Fast and Furious

[drone]

Oh but I doubt this is all that atypical. It's that little issue of being a federation of states (with attending rights & powers) that mean one border state can spoil it for the rest of them, or alternatively that because there's no single definite rule book any federal sort of initiative is going to have to work around the local roadblock.

I don't think this is the case. The ATF, FBI, and the prosecutors involved are all at the federal level.

[Tellos Athenaios]

I don't think this is the case. The ATF, FBI, and the prosecutors involved are all at the federal level.

Reading the article the impression I got was that the root cause was largely Arizona not being cooperative//having a rather different outlook towards guns which in turn lead to federals trying to circumvent Arizona.

[drone]

Reading the article the impression I got was that the root cause was largely Arizona not being cooperative//having a rather different outlook towards guns which in turn lead to federals trying to circumvent Arizona.

Arizona has somewhat lax laws on firearm purchases, which is why the ATF was trying to find which ones were being bought for the cartels. But the infighting and overall nonsense was between the feds.

I'm curious why they just didn't bust the straw purchasers for tax fraud/evasion. Bums off the street with gobs of cash, should have been easy.

[Lemur]

I'm curious why they just didn't bust the straw purchasers for tax fraud/evasion. Bums off the street with gobs of cash, should have been easy.

Seems like a question for the prosecutors. According to the reporting, the field agents were bringing them plenty of options, such as the dude on food stamps spending $300k+ on firearms. For whatever reason, the prosecutors would not move. Why? That's the question.

[Xiahou]

It was nearly impossible in Arizona to bring a case against a straw purchaser. The federal prosecutors there did not consider the purchase of a huge volume of guns, or their handoff to a third party, sufficient evidence to seize them. A buyer who certified that the guns were for himself, then handed them off minutes later, hadn't necessarily lied and was free to change his mind. Even if a suspect bought 10 guns that were recovered days later at a Mexican crime scene, this didn't mean the initial purchase had been illegal. To these prosecutors, the pattern proved little. Instead, agents needed to link specific evidence of intent to commit a crime to each gun they wanted to seize.

This is weapons-grade BS. Straw purchasing is illegal under federal law. If US Attorneys said otherwise, they are lying or shockingly incompetent.

[Tellos Athenaios]

The point is, "straw purchaser" doesn't mean what you think it does in Arizona. In Arizona you're only a straw purchaser if you admit to being a straw purchaser, because otherwise it is not possible to prove that you didn't just "change your mind".

EDIT: According to the article at least, that is how the law is interpreted in Arizona.

[Xiahou]

It's a federal law- not a state law.

When you buy a gun, you are required to fill out a form as part of the background check in which you swear that you are purchasing the guns for yourself. Yes, you are allowed to later sell the guns or gift them- but you cannot purchase them with the intent of reselling them, a straw purchase. According to the article, prosecutors said they would be unable to prove that the straw purchasers had actually made straw purchases instead of buying tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of guns with their own money, driving them to a location and selling them on a whim. That alone beggars belief, but then consider that these straw purchasers repeatedly came back and bought/sold more guns and prosecutors allegedly said they still couldn't make a case? Really? Put that in front of a jury and see if they believe they're straw purchases.

Unsuprisingly, Sen. Chuck Grassley disagrees with the article's characterizations of Voth. He has released some of Voth's emails to support his argument. Of particular interest to me is where concerned gun sellers question Voth on if they'll be protected from prosecution by selling guns to obvious straw purchasers and that they're worried the guns will end up in Mexico. Voth says he'll setup a meeting with a US Attorney to reassure them and that to appreciates their cooperation in continuing to sell guns and assures him they're "continually monitoring these suspects using a variety of investigative techniques which I cannot go into detail"- when they arent....

[Papewaio]

Pfft it's a problem in the corporate world too. Ever heard of corporate information silos?

Each corporate team has their own KPIs, there own view of the corporation and their own hammer in problem solving.

I've seen KPIs which counter each other and ones that reward spending all the budget.