To answer the question “why?” is easy.
This is a political move that backfired. They wanted to further restrict the Rights of law abiding citizens. To what end is what we should be deeply concerned about.
Everyone involved in this conspiracy needs to go to jail for a long, long time. A lot of people have been killed in Mexico and the US with weapons that BATFE sent to the cartels. Something had BETTER be done about this and people had BETTER be punished for this. BATFE Legal Counsel has some serious questions to answer too.
This is 100% criminal - sending weapons purely to create MORE crime in a foreign country, in order create controls to restrict legal ownership of firearms in this country. The only intended “winner” in this is the regime.