ATF Director wanted to watch

Examiner
William Heuisler

Brian Terry

Last week, Representative Darrell Issa, Chair of  the House Government Oversight Committee, revealed how the Acting Director of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) evidently wanted to be personally involved with selling guns to criminals.  In fact, E-mails of ATF supervisors describe how Director Kenneth Melson requested personal Internet access to ATF cameras hidden in Arizona gun shops so the Director could observe firearm sales to criminals.

Why is that important? Remember how our Border Patrol Agents were outgunned by a gang of criminals in the desert 40 miles south of Tucson near Rio Rico? Remember, on December 14, 2010, when an AK-47 round killed Border Patrol Agent, Brian Terry of Tucson?

Two AK-47s found at the scene had serial numbers listed among nearly 2,000 weapons ATF and DOJ had allowed sold to members of drug cartels in Mexico. ATF named the operation, “Fast and Furious”. Many call the disaster, ”Gunrunner” or “Gun walker”.

 Skeptics should read, The Department of Justice’s Operation Fast and Furious: Accounts of ATF Agents, which is full of testimony from ATF field agents who fought with their supervisors over orders to ignore gun sales to criminals. Among the findings:

1) At least one agent was cautioned that if he didn’t stop complaining about the dangerous nature of the operation, he would find himself out of a job, and lucky to be working in a prison.

Advertisement

 

2) “Operation Fast and Furious contributed to the increasing violence and deaths in Mexico”. ATF officials seemed unconcerned about deaths of Mexican law enforcement officers, soldiers, and innocent civilians. One noted you had to “scramble a few eggs to make an omelet.”

3) Senior ATF personnel, including Acting Director Melson, and senior Department of Justice officials, were aware of, and supported, the operation.

4) When asked by Issa’s Oversight Committee how many of 1,750 specific weapons that “walked” under orders of the ATF and DOJ could have been interdicted, if agents were allowed to act as they were trained, “agents answered they could have stopped every single one”. (Government oversight 2011)

Last week Senator Lautenberg  of  New Jersey sent a letter to the President asking why his administration "has not shown the leadership to combat gun violence." Could that be a tasteless joke? How could the Senator from New Jersey not be aware of Operation Gunrunner?
Government Oversight (2011). House Government Oversight Committee Report on BATF. http://oversight.house.gov/images/stories/ReportsATF_Report.PDF