Posted on 12/09/2011 7:01:23 AM PST by marktwain
The Democrats have longed to impose gun control, or confiscation, for decades, but after a series of electoral defeats they finally backed off. The issue has largely receded from view, although gun owners have remained vigilant. For some time, Second Amendment advocates have suspected that the Obama administration’s gun walking program (“Fast and Furious”) was intended to create a pretext for bringing back the gun control issue. There has been a little evidence of that, but not much. Today, however, Sharyl Attkisson of CBS, who has been all over the Fast and Furious scandal and would, in a sane world, get a Pulitzer Prize, broke another scoop:
Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation “Fast and Furious” to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales.ATF officials didn’t intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called “Demand Letter 3″. That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or “long guns.” Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.
On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF’s Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:
“Bill – can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks.”
On Jan. 4, 2011, as ATF prepared a press conference to announce arrests in Fast and Furious, Newell saw it as “(A)nother time to address Multiple Sale on Long Guns issue.” And a day after the press conference, Chait emailed Newell: “Bill–well done yesterday… (I)n light of our request for Demand letter 3, this case could be a strong supporting factor if we can determine how many multiple sales of long guns occurred during the course of this case.”
Follow the link, and you can see the emails. I have reviewed hundreds of thousands of emails produced in discovery, and am acutely aware that one should not draw cosmic conclusions on the basis of a few ill-chosen words or random references. We certainly want to be fair to the Obama administration officials who were involved in Fast and Furious. But a fundamental question has never been answered: why in the world did the Obama administration not just allow AK-47s and other weapons to be shipped across the border to Mexican drug gangs, but encourage and even finance such transactions, over the objections of jittery gun shop owners and its own veteran agents? If the Obama administration wasn’t trying to set up an argument for more gun control, then what was it trying to do? That question has never been answered.
If the Obama administration did arrange for the shipment of arms to Mexican drug gangs, not for any legitimate public purpose but in order to advance a left-wing political agenda, and those guns were used to murder hundreds of Mexicans and at least one American border agent–which they were–then we are looking at a scandal that dwarfs any in modern American history. I think one would have to go back to James Buchanan, who ordered the shipment of federal armaments to the South so that they could be commandeered by secessionists when disunion came, to find a worse scandal. And one could argue that even that act by Buchanan, generally considered the worst President in American history, was motivated by principle and not politics, and therefore was not as craven as Obama’s gun walker scandal. But such a judgment would be premature. A great deal more investigation needs to be done before we can conclude that Fast and Furious was the worst scandal since pre-Civil War days.
Gunwalker ping.
Can you say “working under the radar”? Sounds like this is what was meant to sarah brady when obie talked to her about the lack of action concerning those evil gun owners.
Next question.
Anybody? Anybody?
Pelosi?
Reid?
Bueller?
Bueller?
Treason
Not everyone thinks commies need to be treated fairly as seen from the commie viewpoint.
Pretty much...
The Federal Government tried to light a Reichstag fire by fueling a drug war at our Southern border.
duh, it’s all about gun control, people control, power and ambition
Absolutely. Check out “Sarah Brady claims Obama pushing gun control under the radar”
I think the history is a little off here. My reading of it says that it was not Buchanan who ordered the armements shipped to the South, but his Secretary of War, a guy named John B. Floyd
COMMENTS BUMP!
Yes, but don't forget the basic tenet of a would be dictator like Hussein 0bama boils down to one thing - PEOPLE CONTROL!.
FUBO GTFO! 408 Days until Noon Jan 20, 2013
The simple fact they can’t give a reason that they facilitated the illegal sale of untraceable guns to the cartel is pretty damning. I mean, they can’t even say what they hoped would happen.
The only possible thing I can think of is that they had deeply imbedded agents who were going to handle the guns as they worked their way down south. Doesn’t seem too likely, apart from the morality of letting bad guys use them, as I take it the usual procedure is to discard any weapons used so they can’t be traced any farther.
Freegards
The Federal Government tried to light a Reichstag fire by fueling a drug war at our Southern border.
As accurate as that statement appears to be given the abundant evidence, the accusation is way beyond mere "treason" and is well ensconced in the realm of "Active Declaration of War Against America"
Its just not as dramatic as dropping nuclear weapons on Houston, El Paso, Phoenix and LA.
Send H0lder to Gitmo.
You bet this was the plan to take the guns away from the People. The plan back fired and—let us hope—it can take down the Obama crew and his would be Socialist/Progressive plans. Down with Holder! Down with all who tried this terrible and deadly stunt.
Lemme see? It would be possible to understand one hundred or several hundred guns thru this one source. To more accurately make the point about arms control, if that were the true focus of the program; would it not have been better to have instances from all over the country?
I could swallow gun control as a driver for FAST & FURIOUS if that was the case. What I see in this is gun control, as an issue, being piggy-backed on an extant program. What is the program? Why nothing more than the arming of one or more cartels - plain and simple.
The complication is: why arm the cartels even more? Answer that and the truth becomes self-evident. This is what the DEA and DoJ and others are desperate to hide. I am very surprised that we have not seen more fallout from this debacle than we already have.
I would suspect the fallout to be in the form of dead bodies.
What use does Obama, or his cohorts, have in having heavily armed groups of foreign nationals, most probably obligated to him, based just across the border?
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