ATF Encouraged Sales of Guns to Mexican Cartels

[Crazed Rabbit]

The ATF is the US Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms federal agency charged with enforcing federal gun laws.

They like to come down hard for paperwork mistakes and use any excuse to shut down gun dealers and thus lower the supply of firearms to US citizens.

As it turns out, they also actively encouraged the sale of almost 2000 guns to agents of Mexican cartels. These guns were later used by those criminals to kill Mexican government forces.

Officials at the Department of Justice are in "panic mode," according to multiple sources, as word spreads that congressional testimony next week will paint a bleak and humiliating picture of Operation Fast and Furious, the botched undercover operation that left a trail of blood from Mexico to Washington, D.C.
The operation was supposed to stem the flow of weapons from the U.S. to Mexico by allowing so-called straw buyers to purchase guns legally in the U.S. and later sell them in Mexico, usually to drug cartels.
Instead, ATF documents show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms knowingly and deliberately flooded Mexico with assault rifles. Their intent was to expose the entire smuggling organization, from top to bottom, but the operation spun out of control and supervisors refused pleas from field agents to stop it.
Only after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry died did ATF Agent John Dodson blow the whistle and expose the scandal.
"What people don't understand is how long we will be dealing with this," Dodson told Fox News back in March. "Those guns are gone. You can't just give the order and get them back. There is no telling how many crimes will be committed before we retrieve them."

But now the casualties are coming in.
Mexican officials estimate 150 of their people have been shot by Fast and Furious guns. Police have recovered roughly 700 guns at crime scenes, 250 in the U.S. and the rest in Mexico, including five AK-47s found at a cartel warehouse in Juarez last month.
...
It is illegal to buy a gun for anyone but yourself. However, ATF's own documents show it allowed just 15 men to buy 1,725 guns, and 1,318 of those were after the purchasers officially became targets of investigation.
Arizona gun store owners say they were explicitly told by the ATF to sell the guns, sometimes 20, 30, even up to 40 in a single day to single person.
And those orders, from at least one ATF case agent, are on audio recording.
"We would say, 'Do you (the ATF) want us to stop selling, is there something we should do here?'" Brad DeSayes, owner of J&G Gun Sales in Prescott, said. "And they would say, 'No, no, no, keep selling - just tell us after the fact.'"

Ah, the federal government. Clearly what we need is more government agents and agencies and more gun laws.

CR

[ajaxfetish]

I think PJ started a thread on this not too long ago.

Ajax

[PanzerJaeger]

ATF Director expected to resign over Fast and Furious.

Washington (CNN) -- Kenneth Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, is expected to resign under pressure, perhaps in the next day or two, in the wake of the ongoing controversy over Operation Fast and Furious, two senior federal law enforcement sources said Monday.

In the operation, straw buyers were allowed to illegally purchase large numbers of weapons, some of which ended up in the hands of cartels in Mexico.

Attorney General Eric Holder will meet Tuesday with Andrew Traver, head of the ATF field office in Chicago, about potentially serving as acting director of the agency, according to the sources.

The Justice Department refused comment.

The operation has come under intense criticism since the December killing of a U.S. Border Patrol officer.

Operation Fast and Furious was "a colossal failure of leadership," Peter Forcelli, a supervisor at the bureau's Phoenix field office, recently said.

Falling on his sword for Holder et al?

[drone]

I got curious and went to the ATF wiki page. Since Buckles left in 2004, Melson is the 5th Director, 4 of whom have been "Acting", and the sole confirmed Director left after OIG uncovered serious mismanagement. No wonder it's such a mess.

[Hosakawa Tito]

Do any of you really believe that Director Melson acted on his own initiative with no authorization from Holder or the White House Administration? Directing his agents to stand by as illegally purchased weaponry is "smuggled" across the border to drug cartel gangsters. Yeah, me neither. The administration needs to work on their lying if this is the best they can come up with.

[Xiahou]

It does stretch the limits of credulity a bit doesn't it?

Something else to bear in mind as this scandal unfolds....
Obama Looking For Ways Around Congress On Gun Policy

Faced with a Congress hostile to even slight restrictions of Second Amendment rights, the Obama administration is exploring potential changes to gun laws that can be secured strictly through executive action, administration officials say.