Mexico

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The Mexican Ambassador Can Go Screw Himself

June 1, 2012 by 3 Comments

When the ambassador of a neighboring nation disparages our Second Amendment rights and our commitment to them, in my humble opinion, he can go screw himself. The Ambassador of Mexico to the United States, Arturo Sarukhan, suggested today that our concerns about his country’s attempts to denigrate our Second Amendment rights is “gobbledygook”.

In a slap at gun-rights advocates, the Mexican ambassador to the U.S. dismissed accusations that Mexico is seeking to undermine the Second Amendment in order to curb the influx of U.S.-purchased guns.

“There is an urban myth out there that somehow the Mexican government … is seeking to lobby against and destroy the rights enshrined in the Second Amendment,” said Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan. “This is gobbledygook.”

He also praised the Obama Administration’s multiple rifle purchase reporting requirement in the Southwest border states but then said that the cartel’s will just look elsewhere.

Well, duh! They have already looked elsewhere and that elsewhere is your own army as well to Guatemala and quite possibly Chavez’s Venezuela.

If you would like to give the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary from the Republic of Mexico a piece of your mind, the Embassy’s phone number is 202-728-1600 and you can send an email through this form on their website.

According to the article, representatives from the NRA and NSSF didn’t take his comments lying down.

Sarukhan was making excuses for Mexico’s failure to curb police, judicial and military corruption that undermines its pursuit of the cartels, they said.

“There’s finger-pointing at America but no mention of the corruption so pervasive in Mexico,” said Andrew Arulanandam, spokesman for the National Rifle Association, when asked for reaction to Sarukhan’s comments.

“Restricting the Second Amendment rights of Americans is neither an option nor a solution to Mexico’s internal crime problem,” said Lawrence Keane, general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents gun manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers.

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There Are No Coincidences

April 27, 2012 by 1 Comment

Yesterday, the BATFE held a briefing for the media on the results regarding traces of firearms recovered in Mexico. Reporters that attended this briefing were not allowed any cameras, recording devices, or video equipment. They were only allowed pen and paper to take notes. Katie Pavlich of Townhall.com tweeted after the event that the moment they got into the briefing they were given a flash drive with the statistics.

The data released show that 68% of the guns submitted for tracing originated in the United States. Note that is only the guns submitted by the Mexican government. Moreover, as Larry Keane of NSSF pointed out in a tweet early this morning, no mention is made of the “Time to Crime” stat. Thus, you don’t know if the “recovered” firearms traced are ones from Operation Fast and Furious or from a burglary in El Paso in 1997.

The BATFE released this yesterday regarding the briefing on the traces.

ATF Releases Government of Mexico Firearms Trace Data

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) today announced the release of trace information for firearms recovered in Mexico and submitted to ATF for tracing. Trace information shows that between calendar years 2007 and 2011 the Government of Mexico recovered and submitted more than 99,000 firearms to ATF for tracing. Of those firearms more than 68,000 were U.S.-sourced. More complete information will be available on the ATF website.

U.S.-sourced firearms are guns determined by ATF to be manufactured in the United States or legally imported into the United States by a federal firearms licensee. Since 2007, trace data shows a trend in recovered and submitted crime guns from Mexico shifting from pistols and revolvers to rifles. Law enforcement in Mexico now report that certain types of rifles, such as the AK and AR variants with detachable magazines, are used more frequently to commit violent crime by drug trafficking organizations.

ATF is working with its law enforcement partners at every level and the Government of Mexico to keep firearms out of the hands of gang members and criminal enterprises. The Mexico trace data is the result of information provided by the Government of Mexico to ATF about crime guns recovered in Mexico and submitted for tracing.

Firearms tracing provides information on the movement of a firearm from its first sale by a manufacturer or importer through the distribution chain in an attempt to identify the first retail purchaser. This information provides investigative leads for criminal investigations.

The Mexico trace data is not the result of any criminal investigation, or investigations, initiated by law enforcement in the United States.

