Still more gun walking uncovered. Now in Indiana.

[Atypical Liberal]

http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/exclusive-report-documents-indicate-atf-fbi-allowed-indiana-crime-gun-sales

"The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has acknowledged an Indiana dealer’s cooperation in conducting straw purchases at the direction of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Exclusive documents obtained by Gun Rights Examiner show the dealer cooperated with ATF by selling guns to straw purchasers, and that bureau management later asserted these guns were being traced to crimes."

And the hole just keeps getting deeper and deeper.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SteveM]

2. Good post. What we need is good confirmation that the CIA is involved...

I find it implausible that the BATF "lost track" of all these guns. It has been suggested by some rather "off-beat" sites (Sipsey Street Irregulars) that the CIA commandeered gun-walker in order to knowingly funnel guns to drug gangs OTHER than the most powerful Zetas. This would keep the Zetas from their goal of power-sharing with the Mexican government.

[SteveM]

8. Replying to my own post; haven't had time to read this in detail:

http://www.madcowprod.com/07132011.htm

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. Nope.

See, THIS is an operation that was doing what it was intended to do - allow the straw sales to go through to trace the criminal connections to where the guns wind up.

The border operation, while based on this, was misguided from the first because as soon as the guns crossed the border there was no way to trace them without the full and complete cooperation of Mexican authorities - many of whom are in the pockets of the cartels.

We KNOW that there have been many unscrupulous dealers making a lot of straw sales - what we have not known is the ways those guns sold in, say, Virginia, wind up in Chicago. All we knew was a gun collected after a crime in Chicago came from Virginia. With this operation, by working with cooperative dealers the ATF can trace the sales and make those connections.

Of course, some people won't be happy until there is NOTHING to inhibit the sales of guns to criminals.

[Atypical Liberal]

4. And if some people die along the way?

See, THIS is an operation that was doing what it was intended to do - allow the straw sales to go through to trace the criminal connections to where the guns wind up.

And if a few people die along the way, hey, gotta break a few eggs to make omelets, right?

Straw sales should never be knowingly allowed.

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. This exposes the illegal gun trafficking network with the end game of

shutting it down completely. It is no different than allowing a low-level drug dealer to operate so that you can track back to his supplier, who also supplies a hundred other low level dealers. Take him out, and you shut them all down.

"And if some people die along the way" is a straw man, because in this gun-soaked culture the criminal would just get a gun from someone else - so long as the traffickers are bringing in the guns. Stopping one straw-buyer would not likely save a single life - but shutting down traffickers and their connections might save dozens.

[burf]

7. There are way too many unanswered questions

on Fast and Furious, Gunwalker and God only knows what other programs were concocted. Ten million dollars of "stimulus" money was supposedly used to fund BATFE programs. How much of this money went to the purchase of guns by BATFE? Were American taxpayers buying guns for Mexican drug lords? How come the Mexican government even at the highest levels was not aware of the program?

The propaganda that has come out on F&F by the politicos is the reason for a significant amount of drug gang violence is because of the proliferation of guns coming out of the United States into Mexico. This is horse crap at its finest. The corruption of politicians and law enforcement in Mexico is one of the leading causes of the illicit drug trade along with the fact that you are dealing with thugs who don't give a rats ass about anything but their drug profits. Another point being how many of the US weapons came into Mexico from Florida through Honduras?

How about when AG Holder said that he was unaware of the program and in actuality, he made a speech about it while in Mexico? This brings the question what did the AG and the President know and when did they know it?

If Operation Fast and Furious and Project Gunwalker are such great programs gone bad due to simple mistakes, why is the leadership of both the DOJ and BATFE so reluctant to testify on said programs? Case in point, the documents provided to the House Oversight Committee during the testimony of July 26th. Many of the pages were nothing but blacked out lines to obscure every word of text.

For those who say this is no big deal, and we should just forget it, I have a question. Did you feel the same way about Reagan running guns to the Contras?

[Tejas]

9. "Stopping one straw-buyer would not likely save a single life" You are so full of shi

So how many straw purchases does it take to equal a murder?


One straw buyer in Phoenix bought 40 (FORTY) AK's in a single purchase, YUP, no problem there folks!

[Union Scribe]

11. "the criminal would just get a gun from someone else"

You've just hit the bedrock that gun controllers cannot dig past.

[Atypical Liberal]

12. Absurd.

Letting someone sell drugs is a little less dangerous than letting someone sell a gun to someone who is not supposed to have them, wouldn't you say?

The government should never be facilitating the selling of firearms into the criminal subculture. I don't care who it might lead to. You are putting weaponry into the hands of people who are very likely to use them to kill.

