Editorial: Federal gun-smuggling surveillance program backfires [Project Gunrunner]

Disturbing recent news reports suggest that federal agents knowingly let arms buyers for Mexican drug cartels smuggle high-powered weaponry across the border, with deadly consequences for U.S. law enforcers. Mexican leaders have warned for years that lax U.S. enforcement of gun smuggling was fueling border-area violence, but they should be particularly disturbed to learn that, in some cases, weapons were being deliberately allowed to flow southward.

CBS News reported last week about Project Gunrunner, an operation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to track how weapons purchased in U.S. gun stores reached Mexican drug gangs. Had Gunrunner been a limited, tightly focused study, it might have provided useful intelligence to shut down major gun-smuggling operations. Instead, it went badly awry.

As CBS reported, nervous gun shop owners in Arizona phoned ATF, warning repeatedly that suspicious buyers were acquiring arsenals of AK-47s and .50-calibre rifles. Later, ATF’s own agents complained when senior-level officials pressed ahead with Project Gunrunner. One agent estimated 2,500 guns crossed the border into Mexico.

On Dec. 14, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered in Arizona. The serial numbers of two AK-47 assault rifles found at the scene were traced to a smuggler under ATF surveillance.

In North Texas, at the same time, ATF agents were conducting another Project Gunrunner surveillance operation involving brothers Otilio and Ranferi Osorio. ATF and Drug Enforcement Administration officials organized the November undercover transfer of about 40 weapons believed to be destined for a Mexican drug cartel. When Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata was gunned down Feb. 15 in Mexico, ballistics tests and a partial serial number linked one weapon used in the shooting to Otilio Osorio. He was not arrested until Monday.

Mexican leaders have warned for years that lax U.S. enforcement of gun smuggling was fueling border-area violence, but they should be particularly disturbed to learn that, in some cases, weapons were being deliberately allowed to flow southward.

I'll ask a simple question. Would our government do something like this?

The whole paragraph is a joke. The government couldn't cobble together a study regarding the nesting habits of the "Two Tailed Double Red Breasted Finch."

Napolitano has to go.

an ATF operation run amok

Our government is running amok.

I mean it. Why is Napolitano still head of Homeland Security? She should have been gone after those documents calling, well everybody a terrorist.

Look at this spin. Who are they trying to fool?

I heard Rush talking about this...after the CBS report*!

*Shocking*

I saw it on the ‘net last night, and was so proud of the whistle blower! Apparently, Grassley has spoken to other border agents who have verified the story.

“Fast and Furious” is a very lame excuse, IMO.

Something is very wrong here...

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