More #FastAndFurious guns found

**Posted by Phineas

We’re going to be living with —and people will keep dying from— the consequences of thisΒ “felony stupid”Β fiasco for years to come. Via CBS’ Sharyl Attkisson (1), we learn that more “walked” guns have beenΒ found at crime scenes in Mexico:

Three more weapons from Fast and Furious have turned up at crime scenes in Mexico, CBS News has learned, as the toll from the controversial federal operation grows.

According to Justice Department tracing documents obtained by CBS News, all three guns are WASR-10 762-caliber Romanian rifles. Two were purchased by Fast and Furious suspect Uriel Patino in May and July of 2010. Sean Steward, who was convicted on gun charges in July 2012, purchased a third. The rifles were traced yesterday to the Lone Wolf gun shop in Glendale, Ariz.

During Fast and Furious and similar operations, federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) encouraged the Lone Wolf and other gun stores to sell massive amounts of weapons to questionable purchasers who allegedly trafficked them Mexican drug cartels.

Patino is said to have purchased 700 guns while under ATF’s watch. Ever since, a steady stream of the guns have been recovered at crime scenes in Mexico and the U.S. But the Justice Department has refused repeated requests from Congress and CBS News to provide a full accounting.Β An estimated 1,400 guns are still on the street or unaccounted for.

And I think that number is low.

Victor Davis Hanson thinks Benghazi is theΒ mother of all Obama scandals, and he makes a strong case. But I’d argue that Operation Fast and Furious is also a worthy candidate. Consider: a law enforcement arm of the federal government, one specifically charged with controlling the illegal trade in arms, decides it would be a good idea to facilitate the illegal purchase of said arms by agents of vicious Mexican drug cartels, based on some vague plan to trace these weapons and arrest the drug lords.

A plan born from the start to fail: there were no tracking devices on the weapons, no way to connect them to the drug lords, no way to do anything at all about themΒ until they showed up at crime scenes, often with people newly killed by those same weapons.Β Then they could all stand around like morons and say “Yep. Serial umber shows that’s an OF&F gun alrighty!”

Back in D.C., the Department of Justice thinks this is a swell plan and gives it top priority —Β OCDETF status. Apparently they thought an increase in violent crime in Mexico traceable to American guns wouldΒ increase pressure for gun control, specifically tighter restrictions on long guns, here at home.

Meanwhile, over 300 Mexicans and at least two US federal officers were killed with Fast and Furious weapons, one of them here in the United States. And when the scheme starts coming to light after the killing of Border Agent Brian Terry in Arizona, the administration lies through its teeth about who knew what and when, the President hides the Attorney General behind “executive privilege” (itself an abuse of that privilege), he thumbs his nose at a contempt of Congress citation, and the families of the dead Americans are left to wonder why their government sold criminals the weapons that killed their loved ones.

And those weapons keep showing up, and people keep dying.

Yeah. I’d call this Obama’s biggest scandal.

Footnote:
(1) Who seems to have drawn someΒ ominous attention.

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

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