ATF’s National Tracing Center (NTC) is the nation’s only crime gun tracing facility. The NTC provides critical information that assists domestic and international law enforcement agencies solve firearms crimes, detect firearms trafficking and identify trends with respect to intrastate, interstate and international movement of crime guns. The NTC traced more than 319,000 crime guns in calendar year 2011.

ATF is dedicated to reducing firearms trafficking and firearms-related violent crime on both sides of the border.

ATF will also release trace information for firearms recovered in Canada and the Caribbean and submitted to ATF for tracing between calendar years 2007 and 2011.

SayUncle had a post yesterday about how the multiple-long arm reporting requirement for the Southwest border states has now resulted in 123 investigations being started in south Texas. This came from an article on Wednesday in the Houston Chronicle. I don’t think it is any coincidence that the ATF emphasized the use of ARs and AKs “with detachable magazines” by the narco-terrorists in their press release.

Yesterday, Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) had an amendment adopted to the FY13 Commerce, Justice and Science House Appropriations Bill which “would prevent the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) from using federal funds to track the purchases of gun owners who buy multiple rifles within a certain time period.”

From Rehberg’s statement on his amendment:

“While President Obama and his allies in Congress continue to undermine the Constitution, and infringe on our gun rights, I’ll keep fighting to ensure those rights are upheld,” said Rehberg, a member of the Second Amendment Task Force. “The ATF continues the effort to implement new gun control regulations without the approval of Congress, and, tragically, those efforts have included breaking our own country’s laws with the ‘Fast and Furious’ program. My amendment tells the Obama Administration that Congress will not tolerate this.”

The ATF regulation, first proposed in December of 2010 and approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on July 11, 2011, requires federally licensed firearm dealers (FFLs) to file reports with ATF on all sales of two or more semi-automatic rifles within five consecutive business days if the rifles are larger than .22 caliber and use detachable magazines. The requirement applies to dealers in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, but could be expanded to other states using the same obscure regulatory process used to create the rule. Information gathered from the dealers will be kept in a federal database for two years. While Congress passed legislation in the 1990s to allow ATF to track multiple-sales of handguns, they did not intend to expand this regulation to include long guns.

I also think it was no coincidence that BATFE held their press conference as Rep. Rehberg was working to amend the appropriation for their agency which would remove their ability to force FFLs in the Southwest to make reports on certain gun sales. The congressional liaison for BATFE (or more appropriately, agency lobbyist) would have known of these hearings and of Rep. Rehberg’s intent to offer his amendment which did pass.

Nothing happens without a reason in Washington. The BATFE press briefing may be seen as a counter-attack on the critics of that agency for both Project Gunwalker and the Administration’s attempt to use regulatory fiat as a gun control measure.

UPDATE: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) had this to say in a release about the data given out by BATFE yesterday.

“Thorough gun statistics are hard to come by and tricky to interpret. The key to this data is that most of these guns can’t be traced to U.S. gun dealers. And, some of those would actually trace back to the United States because of the federal government’s own gunwalking scandal. We also have to remember that the only guns Mexico is going to submit for tracing are guns they know are from the United States, which clearly paints an incomplete picture of the firearms found in the Mexico.”

Katie Pavlich of Townhall.com who did attend the press briefing has a full report on it here. It seems some of her questions were not able to be answered (or they said they didn’t have the data).

UPDATE II: Larry Keane, General Counsel of NSSF, has a blog post up entitled “The Shrinking ‘Vast Majority’: NSSF Responds to ATF Mexican Trace Report.” It dissects the BATFE report and how some politicians and some in the media have played it up.

On the 90% myth:

But it shouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that many of the firearms recovered and traced come from the United States. That is because U.S. law requires markings on firearms precisely so they can be traced by law enforcement through commerce. It is sort of like tracing the VIN number on cars on a Ford dealership lot and be surprised to learn that most are Fords. What the 90 percent myth does not account for, and the media turns a blind eye to, and what yesterday’s ATF report does not shed light on, is the fact that you know nothing about the firearms recovered in Mexico but were never traced — like the firearms that the 150,000 or so Mexican soldiers took with them when they defected to go work for the drug cartels over the past several years.

