“Gunrunning” ATF style
Old Trooper sends us a link from CBS News about a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation named “Project Gunrunner” which focuses on preventing firearms from getting to the cartels in Mexico from the US. They have real funny way of going about it, though;
In late 2009, ATF was alerted to suspicious buys at seven gun shops in the Phoenix area. Suspicious because the buyers paid cash, sometimes brought in paper bags. And they purchased classic “weapons of choice” used by Mexican drug traffickers – semi-automatic versions of military type rifles and pistols.
Sources tell CBS News several gun shops wanted to stop the questionable sales, but ATF encouraged them to continue.
Jaime Avila was one of the suspicious buyers. ATF put him in its suspect database in January of 2010. For the next year, ATF watched as Avila and other suspects bought huge quantities of weapons supposedly for “personal use.” They included 575 AK-47 type semi-automatic rifles.
ATF managers allegedly made a controversial decision: allow most of the weapons on the streets. The idea, they said, was to gather intelligence and see where the guns ended up. Insiders say it’s a dangerous tactic called letting the guns, “walk.”
Dangerous enough that CBS speculates that 2500 weapons were allowed to cross the border into Mexico…despite gun dealers’ warnings. CBS also tells us that one of those weapons was used in the murder of ICE agentBrian Terry in a gun fight on the border.
The assault rifles found at the murder were traced back to a U.S. gun shop. Where they came from and how they got there is a scandal so large, some insiders say it surpasses the shoot-out at Ruby Ridge and the deadly siege at Waco.
ATF’s own agents argued against allowing the large number of weapons to go to Mexico. Reportedly, the discussions degenerated into shouting matches, to no avail.
So when Janet Napolitano says that most of the weapons in the border drug war came from the US, she knows what she’s talking about.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Guns
“ATF managers allegedly made a controversial decision: allow most of the weapons on the streets.” -Where they were used to shoot Mexican citizens to death…. I doubt one BATFE agent in any senior leadership position will recieve so much as a reprimand for enabling those MURDERS.
I’m surprised they didn’t talk to Senator Grassley. He’s the one who’e been pushing the ATF on this from the Congressional level. His letters to the ATF/DOJ and their responses from ATF/DOJ are rather interesting. The Sispsey Street Irregulars blog has them all linked.
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2011/01/senator-grassley-is-on-project.html
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2011/02/rosetta-stone-david-codrea-posts.html
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2011/02/senator-grassley-fires-another-salvo-in.html
My hat’s off to writer David Codrea & blogger Mike Vanderboegh for pursuing this story like starved coyotes on a wounded rabbit. The mass of information they’ve compiled is astounding, and oh so sweetly damaging to the BATF. 🙂
They just let the weapons ‘walk’?
I’m no armorer, but couldn’t you sabotage a weapon by filing down the firing pin or wearing down the bolt with acid so it wouldn’t seal? Or at least put GPS trackers in them so we could recover them later on.
….and there is no surprise that this is happening. My surprise is that BATFE has not busted the legal gun shops for the sales while BATFE allowed the trafficing.
Sonsabitches!
She should have said most of the weapons come FROM THE US GOVERNMENT.
Question: If the gun dealers had concerns, why didn’t they just stop the sales? They have the right NOT to sell a weapon, don’t they? I can’t see where BATFE could force the dealers to make questionable/illegal sales?
From the way I read the article it sounded like the BATF told the dealers to continue the sales in order to “to gather intelligence and see where the guns ended up.”
Sounds to me like the dealers thought that they were helping a federal investigation.
And, the DoJ will indict whoever made the decision to let the guns “walk” any day now? Yeah, about the same day that a certain person releases his records.
Reads like someone is complicit in the murders of Mexican citizens, and American citizens, and should be treated as such.
Yeah, it’s always been my understanding that, unless you wear a badge, or your lawyer is with you when you strike the deal, you don’t “help” with federal investigations; unless, of course, you like seeing your name in an indictment.
PintoNag,
If the ATF tells you, as a FFL holder, to do something, you do it. ATF has a history of totally fucking over gun shop owners for minor minor things or just making stuff up. If they want to yank your FFL (and thus kill your business) they’ll find a way. The gunshops probably felt they didn’t have much of a choice. Cooperate or have a team of agents seize their stock and spend the day combing every 4473 looking for minor paperwork errors so they could yank the license.
Also, you’ll notice that the gun shops haven’t said much about this. Word is that ATF agents told the gun shops if they started running their mouths that the ATF would charge them with violations related to the straw purchases that the ATF authorized.
I did some extensive research on this a couple years back. most weapons used for crime in the border violence either have had their numbers filed rendering them untraceable, were taken from the Mexican military or imported from Iran, India and China.
The same kind of left/libtard reasoning that brought drug legalization and needle exchange programs!