A sane person’s guide to ‘Fast and Furious’

[NNN0LHI]

http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2011/10/13/a-sane-persons-guide-to-fast-and-furious/

3:13 pm October 13, 2011

One Republican congressman has suggested that Attorney General Eric Holder ought to be arrested and face criminal charges of being an accessory to murder, and that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and even President Obama might be implicated.

Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association calls it “the biggest cover-up since Watergate” and describes Operation Fast and Furious as “just one part of Barack Obama’s agenda to attack gun owners and our Second Amendment rights.” Conservative bloggers are even arguing that the “Fast and Furious” case constitutes grounds for impeachment, with claims that it’s “the Reichstag fire of the Second Amendment.”

An excitable little bunch, aren’t they? snip

Through his probe, Issa is clearly hoping to establish that top Obama administration officials were deeply involved in the scandal, a suggestion that so far he has been unable to document. Instead of being an invention of the Obama administration, for example, it turns out Operation Fast and Furious was an offshot of similar operations carried out by the ATF as far back as 2006, under the Bush administration.

[AverageJoe90]

1. I figured Holder would probably be one of the fall guys.......

And it looks like I may have been right.

[MadHound]

2. Sorry, despite the hyperbole being spewed by the RW,

Fast and Furious was a major fuckup that cost people their lives.

[rocktivity]

3. You don't lose track of nearly 2000 firearms unless you really work at it

“Fast and Furious” was an undercover operation launched out of Phoenix in 2009 by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The investigation attempted to trace 1,500 to 2,000 firearms as they were purchased here in the United States by agents of Mexican drug cartels and then smuggled across the border. The ATF’s aim was to use that information to prosecute, disarm and break the cartels.

But things went very, very wrong. ATF agents lost track of the guns. Two AK-47s involved in the investigation were recovered later at the scene of a murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Other weapons lost in the operation have clearly made their way into the hands of the cartels and have been used in violent crimes in Mexico..

Either that, or the ATF was the victim of a sting by another government agency.

:mad:
rocktivity

[Katya Mullethov]

5. And there will be an accounting

The President has issued his warning


"We believe , that even if at the highest levels , there was not detailed operational knowledge, there has to be accountability with respect to anybody in the government engaging in this " B.H.O. OCT 2011

[Katya Mullethov]

6. My bad

He was referring to the Iranian Govt .

[gejohnston]

4. I have no idea why

nor am I going to speculate why the ATF pulled this stunt. I will say this is not one of the blogger's better posts. Granted, LaPierre and Dennis Henigan, his Brady counter part, both love the hyperbole to the point of being irrational. Come to think of it, they are both irrational.

One single individual tracked during the Fast and Furious investigation bought more than 700 weapons for transfer to the Mexican cartels, in some cases purchasing 20 or more AK-47-type assault weapons in a single purchase.

If I remember this case correctly, the dealer refused the sale at first and called the ATF, who told dealer to sell them anyway because he was on of the ones they were tracking.

The investigation attempted to trace 1,500 to 2,000 firearms as they were purchased here in the United States by agents of Mexican drug cartels and then smuggled across the border. The ATF’s aim was to use that information to prosecute, disarm and break the cartels.

Trace? How? Mexican officials were not informed and ATF has no jurisdiction in Mexico. There was no tracing mechinism in place.

The flow of firearms across the U.S. border is a serious challenge. So far, some 65,000 guns confiscated in Mexico by authorities have been traced back to gun purchases made here in the United States.

An even biger challenge for Mexico are the full auto assault rifles, machine guns, and crew serviced weapons entering through the southern border and the grenades and rocket launchers from places like Korea. This has been pointed out by right wing rags:sarcasm: as the Latin American Herald and McClatchy (who even put the Wikileaks cables online as citations).

The undercover aspect of the operation is particularly galling to the NRA because it recalls sting operations conducted by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others. In those operations, private detectives went to gun shops and gun shows and were sold guns even though they told the gun sellers that they weren’t legally eligible to buy weapons. The fact that federal officials are using similar tactics outrages the NRA.

The two are nothing alike. Let's take this one further.

private detectives went to gun shops and gun shows and were sold guns even though they told the gun sellers that they weren’t legally eligible to buy weapons.

First, if they went in a gun shop they went though a background check. Second, the ATF sent Bloomburg a letter telling him to stop because 1) his crew was screwing up their investigations and 2) his PIs were committing federal crimes by lying to an FFL (federal firearms license) and lying on ATF form 4473. These sales did not happen. As far as the private sellers at gun show are concerned, I would like to see the unedited version. If James O'Keefe taught us anything, it is never take video at face value. Why would I doubt Bloomburg's honesty? He is a Republican for one thing.

Edit to add: Oh yeah, when will bong owners face up to the fact that they have been financially supporting the gang wars? Like it or not, the typical pot smoker and coke head contributes more to the problem than 99 percent of US and Canadian gun owner combined.