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ATF let hundreds of U.S. weapons fall into hands of suspected Mexican gunrunners
The Center For Public Integrity ^ | 3/3/2011 | John Solomon, David Heath and Gordon Witkin

Posted on 03/17/2011 7:52:02 PM PDT by Sprite518

Hoping to score a major prosecution of Mexican drug lords, federal prosecutors and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives permitted hundreds of guns to be purchased and retained by suspected straw buyers with the expectation they might cross the border and even be used in crimes while the case was being built, according to documents and interviews. Breaking News

House Republicans ask for explanation of ATF gun tactics

Napolitano quizzed on ATF probe, NRA weighs in

Grassley asks for independent investigator to probe ATF

Mexico Demands Information on Controversial ATF Gun Investigation

ATF Announces Immediate Review of Gun-Running Operation Related Documents

Click here to read documents and interviews related to the investigation. Redactions were made by the Senate Judiciary Committee to protect the identities of confidential informants, undercover agents and cooperating gun stores.

The decision — part of a Phoenix-based operation code named “Fast and Furious” — was met by strong objections from some front-line agents who feared they were allowing weapons like AK-47s to “walk” into the hands of drug lords and gun runners, internal agency memos show. Indeed, scores of the weapons came back quickly traced to criminal activity.

One of those front-line agents who objected, John Dodson, 39, told the Center for Public Integrity that these guns “are going to be turning up in crimes on both sides of the border for decades.” Dodson said in an interview that “with the number of guns we let walk, we’ll never know how many people were killed, raped, robbed … there is nothing we can do to round up those guns. They are gone.”

(Excerpt) Read more at publicintegrity.org ...


TOPICS: Front Page News
KEYWORDS: atf; banglist; gunrunner; gunwalker; holder; mexico; obama; projectgunwalker
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Of course the media and press will ignore this too. Anything that makes Obama look bad they ignore.
1 posted on 03/17/2011 7:52:07 PM PDT by Sprite518
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To: Sprite518

http://www.publicintegrity.org/articles/entry/2976/


2 posted on 03/17/2011 7:52:30 PM PDT by Sprite518
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To: Sprite518

Bang List bump!
This one may have legs. We’ll see.
[inhaling deeply]


3 posted on 03/17/2011 7:55:52 PM PDT by 50cal Smokepole (Effective gun control involves effective recoil management)
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To: Sprite518

Correction, he let THOUSANDS of guns fall into the hands of drug cartels. No telling how many people have been murdered with those weapons.


4 posted on 03/17/2011 7:57:39 PM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (Islam is the religion of Satan and Mohammed was his minion.)
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To: Sprite518
When you promote a$$ kiss political hacks to positions of authority, they bend easily to political pressure and their objectivity and common sense go out the window. There isn't a street agent who would have done something this stupid without being ordered to from above.

This was IMO an illegal conspiratorial attempt to violate our 2nd amendment Constitutional Rights. A number of people should be in jail right now pronto. Its also a circumvention of the Neutrality Act.

How many kilos of cocaine or counterfeit money have walked?

5 posted on 03/17/2011 8:01:19 PM PDT by rolling_stone ( *this makes Watergate look like a kiddie pool*)
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To: Sprite518
>"House Republicans ask for explanation of ATF gun tactics "

Key witness/suspect flees for Rio!

6 posted on 03/17/2011 8:08:00 PM PDT by rawcatslyentist (It is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; ~Vattel's Law of Nations)
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To: rolling_stone
Talking to law enforcement that my agency supports, they say losing known loads of dope is a huge no-no. It happens, but not often. If their is a cross border element to it, even in cooperative cross border operations requires state dept. notification. That doesn't hardly happen on the south border because nobody trusts anybody in Mexican law enforcement.

I don't know how feeding the lowest rung of the cartel's weapons buying organization is supposed to take down a cartel on the other side of an international border. Especially when you never told the other country. That excuse just doesn't make sense.

7 posted on 03/17/2011 8:13:39 PM PDT by USNBandit (sarcasm engaged at all times)
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To: Sprite518

Good old BATFE.


8 posted on 03/17/2011 8:40:56 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: Sprite518
I have been hearing snips and bits of the Gun Walker scandal for the past month or so. That has got me thinking. The Feds told us that a huge percentage of the guns used by the Mexican drug cartels were smuggled into Mexico from the United States. Now we find out the Federal Government via the BATFE was involved in smuggling guns into Mexico.

The Fed have been telling us that Americans using drugs are the reason that the drug cartels are smuggling drugs into the Unite States. I now wonder just how much of these drugs the United States via the DEA is buying.

