What was the purpose of Fast and Furious?

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^^ That's old CBS News: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_1...furious-to-make-the-case-for-gun-regulations/
Sharyl Attkisson, "Documents: ATF used "Fast and Furious" to make the case for gun regulations", CBS News, 7 Dec 2011.
It may have come up again, but its been out there as a subtheme, humming along.


Some older reporting worth repeating:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=14195951
PAULINE ARRILLAGA, "What led to `Project Gunwalker'?", Associated Press, 30 Jul 2011.
....
Jay Wachtel worked more than two decades as an ATF agent in Arizona and California, where he ran his own gun-trafficking unit. He now teaches firearms law and policy at California State University, Fullerton. Letting guns walk has been a practice, he said, so long as it is done in a controlled manner that involves surveillance—and eventual seizure—of the weapons.

"The idea was that you would follow it long enough until you were sure you had enough probable cause" to make a traffic stop or get a search warrant or initiate an arrest, he said, or do what's known as a "knock and talk"—approach a suspect and see if he'll spill the beans. But letting guns walk into Mexico was unheard of, he said.

Wachtel recalled a few times in his career in which loads were lost—including one suspect with 20-30 guns that his team lost in traffic—and the devastation agents felt.

"You have to be an idiot not to worry about what happens with guns," he said. "We used to lose sleep."
....
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The overall "Project Gunrunner" involved ATF following straw purchasers to the actual buyer and interdicting at that level just as, or shortly after, the guns were handed off, with no "gunwalking" involved. The project goal was discouraging and stopping gun trafficking period. In the context of Project Gunrunner, "gunwalking" such as "Operation Fast and Furious" was an anomaly. As ATF agent Dodson pointed out, letting guns not only to walk, but deliberately allowing them to disappear onto the streets or across the border, was contrary to his training and all previous Project Gunrunner policy. The idea of "following" the guns as eTrace of serial numbers showed them surfacing at crime scenes in Mexico (or the U.S.) made no sense to veteran ATF agents.

There were lots of Project Gunrunner arrests and successful prosecutions of straw purchasers and cartel buyers using less evidence than Operation Fast and Furious had on its purchasers and buyers but refused to use for arrests and prosecutions. OF&F (2009-2011) had its own agenda seperate than the overall Project Gunrunner initiated in 2005.
 
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Carl N. Brown
As ATF agent Dodson pointed out, letting guns not only to walk, but deliberately allowing them to disappear onto the streets or across the border, was contrary to his training and all previous Project Gunrunner policy. The idea of "following" the guns as eTrace of serial numbers showed them surfacing at crime scenes in Mexico (or the U.S.) made no sense to veteran ATF agents.
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And anyone who could be considered reasonable and prudent could say these things in advance. It is not as if you would have to be an ATF agent to know this.

So there is no way this could be described as "a mistake" or "gone wrong" This program was conceived, authorized and run knowing full well by all parties involved what the net result would be. That makes all parties involved complicit in the murder of those determined to be on the receiving ends of those guns.

If Congress - nor the next new WH administration - do not deal with this as criminal prosecutions there is absolutely no reason for anyone to have any confidence in the United States government, nor any reference to the word "justice" in this country.
 
However, WHY this was done by ATF is still a mistery to me.
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That statement shows how much misinformation there has been spread about this fiasco. "Fast & Furious" was a DOJ operation, involving every agency under the DOJ.

Considering the response by Obama to stop further investigation of this, I continue to see it as what I originally felt it was. A operation ran simply for the purpose of swaying public opinion into believing drug cartels got all their guns from America, to justify increasing regulations on guns in our country.

I'm sure they felt they were shrewd enough to run this without anyone ever learning of it. NOW, they want to claim it shouldn't interest Americans, and that we should simply hush up and be good little sheep.
 
It was a "gunwalking" program that was started in either 2006 or 2007. It lets certian weapons be tracked across the boaders directly to the cartels. It is one of those things that goes on that the DOJ hoped we would never know about. But basically the last time it was done, it turned sour. I agree that it was about gun control, but intended to stop and catch the smugglers that sell these guns and the cartels that buy them. It was an internal operation to try where the guns are going across and ending up. But its like trying to find a leak in a boat by flooding it with colored water to see where the dye leaks into the lake... Our country does ALOT of things like this, that if gets leaked out, is a media nightmare, not to mention on the families that were hurt. These types of things have been going on for many,many years.
 
