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Showing posts with label Operation Fast and Furious. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Operation Fast and Furious. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

More Gun Restrictions for Citizens

Coming on the heels of the incredibly stupid Eric Holder Justice Department "Operation Fast and Furious" where the U.S. Government facilitated arming of Mexican Drug Cartels,....the Administration now decides to shift the blames to Americans and further restrict gun rights through the regulatory process of the executive office - in fact, powers not articulated by the Constitution.

New York Times by Charles Savage
Published: July 11, 2011

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Monday approved a new regulation requiring firearms dealers along the Southwest border to report multiple sales of certain semiautomatic rifles, a rule intended to make it harder for Mexican drug cartels to obtain and smuggle weapons from the United States.

Under the rule, dealers in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas will be required to inform the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives if someone buys — within a five-day period — more than one semiautomatic rifle that accepts a detachable magazine and uses ammunition greater than .22 caliber. Such weapons include AK-47s.

Dealers nationwide are already required to report bulk sales of handguns, and the A.T.F. applied to impose such a regulation late last year to help detect bulk “straw buyers” — people who say they are buying weapons for themselves but then transfer them to criminals.

In a statement, the deputy attorney general, James Cole, said the regulation was justified by the need to help the A.T.F. “detect and disrupt the illegal weapons trafficking networks responsible for diverting firearms from lawful commerce to criminals” and in particular to “help confront the problem of illegal gun trafficking into Mexico.”

“The international expansion and increased violence of transnational criminal networks pose a significant threat to the United States,” Mr. Cole said, adding that rifles covered by the new regulation “are highly sought after by dangerous drug-trafficking organizations and frequently recovered at violent crime scenes near the Southwest border.”

The proposal has been hotly contested by gun-control advocates, and Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president for the National Rifle Association, said his organization was preparing to sue the government once it tried to begin enforcing the regulation.

Mr. LaPierre contended that it should take an act of Congress to impose such a requirement, not a regulation developed by the executive branch alone. He noted that the similar rule requiring dealers to report multiple handgun sales was part of the Gun Control Act of 1968.

“We view it as a blatant attempt by the Obama administration to pursue their gun-control agenda through backdoor rule making, and the N.R.A. will fight them every step of the way,” he said. “There are three branches of government and separation of powers, and we believe they do not have the authority to do this.”

An A.T.F. spokesman cited a federal statute governing the licensing of firearms dealers as the source of the agency’s legal authority to enact a regulation allowing it to collect the information about bulk sales of semiautomatic rifles.

The A.T.F. unveiled its proposal for the new rule in December, and originally sought permission to impose it more quickly under emergency procedures. But in February, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget rejected that request, saying that gunrunning to Mexico was a continuing problem — not the kind of fast-moving situation that justifies making an exception to the normal process for reviewing new regulations.

The approval for the regulation comes at a time when the A.T.F.’s efforts to combat straw purchasing and gunrunning along the border is under intense Congressional scrutiny because of a botched investigation called Operation Fast and Furious.

In that operation, federal agents, wanting to trace the flow of guns from straw buyers to drug cartels, monitored the purchase of several thousand guns but did not intervene before some were smuggled into Mexico . The bureau then lost track of many of them, and two later turned up at the scene of a shootout in Arizona where an American Border Patrol agent was killed.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Another Example of Obama's Justice Department

Another example of Obama's Eric Holder ran Justice Department's arrogant position of making up their own orules and breaking laws as they go.

Agent: I was ordered to let U.S. guns into Mexico

ATF agent says "Fast and Furious" program let guns "walk" into hands of Mexican drug cartels with aim of tracking and breaking a big case

By Sharyl Attkisson, CBS News, March 3, 2011

WASHINGTON - Federal agent John Dodson says what he was asked to do was beyond belief. He was intentionally letting guns go to Mexico ?

"Yes ma'am," Dodson told CBS News. "The agency was."

An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms senior agent assigned to the Phoenix office in 2010, Dodson's job is to stop gun trafficking across the border. Instead, he says he was ordered to sit by and watch it happen.

