Audio: Today's Podcast - Interviews with Larry Pratt and Jeffrey Lord

On December 28th, while guest hosting for Lynn Woolley, I had the opportunity to interview Larry Pratt, Executive Director of Gun Owners of America (GOA) and Jeffrey Lord of the American Spectator.

I talked to Pratt about his interview with CNN's Piers Morgan as well as the blatant hypocrisy from the left when it comes to Sandy Hook vs. Fast and Furious, an operation run by the ATF and DOJ. I spoke with Lord about his recent column on the fiscal cliff negotiations in which he made very salient comparisons between what's going on today and what happened in 1982.

Incidentally, Morgan's interview with Pratt continues to have legs. After tens of thousands of people of signed a White House petition demanding that Morgan be deported, the CNN anchor has written a column of his own in which he threatens to deport himself and actually names Pratt specifically as being the catalyst for the anti-Piers sentiment.

Firefighter Shooter beneficiary of 'Straw Purchasing' (think Fast and Furious)

In the days after the fatal shootings of firefighters Mike Chiapperini and Thomasz Kaczowka in Webster, NY on Christmas Eve, it was learned that the shooter did not have legal access to guns; he had already been convicted of murdering his grandmother with a hammer. So how did he get them?

If you're familiar with what happened in Operation Fast and Furious, you're likely familiar with the term 'straw purchaser'. In the case of that operation, which began in 2009 and ended shortly after the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry on December 14, 2010, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) led the operation with the approval of the Department of Justice. Straw purchasing was a key component of Fast and Furious as gun store owners were instructed by the ATF to sell weapons to straw purchasers, who then walked those guns across the border into Mexico, putting them into the hands of the drug cartels. The weapons found at the scene of Terry's murder were purchased by a straw purchaser with the ATF's knowledge and approval.

Back to the firefighter shootings...

It's now being reported that the man who lured firefighters to his burning home before shooting at them - killing Chiapperini and Kaczowka - was the beneficiary of a straw purchaser, who also happened to be his neighbor.

Via the Daily Caller:

The neighbor, 24-year-old Dawn Nguyen, was arrested on Friday after police traced the serial numbers on two weapons used by William Spengler, the shooter: a Bushmaster AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun, both purchased in 2010.

In exactly the same way, the guns found at Terry's murder scene were traced back to a gun store in Arizona where they were sold to someone who was known to be a straw purchaser for the drug cartels. When you add in the fact that the ATF knowingly allowed those guns to walk across the border, it becomes a matter involving the U.S. State Department, as this exchange from October of 2011 between Rep. Connie Mack and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton illustrates:



Remember, in the case of Fast and Furious, thousands of weapons were allowed to 'walk' into Mexico by U.S. Government officials and hundreds of people were murdered as a result. Here is what Nguyen did in the case of the firefighter shootings:

Nguyen violated federal law by signing a form declaring to a gun retailer that she would be the sole owner of the firearms, U.S. Attorney William Hochul said Friday. She also faces a state charge of filing a falsified business record, a state police investigator added.

“She told the seller of these guns … that she was to be the true owner and buyer of the guns instead of William Spengler,” Hochul said. “It is absolutely against federal law to provide any materially false information related to the acquisition of firearms. … It is sometimes referred to acting as a straw purchaser, and that is exactly what today’s complaint alleges.”

When it came to the weapons sold to straw purchasers in Fast and Furious, all of the aforementioned things took place, with one difference. The ATF knowingly allowed it in advance. There's another difference when it comes to consequences. No one at the ATF has been arrested. To give one an idea of how criminal this all is, consider the charges that Nguyen is facing based on the fact that she provided her neighbor with guns used in the commission of two murders in the U.S. (which didn't included the added element of straw purchasing and then transporting them across international borders):

The federal charges alone could send Nguyen to prison for a maximum of 10 years and levy a fine of $250,000. Both Nguyen and her brother told the media after the shooting that Spengler had stolen the weapons from her, but Nguyen later called police and admitted buying the guns for Spengler, according to police.

Spengler also possessed a .38-caliber revolver during the shooting, which he reportedly used to shoot himself in the head after his rampage. That weapon has not been connected to Nguyen.

Another difference between what the ATF did and what Nguyen did very well could be motive. Did Nguyen know what Spengler was going to do with the weapons she purchased for him? That has yet to be determined but the ATF absolutely knew what was going to happen as a result of allowing straw purchasers to walk those guns into Mexico; hundreds of people were going to get killed.

So what was the motive of the U.S. Government? The answer is the same thing we're seeing today - the exploitation of a 'crisis' to push a gun control agenda.

It becomes obvious that the rule of law applies to some and not others. In another incident involving the ATF, Meet the Press anchor David Gregory was allegedly allowed to break the law by holding up a 30-clip magazine on national television during a recent interview. Subsequent to that interview, it was reported that the ATF gave him permission to do so, despite their having no jurisdiction. To this day, the ATF official who allegedly gave Gregory permission has not been named.

What was Gregory's motive for displaying the magazine during his interview with the NRA's Wayne LaPierre?

As was the case with the ATF in Fast and Furious, gun control. Yet another example of the ATF allowing laws to be broken for a similar purpose.

Ends always justify the means when you're a creature of the left.

Some might remember this powerful report from Univision earlier this year, in which the carnage that resulted from Fast and Furious was investigated. Remember, straw purchasing is what enabled all of these murders, the same kind of straw purchasing that enabled the Christmas Eve firefighter shooter: