yup... it's NOT going away, and it IS getting bigger
Posted on 03/03/2011 8:14:55 PM PST by SwinneySwitch
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
Tod Robberson: Project Gunrunner, an ATF operation run amok
Robert VerBruggen: ATF and gun sales to traffickers
OIG: Interim review of Project Gunrunner
This is beginning to gain a little traction.
Tom K.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that
good men (and women) do nothing. - E. Burke
Good to see this make its way to the LSM.
Just so people can sleep well tonight ZERO said at his newser today that they were stepping up their searches of TRAINS to keep guns from getting into Messico.
There don’t you feel safer NOW? /S
Nothing back fired, they got caught. This gubment needs to go.
Hmmm. Sounds like Obama’s Iran Contra. Wonder if the dems will hold hearings?
Only BATFE could be so utterly STUPID as to set up an operation like this. What good are they?
We’ll get another Waco or Ruby Ridge soon, mark my words.
Traction ping
The supervisors should be prosecuted for violation of the Neutrality Act and Felony Stupidity.
yup... it's NOT going away, and it IS getting bigger
I read about this, how the DOJ is involved, and the first thing I think of, “what a great way to manipulate a suspension of the 2nd Amendment!”
They seem more willing to arm the narcos than our boys in the border guard. I don’t think it’s because of stupidity.
It's great this scandal is finally being exposed. The House needs to open this can of worms and reveal what the editorial misses: “Gunrunner” was about fabricating evidence to support ATF/Federale propaganda that U.S. firearms retailers are the prime source of drug cartel weapons.
I don't think it was stupidity. It was done on purpose to "show that Mexican drug gangs get their guns from gun dealers in the USA". This was the line from the liberals the last few years, but the only problem was it wasn't true.
So, they create the problem, the people want something done, in response they ban "assault weapons" again in response to public outcry. It's the socialist Hegelian Dialectic in action. Everyone involved should go to prison.
Anyway, I'm glad to see this story start getting some traction. I can't believe I'm thankful for CBS, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
I called our congressman and senator.
These are the agencies which sacrifice Ramos & Compean for the drug trade.
This is the administration which must have 16,000 more IRS agents with shotguns rather than green eyeshades.
Mark the Obama-Calderon collusion in the drug trade as the beat goes on.
I would like to see a Congressional investigation over this operation; its clear that the Holder/Obama DOJ is not going to initiate action. A “sting” operation of this magnitude must go down as a real bone-headed idea. If, indeed, the BATFE allowed several thousand weapons to cross the border, how the heck did they think they could keep track of who got ‘em? Its utterly shameless on BATFe’s part that agents died because of this ill-planned affair. These guns probably account for 90% of any such guns that actually were smuggled into Mexico from the U. S.; the types of guns used by the cartels sure ain’t the semiauto sporter versions of the AK; they are rather full auto select fire arms which the cartel can probably order up from any number of global arms dealers who do nothing but proliferate stolen/diverted or purchased select fire units. What idiot has to go to a U.S. border town to buy guns for the cartels when all the latter has to do is call up Chavez and have a plane-load delivered from Venezuela (or Cuba)(or China)?
As usual, our government under the cloak of secrecy does things that end up making everything worse.
I can’t tell you how many young hispanic men - involved in drug gangs in my area - have been sent to prison just this year for killing others with guns. It didn’t used to be this way, but Mexico’s drug violence has spread on up here.
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