[Analyst's Notes: More and more details keep coming out about the BATFE's botched gunrunning program. It has endangered the public of two nations and increased the violence from drug cartels. It is amazing that the investigation and reporting of this fiasco is not on EVERYONE's mind.
When the administration towed out the "...90% of seized weapons came from the U.S...." mantra, I was not sure why it was suddenly everywhere in the news.... After actually READING the ATF's own reports where this statement was taken out of context it becomes clear to the reader how manipulative and misrepresentative this statement is....
After the details of the BATFE's activities became known, it became crystal clear to me and to others that the larger agenda was NOT the drug cartels, the murders of U.S. citizens, illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking, or any of the other stated reasons. It became clear that the operation, which netted almost no arrests, was a precursor to something else. Encroaching gun control is the real goal of the "Fast and Furious" operation and those involved had no regard for the law, the safety of the public, and ultimately our 2nd amendment rights.]
If "Operation Fast and Furious" was merely a botched attempt at law enforcement, why was a supervisor of the operation, David Voth, "jovial, if not, not giddy but just delighted about" marked guns showing up at crime scenes in Mexico, as career Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent John Dodson told Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight Committee?
Perhaps because all was going as planned until it was learned that two of the AK-47s recovered at the scene of the fatal shooting of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in December were bought in ATF's Operation Fast and Furious. That wasn't supposed to happen.
"Allowing loads of weapons that we knew to be destined for criminals — this was the plan," Dodson testified to the panel. "It was so mandated."
ATF agent Olindo James Casa said that "on several occasions I personally requested to interdict or seize firearms, but I was always ordered to stand down and not to seize the firearms."........
......Unwilling to guarantee a secure southern border, and as part of a campaign to reinstate an expired assault weapons ban, the administration has charged that much of Mexico's gun violence is our fault. Both governments have pushed the myth that 90% of weapons confiscated by Mexican authorities originate in the U.S.
...according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico sent about 11,000 guns to the U.S. for tracing in 2007-08, out of about 35,000 confiscated. Of that 11,000, 6,000 were successfully traced. And of that number, 5,114, or 90%, were found to have originated in the U.S.
Weapons that originated in foreign countries are not sent to the U.S. for tracing. Neither are weapons of Mexican army deserters or those stolen from armories.
Bill McMahon, ATF deputy assistant director, testified that of 100,000 weapons recovered by Mexican authorities, only 18,000 were made, sold or imported from the U.S. And of those 18,000, just 7,900 came from sales by licensed gun dealers. That's 8%, not 90%......
