The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has come under fire for a controversial anti-gun trafficking operation known as "Fast and Furious." On June 14, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa and Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Senator Chuck Grassley released a report detailing how the ATF allowed straw purchasers to acquire up to 2,000 guns on behalf of Mexican drug cartels in 2009 and 2010. ATF leadership argued that by waiting for the guns to appear at crime scenes in Mexico, the operation would allow the agency to "connect the dots" and bring down higher-ups in the cartels' structures. In other words, they chose not to arrest small-scale gun runners in the hopes that letting them go would lead them to bigger fish. However, only 20 straw purchasers have been indicted thus far, many of whom had already been under suspicion. Meanwhile, two of these guns turned up at the fatal 2009 shooting of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Not only was Fast and Furious ineffective, the report concludes -- its failure was deadly.
Read more >> http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/07/how-american-guns-proliferate-in-mexico-and-fuel-drug-violence/241387/
Law enforcement is failing to prevent American guns from fueling the war on our southern border. Maybe it's time to consider limiting the guns themselves.
