A letter published by the gun bloggers at The Sipsey Street Irregulars and the Gun Rights Examiner reveals that the ATF purchased firearms from American gun dealers and delivered them into the hands of Mexican gun smugglers. The June 2010 missive is a short and damning document. [Click here to download the pdf.] Then-ATF Phoenix Group VII Supervisor David Voth asks an unidentified Federal Firearms Licensee to sell ATF Special Agent John Dodson a Draco 7.62×39 mm pistol. Voth directs the gun dealer to forgo the usual federal formalities (Form 4473). A hand-scribbled addition notes that the ATF paid cash for the Draco.
There’s no way around the obvious conclusion: ATF operation known as Fast and Furious was actively engaged in gun smuggling. The Bureau was not the beleaguered passive observer that the Power That Be would have the public believe. Sipsey Street’s Vanderboegh hammers the nails into the coffin containing that excuse.
The existence of this letter provided to these reporters by a previously reliable source familiar with the Fast and Furious investigation, coupled with interviews of other sources across the country which put it into context, provides startling proof that the Federal government did not merely “lose track” of weapons purchased by “straw buyers” under surveillance by the ATF and destined for the Mexican drug cartels. In an undercover operation ordered by Fast and Furious supervisor David Voth, the U.S. government purchased firearms with taxpayer money from licensed firearms dealers, instructed them to conduct the sales “off the books,” and used an ATF agent, John Dodson, to deliver them directly to people that Dodson believed were conducting them across the border.
Which still beggars the question: why? Why was the U.S. government so hot to send firearms down the mythical “iron river” of weapons flowing from U.S. gun stores to Mexican drug thugs?
There are competitive—and complimentary—theories. But one thing is for sure: Operation Fast and Furious and Operation Castaway and whatever you want to call the operation that let grenades go South and official U.S. firearms and grenade sales (that somehow seeped) to the cartels indicate a distinct pattern of behavior. A policy, if you will.
Even as Congress investigates Fast and Furious, they should focus their attention on the administration’s wider policy towards Mexican narco-terrorists. It’s time to wake up. Our neighbor to the south is in the midst of a mind-bendingly horrific full-scale civil war. We need to figure out what we as a nation needs to do (e.g. deploy the U.S. military to seal our border) and do it soon.
Every new piece of information about this bi-polar behavior of the ATF is more damning, but it’s hardly even mentioned in the news. I wonder who they’ve been instructed to protect–surely our benevolent leader wasn’t briefed regularly as he is on all Justice Department operations.
Even the typical explanations that have appeared all over in this debacle fail to explain this one. If the CIA, for instance, wants to arm any anti-Zetas Mexicans it can find, why purchase weapons and give them to cartel people? The cartels have purchasers. They have money. They have straw buyers all over. So what could possibly convince the ATF that it needed to play the straw buyer role? Someone wanted to prove themselves to a higher-up, playing undercover, perhaps?
In light of F and F maybe the GCA should be amended to clamp down on this behavior. Let’s do that before instituting ever more rules and restrictions on the real law abiding public.
I don’t get it. I’m a taxpayer, a good guy, I have no criminal record, I’m not a member of Los Zetas, I support the Sinaloas because they’re such nice guys and still the ATF didn’t buy me sh!t.
There are two reasons you don’t see F&F on the front page every day as it seems like it should be. #1: The media fully invested itself in Barack back in late 2007 and is now very happily a subsidiary of his Reelect BO 2012 campaign. Just note how hard they have worked to come up with excuses for the Solyndra debacle, a much easier scandal to figure out than F&F. #2: There are certain subjects that the media just doesn’t understand. Journalists are remarkably uneducated people (in spite of their college degrees). Anytime you see a front page article on the economy, for instance, you can pretty much presume it is 80% wrong. Two subjects the media is completely clueless on are religion and…guns. As that talking Barbie once said “Math is hard”, well, guns are really, really hard.
I’m terrified that nothing will come of this. No one will go to jail, no one will get in trouble. Obama is gunna hand these dirt bags a medal and a pension.
I believe that you are correct. It certainly can’t be a scandal if the Democrats are involved. And The Annointed One was elected to cleanse the nation of all its sins. If you don’t believe me, just ask Chris Matthews.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/26/us-government-bought-and-sold-weapons-during-fast-and-furious-documents-show/
Fox is running it. It is on their main page as of right now
Good article. Thanks.
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