Well, technically speaking, given what a big hero Oliver North is to a not insignificant number of Republicans, what is the difference between selling guns to Islamists in the middle of a war we're already arming the other side on and selling guns to cartels to push drugs we've already outlawed? Reagan did that to pay his precious nun-rapers who were the moral equivalent of our founding fathers when that was already explicitly illegal by act of Congress. Illegal acts are illegal, the reaction to the two, OTOH, is not at all equal, implying the issue really isn't the people who were killed by the guns, but rather that it's a Democratic instead of GOP Administration sending said guns.