It is absolutely true that criminals will no doubt continue to get arms without the government's help. This does not mean that the government should help them get arms.

The arms that the government is allowing to fall into the hands of criminals are being used in crime. That makes the government complicit.

[PavePusher]

14. "The ends justify the means."

Tell me I just read you wrong...

:puke:

[PavePusher]

15. P.S. Go tell the family of Brian Terry that his death...

"might save dozens".

I suspect they will tell you to fuck off and die.

[RaleighNCDUer]

19. Different operation, different situation. nt

[PavePusher]

23. Really?

http://www.examiner.com/public-safety-in-national/border-patrol-agent-brian-terry-honored-by-congress

[X_Digger]

16. In the case of the DEA, they keep track of the drugs.

Not so, here. They only tracked the first leg of the transaction.

The analogous situation with drugs would be allowing the sale of tainted drugs and waiting to see who turns up in emergency rooms and morgues with poison.

[RaleighNCDUer]

18. No, they don't keep track of the drugs. They keep track of the drug dealers.

Just as here, they could track the gun dealers.

Where this differs from the Mexican operation is that there was no way they could track the gun dealers once they crossed the border. That was an astoundingly badly conceived operation.

With this one, which transpired entirely within the US, they could learn if the buyers were acting alone, just working for a quick buck, or if they were parts of a larger organization - if they were lone wolves or organized crime. If the latter, they'd be able to take down the entire gang on conspiracy charges, even those who were not directly involved in the gun running.

But to do that, you HAVE to let some sales go through, otherwise there is no way to track them. No gang member is going implicate his higher-ups if he's arrested making the buy. You have to let him deliver the goods to make the connection.

Is that so hard to comprehend?

[X_Digger]

22. You need to research DEA tactics a bit more.

Marked bills, tagged drugs, surveillance.. then taking down the lower levels and flipping them, working their way up the org- those are tactics that are successfully used. Yes, they let sales go through, but they always keep track of the drugs.

[spin]

6. What if one of your family members ends up seriously injured or dead ...

because of one of these ill conceived operations?

Would you feel the same?

I want the ATF and all law enforcement to do their jobs. The includes stopping the straw purchase of firearms and gun smuggling to Mexico and to our streets. I would actually like to see the penalties for such activity to be increased to a minimum of 15 years in prison. I would also like to see that anyone who straw purchased a firearm would be considered as an accessory to any crime that the firearm was used in. If I straw purchased firearms, I might reconsider stopping if I knew that I could be charged as an accessory to a murder.

You seem to be insinuating that gun owners want to allow the sale of firearms to criminals. Honestly, why would any honest and responsible gun owner wish that? Crime threatens our hobby.

The majority of us merely want to see the current laws enforced and in some cases improved to be more effective. We do oppose schemes to make firearm ownership more difficult for honest citizens. Future gun laws should target the criminal element, not honest citizens.

[Tejas]

10. "(lost ) as soon as the guns crossed the border" Bull, they were lost long before the border.

Have you read ANY of the info related to this fiasco? ATF didn't follow the guns, after the straw buyer handed them off down the street the ATF followed the straw buyer to see where the money came from.

[ileus]

13. There's a cancer growing in the ATF...demonizing gun owners

while letting illegal sales occur to further a gun ban agenda.

[Katya Mullethov]

17. Maybe so

But it beats a regular job

[jeepnstein]

20. How many prosecutions and convictions?

That's what I want to know. Wanna bet the ATFE never answers that one?

[spin]

21. This scandal just keeps getting bigger and bigger, day by day (n/t)

[burf]

24. Some new info out and its not going to reflect

well on the administration nor the BATFE.


Today, the Congressional investigation into ATF's Fast and Furious scandal officially expanded to include White House staffers. In a letter to President Obama's National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) asked for records involving three current and former White House staffers

Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20104044-10391695.html

In a related story, seems as though a third weapon disappeared from the scene of Agent Brian Terrys death.

A third gun linked to "Operation Fast and Furious" was found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, new documents obtained exclusively by Fox News suggest, contradicting earlier assertions by federal agencies that police found only two weapons tied to the federal government's now infamous gun interdiction scandal.

Link: http://www.foxnews.com/topics/politics/bureau-of-alcohol-tobacco-firearms-and-explosives.htm#r_src=ramp


Thanks to the folks over at cleanupatf.org for the info.

[burf]

25. The LA Times is reporting.......

"In the second violent crime in this country connected with the ATF’s failed Fast and Furious program, two Arizona undercover police officers were allegedly assaulted last year when they attempted to stop two men in a stolen vehicle with two of the program's weapons in a confrontation south of Phoenix."

Entire article at: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-atf-gun-20110908,0,109137.story