Those of you who read my blog will note that I am not often critical of law enforcement – however people have been appropriately critical of ATF with their handling of situations that went horribly wrong (such as Waco-Branch Dravidians). Those of you who know me personally know that I recently ran a multi- agency federal-state-counties-cities task force targeting Asian Organized Crime. ATF provided my group a lot of manpower and equipment and some very good special agents. We bought a lot of machine guns on the streets of Los Angeles from organized crime – but I can’t imagine a situation where we would have SOLD machine guns such that they would have “walked” from the point of sale from the US and into the hands of narcotics cartels in Mexico. Just because you can do something does not mean that you should.
(CBS NEWS – LINK) “Documents show the inevitable result: The guns that ATF let gobegan showing up at crime scenes in Mexico. And as ATF stood by watching thousands of weapons hit the streets… the Fast and Furious group supervisor noted the escalating Mexican violence.
One e-mail noted, “958 killed in March 2010 … most violent month since 2005.” The same e-mail notes: “Our subjects purchased 359 firearms during March alone,” including “numerous Barrett .50 caliber rifles.”
Dodson feels that ATF was partly to blame for the escalating violence in Mexico and on the border. “I even asked them if they could see the correlation between the two,” he said. “The more our guys buy, the more violence we’re having down there.”
What is the Obama Justice Department thinking?
This issue is one of the most infuriating things out there lately. I hated it when Calderon was squawking about American guns causing all the problems – and it turns out he was partially correct.
As much as I loathe Obama/Holder, I still have to wonder if it goes that high. Seems just as likely to me that some regional ATF higher-up in the SW border area got bought off by big amounts of Mexican drug money.
I have not paid too much attention to this, and therefore what I have read has not made much sense. I don't know what DOJ the ATF is under, but its not any DOJ that I know of. If you saw the kind if sign-offs and approvals you need at other Bureau's, to even show somebody a gun, or let something walk – there is certainly nothing fast, but you would be furious!
I thought they were just 'tracing' the guns, trying to track where they went (that's a huge part of what the ATF does), and that they suspected they were going to Mexico – sounds like they were more culpable – and those emails are going to create a whole new email policy.
Race – I can't believe that getting DOJ approval (as happened) didn't go near the top at Main Justice when the object was to release firearms into Mexico. It's interesting to me that the same Department of Justice is blaming civilian gun owners for selling firearms to the cartels when it seems apparent that THEY were the principal pipeline.
Somebody HEAVY in this administration had to sign off on that stunt – and you simply have to wonder what they were thinking.
innominatus – I doubt that it goes to Obama or Holder, but their appointees clearly gave this boondoggle a green light. It was a MAJOR operation.
What they were allegedly thinking:
Find American guns in cartel hands committing murder, blame it on those awful conservative American gun dealers, pass laws outlawing the second amendment, and voila! Iran on the Potomac.
I love a good conspiracy theory, don't you?
Opus #6 – sadly, it's a conspiracy that cost the life of a Border Patrol agent who was killed by one of the firearms that ATF sold the cartels. We've admitted what we've done but I don't see any shame in Washington for such a bonehead stunt.
I personally think not only did Holder know of and approve this (note that this kind of crap has been going on for years even before this administration) but it was also known to our fearless (he must of said at least 25 times the other night he in fact is a leader) leader! The lies and deliberate ignorance of our laws as practiced by this administration is stunning in nature! I'm actually still shocked that CBS even reported it!
This administration doesn't care who they arm as long as they're in Mexico or Libya and not the USA.
Odie – Americans should be disarmed for the sake of domestic tranquility.
joetote – You're on the money.
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