A spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, a left-wing anti-gun group based in Washington, D.C., told The Daily Caller his organization doesn’t believe firearms trafficked to Mexico in Operation Fast and Furious have killed hundreds of civilians in that country. That those guns have been used often to kill Mexicans is a position articulated by both Attorney General Eric Holder and Mexican authorities.
Coalition spokesman Ladd Everitt argued that there was no evidence for The Daily Caller to report that “[t]here are hundreds of Mexican citizens who were murdered with weapons the Obama administration gave to cartels through Fast and Furious and two American law enforcement officers — Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata — were killed with Fast and Furious guns.”
Everitt argued that he didn’t think there is “actual trace and ballistics evidence to prove that conclusively.”
And when TheDC presented Everitt with video of Holder’s own admission that the death toll from Fast and Furious weapons will likely increase, he scoffed.
During an exchange with Texas Republican Rep. Ted Poe before the House Judiciary Committee on Dec. 8, Holder was asked if he would agree that “more people are going to die” because of Fast and Furious. “Unfortunately I think that’s probably true,” Holder admitted in his testimony.
But Everitt, an anti-gun advocate, attacked Holder’s statement to Congress as “purely speculative.”
TheDC also sent Everitt a September 2011 article by Townhall’s Katie Pavlich in which House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa said Mexico’s Attorney General Marisela Morales claimed there were at least 200 citizens in her country killed with weapons linked to Operation Fast and Furious.
Everitt balked at Morales’ claims by way of Issa, saying the statement doesn’t matter because Issa cited Morales saying it. That “piece of ‘evidence’ is Darrell Issa claiming to reporters, ‘I would be remiss if I didn’t mention, as the Attorney General in Mexico is so concerned, she’s made the point that at least 200 Mexicans have been killed with these weapons and probably countless more,’” Everitt told TheDC.
“Where has Marisela Morales actually made this claim herself? She’s certainly had every opportunity to.”
Read more at The Daily Caller.
