Talk:Operation Fast and Furious

Comment on the operation

2,500 guns is a de factor armament campaign designed to equip one drug gang to the disadvantage of all others. The business of law and order is to promote order and then law. Your bad guys are preferred to absolute chaos or Hugo's or Fidel's bad guys. The death of a border patrol agent is tragic and an outrage, but if the objective of F&F is to reduce aggregate bloodshed, then how can arming a less violent and destablizing drug gang be contrary to America's interests? There is of course no proof that this was ever a goal. 71.191.247.254 (talk) 18:16, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Another Perspective

"Gun-Running Timeline: How DOJ’s ‘Operation Fast and Furious’ Unfolded" By Fred Lucas July 7, 2011, is an article found at website called CNSNEWS.com. The facts of the time-line are given there. Another perspective that is not being brought to light, due to the conspiratorial aspect of the point of view.

No matter the deed or action, motivation is always there. The question "What is the real motivating factor behind 'Operation Fast and Furious'?" has not been and must be addressed. Consider our current Presidential position on the Second Amendment and the Rights of Americans to own guns, not to mention numerous Congressmen holding the same position. [Not a quote but an understanding of President Obama's thoughts are the following: He has already slandered those of us that own guns as some kind of back-water, red-neck, cross-breeding, right-wing religious fanatics] It is only proper to question the reason behind the actions of our government.

There is a mode of achieving ones goal some know as "Problem-Action-Solution". In this mode of thinking, one has a goal in mind at before any action is taken. The goal must be achieved with the support of the people otherwise the goal has no chance of staying in force. In order in achieve the peoples support, 'something' must be done to motivate the people in support of a certain action. That action is to be the initial intended goal. Therefore, what 'something' will direct the people to support the certain action that is the intended goal? This 'something' will be a created problem which will be brought to the attention of the people as a problem that must be addressed. One can apply certain events in history to prove such actions occur. Consider Pearl Harbor or even 9/11, if we dare.

The facts got in the way when our Border Patrolman was killed by those holding the same weapons sold in this ‘Operation Fast and Furious’. If the action to create support to disarm American citizens was to find weapons in the hands of Mexican drug lords that were purchased at Gun-Shows in America, it fell apart when they killed an American Border Patrol Agent. This would show that America had a hand in the killing of the Border Patrol Agent because, if those weapons were not set up for this kind of a sting in the first place, this Agent may have never been killed if not for the weapons in the hands of Mexican drug gangs. Think about it, Jjammin1812 (talk) 19:48, 4 October 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjammin1812 (talk • contribs)

AP report July 30, 2011

Here's a source for possible use in this article. It's a longish report by Pauline Arrillaga of the Associated Press. I don't have time to edit this article, so I hope someone else can make good use of this source. Cheers, CWC 10:58, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

acronym

Notice some editors have been going back and forth on the Bureau's acronym. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was known as ATF or BATF in the 1990s. When expanded to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives the acronym BATFE was briefly used. However, the Bureau has reverted to consistently using ATF (see www.atf.gov for examples). For whatever reason (overstock of ATF logo caps and jackets is not as far fetched as it sounds) the Bureau has gone back to the three-letter acronym, which we should follow for current events. Naaman Brown (talk) 00:41, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Quiting time

The acting director of the ATF and the US attorney in Arizona are resigning: [1]

Clarification

Really simple question: was the gun used to kill Terry one of those that was sold during Fast and Furious? Even current stories are a little ambiguous about this. Many periodicals state "two AK-47s were found at the crime scene," but is there any evidence that the gun that was used to kill him was one of these guns under scrutiny? Darren717 (talk) 02:09, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

As best I could research, the forensic evidence wasn't sufficient to link either gun to the murder - but those involved aren't doing much talking. Computer Guy 2 (talk) 06:09, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

It would be nice to have real simple answers. Two AK47s recovered from the shooting of Terry traced back to OF&F. There have yet been no reports of forensics identifying what weapon was used to kill Terry. A third weapon present at the shooting (not necessarily believed to have been used) has been hushed up. ( http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20108240-10391695.html ) Naaman Brown (talk) 13:01, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Documents released by the White House

Just recently, the e-mails, charts, and documents on this operation have been released by the White House. You guys can check them here: http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2011/10/new-fast-and-furious-docs-released-by.html

Hope this helps. ComputerJA (talk) 06:40, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but this is a rubbish article on yet another grossly politicized "controvery"