How dumb can you get? ...the weapons are now in the hands of bad guys and they will continue to use them to suport their illegal activities including murders.....

Didn't anyone in our federal govenrnment think this thing through since, in the future, there is no way to turn off (collect) the weapons when the bad guys own them and the government action has served its intended purpose....?

Hopefully, this investigation will work its way through the courts and the information will be revealed to the public and the government employees who implemented this will be held fully accountible.
 
rajb123 said:
How dumb can you get? ...the weapons are now in the hands of bad guys and they will continue to use them to suport their illegal activities including murders.....

Didn't anyone in our federal govenrnment think this thing through since, in the future, there is no way to turn off (collect) the weapons when the bad guys own them and the government action has served its intended purpose....?

Hopefully, this investigation will work its way through the courts and the information will be revealed to the public and the government employees who implemented this will be held fully accountible.
Click to expand...
ATF already lost the Director that was in place at the time.

If nothing fundamentally changed after Waco or Ruby Ridge, what would happen now?
 
It was a "gunwalking" program that was started in either 2006 or 2007. It lets certian weapons be tracked across the boaders directly to the cartels. It is one of those things that goes on that the DOJ hoped we would never know about.
Click to expand...

Go back and read this entire post again
the claim AFTER THE FACT (BY HOLDER AND THE DOJ was that F&F was simply a continuation of 'Project Wide Receiver' that was done under the Bush Administration.

EXCEPT, the Bush DOJ shutdown Wide Receiver after the Mexican end fell apart and that guns were leaking through.

SO....
Fast and Furious DOES NO EQUAL (=/=) Wide Receiver

Please do not try to equivocate, if you want that, go listen to Hold-out's congressional testimony, and you find that they dug up Wide Receiver after the DOJ was forced to 'withdraw' (what you and I would be doing 5-10 for PERJURY) AG Hold-out's "I don't know what you are talking about" response.
 
I keep hearing all this banter about the Mexican authorities not getting involved. In my probably wrong opinion, it was smarter to keep that corrupt batch out of it. My guess is that their drug cartels have a lot of high level people in the government for cases just like this.
 
Shadow7D, I was stating fact, of what the program was intended to do. I know that it was a continuation of the original program. I was simply stating it is one of those "programs" that the government never wanted anyone to know about. It was under some misguided belief that they could track these weapons and shut down the contacts, smugglers and cartels. It was exactly like the goverment introducing "Methamphetamines" to our troops to keep them awake tand alet while fighting. I was simply stating that it is one of those things that they wish they had not gotten caught doing, so if you want to yell search the actual documents that were released and read them, and check the dates, they (the DOJ)actually convinced the supporters that they were doing the same as the Bush Administration. The DOJ mostly the same people as the previous administration, knew what they were doing and lied to keep up the support. It boils down to the DOJ having free reins to do what they wanted, and getting caught for it. It is the same as me and my other brothers searching for WMD's and never finding them, a bad mark against the government.
 
Here's my issue with this notion of operation F&F being done solely to tighten gun control in the US.

While there was the chance that these guns imported into Mexico by the US government would be used in crimes and then would receive national attention, the reliability of this plan leaves a lot to be desired.
If we can't reliably track where they go, what makes us think we can reliably track which crime they will be used for? How do I know the cartel won't simply sell the nicely brand-spankin-new M4 for profit, grab themselves three UZIs and call it good? Let's face it, it makes no sense to rely on a criminal cartel to do your conspiracy work for you.

Let's face it, if I were an anti gun president, and I wanted to slap a big ol' high profile case up there to tighten up laws I'd reach for a solution that relies less on a Mexican drug cartel and more on assets I could you know ... actually control.

I do think we have to apply Occam's Razor here. And Occam's Razor tells me it is much, much, more likely that it simply was just an incredibly ridiculous plot to track some weapons to a potential kingpin and then to nail him than it is the conspiracy of a president busy with all kinds of other problems to tighten gun laws, of all things.

I'm not gonna sit here and say the executive and legislative here is innocent, but pinning some high end conspiracy with more plot twists than your average Jack Bauer show seems at least mildly delusional to me when there is the very, very easy explanation that it was just a really dumb idea that somehow made it through the system, got funding and then got assigned to someone dumb enough to want to execute it.

I know when it comes to blaming antis we ascribe to them a lot of sinister motives and endless resources, alongside the willpower and infrastructure to do absolutely anything up to and including influence in NATO circles, but let's face it ... gun control isn't popular and it is very, very much more likely that it was just an incredibly dumb plan.
 
