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John Solomon, writing in the Washington Guardian, is reporting today that B. Todd Jones, the Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), released a video last week to all employees. In the video, Jones warns that there would be “consequences” for any employees who report wrongdoing outside their chain of command. Jones was a federal prosecutor when Attorney General Eric Holder asked him to lead the embattled agency after the Fast and Furious scandal. He is supposed to improve morale and instill a new culture in the aftermath of that scandal. Jones' precise words are:...

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales. PICTURES: ATF "Gunwalking" scandal timeline In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the "big fish." But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called "gunwalking," and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder...

Scandal: Newly obtained documents show that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives discussed using its covert operation Fast and Furious to argue for new rules about gun sales. We told you so. As we observed in June, the way Fast and Furious — the government's gun-running operation that resulted in the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry — was conducted made no sense unless its intent was to facilitate violence with U.S. weapons in the interests of pursuing the administration's gun-control agenda. Now documents obtained by CBS News confirm that our first suspicions were correct. As CBS'...

David Codrea published an article today about an interesting letter one law abiding silencer owner received from the ATF. The silencer owner in question owns an AWC .22lr silencer that uses a material made of tangled copper ropes to slow down the expanding gasses, a material not unlike the common Brillo pad or Chore Boy Pot Scrubber. He wanted to know whether it would be legal to replace the worn out material in his legally owned silencer with some pot scrubber material, an act which seems pretty innocuous to the impartial observer. The ATF, on the other hand… From the...

Since its modern mutation in 1968 (via the “Gun Control Act of 1968), and with an infusion of power to it in 1972 by Treasury Department Order No. 120-1, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE) has amassed a truly sordid record of “gun control.” Although it’s website somewhat outlandishly claims a history going back to 1789, BATFE’s modern roots go to its failed attempts at the enforcement of Prohibition (another stupid idea from the federal government). There’s hardly anything as pathetic as a bloated government agency, in search of a mission. So the “BAT” got their...

WASHINGTON -- In an effort to stem the illicit flow of weapons into Mexico, the Justice Department announced Monday that all gun shops in four Southwest border states will be required to alert the federal government to frequent buyers of high-powered rifles. The new policy comes amid criticism of a failed federal probe aimed at dismantling large-scale arms trafficking networks along the Arizona border with Mexico. In the probe, called Operation Fast and Furious, several agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives say they were inexplicably ordered by superiors to stop tracking some small-time "straw" buyers who...

The unfolding scandal over a gunrunning investigation allegedly botched by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives could do what years of criticism of the long-beleaguered agency never quite accomplished — result in its demise. That, at least, is the view of some former ATF employees and advocates on both sides of the gun control debate who have watched the agency struggle to contain the damage from an operation intended to trace the traffic of illegal guns to Mexico that has reignited the harsh criticism often directed at the ATF in the past. The agency, which moved from the...

Friction Grows Between Lawmakers and DOJ Over 'Project Gunrunner' Probe By William Lajeunesse It started with one whistleblower, but now involves dozens of investigators, has created a standoff between the Department of Justice and lawmakers and threatens Mexico’s diplomatic relationship with the United States. Friction is growing over the probe into the failed “Project Gunrunner” program -- run by the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms that intended to stop the flow of guns to criminals in Mexico. Whistleblowers claim the bureau actually encouraged the illegal sale of firearms to known criminals, then allowed those guns to be...

Anyone remember that the leaked memo from ATF central asking their agents to generate “positive publicity?” You know; in the wake of the Gunwalker Scandal, in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives stands accused of allowing thousands of guns to flow unimpeded from American gun stores to Mexican drug cartels? It looks like the entire friggin’ Agency has heeded that call. At the same time. In the same place. “Special agent Kimberly Riddell, public information officer for the ATF, told The Star Press that 70 ATF agents, investigators and support personnel were at the [Parker City Ludco...

MESA, Ariz. — Human and drug-smuggling organizations in Mexico are getting their guns from the same places law-abiding U.S. citizens are getting theirs: licensed gun dealers and gun shows, according to court documents. "There's an iron river of guns flowing to Mexico," said special agent Thomas Mangan, spokesman for the Phoenix office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.