Incredible. The top leadership of the ATF should be fired, if not jailed.
Posted on 02/07/2011 3:51:56 AM PST by marktwain
“[F]ederal law enforcement sources have confirmed that two guns, part of a series of purchases that were being monitored by authorities, were found at the scene of the firefight that killed a U.S. Border Patrol agent in southern Arizona,” The Los Angeles Times reported on February 2, corroborating allegations raised on the CleanUpATF website last December.
Since those early discussion, and following allegations and reports made at the Sipsey Street Irregulars blog and in this column, the number of estimated guns involved has risen dramatically, from “500” in the December entry, to a new estimate, posted early this morning:
As “gunwalker” continues to gain attention, the guys in the Phoenix Division rumored that the number of “walked” guns could be as high as 3,000.
It’s not a stretch to assume this many guns allowed into the hands of DTOs (Drug Trafficking Organizations) have been and continue to be criminally used.
I speculated as much in an earlier column:
If two “monitored” guns were found at a crime scene, how many more might be out there, used in operations that still threaten U.S. and Mexican citizens as well as law enforcement on both sides of the border?
As did Mike Vanderboegh, in a letter you’ll be hearing more about soon:
Statistical probability and plain logic indicates that far more than one of your own citizens have already been killed by them since this operation began.
Yet in spite of this clear and present danger, we know virtually nothing about the two guns seized at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. A full month ago, I asked:
* What does ATF trace data show? * Were any prior traces ever run on this particular firearm, and what did they show?
And again in spite of the revelations and disclosures raised here and on Sipsey Street Irregulars—disclosures that continue to be consistently corroborated when examined by independent investigators—no one has been able to verify the most basic facts about these guns aside from their characterization as “AK-47s.” We don’t know their make or their origin—and by “we,” I mean anyone outside of those who apparently have strong personal interests in keeping that information to themselves.
The excuse that there is an ongoing criminal investigation doesn’t cut it. There’s an ongoing criminal investigation in the Gabrielle Giffords case, and that hasn’t stopped information about the gun used from being revealed, including its manufacturer and where it was purchased from.
Perhaps if our government will still not disclose basic information about the guns themselves, and it's unclear how hard the media is pressing them on this, they can instead be asked if the Mexican government has now been fully informed of the scope and nature of this “monitoring” operation gone awry. One would think they need every scrap of information our people can provide them, and, according to the highest authorities at the Department of Justice, that—as opposed to intentionally keeping them in the dark—is supposed to be official policy in the first place:
“The Criminal Division is working hard with its partners in the U.S. Attorneys' Offices and colleagues in Mexico to find and prosecute those who seek to transport weapons illegally across our borders.”
You know who said that, don’t you?
Also see:
* A journalist's guide to 'Project Gunwalker' (Summary with links of everything written to date on Sipsey Street Irregulars and Gun Rights Examiner)
* Make Sipsey Street Irregulars a daily stop to check for updates.
They manufactured evidence to support their claims that the drug gangs are getting all their guns from the US.
Ronaldo Maximus was right about the BATF when he labelled them. And that was before Ruby Ridge and Waco.
3000 firearms were pushed through legitimate dealers to suspected smugglers?
One dealer could not move that many firearms....in fact, depending on the timeframe for this, it is dubious if this could have happened without flags going up all over the place.
First, if multiple dealers are involved, they should be coming forward to say the ATF made them approve purchases.
Second, distributors should have suspected this many firearms going out and flagged it.
Third, manufacturers should have seen this as a spike in their demand as well.
Now, if the ATF used multiple dealers and various brands of weapons (rifles, pistols and shotguns) then why aren’t the dealers coming forward? So far, we only know of one dealer who said the ATF forced him to approve a sale.
“They manufactured evidence to support their claims that the drug gangs are getting all their guns from the US.”
In order to make the case that gun sales in the US are unregulated and that they need to clamp down on these gun sales and put more regulations in place. And the obama media is going right along with the story line.
It never made sense that the cartels would pay top dollar for semi-auto rifles from the U.S. when they could get full-auto arms for much less from Latin America, South America, China and on and on and on.
I’ll bet 0asshat makes that claim in his upcoming “guns speech.”
Can they charge the dealers and impose a gag order to prevent them from talking about it? Seems like I remember reading about some provision of the anti-terrorism laws that lets them do that.
Blackmail. The uninitiated can not appreciate how much fear and ATF agent can instill in your heart nor the underhanded things he/she will do to put it there.
Clearly they cannot as one dealer is talking. And that is my problem here, only one dealer is talking.
Either many more dealers are staying quiet or these firearms came through another source.
I have dealt with the ATF regarding both alcohol and firearms. Some agents can be pricks, but others are not.
Regardless, there is a dead border patrol agent here and if people know something, they should come forward.
Which dealer are you talking about? The only one that I have heard of was Carter's Country in Texas, represented by Dick Deguerin. It was actually Carter's lawyer that was making the statement.
As the focus of project Gunwalker is in Phoenix, Arizona, I think we can be fairly sure that more than one dealer is involved.
The only other likely source would be ATF seizures. They’d need to doctor or destroy the records cover up the fact that those guns made it to Mexico after they were seized.
Oh you bet. Obama’s speech will have all the buzz words.
Gun show loophole. Straw purchases. Unregulated gun dealers. Multiple gun purchases. Gun dealers dealing in death for a profit. bla bla bla.
Now we know where the Obama admin got their talking point about guns ‘illegally going south’.
They manufactured it.
In 1996 Clinton's buddies the Chinese got caught shipping full auto weapons to the gangs in LA, it was described as enough weapons for a small army. The Clinton's had no intention of leaving the WH in 96.
I bet you it's the Chinese, and this “ATF STING” is just a cover story.
I've got a feeling Zippo and Co. are doing in Mexico what they did in Egypt.
Incredible. The top leadership of the ATF should be fired, if not jailed.
If the ATF is running guns to Mexico to get more funding (the supposed motiviation behind this lunacy), they should at least have had the foresight to have kept ballistic samples (fired bullets) from each gun so that they could investigate whether Americans killed by these types of guns were killed by guns provided by BATF.
Oh, wait - that might get some of them in trouble. Never mind.
I wish everyone who has posted could visit the site of the BP agents death. On a plateau which to the west looks down into a small gorge at the base of the Atascosa Mountains, it is truly a lovely sight, and one known to only a few Americans. Yet, it is only a few miles from the highway that connects Tucson with Nogales, Arizona. Unfortunately, most of the wild and beautiful lands of the Arizona-Mexico border are today off limits, and the American road that once led from the border north of Mexico’s Sonoyta to just below Yuma has been closed to vehicular traffic for years. Hunters loved the place for the javalena are everywhere,and there are still reports of sightings of jaguar in the Sycamore Canyon. It’s enough to make one weep for this nation that we would surrender this birthright.
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