Ok, first you need to read this pile-o-garbage editorial: http://www.standard.net/stories/2011/08/04/our-view-furiously-bungled-sting
Then you need to read the response from Mike Vanderboegh (which, if you've been keeping up is the guy who first broke the story, no it wasn't CBS): http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2011/08/punishing-arsonists-by-giving-them-more.html
Or I can save you the trouble and just do a copy/paste below:
OUR VIEW: A furiously bungled sting
By Editorial Board
Standard-Examiner
Thu, 08/04/2011 - 9:41pm
There may be debate over whether weapons lost in a sting operation where the feds provided marked guns for illegals weapons buyers in the U.S. led to a U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry being killed with one of the weapons, but there should be no dispute that it was a dumb procedure.
Do not give guns to drug cartel members, allow them to cross the border to use them, and then try to gather evidence using the guns you gave them. It may sound as cool in theory as an episode of "24," but what it does is lead to incidents such as the one that killed Terry. Also, agents quickly lost track of the more than 1,700 guns sold to drug cartels. So, instead of being used to gather evidence for drug prosecutors, the guns instead were found at hundreds of murders within Mexico.
What a fiasco.
The operation, Fast and Furious, was run out of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' Phoenix office, with the OK from the Obama administration. Two of the weapons agents sold to drug cartel individuals were found at the scene of Terry's death. While the ATF is trying to tell legislators and senators that Terry was not killed by a "Fast and Furious" weapon, an FBI ballistics test report does not rule it out.
The ATF has a new proposal that is light years away from the recklessness of Fast and Furious. It's to have gun dealers report to the feds information about buyers who make purchases of high-caliber weapons frequently. Unfortunately, gun rights extremists in Congress are currently blocking efforts to fund that program.
We have no idea why any sane person would connect sellers notifying the feds of repeat weapons purchases as an attempt to deny individuals the right to bear arms, but unlike many pols, we are not controlled by the national gun lobby.
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Mike's Response
I see. This is the logical equivalent of paying the firefighters to put out fires, only you then discover that they are really arsonists. Your solution? Why to reward their criminal behavior by giving them more matches and gasoline.
The Gunwalker Scandal was not "a sting gone bad." If you paid any attention whatsoever to the testimony of the whistleblowing ATF agents at the last two hearings, you would understand that there was no "sting" to begin with. The ATF was tasked by their superiors at the Justice Department with two things: Document the sale of civilian market firearms to straw buyers (often by coercing reluctant gun shop owners into doing so) and then documenting the statistics of where those weapons ended up by means of the Mexican police use of the E-Trace system.
Indeed, FOX News has reported that, unknown to the ATF, these weapons were actually being transferred to paid informants of the DEA and FBI, who took them south across the border. The testimony of the agents was clear: they were ordered by their superiors NOT to follow the weapons, even when they observed the straw buyers transferring them to other people.
FOX also has reported that the FBI rigged the NICS "instant background checks" in favor of convicted felon straw buyers who otherwise were not allowed to purchase firearms in the first place.
So there was no "sting," only a premeditated federally directed and subsidized operation to pump civilian market firearms south of the border with depraved indifference to how many Mexican citizens were killed with them. Indeed, the testimony of the agents and some emails which have surfaced indicated that ATF supervisors were pleased with the rising body count from "our guns." When Special agent John Dodson objected, he was told by his supervisor that "you have to break some eggs if you want to make an omelet." Depraved indifference to murder is actually the least charge you can make given what happened. Arming criminal gangs within the national borders of another country without the knowledge of that country is an act of war, in case you hadn't noticed.
And you want to reward the arsonists by giving them more gasoline and matches? That is what you propose.
Your agenda is getting ahead of the available evidence. You are either too absorbed with furthering the gun control agenda that the Gunwalker Scandal was designed to advance, too deliberately ignorant of the facts as presented by testimony under oath before the Congress of the United States, or both.
Mike Vanderboegh
The alleged leader of a merry band of Three Percenters
PO Box 926
Pinson, AL 35126
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