On Time to Crime:

Perhaps what is most interesting about ATF’s report is the fact that it does not discuss the “Time to Crime” (TTC) for the Mexican traced firearms. ATF always gives TTC when it issues a tracing report (click here for an example). Why did ATF omit this piece of information? Because it knows that on average firearms (of all types) recovered in Mexico and successfully traced were on average originally sold at retail after a background check more than 15 years ago.

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Diversion Of Legally Exported Firearms To The Narco-Terrorists

December 6, 2011 by

Sharyl Attkisson has a report this morning on the legal commercial sales of firearms to the Mexican government and specifically the Mexican Army. All of these sales must be (and have been approved) by the U.S. State Department before any manufacturer is allowed to ship the guns to Mexico.

The reported number of AR-15s sold in 2006 was 2,400. By 2009, in the first year of the Obama Administration, the number of semi-automatic firearms sold to Mexico was 17,169 plus another 1,361 full-auto firearms. The 2009 figures come from the Department of State’s Section 665 Report to Congress. As Attkisson notes, the Department of State has stopped disclosing the actual number of firearms sold. Checking the FY 2010 report, I find that she is correct and that the State Department just lumps everything into one category which could include anything from a firearm to its firing pin. I find it illuminating that as the drug war intensifies om Mexico and the Obama Administration is making a push to “stop the iron river of arms” going to Mexico that they now stop reporting just how many legal arms are being sold.

The problem as Attkisson points out is not the legal sales of firearms to the Mexican Army, it is the diversion of these weapons from the Army to the narco-terrorists. When a poorly paid Private deserts from the Mexican Army, it has become commonplace for his issued weapon to desert with him. Unfortunately, it doesn’t then become stashed under the floorboards in his home for defending the wife and kids but rather goes to the cartels for a significant sum of money.

Ed Head made this same point in an interview with Cam Edwards of NRA News last week. The Obama Administration would have you believe that the arms going to the cartels are coming from border-state gun dealers. They want you to ignore the man behind the curtain or, in this case, the legal sales of firearms that are being diverted from the Mexican Army.

Attkisson reports that the State Department audits a very small percentage of the sales. Of those that it audited, it found that 26% of the firearms had been diverted or some other unfavorable result. Larry Keane of NSSF agrees that the State Department and the Mexican government need to provide better oversight of these firearms once they are in the hands of the Mexican Army. He is correct when he asserts that this is beyond the scope of what the American firearms industry can do.

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About That 90% Claim

September 1, 2011 by 2 Comments

Julian Assange may be a creepy pervert but the State Department documents being released through WikiLeaks are providing some valuable insight about arms trafficking and seized firearms in Mexico.

Mike Vanderboegh has a post on Sipsey Street Irregulars about a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City to the State Department, DOJ, and many other U.S. agencies. The unclassified cable sent on October 28, 2009 has a subject heading of “MEXICO ARMS TRAFFICKING: ACCESS TO CONFISCATED WEAPONS, A NECESSARY STEP MEXICO”. After much discussion of how Mexico stores and catalogs confiscated weapons and how their court system treats the information, there is an acknowledgment that the claim that 90% of weapons found in Mexico originated in the United States is incorrect.

¶6. (SBU) Comment. Claims by Mexican and U.S. officials that upwards of 90 percent of illegal recovered weapons can be traced back to the U.S. is based on an incomplete survey of confiscated weapons. In point of fact, without wider access to the weapons seized in Mexico, we really have no way of verifying these numbers.

So given this, why do Obama Administration officials including the new Acting Director of ATF continually repeat a claim that has been proven false in more than one venue?

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Are These The Only Guns That DIDN’T Walk To Mexico?

August 3, 2011 by 1 Comment

Late last week, ATF issued a press release in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas. It concerned eight men who were sentenced for their participation in straw purchases of firearms that were to be smuggled across the Texas border into Mexico.

To somewhat paraphrase Sean Sorrentino, are these the only guns that didn’t walk to Mexico?

