Fast and furious WAS about gun control

[r3020]

100s, if not 1,000s were killed so the Obama administration could advance their gun control agenda. This alone should end his career. If I were him I would never set foot in Mexico.

snip-

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales.

In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the "big fish." But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called "gunwalking," and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

ATF officials didn't intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called "Demand Letter 3". That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or "long guns." Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.

On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF's Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:

"Bill - can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks." 

On Jan. 4, 2011, as ATF prepared a press conference to announce arrests in Fast and Furious, Newell saw it as "(A)nother time to address Multiple Sale on Long Guns issue." And a day after the press conference, Chait emailed Newell: "Bill--well done yesterday... (I)n light of our request for Demand letter 3, this case could be a strong supporting factor if we can determine how many multiple sales of long guns occurred during the course of this case." 

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-57338546-10391695/documents-atf-used-fast-and-furious-to-make-...

[Samnospam]

Now now 3020 these boys were just turning lemons into lemonaide.

[wehav]

What, Obama and his collective cohorts would kill Americans and Mexicans just to get ANOTHER gun law?  That's hard to believe because they are all such honest upstanding people. 

None of them have lost their law license.  None of them were ever involved with domestic terrorist. None of them were tax cheats.  None of them ever bilked investors. 

And you certainly can't believe a Republican Senator who says, "There's plenty of evidence showing that this administration planned to use the tragedies of Fast and Furious as rationale to further their goals of a long gun reporting requirement. But, we've learned from our investigation that reporting multiple long gun sales would do nothing to stop the flow of firearms to known straw purchasers because many Federal Firearms Dealers are already voluntarily reporting suspicious transactions. It's pretty clear that the problem isn't lack of burdensome reporting requirements."

[schnurrbart]

I suppose you have access to all that "evidence" right?  Put'er up here!

[dagwud]

If true this would be similar to the cops telling bars to sell alcohol to minors and to go ahead and keep serving patrons even if they have had to much to drink just so the cops could make extra DUI arrests so they could then use it to help push for tougher drunken driving laws.  If a few folks get killed in car accidents during this process just chaulk it down as the cost of making it a better and safer world.

Amazing how this can be defended.  Ask yourselves what if this was done under the Bush years and if you would still have no problems with it.  All about those dang R's and D's  behind people's names.

[schnurrbart]

It was done under bush just under a different name.  Google it.

[wehav]

Put it up here and prove it. 

[GreaTOne_65]

End Obama's career?? Please show us where THE PRESIDENT'S name is even mentioned it your "snip"?

[GreaTOne_65]

Enjoy, wehav!        Project Gunrunner

Five years ago, the Bush administration launched Project Gunrunner, an umbrella campaign to combat firearms smuggling along the Southwestern border. ATF agents conducted surveillance to find legal grounds to arrest the straw buyers. Over time, they seized more than 10,000 weapons and indicted scores of low-level criminals.

But straw buyers were easily replaced, the gunrunning continued and Mexico's mayhem escalated. In four years, more than 35,000 people died. While Calderón pressed his U.S. counterparts to stem the flow of weapons, law enforcement struggled to block smuggling operations.

In 2007, acting ATF Director Michael Sullivan told Congress that 90 percent of the criminal firearms recovered in Mexico originated in the United States. Federal officials now concede the number was inaccurate because not all guns seized in Mexico get traced, and those submitted are more likely to have a U.S. connection. But Sullivan's statistic became a staple of U.S. media reports on cartel violence, enraging gun-rights advocates who saw it as propaganda to support anti-gun legislation.

Amid that controversy, Obama was elected president -- prompting thousands of Americans to buy firearms because they feared a spate of gun-control measures.

In 2008, Arizona firearms dealer George Iknadosian was arrested after authorities said he sold hundreds of weapons to straw buyers. The case against him was thrown out because prosecutors failed to prove that he knew the guns were purchased for criminal purposes.

About that time, the Justice Department's Inspector General's Office began a review of Project Gunrunner to determine whether agents were wasting resources arresting "minnows" instead of going after drug lords in Mexico. The inspector general's findings, released in November 2010: "ATF's focus remains largely on inspections of gun dealers and investigations of straw purchasers, rather than higher-level traffickers."

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2011/11/12/20111112atf-gun-probe-operation-fa...

[schnurrbart]

Here it is.  Either open wide or bend over, makes no difference hot shot!

2006−2007: Operation Wide Receiver and other probes

The first known ATF "gunwalking" operation to Mexican drug cartels, named Operation Wide Receiver, began in early 2006 and ran into 2007. The ATF was informed of a suspicious gun purchase by licensed dealer Mike Detty in Tucson, Arizona. He was then hired as a confidential informant working with the ATF's Tucson office, part of their Phoenix, Arizona field division. With the use of surveillance equipment, ATF agents monitored additional sales by Detty to straw purchasers. With assurance from ATF "that Mexican officials would be conducting surveillance or interdictions when guns got to the other side of the border",[18]Detty would sell a total of about 450 guns during the operation.[17] They were eventually lost as they moved into Mexico.[6][19]

At the time, under the Bush administration Department of Justice (DOJ), no arrests or indictments were made. After President Barack Obama took office in 2009, the DOJ reviewed Wide Receiver and found that guns had been allowed into the hands of suspected gun traffickers. Indictments began in 2010, over three years after Wide Receiver concluded. As of October 4, 2011, nine people had been charged with making false statements in acquisition of firearms and illicit transfer, shipment or delivery of firearms; two of them had pled guilty.[15]

Another, smaller probe occurred in 2007 under the same ATF Phoenix field division. It began when the ATF identified Mexican suspects who bought weapons from a Phoenix gun shop over a span of several months. The probe ultimately involved over 200 guns, a dozen of which were lost in Mexico. On September 27, 2007, ATF agents saw the original suspects buying weapons at the same store and followed them toward the Mexican border. The ATF informed the Mexican government when the suspects successfully crossed the border, but Mexican law enforcement were unable to track them.[2][20]

Less than two weeks later, on October 6, William Newell, then ATF's special agent in charge of the Phoenix field division, shut down the operation at the behest of William Hoover, ATF's assistant director for the office of field operations.[21] No charges were filed. Newell, who was special agent in charge from June 2006 to May 2011, would later play a major role in Operation Fast and Furious.[2][22]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal

http://ndn.org/blog/2011/11/daily-border-bulletin-justice-department-weighs-fast-and-furious-arizona...

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/10/atf-probes-gun-trafficking-to-mexico...