OPINION

ATF Should Change Its Name to WTF

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It was tough picking a Liberal to lampoon for today’s column. Yes, children, the chum slick was thick this week, and I was tyrannized with too many options upon which to opine for my 900-word screed.

For instance, one of the things I wanted to write about was how James O’Keefe handed NPR their testicles in his undercover video slam-dance that finally showed America these taxpayer-funded weasels for the anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti- Second Amendment, Muslim Brotherhood courting radio rats we’ve always known them to be. That was a tempting topic.

Yep, should I spotlight how we now have these “elites” (in their own words) showing and telling the earth how the darlings on the Left loathe America and will sidle up with avowed Islamic enemies of the State?

To add to my topical angst, O’Keefe then volleyed a second devastating video into the fray further enticing me to scribble about how NPR’s chief slippery chick Betsy Liley lied to us all by saying that NPR wouldn’t take the cash from the faux Muslim Brotherhood ops all the while working behind the scenes with them as “anonymous donors” (wink, wink) and thereby lying, not only to us, but to the government. Yep, NPR was going to accept a Muslim Education Action Center donation and hide it from the government. Should I write about these two juicy nuggets? Nah, it’s been thoroughly covered by now.

What finally drew my ire and ink was the underreported story about how, according to Alan M. Gottlieb, Chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), the Obama Administration and members of Congress are still trying to take away our Second Amendment rights, especially in the wake of the Tucson shootings.

And I quote: “The ATF has a very political agenda in mind, and that is to take away your gun rights—even if it means allowing gun sales to criminals so they can present ‘evidence’ to the administration that the Second Amendment should be restricted or abolished!”

For instance, Gottlieb reports:

On December 14, 2010, Customs and Border Protection Agent Brian Terry was shot as he tried to capture heavily armed “bandits” targeting illegal immigrants trying to get across the border near Rio Rico, Arizona. He died the next morning. It was a tragic incident that occurs frequently on our southern border, made all the more tragic

because the semi-automatic rifle that was used to kill Agent Terry was bought by a criminal and smuggled into Mexico under the watchful eye of the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). William La Jeunesse (Fox News broadcast, February 22, 2011) states, “The gun used to kill Agent Brian Terry has been sourced, not to Mexico, but to a gun store in Phoenix that was actually part— and cooperating with—a federal investigation into arms trafficking. However, U.S. agents did not stop the sale or the transfer of that gun to the cartels that killed Terry.”

Quoting Gottlieb again, the accusations against ATF and DOJ officials include:

1. They intentionally allowed perhaps as many as 3,000 firearms to “walk” across the U.S. border into Mexico.

2. They instructed U.S. gun dealers to proceed with questionable and illegal sales of firearms to suspected gunrunners.

3. They intentionally withheld information about U.S.-sanctioned gun smuggling from the Mexican government.

4. One of the guns ATF allowed or helped to be smuggled into Mexico was involved in the death of CBP Agent Brian Terry.

Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) is now demanding answers on ATF's “Project Gunrunner.” Hundreds of guns were allowed to be purchased along the border by alleged straw buyers, while ATF conducted its investigation and DID NOTHING. The ATF looked the other way while these guns slipped into Mexico into the hands of drug cartels, and then they blamed gun laws in the United States for the transactions. Anti-gun activists, led by the Obama administration, are doing all they can to make the connection between law-abiding citizens and deranged criminals—even standing by while known drug dealers purchase guns on our soil and take them back to Mexico ... and then use them to take the lives of our brave border agents!

Whistleblower John Dodson, 39, a front-line agent for the ATF, told the Center for Public Integrity that the guns the ATF allowed into the hands of drug lords and gun runners “are going to be turning up in crimes on both sides of the border for decades. With the number of guns we let walk, we'll never know how many people were killed, raped, robbed ... there is nothing we can do to round up those guns. They are gone.” Dodson said his supervisors were “elated every time a gun was recovered in Mexico” because they “saw it as proving the nexus that we were dealing with a real drug trafficking group.”

For two years, we've been hearing from Holder and others in the Obama administration about a so-called “iron pipeline” of American guns across the border, and federal officials have been working to strip you of your rights.

Wouldn't it be ironic to learn that while the Obama administration was blaming our gun rights for the drug war violence in Mexico, its own gun sting operation was a major source of illicit firearms?

Gottlieb and The CCRKBA call on Congress to support Senator Grassley's investigation into “Project Gunrunner” and to cut funding to the corrupt ATF immediately. Obama nominated anti-gun zealot Andrew Traver to head up the ATF prior to Congressional recess last year and reappointed him in the 112th Congress, but the Senate Judiciary Committee has yet to hold hearings. Rumors are that this Gunrunner issue is causing problems because the ATF doesn’t want questions about this case to come up. What does the ATF not want us to know?

For the full lowdown on “Project Gunrunner” click here.