Operation Gunwalker: Government-Approved Illegal Gun-Running

I haven’t written about this story–yes, I’m coming to it late; blame it on Congressman Cockshots–but this is huge.

On December 14, 2010, a special unit of the U.S. Border Patrol came across a group of heavily armed suspects near Rio Rico, Arizona. The Border Patrol team identified themselves as law enforcement officers, at which point the armed men open fire. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was hit in the pelvis by a single bullet and died the next morning. One of the suspects was captured, and two AK-pattern semiautomatic rifles recovered at the scene were identified by serial number as weapons that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) — acting in concert with and with the blessing of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) — allowed weapons smugglers to purchase at U.S. gun shops. The weapons were just two of more than 2,000 firearms that ATF supervisors and the highest levels of DOJ management allowed to be “walked” across the border to narco-terrorist drug cartels in Mexico…

Operation Gunwalker is what they’re calling this debacle.  How did it happen?

Three federal firearms investigators told the House Oversight and Government Reform committee that they wanted to “intervene and interdict” loads of guns, but were repeatedly ordered to step aside.

“Allowing loads of weapons that we knew to be destined for criminals — this was the plan,” John Dodson, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent, testified to the panel. “It was so mandated.”

He added: “My supervisors directed me and my colleagues not to make any stop or arrest, but rather, to keep the straw purchaser under surveillance while allowing the guns to walk.”

ATF agent Olindo James Casa said that “on several occasions I personally requested to interdict or seize firearms, but I was always ordered to stand down and not to seize the firearms.”

At what point does a sting operation go from letting the bad guys do criminal shit so you can nab them to just full-on aiding and abetting?  I think we have an answer and it looks like what the DOJ and BATF did here.

Imagine a scenario where the Canadian government allowed guns to walk across the border and into the hands of, say, the Folks Nation, MS-13, Russian mafia and the Latin Kings.  Just how much understanding would we have in that situation.  I doubt we’d accept a heartfelt apology and an ‘oops, my bad eh?’ from Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and just let it go. 

This is just speculation on my part, but here’s why I think this happened.  Eric Holder is an anti-Second Amendment hack lawyer.  Operation Gunwalker was going to be used as political cover for a major gun control push during Obama’s second term.  Holder would present the results of the investigation nailing lots of straw purchasers to the public.  Knee-jerk liberal gun-grabber sobbing would ensue, which the Obama administration would then be able to employ as the tip of a gun control spearhead movement. 

Now the only way that scenario works is if Holder’s DOJ had shit-loads of evidence.  You don’t get that if you cut the sting way short.  Something like this takes time.  Besides, this was supposed to all come to pass in early 2013.  There was no way an arch-lefty Department of Justice was going to let this scheme fall flat before the trap was sprung.  In this case, the trap was supposed to clap closed on the Second Amendment.

I could be wrong.  The scenario I lay out above could be completely off-base.  Operation Gunwalker could’ve just been aimed at criminal gun-runners without a political angle.  A lot of this is just me thinking out loud.  I have very little concrete evidence and a lot of circumstantial stuff that sorta fits my theory.

Having said that, Holder’s sleazy brand of progressive advocacy is fairly shameless.  We have a Clintonoid race-hustler as Attorney General.   Would it shock anybody if it turned out in the course of the investigation that a gun-grabber agenda was part of the reasoning behind Operation Gunwalker?

All I know is that Darrell Issa has some very serious work ahead of him.  Vaya con dios, Congressman.