The backwards handling of Fast & Furious

Originally posted by hangedman13
reply to post by Indigo5

 

No if anything because of it dealing with an other country the State dept should be in the know.

The failure in that logic is that the ATF was not dealing with another country. They were not interacting with or informing the Mexican Government. If they had, it would likely fall under the State Departments pervue.

You can rightly debate the wisdom of policy...both not informing Mexico or the State Department only being brought in for international operations...but the end truth is that this was considered "local" for the very reason that they weren't informing Mexico, and thus no one was obligated to report to the State department, for better or worse.

link

One key takeaway from the meeting was that Melson acknowledged to investigators that agents had witnessed transfers of weapons from straw purchasers to third parties without following the guns afterwards. Straw purchasers are people who could technically legally buy guns in the U.S. but their intent was to turn around and sell them to drug cartels in Mexico. Read more: dailycaller.com...

The fact is that they knew the guns would end up in Mexico. The straw buyers were buying them and the ATF let them be. So by not notifying the State dept they showed their ineptitude. Like I said dealing with Mexican drug cartels did they expect them to disappear?? That's why the purchases were made at border states !

Reply to post by hangedman13

Several FFL's came forward early on in this debacle and stated that they were ordered by federal agents to make sales that NICS had already refused.

So they had individuals known as unlawful transferees buying guns on government decree.

One has to wonder how many illegal arms sales went through simply because the Feds were ignoring and breaking their own laws.

And then they have the nerve to call for more gun control.

It's an alcoholic father beating your ass because you drank to a wedding toast, and he told you to do it!

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


Here is one.

For 15 months, Howard did as he was told. To customers with phony IDs or wads of cash he normally would have turned away, he sold pistols, rifles and semiautomatics. He was assured by the ATF that they would follow the guns, and that the surveillance would lead the agents to the violent Mexican drug cartels on the Southwest border.

When Howard heard nothing about any arrests, he questioned the agents. Keep selling, they told him. So hundreds of thousands of dollars more in weapons, including .50-caliber sniper rifles, walked out of the front door of his store in a Glendale, Ariz., strip mall.