Here's my issue with this notion of operation F&F being done solely to tighten gun control in the US.....
Click to expand...

The recent ATF Demand Letter 3 demonstrates that it has been used to tighten gun control in CA, AZ, NM and TX, whether it was the sole intention or not.

In a June 2009 GAO report on firearms trafficking in Mexico, a letter from the Department of Homeland Security questioned the claim that 87% of Mexican crime guns orginated in the US: "...DHS officials believe that the 87 percent statistic is misleading as the reference should include the number of weapons that could not be traced..." Of 30,000 guns siezed in gun crime in Mexico between 2004 and 2008, 7,000 appeared likely to be US origin and were submitted for tracing with the ATF; ATF found records on 4,000 and 3,480 did indeed come from the US (87% of the 4,000 successfully traced). In 2009 and 2010, questions about the oft-repeated Calderon/Obama "90%" claim were raised by everyone from Strategic Forcasting to Fox News. In little over a year Operation Fast & Furious (Nov 2009-Jan 2011) channeled over 2,000 US guns into cartel hands, which began showing up in numbers at Mexican crime scenes. What a coincidence.

...really dumb idea that somehow made it through the system, got funding and then got assigned to someone dumb enough to want to execute it.
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When the someone dumb enough was the recently appointed US Attorney for AZ, Dennis Burke, who was credited by Senator Dennis DeConcini with being the key driving force, with Rahm Emmanual, behind the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban, it is hard to believe that Burke was dumb.

Giving a choice between believing we're governed by idiots or believing we're governed by Rasputins with hidden agendas, believing we're governed by idiots is somehow scarier.

South Americans prefer to believe that the US was deliberately arming the Sinaloa Cartel against the Los Zetas (Los Zetas are more likely to operate within the US; Sinaloans tend to operate within Mexico). Latinos would rather believe that OF&F was a hidden agenda, rather than a dumb idea implemented by idiots.
 
Yeah, kinda Nushif, kinda
BUT if the guns were already there, and they were getting the pressure, and they wanted the media publicity, F&F was the perfect tool to play foil for a number of different things. So malicious conspiracy vs. some guys in a conference room bitching about problems when someone says, 'hey, the AZ office has this operation that we can do that with'
 
Project Gunrunner, Operation Wide Receiver and Operation Fast & Furious were three related but different things.

Project Gunrunner (2005 to date) has the goal of preventing new US guns from reaching the Mexican drug cartels in quantity. The tactic is simple interdiction: follow straw purchasers to their meetings with cartel buyers, and step in and bust the purchasers, the buyers and seize the guns. that is NOT allowing the guns to "walk".

The model of "gunwalking" under Operation Wide Receiver (2006-2007) did include close surveillance of traffickers, following the gun runners up to the border and notifying the Mexican authorities to be on the lookout. After notable failure of interdiction on the Mexican side of the border, OWR was shut down.

Mexican authorities siezed 30,000 guns in drug crime between 2004 and 2008. They were advised by US ATF that ATF could trace guns using their records of US gun makers and importers. Mexico selected 7,000 of the guns that appeared to be US origin. ATF found records on 4,000 of those guns and 3,480 came from US sources. 3,480 was 87% of the 4,000 traceable guns. The news media and Obama and Calderon administrations widely publicised that 90% of Mexican crime guns came from the US, when 3,480 of 30,000 is actually just 12%.

The model of "gunwalking" under Operation Fast & Furious (2009-2011) was to let the guns disappear on the streets and across the border, no close surveillance of gun runners, then monitoring traces of gun serial numbers after they were recovered at crime scenes. Mexican authorities were not involved.

accidental idea

I just corrected a typo "ginwalking", but come to think of it, it is a good model to explain the difference between Project Gunrunner, Operation Wide Receiver and Operation Fast & Furious. Until 1968 my home county, Sullivan, in Tennessee, was "dry" while bordering Scott County Virginia was not only "wet" but had state-run Alcohol Beverage Control ABC liquor stores.

I can imagine an ABC "Project Ginrunner". The goal was to prevent ginrunning from VA ABC stores to bootleggers in "dry" TN. The tactic was to identify straw purchasers at the VA ABC stores, follow them to the ginrunners from TN, and as they handed off the gin, bust the buyers and ginrunners in VA and sieze the gin. Simple interdiction.