Members of Ring Convicted of Lying to Buy Firearms Bound for Mexico Sentenced

McALLEN, Texas — Eight members of ring convicted of lying to buy firearms bound for Mexico have been sentenced to prison terms, United States Attorney José Angel Moreno announced today.

United States District Judge Randy Crane sentenced Juan Manuel Barrientos–Lopez, 29, an undocumented alien from Mexico; Andres Alvarez, 24, of Alamo, Texas; Armando Bravo II, aka Peanut, 22, Romulo Longoria, 21, Greg Palacios, 19, Ruben Ramirez III, 20, all of San Juan, Texas; as well as Alan Ramirez, 20, and Michael Anthony Salazar, 20, both of McAllen, to varying prison terms for their roles in a straw purchasing scheme to acquire firearms bound for Mexico. All eight men pleaded guilty on various dates in March and April 2011 to lying on the ATF Form 4473 when they falsely represented themselves to be the “actual owner” of varying types of automatic weapons they were buying for another earlier this year.

The charges and subsequent convictions are the result of an investigation initiated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) after Alvarez purchased multiple AR–15 type rifles in June 2010. Through their investigation, agents learned that Alvarez had been recruited to make the firearm purchases by Bravo because, as convicted felon, Bravo is prohibited by federal law from possessing much less purchasing a firearm. It was later discovered that Alan Ramirez, when he realized that Bravo could not purchase firearms, allegedly recruited Bravo to recruit other straw purchases. Alan Ramirez also recruited Salazar. In addition to his role of a recruiter, Alan Ramirez personally straw purchased 19 firearms for Barrientos–Lopez. Barrientos–Lopez, who was found to be the head of the straw purchasing ring, was present in the United States illegally could not possess let alone purchase firearms. In an attempt to satisfy the orders for firearms placed by Barrientos–Lopez, Bravo then recruited Ruben Ramirez, Palacios and Longoria. Bravo obtained cash for each of these “recruits” to purchase the firearms then paid each of them approximately $200 for each firearm they purchased.

Barrientos–Lopez, originally charged by criminal complaint in October 2010, was taken into custody following a high speed chase after straw purchased firearms had been delivered to him. The other seven defendants were named and charged in various counts of a 14–count superseding indictment returned by a grand jury in January 2011. All eight defendants pleaded guilty to lying to buy a variety of semi–automatic firearms at federally licensed firearms dealers in McAllen, Mission and/or Pharr, Texas, between May and October 2010.

At today’s hearing, Judge Crane held Barrientos–Lopez, as the organization’s head, responsible for the purchase of a total of 38 AK–47 and AR–15 type rifles purchased by the ring and sentenced him to 60 months, the maximum sentence allowed by law, in federal prison. Alvarez was sentenced to 48 months imprisonment, while Bravo received 60 months. Longoria, Palacios, Alan Ramirez and Salazar were each sentenced to 30 months while Ruben Ramirez was sentenced to 33 months. With the exception of Alan Ramirez, who has been permitted to remain on bond until the issuance of an order to surrender to the U.S. Marshals Service on September 6, 2011, all other defendants have been in custody since either arrest or conviction.

All have been further sentenced to serve a 3–year–term of supervised release upon completion of their prison terms. Barrientos–Lopez is subject to deportation upon release from prison due to his illegal status in the United States.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Schammel.

 As a postscript, I have received my Gunwalker T-shirt from Sean and I can highly recommend it. The shirt is substantial and the printing job is first-rate.

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NSSF On The Feinstein-Schumer-Whitehouse “Report”

June 15, 2011 by

Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Charles Schumer (D-NY), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) issued a so-called report on Monday blaming American guns for the violence in Mexico. Frankly, I think it was timed to draw media attention from the Gunwalker hearings that started that afternoon.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation has responded to that report and takes apart their numbers. Rather than showing 70% of guns being traced from Mexico to the U.S., it actually shows a decline in the number of American firearms being traced by Mexican authorities.

Anti-Gun Report Shows DECLINE in Number of US Firearms Being Traced to Mexico
June 15, 2011
By Larry Keane

Once again anti-gun legislators are attempting to misrepresent firearm tracing data, though this time, with declining numbers and a public wary of political posturing, it may just backfire on them.

