaugh said:
They wanted the American public to demand tougher gun control laws. They know they can’t go take guns out of the hands of people. They know there’s the Second Amendment–if they could get rid of it they would, but they can’t. There are too many Democrats that are not going to vote for something like that, so the way they do it is to try to create a mass hysteria.
Limbaugh went on to explain that Fast and Furious backfired because the program was discovered–and the goals of the program deduced–before the hysteria could be caused.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.