ATF Project Gunrunner

The Department of Justice Inspector General has now opened an investigation in to whether whistleblowers at the ATF were improperly retaliated against by the Department of Justice. I'm not holding out a lot of hope for a fair result out of that; but hopefully the CYA mentality will serve to at least insure the IG keeps good records for their own protection.

At issue is whether DOJ improperly retaliated against Agents Dodson and Cefalu. Somebody at DOJ released privacy act protected info about Dodson to the press in an attempt to discredit him (at the same time, DOJ withheld the same information from Congress when they asked for it). And of course, as reported earlier, Cefalu was fired for "lack of candor."
 
Sending the fox to check the on the hen house.

I guess I really am waiting to find out how much POTUS knew about this and when. It seems to be obvious that Mr. Holder is somehow implicated by knowledge of the program at the very least. At most? I'm not going to speculate.
 
But there again, the ATF could have/should have stopped the sales and flagged the purchasers with a felony for the next time around there's a background check....jail or not.
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Sure why not? Hell I am sure you purchased a gun, why not do the same thing to YOU! Once they are CONVICTED then sure by all means note them as a felon in NICS, until then no way. :mad:
 
I'll speculate then, this is a cooperative attack on our rkba.
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To me it seems like it was suppose to be but then it turned from a political tool into sheer madness. The only possible result of this program was murder and violence with the hope to prove straw purchases were the reason but since the FFLs wouldnt do it it was a non starter, the project was dead in the water from the beginning...

Someone decided to push a little on the FFL's (however it was done) and the program descended into sheer madness. Reading the few documents I have seen no reasonable person could ever believe this would have been a good propositon. Murder and chaos was the only possible outcome...
 
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My understanding is that a year or two (with credit for any time served, time off for good behavior, etc) is all they get. I think it fits the crime, if we're going to make that a crime.

Gun controllers tend to look at the ten year maximum and the quarter million dollar fine and note that no one receives those sentences. No, they don't, and they won't. If they start to, people are going to start comparing their sentences to rapists and wondering why the "kid" who lied on a form is going to the clink for longer than the rapist. It's a legit thing to wonder.
 
Gunwalking Goes Wholesale

Phil Jordan, a former director of the DEA's El Paso Intelligence Center and a former CIA operative, said the Zetas have shipped large amounts of weapons through the El Paso area.

...


Robert "Tosh" Plumlee, a former CIA contract pilot, supported Jordan's allegations and said the Zetas allegedly also purchased property in the Columbus-Palomas border region to stash weapons and other contraband.


...


"The military task force became concerned that its information about arms smuggling was being compromised," Plumlee said. "From the intel, it appears that a company was set up in Mexico to purchase weapons through the U.S. Direct Commercial Sales program, and that the company may have had a direct link to the Zetas."

Under the Direct Commercial Sales program, the U.S. State Department regulates and licenses businesses to sell weapons and defense services and training for export. Last year, according to U.S. statistics, the program was used to provide Mexico $416.5 million worth of weapons and equipment, including military-grade weaponry.

The program is different from the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program, which operates on a government-to-government basis.
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Aside from the focus of that article....a couple of sentences below the mention of Zetas pulling SWAT assassinations here in the US in '08, it speaks of weapons caching in possible preparations for the 2012 election season. Mexican elections...whatever. If it works for them there, it's a possibility for them here.

Chaos. It really seems like I can't be cynical enough to match the reality, black is now white.....amazing stuff.
 
Not to fan any flames of cynicism, but IF the goal was complete and utter chaos, does anybody think a mere 1800 guns would do it? Why would anyone hinge a grand plan on such a meager effort?

I think the only good thing to come to of this is that it reveals the degree to which the administration is committed to it's private ideology, and the abandonment with which they will pursue it.

Creating chaos and fear is the stuff of terrorists. So to whatever degree that chaos was the goal . . .
 
Not to fan any flames of cynicism, but IF the goal was complete and utter chaos, does anybody think a mere 1800 guns would do it? Why would anyone hinge a grand plan on such a meager effort?
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With all due respect... I think the number of guns only ceased to increase when the plan began to go all FUBAR/SNAFU.

Otherwise, we have no clue how long the feds would have used our FFL community to further their criminal ends and gains.

Brent
 
We don't know that there were only 1800 guns involved. There could be other programs such as the one mentioned above where the State Department may have been selling guns to the Zetas.
 
1, the program was found out mid stream. There's no way to know how long it would have continued, how many guns were going to be sold.
2, yesterday in Oslo one guy with a gun caused enough of a terrorist event to possibly further that country's gun control. Loughner as well. One gun.
3, they already had a couple o' guns before this started.
4, Publius42's link seems to hint at a larger scale of arming drug cartels.

