Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
US Government-think at its finest.... Let's ship weapons to our enemies and see how they use them. I'm sure these weren't 5 shot J-Frame revolvers either. BATFE is one of the worst excuses for a Law Enforcement Organization out there.
I am surprised they didn't send mortars, Tanks, Humvees, rocket launchers etc etc to Mexico and than the Cartel takes those as well.
I am surprised they didn't send mortars, Tanks, Humvees, rocket launchers etc etc to Mexico and than the Cartel takes those as well.
The ONLY way this would have been a good idea would have been to install GPS tracking chips in the firearms and 48 hours after they were delivered, target the tracking devices with cruise missiles.
The same cowboys who gave us the Siege at Ruby Ridge and the debacle at Waco had another idea. Why not ship guns to Mexico and try to trace them to drug cartels? I'll tell you why not. They are guns stupid, not cars. The guns have surfaced in a number of crime scenes including the deaths of American citizens. Is it time to reevaluate the ATF and maybe let them go back to chasing moonshiners and leave the complicated planning to the professionals.
Two guns purchased in this Obama Administration project dubbed "Operation Fast and Furious" were eventually retrieved--at the scene in Arizona of the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was gunned down by alleged operatives of the Mexican drug cartels. At a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wedneday, Chairman Darrel Issa (R-Calif.) released an internal ATF e-mail from April 2010 that shows that Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson wanted the Web address for hidden cameras located inside Arizona gun stores where the straw purchases were allowed to happen. With this information, Acting Director Melson was able to sit at his desk in Washington and himself watch a live feed of straw buyers entering the gun stores and purchasing dozens of AK-47 variants, said Issa.
As part of Operation Fast and Furious, the ATF did nothing to stop the weapons from flowing to Mexican cartels because they were trying to track the guns. ATF Special Agent John Dodson from ATFs Phoenix field division testified on Wednesday that Melson was well aware of the operation: I recall in March of 2010, when Acting Director Melson came to the Phoenix Field Division, spoke about the case, knew the case agent by name, the group supervisor by name, and I believe even some of the defendants or would-be defendants in the case. Dodson added that his former group supervisor, Dave Voth, came to Washington to brief officials at ATF headquarters, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force that secured the funding for Operation Fast and Furious. All three are components of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
Issa released two other ATF e-mails at Wednesdays hearing as proof that those at the highest level of ATF showed great interest in Operation Fast and Furious. A document displayed on the screen now shows that two of the most senior leaders in ATF, Acting Director Kenneth Melson and Acting Deputy Director Billy Hoover, were being briefed weekly on Fast and Furious, Issa said. The documents show that both Melson and Hoover were keenly interested in the case and updates.
The third email shows Deputy Assistant Director for Field Operations William McMahon was so excited about Fast and Furious that he received a special briefing on the program in Phoenix, scheduled a mere 45 minutes after his plane landed. Issa told the committee that despite the strong objection of ATF field agents, Operation Fast and Furious continued and approximately 2,000 AK-47s and derivatives and some 50-caliber sniper rifles and others and 10,000 or more rounds of live ammunition went into the arsenals of the Mexican drug lords.
ATF Director Could Watch Live Video of Cartel Gun Buys--While Permitting Them to Proceed | CNSnews.com
This is not a matter of some weapons that had gotten away from us or allowing a few to walk so that we could follow them to a much larger, more significant target, Dodson told the committee. Allowing loads of weapons that we knew to be destined for criminals was the plan, this was the mandate. Later under questioning from Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R.-Utah), Dodson reiterated that ATF agents were under orders to allow criminal they had under surveillance to purchase guns and to get away with themsomething Dodson said the government knew would lead to their use in multiple crimes. "Yes. We were mandated, Let these guns go," Dodson told the committee.
Make no mistake, said Dodson. There was not a time we were out there on surveillance where we didn't have the forethought that these were going to be recovered in crimes. The next time we became aware of these guns would be when they were recovered at their final crime--not whatever crime they might have done. It was the last crime that they commit that--not they commit--but the person that has them commit that they're recovered in. There may be nine or 10 that the cartels have perpetrated with those firearms prior to that date, but that recovery date is when we'll learn about it, said Dodson.