A report (“Halting US Firearms Trafficking to Mexico“) released Monday by a trio of anti-gun senators including Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) appears to show the number of firearms that have been recovered in Mexico and traced to the United States as actually declining in recent years from an unsubstantiated 90 percent to, now, an unsubstantiated 70 percent.

It is important to note that these percentages do not reflect the total number of firearms recovered. In fact, in a letter to Sen. Feinstein discussing this very report, ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson admitted, “There are no United States Government sources that maintain any record of the total number of criminal firearms seized in Mexico.”

So to be clear, the 70 percent claim relates only to the very small number of traced firearms – not the total number of firearms recovered. And it’s no surprise that so many come from the United States. We have a very good system for tracing firearms through serial numbers and purchase records (some countries don’t trace them at all). Mexico recognizes this fact and submits for tracing only those firearms that it believes would likely prove trace positive.

Earlier this year a report by the independent research group STRATFOR noted that less than 12 percent of the total number of guns seized in Mexico during 2008 had been verified as coming from the United States. STRATFOR cited a June 2009 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report noting:

30,000 firearms were seized from criminals by Mexican authorities in 2008.
Of these 30,000 firearms, information pertaining to 7,200 of them (24 percent) was submitted to the ATF for tracing.
Of these 7,200 guns, only about 4,000 could be traced by the ATF.
Of these 4,000, some 3,480 (87 percent) were shown to have come from the United States.

The Feinstein report follows an update to the U.S. Firearms Trafficking to Mexico Report issued by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. According to that update, Mexican authorities have submitted trace requests for “tens of thousands of firearms” to the ATF. However, the ATF has stated that many of these requests are duplicative, with some firearms being resubmitted for tracing five times or more. Moreover, the update notes that 75 percent of the firearm traces are not successful and that only eight percent lead to an investigation. Furthermore, as ATF has repeatedly stated, the tracing of a firearm (or the opening of an investigation) in no way indicates criminal wrong-doing by either the retailer or the first purchaser of the firearm.

The Wilson report also notes that most of the traced firearms were originally sold at retail more than five years earlier. The report doesn’t say how much earlier, but ATF has previously said that firearms traced from Mexico were on average 14 years old. This demonstrates that of the small percentage of guns that do come from the United States, these firearms have not been purchased recently.

Despite attempts by anti-gun legislators to utilize these reports as leverage for pushing gun control, no one should be under any illusions; the United States is no more the source of 70 percent of the weapons used by the Mexican cartels than it is 90 percent. These numbers only allege to relate to the small percentage of seized and traceable firearms submitted to the ATF.

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Ignore The Man Behind The Curtain

June 14, 2011 by 2 Comments

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives along with their friends in the Senate hope that you will ignore the hearings being held before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee into Operation Fast and Furious (aka Project Gunwalker) and the ATF’s role in letting guns walk to Mexico.

Cam Edwards of NRA News disposed of the 70% figure last week yet there are some that will continue to repeat it because it buttresses their cause. As Mike at Sipsey Street Irregulars says, “Repeat The Lie” often and loudly so that people will ignore the real stats and the role of ATF in gunrunning to Mexico.

After the hearings tomorrow, that will become harder and harder even with misleading numbers, reports, and press releases from the Feinsteins and Schumers of this world.


Feinstein, Schumer, Whitehouse Report Calls for Stronger U.S. Response to Firearms Trafficking to Mexico

Urges Congress and the Administration to strengthen firearms laws to stem drug-related violence

70% of weapons recovered in Mexico originated in U.S. according to ATF

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Chairman of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, along with Senators Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) today released the findings of a Congressional investigation that concludes American military-style weapons are arming Mexico’s brutal drug trafficking organizations at an alarming rate and policymakers are not adequately responding.

“Congress has been virtually moribund while powerful Mexican drug trafficking organizations continue to gain unfettered access to military-style firearms coming from the United States,” said Senator Feinstein. “New ATF data provided last week reveals that more than 70 percent of firearms recovered at crime scenes and traced by Mexican officials actually originated in the United States.”

