REPORT: ATF AGENTS 'LOST TRACK OF DOZENS OF GOVERNMENT GUNS' BY MISPLACING THEM

A disturbing report from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel alleges that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has lost "dozens" of weapons as agents leave them in bathrooms, on top of cars, movie theaters, and other public areas.

An extensive dive into the records of the ATF of the past five years uncovered dozens of incidents of egregious irresponsibility with weapons, from revolvers to machine guns, by ATF agents across the country. The Journal Sentinel highlights specific cases in which ATF agents leave their guns in bathroom stalls (in those cases, a good Samaritan has returned them) or cases in which agents leave their guns on top of their cars and drive away. In one of those cases highlighted, the gun was never found. 

In another case, the guns were found by children, and the agent did not fess up to losing it until the local news reported young children playing with a loaded gun by a storm drain. The agent told the press that he expected the gun would "turn up eventually" upon losing it.

A number of other agents lost their guns in "Operation Fearless," a plan to buy overpriced guns off of criminals to track their routes in the black market--not dissimilar to the border operation Fast and Furious. One agent had his guns stolen out of his truck while conducting a task for the operation. The thefts involved "at least two assault rifles" and three firearms.

The newspaper reports that it found 76 incidents in the past five years of lost, stolen, or missing weapons-- "nearly double the rate of the FBI and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration." Perhaps most disturbing of all, the reports do not say whether the agents involved in the accidents were disciplined for the lack of responsibility in caring for their guns. The ATF's record as disclosed here by the newspaper appears significantly more egregious than many government law enforcement agencies, even the DEA, which was responsible for the Fast and Furious operation that took the life of Officer Brian Terry and resulted in the distribution of illegal guns all over the American Southwest.

The Journal Sentinel published the reports described above, linking to them anecdote by anecdote. They were available to the newspaper, despite being incidents nationwide and not just in Wisconsin, through a Freedom of Information Act request, though the names of the agents were not. You can read them all at the newspaper's website here.

Via: Breitbart

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How the US gave guns to Mexican cartels

In September 2009, John Dodson, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was assigned to the ATF’s Phoenix office. What he found there shocked him. The bureau was encouraging gun dealers to sell weapons in bulk to known straw buyers, who would funnel those guns to Mexican drug cartels. Known as Operation Fast and Furious, it ended with the death of at least one American law enforcement officer. Dodson became a congressional whistleblower, and the investigation into the operation is ongoing. In this exclusive excerpt from his new book, “The Unarmed Truth,” Dodson explains how tragically inept Fast and Furious was.

‘It’s like the underwear gnomes,” my ATF colleague Lee Casa told me one time as we recounted the latest bizarre goings-on in Phoenix.

“What?” I asked.

“You ever watch ‘South Park’? There’s this episode where all the boys get their underwear stolen by these underwear gnomes. They track them down to get it back and one of them asks why they are stealing everyone’s underwear. The gnomes break out this PowerPoint and reveal their master plan: Phase One: Collect underpants . . . Phase Two: ? . . . Phase Three: Profit.”

“We’re doing the same thing,” he explained. “We know Phase One is ‘Walk guns’ and Phase Three is ‘Take down a big cartel!’ ”

Via: New York Post

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OBAMA ADMIN WORKING ON NEW GUN REGULATIONS

The Obama Administration is working on new gun regulations for lost and/or stolen firearms.

According to The Hill, the new regulations were fashioned by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and are now with "the White House's regulation office" for review. 

The ATF would not comment on the content of the regulations, but information from the White House indicates they deal with firearms that "go missing" while "in transit." 

Currently, FFL holders "are required to tell federal agents after they discover a firearm has gone missing, but they aren't required to do routine checks." Center for American Progress's Chelsea Parsons said, "They can discover a gun missing today and have no idea when it went missing, which really makes that information useless to law enforcement." 

Parsons suggested this is indicative of "a complete lack of data and lack of information... in the area of guns and gun violence and gun commerce." 

The White House's regulations office has 90 days to review the new ATF regulations.

Via: Breitbart

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Fast and Furious—Still Infuriating

With the economy still cratered, a slew of foreign policy debacles, and a government shutdown, most Americans probably haven’t thought much about the Fast and Furious scandal in recent months. The Scrapbook doesn’t know what it says about the times we live in that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ homicidal negligence is all but forgotten a few years later, but we’re pretty sure it isn’t good.

