Reading this morning’s gun news, it seemed pretty clear that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive (and Really Big Fires) is, once again, still, even more so, in deep you-know-what. “Three gun-smuggling suspects are set to appear in a Dallas federal court after one of the weapons was tied to last month’s fatal shooting of a U.S. agent in Mexico,” chron.com reports. “The probable cause hearing was set for Tuesday, a day after three men were arrested in their Dallas-area homes. The gun that was used by a smuggler to kill ICE Agent Jaime Zapata last month in Mexico has been traced to a Texas gun shop, where it was purchased by suspected gun traffickers who had reportedly been under ATF surveillance for over a year.” An email blast from firearmscoalition.org provides more details . . .
According to an affidavit in the arrest of alleged straw purchasers, Otilio and Ranferi Osorio, and Kelvin Morrison, they had previously sold 40 guns to a federal agent, but had not been arrested.
Dallas ATF spokesman Tom Crowley would not release details about when the gun was purchased, or whether the suspected straw buyers were under active ATF surveillance at the time the murder gun was purchased. He referred questions on details to the U.S. Justice Department in Washington.
So far, DOJ has not been forthcoming. We received word from Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office today that AG Holder failed to respond to the Senator’s questions about the AZ scandal by the Feb. 23 deadline Grassley had set.
Today, The Firearms Coalition asked Sen. Grassley to call for hearings into both the AZ and Texas investigations, requiring ATF Executives to testify under oath. We received assurance today that the Senator remains resolute, and that staffers are burning the midnight oil on this investigation.
You may recall that this is the second time a gun linked to the ATF’s “look the other way” policy stateside has been implicated as a murder weapon in the death of a U.S. federal agent. The Gunwalker scandal hit the MSM when the press learned that another such gun was used in the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
As I’ve said many times, however many guns that have flowed down the so-called Iron River from American gun stores to Mexican drug cartels, the number pales next to the number of weapons the Spanish-speaking bad guys source from within the country (corrupt police, military defectors, foreign purchases, etc.).
Since not one but two U.S. law enforcement officials were shot by U.S. smuggled guns, that can only mean one thing: the ATF allowed thousands of weapons to go walkies. This in an effort to justify Project Gunrunner, the ATF program designed to stop U.S. – Mexico gun running.
The ATF is attempting to keep a lid on the Gunwalker scandal. Can’t be done. Not only is Grassley breathing down their neck, and Agent Brian Terry’s family looking at launching a lawsuit (new info), but the gunrunners themselves will sing like los canarios.
The MSM is doing a great job of burying this story though. As soon as I saw it was traced to the US (which one would think the BATFE&RBFs would trumpet as evidence of the mythical Iron River) the story disappeared. I knew it was one of theirs. Of course, of the 3.5k or so guns traced to actual sales at actual US shops, the BATFE&RBFs facilitated 3k of them, so the odds were good.
The BATFE&Strippers has a long record of causing the death of Americans on American soil. It now seems like it’s taking it’s act on the road.
BATFE&GHs?
“You may recall that this is the second time a gun linked to the ATF’s “look the other way”
That liberal bitch Shepherd Smith forgot to mention that when he was talking about it a few minutes ago. It’s always been my contention “Shep” is an anti-gun liberal.
Wait, I’m still confused about this whole thing–help me out: So guns DON’T actually get straw-purchased in the U.S. for the use of the drug cartels. Rather, some pseudo-straw-purchasers, egged on by the ATF, have been able to get at least two guns into the cartel’s hands, which were then used to murder two U.S. Agents? Do I have that right?
The exact details of this scandal are yet to be revealed. I think the process varied.
In some cases, the ATF was alerted by gun store owners about multiple assault rifle sales—-and told the store to let the sales go through. The relationship with the smuggler in those cases was unclear. In other cases, the ATF had a smuggler in their sights before, during and after the purchase, didn’t intervene and didn’t keep track of the guns. In other cases, ATF agents recruited smugglers. The role of ATF “informants” is unknown, but the agency’s M.O. is entrapment. Big style.
In short, the agency that wants to establish a long gun registry to keep track of sales near the border wasn’t keeping track of smuggled guns that they’d enabled. Go figure.
Ok, it’s only two data points, but what are the odds?
In the only two recent killings of US Border Patrol, both were shot with Gun Walker firearms.
Unless, the vast majority of cartel and smuggler guns were (indirectly) sources BY THE BATFE, then this is highly unlikely.