Some ambitious ABC agents in VA decided that interdicting straw purchasers and ginrunners was not enough: they hatched Operation Wide Receiver OWR: allow the straw purchasers to hand off the gin to the ginrunners unmolested, then track the ginrunners to the border and notify TN authorities when they crossed, thus providing a link to the boss bootleggers. The TN police failed to interdict the ginrunners after they crossed the border, Wide Receiver was declared a failure, and Project Ginrunner simple interdiction resumed.

There was all kind of public outcry that that 90% of the liquor found in TN with VA tax stamps traced to ABC stores in VA, that legal liquor in VA was the cause of alcohol violence in TN. And of course the "dry" forces in VA wanted to use the bootlegging situation in TN as justification to make VA "dry".

Two years after OWR, under an administration with political ties to the "dry" movement, a new prosecutor was appointed in VA, and Operation Fast and Furious was hatched: ABC agents would observe straw purchasers hand off booze to ginrunners within VA, then stand down. Those tax stamp numbers would be noted. Then as the gin showed up in busts of bootlegging joints in TN, ABC officials in VA would put colored pegs in a map of TN somehow tying the gin to the boss bootleggers. Without notifying TN law enforcement, those pegs on a map in VA would somehow enable VA officials to identify the location of boss bootleggers in TN where the VA officials had no legal jurisdiction. (What were they drinking?)

Then an ABC agent got run down on "Thunder Road" between VA and TN by an OF&F enabled ginrunner, and the operation was exposed. The defense of OF&F was that the previous administration did a similar thing, OWR.
 
Nushif said:
While there was the chance that these guns imported into Mexico by the US government would be used in crimes and then would receive national attention, the reliability of this plan leaves a lot to be desired.
If we can't reliably track where they go, what makes us think we can reliably track which crime they will be used for?
Click to expand...


Probability and the number of weapons given. They intentionally put them into the hands of the people most likely to use them criminally as well.
This insures that eventually some of them will be.


Because they insured these guns had additional means of identification, and were highly documented, without a doubt they would be traceable to the gun stores they made sure they came from (and prevented from stopping sales they didn't want to make.)


The payoff of the success would be in the statistics involving well documented guns they could clearly trace back to border gun stores of licensed FFLs being involved in serious violence. Something that would help to imply most cartel violence in Mexico involves people similarly armed (manipulating public perception is generally more important than reality for legislative purposes, and the easiest route for the unscrupulous.)
This would help win the argument against people questioning the source of cartel weapons, and help set the tone for further gun control.
They could push under the rug the large percentage of belt fed machineguns, grenade launchers, grenades, rockets, and various rifles from police and military sources that had nothing to do with the civilian market and are widely used by the cartels.
They could point directly to civilian sales being the culprit.
They could cite some new large inflated number (knowing they wouldn't have to prove all of that number) of weapons seized, and then point with certainty and prove with explicit detail dozens of specific cases where the gun clearly came from ____'s gun store, and then use those cases to imply that thousands of others unrelated were exactly the same.
They would have a lot of proof of where those they insured went over there came from, because they were involved in the process of getting them to where they wanted them to be.
They could defeat any argument with those guns they would know an awful lot about, and likely never intended to let on they were part of the whole process of getting them to the criminals.

I imagine they also had some additional motives like based on where they turned up and in whose hands being able to figure out which cartels were using which smuggling routes and had ties with what individuals, etc
As different guns were seized, or taken from the hands of dead guys, they could piece together a partial picture of who was interconnected.

They hand picked the worst type of people to give weapons to, so if you give them at least a couple thousand weapons you are sure some of them will end up at some crime scenes.
The ones that then ended up at crime scenes would be well documented and easy to prove the problem of too lax gun laws with. They would then be the perfect hand picked cases when others asked them to prove that American freedom was the problem.

There was no hope of crossing the border after those weapons, and they were not going to involve the Mexican officials (many of whom do have ties to one cartel or another.) They continued to do the same thing even after letting hundreds of guns prior go across the border, so some in charge were happy with how things were going, it was not just some accident where some guns slipped away. It was part of the strategy.
So the only logical use of such strategy would be to prove things and analyze and compile data on where they go and what is done with them through tracking where they go and where they turn up.

They could kill multiple birds with one stone, figure out where things go, and prove more gun control was needed in the US. Pleasing anti-gun superiors that sign off on things, and learning more about how things work across the border. While doing nothing more than handing the bad guys thousands of traceable well documented weapons.