Investigators call the tactic letting guns "walk." In this case, walking into the hands of criminals who would use them in Mexico and the United States. Sharyl Attkisson's original "Gunrunner" report Center for Public Integrity report Dodson's bosses say that never happened. Now, he's risking his job to go public.

"I'm boots on the ground in Phoenix , telling you we've been doing it every day since I've been here," he said. "Here I am. Tell me I didn't do the things that I did. Tell me you didn't order me to do the things I did. Tell me it didn't happen. Now you have a name on it. You have a face to put with it. Here I am. Someone now, tell me it didn't happen."

Agent Dodson and other sources say the gun walking strategy was approved all the way up to the Justice Department. The idea was to see where the guns ended up, build a big case and take down a cartel. And it was all kept secret from Mexico .

ATF named the case "Fast and Furious."

Surveillance video obtained by CBS News shows suspected drug cartel suppliers carrying boxes of weapons to their cars at a Phoenix gun shop. The long boxes shown in the video being loaded in were AK-47-type assault rifles.

So it turns out ATF not only allowed it - they videotaped it.

Documents show the inevitable result: The guns that ATF let go began showing up at crime scenes in Mexico . And as ATF stood by watching thousands of weapons hit the streets... the Fast and Furious group supervisor noted the escalating Mexican violence.

One e-mail noted, "958 killed in March 2010 ... most violent month since 2005." The same e-mail notes: "Our subjects purchased 359 firearms during March alone," including "numerous Barrett .50 caliber rifles."

Dodson feels that ATF was partly to blame for the escalating violence in Mexico and on the border. "I even asked them if they could see the correlation between the two," he said. "The more our guys buy, the more violence we're having down there."

Senior agents including Dodson told CBS News they confronted their supervisors over and over. Their answer, according to Dodson, was, "If you're going to make an omelette, you've got to break some eggs."

There was so much opposition to the gun walking, that an ATF supervisor issued an e-mail noting a "schism" among the agents. "Whether you care or not people of rank and authority at HQ are paying close attention to this case...we are doing what they envisioned.... If you don't think this is fun you're in the wrong line of work... Maybe the Maricopa County jail is hiring detention officers and you can get $30,000 ... to serve lunch to inmates..."

"We just knew it wasn't going to end well. There's just no way it could," Dodson said.

On Dec. 14, 2010, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was gunned down. Dodson got the bad news from a colleague.

According to Dodson, "They said, 'Did you hear about the border patrol agent?' And I said, 'Yeah.' And they said 'Well it was one of the Fast and Furious guns.' There's not really much you can say after that." Two assault rifles ATF had let go nearly a year before were found at Terry's murder.

Dodson said, "I felt guilty. I mean it's crushing. I don't know how to explain it."

Sen. Grassley began investigating after his office spoke to Dodson and a dozen other ATF sources -- all telling the same story.

Read Sen. Grassley's letter to the attorney general. The response was "practically zilch," Grassley said. "From the standpoint that documents we want - we have not gotten them. I think it's a case of stonewalling."

Dodson said he hopes that speaking out helps Terry's family. They haven't been told much of anything about his murder - or where the bullet came from.

"First of all, I'd tell them that I'm sorry. Second of all, I'd tell them I've done everything that I can for them to get the truth," Dodson said. "After this, I don't know what else I can do. But I hope they get it."

Dodson said they never did take down a drug cartel. However, he said thousands of Fast and Furious weapons are still out there and will be claiming victims on both sides of the border for years to come.

Late tonight, the ATF said it will convene a panel to look into its national firearms trafficking strategy. But it refused to comment specifically on Sharyl's report.

Statement from Kenneth E. Melson, Acting Director, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives:

"The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) will ask a multi-disciplinary panel of law enforcement professionals to review the bureau's current firearms trafficking strategies employed by field division managers and special agents. This review will enable ATF to maximize its effectiveness when undertaking complex firearms trafficking investigations and prosecutions. It will support the goals of ATF to stem the illegal flow of firearms to Mexico and combat firearms trafficking in the United States ."