According to the report, Halting U.S. Firearms Trafficking to Mexico, the overwhelming majority of firearms recovered at crime scenes and traced by Mexican officials originate in the United States. In a recent letter to Feinstein, ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson indicated that in 2009 and 2010 20,504 of the 29,284 firearms (70 percent) recovered in Mexico and submitted for tracing were United States-sourced.

“This report confirms what many of us already know to be true: although the Senate’s recently passed border measure will help make our Southern border safer, it is still too easy for Mexican drug lords to get their hands on deadly military-grade weapons within our borders,” said Senator Schumer. “We need to redouble our efforts to keep violent firearms out of the hands of these traffickers.”

“This report outlines common sense measures that will help protect our border and our communities by keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of Mexican gangs and drug cartels,” said Senator Whitehouse.

Conclusions of the report:

It will be very difficult to successfully reduce drug-related violence in Mexico without starving the country’s drug trafficking organizations of their military-style weapons.

To do this, the United States must strengthen current firearms laws and regulations. This can be done through a number of key actions by the Obama Administration and Congress, including:

Enactment of legislation to close the gun show loophole;
Better enforcement of the existing ban on imports of military-style weapons;
Reinstatement of the expired Assault Weapons Ban;
Reporting by Federal Firearms Licensees on all multiple firearms sales; and
Senate ratification of the Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking of Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and Other Related Materials (CIFTA).

The Halting U.S. Firearms Trafficking to Mexico report can be found here. Information from the report was gathered through meetings in Mexico and in U.S. border cities, briefings, interviews, and a review of documents from both government and non-government subject matter experts.

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Coalition Of Mexican And American Groups Seek To Ban “Assault Weapons”

June 2, 2011 by

Dave Kopel is interviewed by Cam Edwards on the efforts of Mexican and U.S. groups to have semi-automatic firearms banned in the U.S. According to the Latin American Herald Tribune, they are organizing a petition which they plan to present to President Obama.

One of these groups is Global Exchange. This is a pro-Castro, pro-Hugo Chavez group which sent monies to the families of insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq.

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Why One Should Not Depend On Aging Rock Stars For The Facts

May 23, 2011 by 1 Comment

The Irish rock group U2 played a series of concerts last week in Mexico City. The band’s leader Bono made news when he said that most murders in Mexico are committed with automatic firearms smuggled in from the United States. From the band’s website:

‘I want you to send a message of love along the border to the good and the great people of the United States of America.’ announced Bono, during ‘Pride’ at the third show in Mexico tonight. ‘ I want you to send a message to people of conscience.

‘Ask them to answer the question. Why is it that all we hear on the news is how drugs are smuggled through Mexico to the United States ?

‘And we don’t hear about all the automatic weapons that are being smuggled into Mexico from the United States. Nine thousand registered arms dealers on the other side of the border. Nine thousand.

‘Most of the murders committed here are from weapons sold in the United States of America.

In the video embedded below (which I have also posted on YouTube), you can listen to the comments made by Bono and the change in lyrics he made to their song Pride (In the Name of Love).

Arthur Chrenkoff writing for Pajamas Media says Bono makes good music but uses bad numbers.

I can’t exactly blame you. You have probably heard the “statistic” that 90 percent of guns used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States from Hillary Clinton herself. Or Senator Dianne Feinstein. Or maybe even from William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. After all, if anyone knows, the ATF should, right?

The problem is, as with many other factoids which gain a life of their own and enter the general circulation through media and internet, this is simply not true.

Thanks to the NSSF, we have this graphic showing that for 2008 – the latest year for which figures are available – only 12% of firearms seized in Mexico came from the United States. Of course, with all the firearms that went to Mexico due to Project Gunwalker, the numbers could be higher in later years.

The bottom line is that we’d be a lot better off if rock stars, actors, and other assorted glitterati stuck to music or acting or just looking pretty and save us from having to hear their pronouncements about matters on which they know nothing.