In 2009, the Obama Administration began an operationdubbed Fast and Furious--under the auspices of the ATF that allowed people known to be straw purchasers to buy guns at licensed firearms dealers in the United States. These purchasers were not stopped and the guns were never seized from them--unless and until they were actually caught in a crime. The reported purpose of the project was to track the guns back to leaders in the Mexican drug cartels. This effort failed, House Oversight Chairman Darrel Issa (R.-Calif.) said at Wednesdays hearing.
Over strong objection of the ATF field agents, the program continued, and approximately 2,000 AK-47s and derivatives and some 50- caliber sniper rifles and others and 10,000 or more rounds of live ammunition went into the arsenals of the Mexican drug lord, Issa said. In his testimony before Issas committee, Agent Dodson registered the dismay he felt as he was ordered to participate in an operation that he knew, and his superiors knew, was handing over guns to criminals and cartel operatives. When I became involved in this operation in late 2009, the ATF agents running it briefed me that the local Phoenix firearms dealers had provided them with a list of more than 40 individuals whom they believed to be purchasing guns for others--straw purchasers, said Dodson. Of these individuals, several were members or believed to have connections with Mexican drug cartels.
From the earliest days of that operation, after the briefing, I had no question that the individuals we were watching were acting as straw purchasers and that the weapons they purchased would soon be trafficked to Mexico and/or other locales along the southwest border or other places in the United States, and ultimately these firearms would be used in a violent crime, Dodson told the committee. However, we did nothing to intervene, he said. Over the course of the next 10 months that I was involved we monitored as they purchased handguns, AK-47 variants and .50-caliber rifles, almost daily at times. Rather than conduct any enforcement actions we took notes, we recorded observations, we tracked moments of these individuals, we were wrote reports, but nothing more, knowing all the while, just days sometimes after these purchases, the guns that we saw these individuals buy would begin turning up at crime scenes in the United States and in Mexico, and yet we still did nothing.
More & video Gov't's Gun Scheme:
Ok ok! Yes maybe the US Government shipped arms to the Mexican Drug Cartels in violation of numerous National and International Laws. Bust trust me, everything else they do is squeaky clean!The same cowboys who gave us the Siege at Ruby Ridge and the debacle at Waco had another idea. Why not ship guns to Mexico and try to trace them to drug cartels? I'll tell you why not. They are guns stupid, not cars. The guns have surfaced in a number of crime scenes including the deaths of American citizens. Is it time to reevaluate the ATF and maybe let them go back to chasing moonshiners and leave the complicated planning to the professionals.
The same cowboys who gave us the Siege at Ruby Ridge and the debacle at Waco had another idea. Why not ship guns to Mexico and try to trace them to drug cartels? I'll tell you why not. They are guns stupid, not cars. The guns have surfaced in a number of crime scenes including the deaths of American citizens. Is it time to reevaluate the ATF and maybe let them go back to chasing moonshiners and leave the complicated planning to the professionals.
Just in case anyone doesn't know what Operation Gunrunner is:
Project Gunrunner - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
US Government-think at its finest.... Let's ship weapons to our enemies and see how they use them. I'm sure these weren't 5 shot J-Frame revolvers either. BATFE is one of the worst excuses for a Law Enforcement Organization out there.
I am surprised they didn't send mortars, Tanks, Humvees, rocket launchers etc etc to Mexico and than the Cartel takes those as well.
"I obviously feel violated. I feel my country's sovereignty was violated," Mexico Sen. Rene Arce Islas told Fox News. "They should be tried in the United States and the Mexican government should also demand that they also be tried in Mexico since the incidents took place here. There should be trials in both places." Arce is chairman of Mexico's Commission for National Security, a congressional panel similar to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
His point of view is shared by many Mexican politicians, including Sen. Santiago Creel, a former Interior Minister and the likely presidential nominee next year of the National Action Party to succeed Felipe Calderone, also of PAN. "I think we should at least try to prove that what happened in Mexico must be sanctioned by Mexican laws and under our sovereignty," Creel told us. "What can't happen is that this now ends on an administrative sanction, or a resignation. No, no, no. Human lives were lost here. A decision was made to carry out an operation that brought very high risk to human lives."
Mexico doesn't completely understand Operation Fast and Furious, the American plan to help send assault rifles and revolvers to Mexico as a means of exposing the gun trafficking rings that operate along the border. The project lasted 18 months and allowed some 2,500 guns to be illegally sold to suspects the U.S. government knew to be front men for the cartels. Rather than follow the guns and arrest the brokers and middle men who helped move the guns south, agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives dropped back and ignored the transfer and transport of the weapons to Mexico.
