The purpose was to create support for additional gun control.
Before the operation there was a lot of talk about the situation in Mexico. With the Mexican president even pressing for more gun control restrictions including a renewal of the federal AWB.
They gained a little anti-gun traction for a time. The bodies piling up in the cartel wars.
Statements came out that 90% of guns used in Mexico were from the US, and similar things. (When the original statement was something like 90% submitted to the ATF for tracing were from the US, while the majority were not submitted if they clearly came from somewhere else or could not be traced.) They were short brief statements in the media to gain increased support for gun control measures.
It was a slow and tedious process to build anti-gun support, the US enjoying one of the highest points in firearm popularity, so it was going to take some time but the climate was being built.
They were doing so by making US guns and cartel violence synonymous.
Some of the pro-gun community could see the lies, but that aspect was not mainstream media yet.
Then some people started actually computing the numbers and checking on these statements in a more public way. Eventually it made it to the public through more mainstream media:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/02/myth-percent-small-fraction-guns-mexico-come/
The public started to become aware of things like most guns being used by the cartels were actually full automatic, with selectors and everything.
That those declared from the US may also have included many sold to the police and military of Mexico by the US which made their way to the cartels with deep ties throughout Mexico.
Numerous grenades for grenade launchers were being seized.
Rocket launchers seized.
Were these also coming from the gun stores across the border?
While a percent of illegal firearms certainly flow to Mexico from the US civilian market (including to civilians that want to possess arms in such a place), the majority of the heavy weapons being used in the fighting were from government sources.
They came full auto from the factory.
Thousands of soldiers defected or went AWOL from the military, many taking their guns with them.
Police and military guns and various armories would get raided (likely with assistance from inside) by the cartels as a ready supply of select-fire weapons.
Some rockets and grenades were coming from South America, why not guns as well?
As they were using belt fed machineguns, select fire assault rifles, and rockets and grenades clearly not from the US civilian market it became clear a lot of the exact caches found and blamed on the US civilian market were not from that market.
The anti-gun climate they had been building to pass some 'reasonable' legislation, that had taken awhile in the currently very pro-gun American public to stoke, was threatened.
They embarked on a campaign to 'prove' that guns from the civilian market were in fact taking part in the cartel wars.
They had to prove that the ease with which people could obtain firearms, or even certain types of firearms being available, in America, was in fact a threat requiring new legislation.
Efforts were stepped up to do so, to prove that the border states were in fact a threat with their permissive gun laws.
They knew it could be done, because there is in fact some smuggling in those locations (just nowhere near the scale or magnitude they made them out to be.)
They set programs in motion, using pawns that don't care about the motivation for the programs but do as they are told and implement them. Then the ATF even prevented FFLs from denying sales they felt were suspicious and likely illegal. The exact type of sales that normally don't go through, and so are not as big of a threat as they were tying to make them out to be.
It was so bad that even agents that work for the ATF were appalled at what they were doing, supplying guns to the bad guys and letting them walk across the border and go missing, only to do it again.
(People now likely having a hard time after going against the wishes of their bosses and making waves.)
Unfortunately for those behind the programs the programs backfired. They were meant to prove the danger of the availability of civilian guns and guns banned under the AWB in order to create support for legislation to stop this supposed problem.
But then it became obvious that a border patrol agent was killed with one of the guns they were insuring made it into the hands of the bad guys, and instead of it being a success it was turned against them.
The details started to come out.
They stalled for a long time, knowing that generally the public grows tired of old news with its short attention span and if it's not dealt with quickly it is easy to sweep under the rug.
But that strategy has not been entirely successful this time. There is still people pushing for details.
It has become clear there is lies and cover-ups.
Before the operation there was a lot of talk about the situation in Mexico. With the Mexican president even pressing for more gun control restrictions including a renewal of the federal AWB.
They gained a little anti-gun traction for a time. The bodies piling up in the cartel wars.
Statements came out that 90% of guns used in Mexico were from the US, and similar things. (When the original statement was something like 90% submitted to the ATF for tracing were from the US, while the majority were not submitted if they clearly came from somewhere else or could not be traced.) They were short brief statements in the media to gain increased support for gun control measures.
It was a slow and tedious process to build anti-gun support, the US enjoying one of the highest points in firearm popularity, so it was going to take some time but the climate was being built.
They were doing so by making US guns and cartel violence synonymous.
Some of the pro-gun community could see the lies, but that aspect was not mainstream media yet.
Then some people started actually computing the numbers and checking on these statements in a more public way. Eventually it made it to the public through more mainstream media:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/02/myth-percent-small-fraction-guns-mexico-come/
The public started to become aware of things like most guns being used by the cartels were actually full automatic, with selectors and everything.
That those declared from the US may also have included many sold to the police and military of Mexico by the US which made their way to the cartels with deep ties throughout Mexico.
Numerous grenades for grenade launchers were being seized.
Rocket launchers seized.
Were these also coming from the gun stores across the border?
While a percent of illegal firearms certainly flow to Mexico from the US civilian market (including to civilians that want to possess arms in such a place), the majority of the heavy weapons being used in the fighting were from government sources.
They came full auto from the factory.
Thousands of soldiers defected or went AWOL from the military, many taking their guns with them.
Police and military guns and various armories would get raided (likely with assistance from inside) by the cartels as a ready supply of select-fire weapons.
Some rockets and grenades were coming from South America, why not guns as well?
As they were using belt fed machineguns, select fire assault rifles, and rockets and grenades clearly not from the US civilian market it became clear a lot of the exact caches found and blamed on the US civilian market were not from that market.
The anti-gun climate they had been building to pass some 'reasonable' legislation, that had taken awhile in the currently very pro-gun American public to stoke, was threatened.
They embarked on a campaign to 'prove' that guns from the civilian market were in fact taking part in the cartel wars.
They had to prove that the ease with which people could obtain firearms, or even certain types of firearms being available, in America, was in fact a threat requiring new legislation.
Efforts were stepped up to do so, to prove that the border states were in fact a threat with their permissive gun laws.
They knew it could be done, because there is in fact some smuggling in those locations (just nowhere near the scale or magnitude they made them out to be.)
They set programs in motion, using pawns that don't care about the motivation for the programs but do as they are told and implement them. Then the ATF even prevented FFLs from denying sales they felt were suspicious and likely illegal. The exact type of sales that normally don't go through, and so are not as big of a threat as they were tying to make them out to be.
It was so bad that even agents that work for the ATF were appalled at what they were doing, supplying guns to the bad guys and letting them walk across the border and go missing, only to do it again.
(People now likely having a hard time after going against the wishes of their bosses and making waves.)
Unfortunately for those behind the programs the programs backfired. They were meant to prove the danger of the availability of civilian guns and guns banned under the AWB in order to create support for legislation to stop this supposed problem.
But then it became obvious that a border patrol agent was killed with one of the guns they were insuring made it into the hands of the bad guys, and instead of it being a success it was turned against them.
The details started to come out.
They stalled for a long time, knowing that generally the public grows tired of old news with its short attention span and if it's not dealt with quickly it is easy to sweep under the rug.
But that strategy has not been entirely successful this time. There is still people pushing for details.
It has become clear there is lies and cover-ups.
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--Uh-oh, I just strung my own noose). The deplorable F&F Scandal is such a big deal (IMO far bigger than Watergate as 'Tricky Dicky' and 'The GMan's' shenanigans didn't result in the loss of life) that we need to keep the 'facts' straight on this one.