Eric holder had been calling for a new AWB when he first took office, so loudly in fact Obama told him to be quiet as it was causing him trouble.
Obama alluded to some anti-gunners publicly to not worry about his lack of obvious gun grabbing, that they were working behind the scenes to promote more gun control.
America was too pro-gun to openly work towards that agenda, but less direct methods were being taken he implied. What did he mean? Is there a connection?
 
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Probability and the number of weapons given. They intentionally put them into the hands of the people most likely to use them criminally as well.
This insures that eventually some of them will be.


Because they insured these guns had additional means of identification, and were highly documented, without a doubt they would be traceable to the gun stores they made sure they came from (and prevented from stopping sales they didn't want to make.)


The payoff of the success would be in the statistics involving well documented guns they could clearly trace back to border gun stores of licensed FFLs being involved in serious violence. Something that would help to imply most cartel violence in Mexico involves people similarly armed (manipulating public perception is generally more important than reality for legislative purposes, and the easiest route for the unscrupulous.)
This would help win the argument against people questioning the source of cartel weapons, and help set the tone for further gun control.
They could push under the rug the large percentage of belt fed machineguns, grenade launchers, grenades, rockets, and various rifles from police and military sources that had nothing to do with the civilian market and are widely used by the cartels.
They could point directly to civilian sales being the culprit.
They could cite some new large inflated number (knowing they wouldn't have to prove all of that number) of weapons seized, and then point with certainty and prove with explicit detail dozens of specific cases where the gun clearly came from ____'s gun store, and then use those cases to imply that thousands of others unrelated were exactly the same.
They would have a lot of proof of where those they insured went over there came from, because they were involved in the process of getting them to where they wanted them to be.
They could defeat any argument with those guns they would know an awful lot about, and likely never intended to let on they were part of the whole process of getting them to the criminals.

I imagine they also had some additional motives like based on where they turned up and in whose hands being able to figure out which cartels were using which smuggling routes and had ties with what individuals, etc
As different guns were seized, or taken from the hands of dead guys, they could piece together a partial picture of who was interconnected.

They hand picked the worst type of people to give weapons to, so if you give them at least a couple thousand weapons you are sure some of them will end up at some crime scenes.
The ones that then ended up at crime scenes would be well documented and easy to prove the problem of too lax gun laws with. They would then be the perfect hand picked cases when others asked them to prove that American freedom was the problem.

There was no hope of crossing the border after those weapons, and they were not going to involve the Mexican officials (many of whom do have ties to one cartel or another.) They continued to do the same thing even after letting hundreds of guns prior go across the border, so some in charge were happy with how things were going, it was not just some accident where some guns slipped away. It was part of the strategy.
So the only logical use of such strategy would be to prove things and analyze and compile data on where they go and what is done with them through tracking where they go and where they turn up.

They could kill multiple birds with one stone, figure out where things go, and prove more gun control was needed in the US. Pleasing anti-gun superiors that sign off on things, and learning more about how things work across the border. While doing nothing more than handing the bad guys thousands of traceable well documented weapons.



Eric holder had been calling for a new AWB when he first took office, so loudly in fact Obama told him to be quiet as it was causing him trouble.
Obama alluded to some anti-gunners publicly to not worry about his lack of obvious gun grabbing, that they were working behind the scenes to promote more gun control.
America was too pro-gun to openly work towards that agenda, but less direct methods were being taken he implied. What did he mean? Is there a connection?
Click to expand...

That's a *lot* of allusions and asking others to disprove a negative. Not very good for factual analysis.
Point is the plan was very, very bad. So bad as a matter of fact I would not think an intelligent opponent would use it, because it is too unreliable.
Would I assume a true Anti would do his best to use a crappy LE idea? Definitely.
Would I assume a grand master conspiracy at that level being this idiotic? Definitely not.
 
The purpose of F&F aka Gunwalker was to seed Mexico with easily traceable, US sourced guns which would inevitably turn up at Mexico crime scenes to be used as a pretext for a draconian gun control push.

Even after Holder and his waffen BATFEces thugs were caught, Holder continued to deflect the questions and criticism and harp on the gun control theme he was pursuing and refusing to shed any light on the scam he was running.
 
