“Someone Was Going To Die”

It’s called “Operation Fast and Furious.” Implemented by the Department of Justice under Eric Holder in 2009, the plan was for the ATF to knowingly sell guns—high-powered assault rifles, AK-47s, etc.—to gunrunners working with Mexican drug lords and smugglers.  Then the plan was to track the guns to the true buyers, round them up and help both Mexico and the US reduce drug-related violence.

Like I said, that was the plan...

Instead, the current head of the ATF is about to get fired, the DOJ is fighting to stop Congress from investigating the program, and as the Wall Street Journal reports, there’s at least one dead American border agent:

Mr. Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) are leading the congressional probe of Fast and Furious, which came to light after an Arizona shootout in December that killed a U.S. border agent. Two assault weapons bought in a gun shop that was part of the operation were found at the scene. The shooter and the gun used to kill the agent haven't been identified. A Mexican national is charged in the shootout.

It turns out that the ATF had no plan or ability to track the guns all the way to the Mexican border or beyond. They had no plan to grab the bad guys when the got the guns from the straw buyers. Instead, they just sold the AK-47s, stood back and hoped for the best.

Yes, it was that stupid.

Federal agents battled their supervisors to stop a government program that kept illicit guns in circulation to trace them to weapons traffickers, a new congressional report shows.Some agents even worried that a gun tracked, then lost, in the program might have been used in the January shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. That didn't turn out to be the case, but other guns tracked by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives did end up at other crime scenes in the U.S. and Mexico...

ATF agents interviewed by congressional investigators described supervisors trying to tamp down agents' misgivings about the strategy to allow the weapons purchases.

Larry Alt, an ATF agent, told investigators agents opposed the weapons sales as early as December 2009 and wanted to arrest straw purchasers, who are paid to buy guns for others. Mr. Alt said he agreed with a fellow agent who expressed the view that "someone was going to die."

He was right.

How does something this stupid happen in the first place, and how did it go on so long? Selling guns to drug runners then hoping they turned up at crime scenes is a STRATEGY?

Click here for an excellent analysis of the politics driving the decision to go with “Operation Fast and Furious.”