Wednesday, June 15, 2011

BATFE Report

In the airport, but I did want to comment on the Congressional report on the BATFE Gunwalker scandal. This from the Washington Examiner:

Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican who chairs the House committee, the report focuses on the efforts of four BATF agents who brought direct knowledge of the program:

“ATF agents have shared chilling accounts of being ordered to stand down as criminals in Arizona walked away with guns headed for Mexican drug cartels,” Issa said. “With the clinical precision of a lab experiment, the Justice Department kept records of weapons they let walk and the crime scenes where they next appeared. To agents’ shock, preventing loss of life was not the primary concern.”

Among the report's highlights, according to an Issa spokesman, are these:

* The supervisor of Operation Fast and Furious was “jovial, if not, not giddy but just delighted about” walked guns showing up at crime scenes in Mexico according to an ATF agent. (p. 37)

* Another ATF agent told the committee about a prediction he made a year ago that “someone was going to die” and that the gunwalking operation would be the subject of a Congressional investigation. (p. 24)

* The shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords created a “state of panic” within the group conducting the operation as they initially feared a “walked” gun might have been used. (p. 38)

* One Operation Fast and Furious Agent: “I cannot see anyone who has one iota of concern for human life being okay with this …” (p. 27)

* An ATF agent predicted to committee investigators that more deaths will occur as a result of Operation Fast and Furious. (p.39)

* Multiple agents told the committee that continued assertions by Department of Justice Officials that guns were not knowingly “walked” and that DOJ tried to stop their transport to Mexico are clearly untruthful. (p. 45-50).

Here's the link to the whole report over at the No Lawyers Only Guns & Money blog.

Here's my quick take...reiterating what I said on the podcast this AM:

1) The ONLY way Fast & Furious makes sense is as a direct attack on the Second Amendment. Otherwise, it makes no sense at all. The idea of "rolling up" a firearms trafficking ring is nonsense. If that had been the intent, it would have been a joint operation with the Mexican government. It wasn't...in fact, ATF went to some length to keep the Mexicans in the dark.

2) The idea of getting a gunrunning indictment against any of the cartel heads is equal nonsense. A gunrunning indictment? Against men that are, in effect, men with standing death warrants on their heads, mass murderers with their own private armies? Wow, they'd be shaking in their boots!

3) Fast & Furious worked exactly as the ATF and the people holding its strings -- the Department of Justice and probably Homeland -- planned for it to work. That is, it put demonstrably made-in-America, sold-in-America guns at Mexican crime scenes, waiting for the largely inept, totally corrupt Mexican law enforcement to find them, submit them to the US for tracing and shout loudly that they had found the literal "smoking gun," that American gun shops/shows were flooding Mexico with arms. That's why supervisors were "jovial, if not giddy" when the first Gunwalker guns began turning up at Mexican crime scenes...it was working!

4) I think ATF believed it had enough regulatory juice to keep the gun stores involved from talking, or if not keeping them from talking demonizing them, and maybe driving them out of business, if they did.

It's hardly a secret that I don't think much of the failed narco-state of Mexico, a country of peasants that has allowed a series of blowhard morons turn their country in something resembling one of the rings of hell. But one thing that strikes me as horrific, and breaks my heart, is how easily, how casually, a group of men in suits, in air conditioned offices in Arizona,, in Texas, and, ultimately, in Washington D.C., sanctioned the inevitable deaths of brown people in another country.

Collateral damage...like Brian Terry.

12 comments:

Eric said...

Michael - excellent summary! You should write more often from the airport. :-)

nj_larry said...

I spent the morning watching day 2 of the Issa hearing on Gunwalker/Fast and Furious. My overall impression is that this is going to go nowhere. This administration is playing rope-a-dope with Issa and Grassley.

Let me make a comparison of the Pat Tilman situation. The MSM jumped on board of that whole hog. There must have been 100's of stories, full TV shows dedicated, weekly magazines with it on the front cover. This situation isn't going to get that coverage. Yes CBS is doing occasional stories, bloggers like MB and certainly the NRA are covering it, and that is great. But it is not enough to gin up the sentiments of 300 Million Americans. Not even close.

I predict it is going to fizzle out in a month or two as it sinks into the bureaucracy of Washington. Sad, but this admin is not going to let itself get riled up in response to Issa. They know that rope-a-dope works. I wish I was wrong.

shawn w said...

here is what i need to remind everyone of.

from the mouth of B-HO "we're working on gun control under the radar"

this goes all the way up. holder hasn't had an original thought in his life. this was an effort to demonize gun shops on or near the border.

to enact "common sense restrictions on them. with an eye towards restrictions for the rest of us down the line.

just one man's opinion.

Rob Drummond said...

Don't forget about the International Small Arms Treaty just waiting to pass the Senate! I am sure that figures in to what our great and noble leader has in mind for "under the radar".

Thank God for the 2nd Amendment if not for it we might be like the British, Australians, or the Canadians for that matter.
Rob Drummond
Hillsboro, NH

Anonymous said...

I think that the above posts are right on. This is part of a much bigger picture and will be rope a doped to death.

combine it with Big Sis's refusal to allow the BP and CBP to do their jobs effectively (They CAN do it but are being held back), it's all part of the globalization of the U.S. National sovereignty is the target of all of this.

Bill Lester said...

I believe nj_larry is right. As much as I'd like to think Holder (in the least) is history, nothing is going to come of this. Travesty...yes. But predictable. I truly hope I'm wrong.

Anonymous said...

You have the precise reason and 'logic' figured out, Michael.

Remember the ATFE Multiple Long Gun Reporting [Registration] scheme? http://onlygunsandmoney.blogspot.com/2011/04/atfs-multi-long-gun-reporting-proposal.html

Did that ever get stopped? Nope, they just scheduled another comment period, and will again until they get the result they want. What legal authority does ATFE have to require that when the law clearly gives them no authority to do so?

ATFE was just waiting on Gunwalker-inspired trace results to show that US retail guns were showing up at Mexican crime scenes to force Multiple Long Gun reporting into place. 'Black Guns are bad' multiple registration, followed a few years from now with 'all guns are bad and must be reported' registration.

Is Grassley or Issa willing to link the two ATFE projects? Are they willing to force ATFE to stop Multiple Long Gun reporting?

You really think ATFE, DoJ/Holder, and President Obama care at all that Mexican citizens or Agent Terry died?

Scott

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