JOHN DODSON

LANDOV

The ATF is certainly doing everything it can to make sure that Americans don’t revisit its inexplicable decision to give thousands of guns to Mexican gangs, resulting in the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and dozens of Mexican nationals. Two years ago, ATF whistleblower John Dodson revealed the incompetence of the Fast and Furious operation, which led to the resignation of a number of top-ranking ATF officials. It also led to Eric Holder becoming the first attorney general in U.S. history to be held in contempt of Congress for stonewalling congressional investigators. To this day, the ATF and its overseers at the Justice Department have refused to provide the House Oversight Committee thousands of documents that would shed light on Fast and Furious and possibly prevent another such debacle from occurring.

Dodson has now written a book about the scandal and his role in bringing it to light. Surely, his story is worth telling. However, the ATF has denied Dodson the right to publish his book, using the excuse that the agency is allowed approval over “outside employment.” As if to thoroughly burnish the ATF’s deserved reputation for incompetence, here is the note the bureau sent Dodson denying his request to publish his book, as quoted in the Washington Post: “This would have a negative impact on morale in the Phoenix [field division] and would have a detremental [sic] effect on our relationships with [the Drug Enforcement Administration] and FBI.”

Via: Weekly Standard

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ATF tries to block Fast and Furious whistle-blower from publishing book

The ATF agent who blew the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious has been denied permission to write a book on the botched anti-gun trafficking sting "because it would have a negative impact on morale," according to the very agency responsible for the scandal. 

After first trying to stop the operation internally, ATF Agent John Dodson went to Congress and eventually the media following the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010. Two guns found at the murder scene were sold through the ATF operation. 

Dodson's book, titled "The Unarmed Truth," provides the first inside account of how the federal government permitted and helped sell some 2,000 guns to Mexican drug cartels, despite evidence the guns killed innocent people. 

Dodson, who is working with publisher Simon & Schuster, submitted his manuscript to the department for review, per federal rules. However, it was denied. 

Greg Serres, an ATF ethics official, told Dodson that any of his supervisors at any level could disapprove outside employment "for any reason." 

Serres letter said: "This would have a negative impact on morale in the Phoenix Field Division and would have a detremental effect [sic] on our relationships with DEA and FBI." 

The national office of the American Civil Liberties Association is representing Dodson as he fights the decision. ACLU attorney Lee Rowland says the agency's restriction is overly broad. 

Via: Fox News

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Congressional Report: Fast And Furious Scandal Result Of “Deliberate Strategy” Laid Out By Eric Holder, Other Senior Obama Officials…

The latest congressional report on Operation Fast and Furious found that the gunwalking-program-turned-scandal was the result of a “deliberate strategy created at the highest levels of the Justice Department aimed at identifying the leaders of a major gun trafficking ring.”

The report is the second installment in a three-part series from Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Sen. Chuck Grassley and House oversight committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa.

That “deliberate strategy,” congressional investigators argue, sprang from “a series of speeches about combating violence along the Southwest border” that Attorney General Eric Holder delivered shortly after taking office.

“Although [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] ATF did not officially open the Fast and Furious investigation until the fall of 2009, the groundwork for the strategy that would guide the operation began shortly after new leadership took control of the Department of Justice nine months earlier,” the report reads. “On February 25, 2009, just one month after Attorney General Eric Holder took office, he gave a speech noting the danger of the Mexican drug cartels, focusing on the Sinaloa cartel in particular.”

On Feb. 25, 2009, Holder said the drug cartels “are lucrative, they are violent, and they are operated with stunning planning and precision” and, under his leadership, he promised “these cartels will be destroyed.”

A little more than a month later, on April 2, 2009 in Cuernavaca, Mexico, congressional investigators say Holder “gave further insight into the department’s new strategy for combating these dangerous cartels.”

Via: Daily Caller

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FAST & FURIOUS GUNS FOUND IN COLOMBIA

Authorities have found guns from Operation Fast and Furious in Columbia in August. They were confiscated in a raid on “Oficina de Envigado” leader Ericson Vargas, known as "Sebastian."

"Two rifles that were seized in February with 'Frank', the brother of Sebastian also are part of the tracking operations of the ATF, the same as 14 Five-seven guns we have found in several raids," an anonymous high-ranking source within Colombia's National Police said (translated from Spanish).

Fast & Furious was a government gun walking scheme that allowed over 2,000 guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. These guns are connected to the deaths of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and over 300 Mexican citizens. They have been found at twelve crime scenes across America and thousands are still missing.

El Tiempo claims an estimated 200 guns are in Medellin, Colombia in the hands of “Oficina de Envigado” and criminals “Calatrava” and “Pacheli,” and these guns were supplied by the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico. 

Via: Breitbart