Mexico: descent into chaosATF allowing guns into mexico
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) — the agency tasked with keeping U.S. guns from being smuggled to Mexico — has now come under fire for allegedly allowing firearms to cross the border into Mexico; Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a letter to the ATF stating that his office had “received numerous allegations that the ATF sanctioned the sale of hundreds of assault weapons to suspected straw purchasers, who then allegedly transported these weapons throughout the Southwest border area and into Mexico”
U.S. guns by the thousands are flooding into Mexico, allowing the drug cartels to take on the military and the police and kill civilians at will. The war between the cartels and the government, and among the cartels themselves, is destroying Mexico, making it into a failed state on the U.S. door step.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) — the agency tasked with keeping U.S. guns from being smuggled to Mexico — has now come under fire for allegedly allowing firearms to cross the border into Mexico.
Fox News reports that last Friday, Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a letter to the ATF stating that his office had “received numerous allegations that the ATF sanctioned the sale of hundreds of assault weapons to suspected straw purchasers, who then allegedly transported these weapons throughout the Southwest border area and into Mexico.”
Grassley asked for ATF officials to meet with his staff to discuss the matter, noting that “there are serious concerns that the ATF may have become careless, if not negligent, in implementing the Gunrunner strategy.” Gunrunner is the name of the ATF operation to keep guns from entering Mexico.
On Monday, a concerned Grassley sent a follow-up letter, writing that while ATF had not yet responded to his request for a meeting, one of the whistleblowers that Grassley’s office had been dealing with — a current ATF employee — was “allegedly accused… of misconduct” by his boss for talking with Senate staffers.
See letters here and here. The letters initially surfaced on the Web site of gun rights blogger David Codrea. Senator Grassley’s press secretary Beth Levine confirmed to FoxNews.com that the letters were genuine.
A former ATF agent told FoxNews.com on condition of anonymity that ATF Headquarters allowed guns to cross the border, for the reason that ATF wanted to glean more intelligence about who would come to possess the guns and what regions of the country they would end up in.
Additionally, Dick Deguerin, attorney for a Texas gun store named “Carter Country,” told Fox26 Houston that the ATF asked the store to sell the guns to even those they thought were going to smuggle them to Mexico — so that ATF could track where the guns went.
“They were told
