Friday, July 1, 2011

Just posted on Senator Grassley's website: Focusing on the Facts of the ATF’s Flawed Gun Strategy.


Link.

Focusing on the Facts of the ATF’s Flawed Gun Strategy

Since January, I’ve been hounding the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Department of Justice for answers about a deeply flawed policy that allowed guns to be sold to known straw purchasers and then transported across the border to Mexican drug cartels.

Until this week, my efforts to conduct my constitutional responsibility of oversight have been stonewalled by the Justice Department. Finally, the administration agreed to provide me the same access to documents and witnesses that are afforded to the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Darrell Issa, and the Justice Department Inspector General.

In the meantime, in an effort to distract from the investigation Congressman Issa and I are conducting, the ATF released selective statistical data that inaccurately reflects the scope and source of the problem of firearms in Mexico and the drug trafficking organization violence. The implication made by the ATF and various press reports that 70 percent of the firearms found in Mexico come directly from U.S. manufacturers or U.S. Federal Firearms Licensees selling guns to drug trafficking organizations is incomplete and misleading. Not only does this paint a grossly inaccurate picture of the situation, but there’s also evidence that the U.S. State Department doesn’t believe it either.

I received additional documentation from an ATF database of firearms, and learned that the actual percentage of firearms found in Mexico and traced back to U.S. based federal firearms licensees in 2009 and 2010 was only 24 percent. It turns out the discrepancy lies in the fact that most of the firearms found in Mexico may actually have been sold between governments in direct military to military transactions or were exported directly from manufacturers approved by our government. In either case, U.S. gun dealers are the last people who should be blamed.

And, to make the release of the misleading numbers even more egregious, I obtained an unclassified U.S. State Department cable that dispels myths about the source of weapons trafficked to Mexico. The unclassified cable includes sections such as: “Myth: An Iron Highway of Weapons Flows from the U.S.” and “Myth: The DTOs (Drug Trafficking Organizations) are Mostly Responsible.”

When the ATF promotes this kind of misleading data, it distracts from the real questions of our investigation: Why was the ATF was involved in a policy to allow guns to fall into the hands of straw purchasers who were then transporting them to Mexican drug cartels and who approved this reckless strategy? Congressman Issa and I are committed to getting to the bottom of this irresponsible decision, regardless of agency attempts to manipulate the truth.

July 1, 2011

5 comments:

Brock Townsend said...

Encouraging!

Some Guy said...

Keep up the good work, Mike. Idiots like Cummings & Schumer still have their collective heads up their a-gendas, and they are missing the MUCH bigger picture. That the ATF and anyone involved in Gunwalker committed treason against the people of the United States for allowing our enemies to possess the weapons they used to kill Agent Terry, Agent Zapata, and an unknown number of American citizens. Plain and simple.

Dedicated_Dad said...

Further, their ongoing attempts at obfuscation -- at falsely smearing the American Citizens involved in our firearms industry -- is just further proof of the REAL intent behind "Gunwalker."

Personally, it's time they (Issa, Grassley, et.al) stop beating around the bush and just say it out loud!

This was (and IS) an ongoing attempt to generate support for further abrogations of the G*D-given and Constitutionally-protected rights of American Citizens.

In short, it's TREASON -- and those responsible deserve the due and proper penalty for their crimes, after a fair and speedy trial of course!

DD

DC Wright said...

Some guy, they are missing it only because it doesn't fit their agenda to acknowledge its existence. They want US disarmed, by whatever means they can use, so an attempted ploy by the BATFags to give the Rats another excuse to pass more disarmament legislation can't be allowed to slip by, just because Mike and David and some "disgruntled" whistleblowers EXPOSED it for the top-down EVIL that it is... that would be a "good" crisis gone to waste!!!

Anonymous said...

Cummings-the carpetbagger-just want to protect his daughters employer. (Barry gave his daughter the job in the fCC although unqualified in return for delivering his state to Barry in 2008). They are all crooks!