alcohol tobacco and firearms

I must admit that I have not been following all the ins and outs of the fast and furious investigation. It seems to me that Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms simply screwed up. Somehow, while trying to track the flow of guns into Mexico, guns got into the hands of the Mexican cartel. American guns. American border patrol agent Brian Terry was murdered in a shoot-out. At the scene of his murder, several ATF firearms were found. The bullets that killed Agent Terry were not associated with the ATF firearms found at the scene. So what’s the big deal? Why is Attorney General Eric Holder being brought up on contempt of Congress charges? Well, like most things in Congress, it is complicated and political.

Over the next several days,  I will try to walk through all of the data, finger-pointing and chest beating.

Basically, Fast and Furious was one of several gunwalking operations performed by the ATF between 2006 and 2011. The idea was to let guns walk from gunshows and follow the flow of guns to the bigger fish in Mexico. Once the ATF found the bigger fish, they would arrest the big fish and therefore stop some of the gunrunning. Well, there were five operations over five years. As far as I can tell, none of the operations led to the big fish. One operation after another allowed guns to flow from the US into Mexico without our grabbing the person or persons behind the scenes. The fact that one operation failed is bad, but forgivable. The fact that five operations were conducted and we didn’t get any of the big fish, and that we allowed the middle men to get away, is truly criminal. Yet, this is not what Congress has their knickers in a twist about.

More Tomorrow. What are your thoughts?