Operation Wide Receiver coming to light

[phantom soldier]

Another gun running program that complemented Fast and Furious was uncovered in the recent White House release of documents. I wonder how many guns were involved this time?

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/furiously_unraveling_f6fpYY4OXSJg62rFIrFiUI

 

[glock36]

Can't wait to see how this one plays out. Thanks for the link/ heads up

 

[armoredman]

Out of my home town, too...(censored),(unprintable),(Art said no), jerks!

 

[rjrivero]

Absolutely incredible. How anyone could justify this type of action as a way to turn the screws on law biding gun owners is just INCREDIBLE.

If you haven't already seen it, here is a thread that may be worth 5 minutes of your time.

 

[MikeNice]

Here is an article from June dealing with Operation Wide Reciever.

http://www.theoutdoorwire.com/features/224570

 

[phantom soldier]

So, if I'm not mistaken this is the 3rd operation to send guns to Mexico and Central America?

 

[MikeNice]

They have been sending guns to South American and Central American drug dealers for nearly thirty years now. The ATF is just the newest source.

 

[g.willikers]

There is supposed to be yet another Federally approved gun running operation from Tampa, Fl to Honduras.

 

[Fatelvis]

And that's "strike two"!

 

[NOLAEMT]

only strike two?

 

[Madcap_Magician]

Am I the only person who didn't get guns from the ATF?

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

I think Operation Wide Receiver is coming to light because it was started during the Bush Administration. As such, releasing documents revealing its existence helps set the stage for a "they did it too" defense - and since not all documents were released, you can be selective about what parts of that operation you want to show.

Having said that, if it had the same premise as Fast and Furious - letting guns walk to the Mexican side of the border with no way of tracking them until they showed up at a crime scene, then the people responsible need to be grilled in the exact same way.

 

[svtruth]

The other problem, of course, is more demand, driving up prices.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

A good article discussing Wide Receiver in the Arizona Star:
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crime/article_b91080d8-0e03-5907-b807-5317e1c473f9.html

The dealer said he sold around 450 firearms. The indictment claims defendants bought 269 firearms of which 47 were seized by law enforcement, meaning between 222 and 403 firearms may have "walked" depending on the numbers.

Also of interest, the U.S. Attorney in charge of Wide Receiver from 2006-2007 was Paul Charlton, who is now the attorney representing the Terry family in their civil suit against the government. He denies authorizing any firearms to walk; but acknowledges responsibility for it if it happened "on his watch."

I'm kind of skeptical about the documents released on Wide Receiver so far. The White House withheld some documents citing privilege and so far the documents they have released seem to mostly help them (I know, shocking).

 

[Fatelvis]

I think I get it now......The ATF is sorta like the CMP......You just have to send them proof that you're associated with some sort of a Cartel, or organized crime, (instead of a ligit club, like the CMP), and you can get guns directly from them.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Bob Owens of Pajamas Media explains the sleight-of-hand trick being played here. I'd link to it; but the link kept crashing Safari.

Basically, the big difference between Wide Receiver and Fast & Furious is that the guns in Wide Receiver contained RFID tracking devices and law enforcement was attempting to interdict the guns. Guns walked because the smugglers knew the tail numbers of government aircraft and would wait for them to refuel before crossing. In addition, the RFID devices proved to have both a shorter than expected range and less than expected battery life. Once they realized ~ 200 guns had walked, they stopped the investigation.

According to the same FFL who told about Wide Receiver, the ATF, ASAC, and SAC in Phoenix lied to the AUSA about these problems and told the AUSA the weapons were being tracked. When the AUSA discovered the lies, he refused to bring charges as he felt the case was now crippled by the Phoenix ATFs untruthfulness. Accordingly, there were no charges in the investigation until the new AUSA decided to round up the straw purchasers.

 

[FROGO207]

Just more big brother thinking that they can do whatever they want with nobody held accountable in the end again IMHO.:banghead:

 

[Neverwinter]

Basically, the big difference between Wide Receiver and Fast & Furious is that the guns in Wide Receiver contained RFID tracking devices and law enforcement was attempting to interdict the guns. Guns walked because the smugglers knew the tail numbers of government aircraft and would wait for them to refuel before crossing. In addition, the RFID devices proved to have both a shorter than expected range and less than expected battery life.

That's so much better than the GPS idiocy of the F&F.

 

[ShawnC]

Am I the only person who didn't get guns from the ATF?

Well, yeah. We've all been smuggling guns to organized crime. I think it's one of the questions on the FFL application. Where have you been?
On another note, are people who supply arms to drug dealers really qualified to regulate the sale of guns to law abiding citizens?

 

[stickhauler]

I can think of one big difference between "Operation Wide Receiver" and "Fast And Furious." No Border Patrol agents were killed with firearms involved in "Wide Receiver." And, "Wide Receiver" was a BATFE operation, "Fast And Furious" was an operation ran by the US Dept. Of Justice, using agents from the BATFE, FBI, DEA, Homeland Security and even the IRS.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

A big question for me is why would you run Fast and Furious after seeing what happened in Wide Receiver? I mean, you are making a conscious effort to track and interdict the weapons; but you lose 222 out of 269. Furthermore, the AUSA won't even bring charges because you lied about aspects of the investigation.

So now the same office that had a massive failure in Tuscon decides "Hey, I've got an idea. Let's try the same thing except this time we won't even TRY to use RFID tags to track the weapons, just people. And when we do find out where the weapons are going, we'll do NOTHING about it. This should work out much better than Wide Receiver!"

I can't imagine the thought process there except that maybe by having the AUSA in on the gun walking, they thought they had fixed one of the problems with Wide Receiver.

 

[NMGonzo]

This two operations are ridiculous and present a risk to us.

So is propping bloody dictators, so is intervening in foreign countries.

Get my gist?

 

[HardKnox]

can you explain your gist NMGonzo?

 

[Apple a Day]

Anybody want to break out their tinfoil hats and talk about that big elephant in the room?
Anybody?
Ah, I'll leave it there.


Next desperate ploy to CYA: dig up Reagan's corpse again and invoke Iran-Contra. Since no one under thirty either remembers or bothers to study history Holder may manage to cover himself by further muddying the water. Or he may send another five page whiny letter with zero substance trying to turn those blaming fingers around.
The worst that will happnen to Holder is that he'll be forced to step down and he'll be ostrasized from the "in" crowd. He'll still have someone else write a book for him explaining how it was all a repub. plot to discredit him, he'll make $, and do the talk circuit.

 

[Tommygunn]

The worst that will happnen to Holder is that he'll be forced to step down and he'll be ostrasized from the "in" crowd.

Given the history of these types of shenanigans, that would suffice, IMHO.
So far as Iran Contra -- they tried to get Ollie North (the primary actor) but they "scwewed the pooch" and the Constitution protected him.