US government openly admits arming Mexican drug gangs with 30,000 firearms - but why?

[Homeslice]

Please explain how a gun dealer can be "forced" to sell to a certain customer.

[Twobanger]

Gun dealers operate at the whim of the ATF. A dealer calls them them to report a possible straw buyer and are told to sell to them anyway, you don't think they're going to tell the government to FOAD do you?

[Homeslice]

Originally Posted by Twobanger

Gun dealers operate at the whim of the ATF. A dealer calls them them to report a possible straw buyer and are told to sell to them anyway, you don't think they're going to tell the government to FOAD do you?

So the ATF is going to follow up and make sure he sells to that customer? I don't get it.

[Twobanger]

On another forum I'm on "this thread" has 4700+ posts in it and and posters that work for Heller and the 2nd Amendment Foundation. I asked your question there and this was the answer given: To set the tone let me first say that ATF regulates these FFLs, they hold their very livelyhood in the balance. Deny them at your peril.

When a law enforcement org asks for "assistance" most folks want to help. I doubt the FFLs were told the guns would make it very far before a bust was made. When a Phx FFL wanted to 'opt out', they were asked to come to a meeting w/ ATF.....and they were asked to NOT bring a lawyer. It is pretty well accepted that at that meeting the FFL was brought on board as an official paid confidintial informant.

Don't let folks try to pin this on FFLs that thought they were assisting in a legitimate .gov LEO operation.




knowing how the ATF operates, it is pretty safe to assume that they told the ffls if you dont go along with this, we will audit you till we find viloations and put you out of buisness and possibly trump up charges to imprison said ffls. This is not a above board agency and have a history of makeing evidence fit so they can get convictions.


I know a FFL that helped and the ONLY reason hey sold the Barrett M82's to the fishy customer (while ATF video taped the deal) was because they were PROMISED the guns wouldn't;t get more then 1-2 miles from their front door. They didn't find out until a couple days later that they didn't intercept the guns. That was the last time they helped the ATF

[Twobanger]

Basically the ATF told the FFLs that they were helping them catch illegal gun traffickers to get them to allow the sale of guns to suspicious buyers and then later burned them by naming them as the source of the guns going to Mexico.

[nhgunnut]

Originally Posted by Homeslice

Please explain how a gun dealer can be "forced" to sell to a certain customer.

The ATF can also "Inspect and Verify" you inventory impound anything you have in bonded storage such asses legally imported inventory. Since you have to call them they can move all of your sales into the 72 hour line. Annoy them enough they can conduct an open investigation where they begin to question your neighbors , if you rent your landlord and his insurance company.
I think it is important that having dealt with the ATF over the years that I have found the individual agents to be Professional People of Integrity. It was after all a ATF Agent that blew the whistle on this insanity. The Agency itself has no oversight or procedural code of conduct. So for the individual or business dealing with the ATF the Agency can act in a manner that makes the IRS seem Gracious and Charming.
The people running this operation used that power to force legitimate firearms dealers to sell to people the merchants were reporting as straw buyers and criminals.

[fujimoh]

TwoBanger is correct, the ATF is just as big a bully as the IRS. Because the average citizen rarely deals with BATFE they don't see the horror stories of what happens to people who say NO to them

[RACER X]

lookie lookie

a new law to track multiple gun purchases

http://www.click2houston.com/news/28516485/detail.html

"Texas, 3 Other States Under New Gun Buying Rule"

"The rule requires gun dealers in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California to gather, and report to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the personal information of anyone buying multiple semi-automatic rifles greater than 22-caliber with a detachable magazine."

[nhgunnut]

Originally Posted by RACER X

lookie lookie

a new law to track multiple gun purchases

http://www.click2houston.com/news/28516485/detail.html

"Texas, 3 Other States Under New Gun Buying Rule"

"The rule requires gun dealers in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California to gather, and report to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the personal information of anyone buying multiple semi-automatic rifles greater than 22-caliber with a detachable magazine."

It is Not a law it is a Decree or Directive (no legislature voted, no head of an executive branched formally signed a law)and illustrates quite clearly how capriciously This agency can be. After forcing law abiding merchants to skirt or break the law, they institute costly policies that have no value or impact on public safety.
Arrest Holder now.

[udman]

U.S. urged dealer to continue gun sales despite concerns, inquiry finds

The Arizona gun dealer repeatedly raised red flags about weapons ending up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels as part of Project Gunrunner, but his concerns were brushed aside, congressional investigators say.

April 15, 2011|By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times

The investigation into a federal operation that allowed Mexican drug cartels to acquire U.S. weapons escalated Thursday with new revelations that an Arizona gun dealer repeatedly expressed fears that his guns were falling into the "hands of the bad guys" but was encouraged by federal agents to continue the sales.

A series of emails released by congressional investigators showed that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives encouraged the gun dealer against his better judgment to sell high-powered weapons to buyers he believed were agents for the drug cartels.

Employees of the dealer videotaped gun buyers — suspected "straw purchasers" who could legally buy the guns, though cartel members could not — exchanging money with other individuals on the dealer's premises.

The aim of the ATF program, called Project Gunrunner, was to gather intelligence on suspicious weapons sales and arrest senior members of international trafficking chains.

In an eerie case of premonition, the gun dealer expressed fears that the guns he was selling could be used against U.S. border agents.

"I wanted to make sure that none of the firearms that were sold per our conversation with you and various ATF agents could or would ever end up south of the border or in the hands of the bad guys," the dealer, who has not been named, wrote in June 2010 to David Voth, the lead ATF case agent in Phoenix. "I want to help ATF with its investigation but not at the risk of agents' safety, because I have some very close friends that are U.S. Border Patrol agents in southern AZ."

Three guns sold to suspects who were part of Project Gunrunner have since turned up at the scenes of the deaths of two U.S. agents — in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi and near the Mexican border in Arizona.

"Not only were the ATF agents who later blew the whistle [on the investigation] predicting that this operation would end in tragedy, so were the gun dealers — even as ATF urged them to make the sales," Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a letter with the new emails to Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr.

The Justice Department in its only official response to the congressional inquiry denied that the ATF "sanctioned" or "otherwise knowingly allowed" the sale of assault weapons to straw purchasers, who then transported them to Mexico.

The new emails suggest that the Arizona gun dealer was seeking assurances from the ATF and the U.S. attorney's office that the company would not be held responsible if someone got hurt with guns that ended up in the hands of gunrunners.

Voth, the ATF agent, wrote to the dealer: "I understand that the frequency with which some individuals under investigation by our office have been purchasing firearms from your business has caused concerns for you. … However, if it helps put you at ease we (ATF) are continually monitoring these suspects using a variety of investigative techniques which I cannot go into [in] detail."

News reports in June 2010 that guns purchased in the U.S. were being found at Mexican crime scenes prompted the dealer to again express concerns.

"I shared my concerns with you guys that I wanted to make sure that none of the firearms that were sold per our conversation with you and various ATF agents could or would ever end up south of the border or in the hands of the bad guys," the dealer wrote, adding that the reports are "disturbing."

On "one or two" occasions when the dealer's employees videotaped a suspected straw purchaser exchanging money with another person, the ATF urged that the sale go forward, but the employees refused, Grassley said in his letter.

"In light of this new evidence, the Justice Department's claim that the ATF never knowingly sanctioned or allowed the sale of assault weapons to straw purchasers is simply not credible," Grassley wrote.

Thousands of guns were sold to straw purchasers under Project Gunrunner. The ATF has acknowledged that at least 195 U.S. firearms sold to suspected straw purchasers have been recovered in Mexico, but agents have said thousands slipped outside ATF oversight.