Nushif said:
That's a *lot* of allusions and asking others to disprove a negative. Not very good for factual analysis.
Point is the plan was very, very bad. So bad as a matter of fact I would not think an intelligent opponent would use it, because it is too unreliable.
Would I assume a true Anti would do his best to use a crappy LE idea? Definitely.
Would I assume a grand master conspiracy at that level being this idiotic? Definitely not.
Click to expand...
"Inconceivable!" the Vizzinis would say, "The grand master conspiracy took that into account, so they specifically designed it to be that idiotic on purpose to hide their conspiracy!"
 
One stated purpose was, as the walked guns showed up on eTraces of guns recovered from crime, the patterns in the data would lead ATF (in Phoenix) to the location of the cartel kingpins....in Mexico, where they (Phoenix ATF and USAO) had no jurisdiction.

Instead, all it led them to was a covert asset of the FBI.
 
Old news

http://houston.cbslocal.com/2012/02...eapons-sign-made-of-firearms-along-us-border/
"Mexico Unveils ‘No More Weapons!’ Sign Made Of Firearms Along US Border", Associated Press, 17 Feb 2012.

recycled response from me:

The death rate in Mexico is not the result of legal gun ownership in the U.S.:

El Paso, TX, pop 624,322, year 2010 homicides 5, homicide rate 0.8 per 100,000 population per year.

just across the Rio Grand:

Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, pop 1,321,004, year 2010 homicides 3,075, homicide rate 229 per 100,000 population per year.

If guns caused crime, there would be more deaths per 100,000 per year in El Paso than in Mexico, whose draconian gun laws are praised by U.S. gun control advocates.

Since Mexican Presidente Calderon launched the current Mexican Drug War in Dec 2006, the death toll according El Universal has accelerated:
Year - killed in drug war
2006 - 62
2007 - 2,837
2008 - 6,844
2009 - 9,635
2010 - 15,273
2011 - 16,466
Total estimate of deaths Jan 2006-Dec 2011: 47,554. By some breakdowns, ~90% of the deaths are cartel members, ~7% are military or police, and 3-4% are innocent civilians.

This acceleration is in spite of increased focus on gun trafficking to Mexico over 2006-2012 via Project Gunrunner and should be a stark reminder that attacking a means does not remove the motive for crime.

You don't start the tactical equivalent of the proverbial "gound war in Asia"--destabilizing the balance of power between drug cartels by sending in the army--without a better backup plan than bash the Gringos when the situation spirals out of control.
 
And we definitely need to make some changes in the Government!
Click to expand...

Sure, but the focus of this forum is 2A rights, not sweeping government change.
The focus of this forum is also not a political exchange so we can have a debate on which changes those are.

In short, this is a gun forum! And just because seemingly 90% of gunnies agree on something doesn't make blatant political statements any more palatable to the remaining 10%, or anyone who's just here to talk about this amazing thing we call gun ownership.

But in any case, back to the regular schedule. I'm sure there's some more political sniping, sound-bites and reaffirmation to be had here.

[edit]

To be back on topic though, I still maintain that Fast and Furious is simply too tactically uncertain and ill planned to be anything other than a lucky break for anti-gunners and a massive faux pass on the side of whoever had direct overview of the organization. We can blame the Commander In Chief all day for a drunk driving Private, but at a certain point it just doesn't hold water.

Operation F&F is a feast for rabid antis, it's a massive blunder on the side of the ATF or whoever initiated it, but to call it a planned and masterminded conspiracy is a stretch. A pretty hard stretch.
 
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts...pushes_for_us_to_reinstate_assault_weapon_ban
Josua Keating, "Calderon pushes for U.S. to reinstate assault weapon ban", Foreign Policy, 3 Apr 2012.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon, White House Rose Garden press conference, 2 Apr 2012:

"The expiring of the assault weapons ban in the year 2004 coincided almost exactly with the beginning of the harshest - the harshest - period of violence we've ever seen,...."
Click to expand...

The leap in Mexican Drug War deaths, from 62 in 2006 to 2,837 in 2007*, coincided almost exactly with Calderon sending 6,500 Army troops against the cartel in his home state Michoacan in Dec 2006 in Operation Michoacan.
More than 60 Mexican soldiers, 100 police officers, and 500 cartel gunmen were killed in Operation Michoacan, which I concede, happened after the US AWB was allowed to sunset. and is ten times the death toll of the preceding year 2006.

*http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/672485.html
"Oficial: más de 22 mil 700 muertos por violencia" (in Spanish), El Universal, April 13, 2010. The computer translation to English is excruciating.
http://www.microsofttranslator.com/...tp://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/672485.html
 
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