Just days after watching the guns be sold to these so-called straw buyers, those who bought the weapons illegally and then sold them illegally, the weapons showed up at crime scenes and seizures in Mexico. Rather than stop the operation and tell Mexican police, U.S. officials continued to prime the pump, telling gun stores to order more weapons and sell hundreds to just a few individuals.
Read more: U.S. Officials Behind 'Fast and Furious' Gun Sales Should Be Tried in Mexico, Lawmaker Says - FoxNews.com
During an interview recorded by Mexicos Ministry of Public Safety, Jesus Enrique Rejon, alias 'El Mamito,' told officials that the feared drug gang purchases all of its guns in the US. In the interview (the video of which is available here), Mr. Rejon claims the group used to sneak the arms through border checkpoints, but stricter security measures have forced them to smuggle them across the Rio Grande. He also alleged that the Zetas rival Gulf Cartels have an easier time bringing weapons across the border. It got harder, but we can still get them, Rejon said. Those in the Gulf Cartel get them a lot easier; we dont know why. Its impossible to buy them and smuggle them in a vehicle trunk, but they do it. There must be a deal somewhere. I dont know.
It has long been known that gun stores in the American Southwest are a significant source of weaponry to Mexican cartels, a topic that InSight Crime has covered extensively in its GunRunners report. But while Rejons remark can be seen as a just another indictment of the availability of arms in US, there is reason to view it with skepticism. In reality, evidence suggests that US gun stores are only one source of weaponry for the Zetas. Much of their arms, especially heavy machine guns, high caliber rifles, and grenades, come from corrupt elements in the militaries of Central America.
One known source of these weapons is the Guatemalan military. In March and April of 2009, security officials in Guatemala raided two remote Zeta training camps and recovered an array of weaponry, ranging from landmines to rocket launchers. When traced, authorities discovered that much of this deadly equipment had come from a military warehouse in the capital. Although officials in the country have only admitted to three instances in which drug traffickers were able to obtain weapons from military arsenals, connections between the Zetas and the Guatemalan army are well documented, leading some to speculate that the country could be a major provider of military grade weapons to the group.
But Guatemala is not the only culprit; the military of neighboring El Salvador has been linked to the Zetas as well. Last spring, officials in the country arrested four soldiers and three officers who were attempting to sell military equipment to criminal elements in two separate incidents. Recently, Salvadoran Defense Minister David Munguia told local press that the equipment which included more than a thousand hand grenades, several assault weapons, and military uniforms were intended for a suspected Zeta cell in Guatemala. So while it is likely that the Zetas get most of their common weapons, such as civilian variants of AR-15s and the AK-47s, from straw buyers in the US, Rejons claim is inaccurate, and should be treated as such by US policymakers seeking to use it in the domestic gun control debate.
Source
According to Newsweek/The Daily Beast, which initially broke the story, the new rules could go into effect as early as next week. They will require gun stores to notify the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) when they sell two or more semi-automatic, magazine-loading weapons to an individual within a period of five business days. According to a statement by Deputy Attorney General James Cole, the move is intended to crack down on the so-called straw buyer phenomenon, in which individuals with clean backgrounds purchase assault weapons in order to sell them to cartel middlemen. InSight Crime reported extensively on this trend in its GunRunners report.
Although the ATF is implementing an electronic system which will speed up background checks for handgun purchasers and make them easier to trace, the main target of the regulations seems to be the sale of assault weapons. "This new reporting measure tailored to focus only on multiple sales of these types of rifles to the same person within a five-day period will improve the ability of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to detect and disrupt the illegal weapons trafficking networks responsible for diverting firearms from lawful commerce to criminals and criminal organizations," Cole said.
Additionally, the department has mandated tougher penalties for straw buyers, hoping to deter people from aiding criminal groups. The policy shift is expected to be met with major resistance by gun rights advocates, who claim that it amounts to a backdoor method of circumventing the Second Amendment without congressional approval. According to Politicos Josh Gerstein, the National Rifle Association has vowed to sue the Obama administration the instant the ATF sends its first batch of information requests to gun dealers. However, they may have a difficult case on their hands, as the measures only catalogue purchases, and do not actually prevent them.
MORE
