To what extent was gunwalking used prior to Holder and Obama using it?
Anyone know?
“Gunwalking” was not an approved, accepted means of investigation. Gunwalking means seeing a straw buyer procuring a weapon(s),handing it off to a third party and saying, in effect, “There goes another one to Speedy Gonzales.” An accepted means of conducting this type of investigation includes apprehending both the third party and the straw buyer. Bush’s ATF used GPS in the stock to track the weapons into Mexico where ATF and the Mexican Government found the end user and arrested the end user, third party and straw buyer, and in some cases, the original seller.
In the past, law enforcement (ATF) has allowed straw buyers to complete the transaction so they can be closely surveilled while passing the firearm to the criminal.
But if there was any chance of losing the firearm, they would intercept immediately. Hence, none were lost.
Under Project Wide Receiver (Bush43) the ATF worked with the Mexican government. A straw purchase would be allowed and the buyer would be surveilled crossing the border where Mexican authorities were waiting to intercept.
On one occasion, the Mexicans failed to stop a truck with 300 firearms on board. The program was shut down immediately.
Under Fast & Furious, the ATF made no attempt to follow the straw buyer. There was no coordination with Mexican authorities. In fact, Mexican authorities were never told that firearms were pouring across the border through this program.
Some of the straw buyers were "informants" for the FBI or DEA. Those straw buyers were using taxpayer funds to purchase the weapons that were passed on to drug cartels. So, even if stopped, those straw buyers could never be prosecuted.
The “previous administration” ran the program the Democrats refer to as “the same” in an entirely different way. No guns were ever lost, because federal agents never allowed the guns that were used in the effort to get outside their control.
It was not used prior to "fast and furious". Gunwalking is what led to the program coming to light. Agents in the BATF were horrified by the idea of gunwalking. It was the opposite of what the agency policy had been for all of their careers. The field agents complained about it vigorously. They were told to shut up and keep on gunwalking. When the administrators were told that people were going to die because of gunwalking, they were told " you can not make an omelet without breaking eggs".