9 posted on 03/17/2011 8:41:48 PM PDT by Tupelo (The Boudicca from Wasilla supporter)
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To: Sprite518
I have been hearing snips and bits of the Gun Walker scandal for the past month or so. That has got me thinking. The Feds told us that a huge percentage of the guns used by the Mexican drug cartels were smuggled into Mexico from the United States. Now we find out the Federal Government via the BATFE was involved in smuggling guns into Mexico.

The Fed have been telling us that Americans using drugs are the reason that the drug cartels are smuggling drugs into the Unite States. I now wonder just how much of these drugs the United States via the DEA is buying.

10 posted on 03/17/2011 8:42:23 PM PDT by Tupelo (The Boudicca from Wasilla supporter)
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To: Sprite518
I have been hearing snips and bits of the Gun Walker scandal for the past month or so. That has got me thinking. The Feds told us that a huge percentage of the guns used by the Mexican drug cartels were smuggled into Mexico from the United States. Now we find out the Federal Government via the BATFE was involved in smuggling guns into Mexico.

The Fed have been telling us that Americans using drugs are the reason that the drug cartels are smuggling drugs into the Unite States. I now wonder just how much of these drugs the United States via the DEA is buying.

11 posted on 03/17/2011 8:43:50 PM PDT by Tupelo (The Boudicca from Wasilla supporter)
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To: Tupelo

Sorry, I did not mean to post 3 times.
I got an error message three times and tried again therr times. My bad


12 posted on 03/17/2011 8:46:06 PM PDT by Tupelo (The Boudicca from Wasilla supporter)
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To: rawcatslyentist
Key witness/suspect flees for Rio!

LOL, in fact, last I heard, the United States does NOT have an extradition treaty with Brazil.

13 posted on 03/17/2011 8:47:57 PM PDT by Navy Patriot (Sarah and the Conservatives will rock your world.)
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To: Sprite518

It really should be noted that anytime there is a huge federal law enforcement Charlie foxtrot the ATF is always involved...


14 posted on 03/17/2011 9:05:09 PM PDT by The Magical Mischief Tour (With The Resistance...)
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To: Tupelo

Bingo! All they do is lie to us while we try our best to be good citizens and pay our taxes.


15 posted on 03/17/2011 9:39:41 PM PDT by Sprite518
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To: Sprite518
An open attempt to generate a socialist-made false crisis as an excuse for a gun-grab in the states.

The conspirators should be tracked down and served hot justice, no matter how high the trail leads.

16 posted on 03/18/2011 5:50:21 AM PDT by Caipirabob ( Communists... Socialists... Democrats...Traitors... Who can tell the difference?)
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To: Sprite518

I wouldn’t have any problem with this if they could get the guns into the hands of your average mexican, rather than the drug cartels. Of course, the majority of the cartel’s guns come from the U.S. government anyway, properly laundered through the mexican military. Hint: They aren’t buying their grenades from Texas gun shops!


17 posted on 03/18/2011 7:06:23 AM PDT by zeugma (Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam)
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To: Secret Agent Man; Sprite518

***Good old BATFE.****

Making an ass of themselves ever since the 1968 gun control act was passed.

I remember when they raided an antique gun store in Tulsa OK, because the store had imported, in violation of the 1968 GCA, FOREIGN MILITARY ARMAMENTS,...European made Musket flints.

And then there was that Kevin Ballew thing in DC area in which they raided and shot the homeowner for having “illegal guns”. A copy of a Walker Colt black poweder pistol.


18 posted on 03/18/2011 7:13:31 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Visit the TOMMY FRANKS MILITARY MUSEUM in HOBART, OK. I did, well worth it!)
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To: Sprite518

19 posted on 03/18/2011 9:01:45 AM PDT by Howie
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To: Sprite518; All
“Hoping to score a major prosecution of Mexican drug lords”

This supposed motivation of the BATF doesn't pass the smell test. How was this supposed prosecution supposed to work? The drug lords are already engaged in numerous violations of law, but are beyond prosecution because they are in a sovereign country where the rule of law has pretty much broken down. How does fostering their accumulating of low level small arms from the US make prosecuting them any easier?

It doesn't, really, but it does up the statistics of guns in Mexico obtained from US gun stores, making the case for more US government infringements of Second Amendment rights to the MSM. Building BATF statistics of American guns in Mexico seems a far more likely and plausible motive than building an improbable case against Mexican drug lords.

20 posted on 03/18/2011 9:49:20 AM PDT by marktwain
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