Chaos or mayhem doesn't need any comprehensive plan, or even a plan at all. "Just start some up and then deal with it however" is the only cohesive plan I can decipher from the 700 posts in this thread and associated links I've read. There's no concern for any ramifications as far as I can tell, from the subject matter and the outrageous behavior of whoever may be involved.
No hint of any understanding that the folks in authority might not be above the law. No pattern suggesting some huge wrap up at a future date with forethought to see it all ends peacefully, just a huge open ended what could happen if we sold a bunch of guns to a bunch of killers and then went out for pizza?

Reminds me of Kurtz from Apocalypse Now..."Are my methods unsound?"
 
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With all due respect... I think the number of guns only ceased to increase when the plan began to go all FUBAR/SNAFU.

Otherwise, we have no clue how long the feds would have used our FFL community to further their criminal ends and gains.

Brent
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True, and I would revise my hasty statement that 1800 guns would be insufficient to cause chaos. It depends entirely on who gets them and what they do with them. As already pointed out, look at Norway. It only take one.
 
maestro pistolero said:
Not to fan any flames of cynicism, but IF the goal was complete and utter chaos, does anybody think a mere 1800 guns would do it? Why would anyone hinge a grand plan on such a meager effort?
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How many guns do you need for that? Using guns obtained from the USA only bolsters the idea that the "Gringos" are interfering and profiting off their misery. If it happens in the U.S. it's "further proof" that tighter controls are needed on guns.

As pointed out, Oslo shows us that in the right circumstances just one or two guns can create chaos. The US has, historically, seen little widespread violence during elections. And where there has been voter intimidation, it's usually been isolated - at the local or county level (e.g. the old south).

Polling places are GFZ's... it's not hard to imagine a plan to put 2000 guns into the hands of paid disposable hit men and tell them to shoot up polling places. Start in the morning hours and each hitman or team shoots up multiple polling places before a final gunbattle with police. Hit the upper class and upper-middle class polling places. This gives the media a chance to run stories of shootings at polling places deemed "safe". Reduces the turnout. Remember, cartels could easily spend several million dollars doing this while buying favorable jouralists and paying poor and homeless people some money to vote for their candidate. In Mexico, US made guns fuel sentiments of "Yankee" interference. In the USA it fuels gun control rhetoric and extra inconvenience to vote, increasing voter apathy, making future elections easier to control.

Hmmm... maybe I should sell that plot line to Tom Clancy... :p
 
Some people have said that the government is beating a dead horse trying to defend themselves against the increasing accumulation of charges against the BATFE, DoJ and now Dept. of State in what is now too many gun running scandals to keep track of.

Let me therefore predict the outcome (credit to www.classicarms.us)

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed down from generation to generation, says "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount."

The Federal government employs more advanced strategies:

1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride
horses.
5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living impaired.
7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.
9. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase dead horse's performance.
10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve
the dead horse's performance.
11. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less
costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than live horses.
12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.

And my personal favorite...........

13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.
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And to that let me add... Running for Congress or President on the Dead Horse.
 
BillCA said:
Polling places are GFZ's...
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Only in some states - there is no federal law prohibiting firearms at polling places. I legally carry when voting at the nearby elementary school.
 
Not to fan any flames of cynicism, but IF the goal was complete and utter chaos, does anybody think a mere 1800 guns would do it? Why would anyone hinge a grand plan on such a meager effort?
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This IS NOT and attack against maestro pistolero, I like him and the things he writes... Mostly. :)

I wonder, as noted above, how many more there would be if the ATF had not been found out.

I wonder how that 70% would have been a little more accurate, if the operation had continued.

I do not think the efforts were meager, just the attempts to cover it up, plan it and pull it off.

I was just out of my teens when Oliver North (Iran/Contra gun running was taking place) was called to testify. The republican White House did a pretty good job of not playing ball. I wonder if they current occupants looked at the job that was done then and decided they would try to cover up along those lines.
 
This IS NOT and attack against maestro pistolero, I like him and the things he writes... Mostly.
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Thank you, mostly. :) No offense taken. Just thinking out loud here.

My point, really, is that if the program emanated from high up in the command structure, it would be surprising to me if it were isolated, and limited to 1800 guns.

Certainly if not outed, there would be more. I don't know how many it would take to "back in" to their 90% number, later revised to 70%. But the program does support political motives, generally and specifically.
 
Uncle Buck, here are my thoughts on Iran-Contra, since you brought it up:

1) I don't think the current administration inspires loyalty in the way the Reagan administration did.

2) It's not easy to find an Ollie North.

3) I felt that President Reagan's claims of ignorance of the operation were far, far worse than would have been claims that he had been operating under Presidential privilege in a matter of international, clandestine operations. Challenging Congress to take him to the Supreme Court would have sat much better with me - he might have lost, but he'd have stood up for a principle. As Commander in Chief, or for that matter as a detachment Officer in Charge (other end of the spectrum), pleading igorance of the activities of subordinates is never good.

4) Argument 3) applies to the present situation, too.
 
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