Gun rights activists have been trying for weeks to get Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) to use his position as Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, one The Washington Post credits with “almost limitless subpoena power,” to initiate hearings on the “Project Gunwaker”* scandal. Their efforts were given fresh impetus by Rep. RaúlLabrador (R-ID), who pledged to encourage Issa to conduct such hearings.
So far, Issa has been silent on the issue, which is curious when you consider his good record on gun issues, and also a pledge he made when he first decided to run for public office in the 1998 United States Senate campaign.
Friends of mine from the now-defunct The Lawyer’s Second Amendment Society used to host monthly ATF Night dinners at a Los Angeles-area restaurant, so-named because in addition to discussing firearms rights and strategizing over needed activism, we met socially, so the dinners included adult beverages if so desired, and the restaurant had built a specially ventilated room separate from the rest of the establishment where cigars could be enjoyed by those so inclined (which did not stop the ultimate halting of that when new edicts were passed by those who would protect us from ourselves, forcing those who wished to indulge to carry on their socializing outside the building—a practice that apparently is still not good enough to quell “progressive” rage).
Candidate Issa attended one such dinner in 1997, and was presented with a document LSAS was using to determine commitment to the tight to keep and bear arms, the “Pre-Oath of Office” (and incidentally, one of the ideological precursors and inspirations for my Political Questionnaire).
By signing this document (see sidebar slide show), Issa freely acknowledged his “duty and responsibility to protect the inalienable natural arms rights of the people.” Knowing how the entire “Mexican crime guns” issue has been exploited to not only call for new restrictions on that right, but also to bestow new powers and provide more resources to those who are abusing what they now have in order to help achieve those goals, there is no way Rep. Issa can plausibly avoid investigating the Gunwalker scandal.
So why has Issa not stepped up to the plate yet?
Politicians are responsive to public pressure, and not enough has been generated to date to take priority over the many other pressing issues currently on the congressman’s agenda. Long-time readers will recall the efforts taken both by myself and by Mike Vanderboegh to induce Senate investigators to open their doors, which included no small amount of banging pots and pans demanding to be noticed.
There is one thing that could make it practically impossible for Issa to ignore, but in order to make it happen, we need an 800-Lb. gorilla. We’ve seen the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms call for Senate Investigations, call to cut off ATF funding, and call for DoJ investigations. We’ve seen Gun Owners of America call for expanding investigations into the House of Representatives, and provide just the tool to use. Both groups have urged their members to take grassroots action to contact their representatives and ask for direct action.
But these groups only have a fraction of the membership of the mighty National Rifle Association, which to date has limited any notice of this huge, administration-shaking scandal to a few external links in its website’s “In the News” section (and none, naturally, to articles by we who broke this story and continue to provide new daily revelations).
In the week when CBS News aired two follow-ups to its groundbreaking “Gunwalker” reporting, including an on-camera interview with a whistleblowing agent and a phone interview with Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s sister, in a week when The Los Angeles Times ran the story on its front page, and the story has been picked up by CNN, the BBC…
...NRA issues a nationwide “alert” to its members that mentions not a word of any of this, let alone any call to action.
That is not good enough for those who would represent themselves to be our leaders in the fight to protect the right to keep and bear arms. It is, in fact, derelict and shameful.
As a Life Member I demand my association take immediate action and issue a strong, unequivocal demand of their own for complete and full investigations in both the Senate and the House, and mobilize their members to make it happen. I demand NRA put all senators and representatives—including all those “pro-gun democrats” we’ve been hearing about—on notice that their failure to take a leadership position in making this happen will be scored against them in the next election. I further demand that all candidates for this year’s Board of Directors election, particularly those selected by the Nominating Committee, make strong public statements adding their demands to mine.
Oh, and Rep. Issa? As an American gun owner, I demand that you get off the pot regardless.
So will they?
That’s up to you. I can demand and stamp my feet ‘til the cows come home and whatever impact I can make will be negligible, easy to overlook and just ignore. So the question is, will you demand this as well? Join me in screaming and stomping and banging pots and refusing to take “No” for an answer? Because if enough of us do, we can create an avalanche. Think about it—go back to the very beginning of this story, back to late December and early January—and look at what we’ve had to do and where we’ve gotten to so far. How many of you thought we would ever get this on CBS of all places, and that they’d pull of a continuing series of outstanding investigative journalism coups?
And if enough of us don’t, well, ABC’s got the NBA game on this afternoon. NBC has the PGA tour and Fox is running NASCAR. Plus I understand “Desperate Housewives” and “Celebrity Apprentice” are on in primetime…I suppose we could just forget about all this and get comfortable—for the time being.
Also see:
- A journalist’s guide to ‘Project Gunwalker' for a complete list with links of independent investigative reporting and commentary done to date by Sipsey Street Irregulars and Gun Rights Examiner.
- The latest from Sipsey Street Irregulars: There’s too much to list—I’ll do that in the Journalist’s Guide. Just go here and start reading and scrolling. And make sure, if nothing else, that you read the “I am Spartacus!” piece.
- American Thinker: T.L. Davis has a new piece out.
- The Market Ticker asks if it’s time to put a fork in BATFE.
- The Truth About Guns is another place you should be checking regularly for original reporting and insights, and even an occasional chat.
- Dave Workman and Kurt Hofmann continue to bring us outstanding reporting and commentary.
*Note to newcomers to this story: “Project Gunrunner” is the name ATF assigned to its Southwest Border Initiative to interdict gun smuggling to Mexico. “Project Gunwalker” is the name I assigned to the scandal after allegations by agents that monitored guns were allowed to fall into criminal hands on both sides of the border through a surveillance process termed “walking” surfaced.