"Fast and Furious" was just one of many complex, involved ATF operations to stem cartel-connected gun-running across the Mexican border. In this case, weapons were "seeded" to better help ATF agents to see where they ended up. Some of the seeded guns allegedly ended up being used in murders, and the ATF didn't as good a job as they hope in tracing those seeded guns. End of story. However, Republicans and right wing blogs and news-like outlets, Fox News, in particular, have been doing their darnedest to politicize this into basically an alternate reality. What has been completely missing, either through deliberate duplicity or irresponsible laziness, is anything resembling a full picture of what was really going on order to put all these charges by Republicans and whatnot into perspective. Which includes this Wikipedia article -- the "Background" section a joke, with no real background into the overall ATF operation at all, as well as cherry-picked references featuring an inordinate ones linking to Fox News, at best a pseudo-news source.

And what, pray tell, would constitute real background info, you might defensively ask? Well, maybe something like this leaked "sensitive" summary and PDF file might not make for the worst start. And that's all I'm going to say about this rubbish (so far) Wikipedia article. 209.6.39.87 (talk)aka CallMeBC —Preceding undated comment added 23:16, 10 October 2011 (UTC).

"Stem gun-running"? How does facilitating gun-running of over 2,500 firearms stem gun-running?

"Weapons were 'seeded'"? 2,500 guns for "seed"? ATF facilitated the sales of enough guns to arm several battalions.

"guns allegedly...used in murders"? Not allegedly - proven. By ATF's own traces.

"Tracing those seeded guns"? Yes, actually traced by serial number to Mexican murders and other crime scenes.

"Fox News"? Yes, and CBS (Great work by Sharyl Attkisson), and ABC, and the LA Times, and more.....

"Alternate reality"? You can say that again. Nice attempt to "spin" it into an alternate reality, but those troublesome facts keep getting in the way..... The only "Rubbish" here is the 'spin' attempt.

KC Fats (talk) 15:50, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

The linked PDF, PROJECT GUNRUNNER A Cartel Focused Strategy September 2010 is a description of Project Gunrunner goals and tactics, briefly mentions Phoenix along with the other ATF field offices, and contains nothing about Operation Fast and Furious (aka Gunwalker) conducted out of the Phoenix office. An earlier "gunwalking" experiment (Operation Wide Receiver 2006-2007 Tucson AZ) involved RFID chips in the guns, video/audio recorded surveillance, and attempts to track the "walked" guns using surveillance aircraft. The traffickers simply killed time until the surveillance aircraft had to refuel, and dashed across the border as soon as the aircraft disappeared over the horizon. When it became obvious gunwalking was a failure, Wide Receiver was terminated. Operation Fast and Furious out of the Phoenix office 2009-2010 represented a return to a failed policy with even fewer controls (apparently no surveillance: let the guns walk, then watch eTraces of the guns as they were recovered from crime scenes in Mexico and the US). Operation fast and Furious itself was rubbish, but gross enough to be notable. Naaman Brown (talk) 15:42, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

You bring up an interesting point. ATF saying the traffickers waited until the aircraft had to refuel is a poor excuse for another failure.... It's a simple matter to disassemble a firearms to remove any device that doesn't belong in it. It's not rocket science - it's trivial. AK-47 rifles don't contain electronics, and if there was a chip and a battery, the removal is simple. It appears Fast and Furious (and possibly Wide Receiver) wasn't a failed 'sting', but a deliberate operation to facilitate providing guns to traffickers - and the cartels. Why would an agency of the United States Government deliberately arm cartels? There's a question that must be answered. KC Fats (talk) 05:58, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually the wooden buttstock of an AK has a lot of space for hiding bugs, and few users remove the buttplate in ordinary disassembly.

2004-2008, per year ~700 Mexican drug crime guns traced to US sources.* Operation Fast and Furious 2009-2010 deliberately walked about 2,000 to 2,500 guns onto the streets and across the border. That is hardly "seeding" a few guns.

Objections to OF&F come from all quarters, not just the "right-wing blogosphere", unless ATF Agent Dodson and other dissident ATF agents, the Mexican Government, CBS News, NYT, USA TODAY, Washington Post, LA Times, El Paso Times, Politico, Huffington Post, are members of a vast right wing conspiracy.

*According to info from Strategic Forecasting Global Intelligence (STRATFOR) and other sources including the Department of Homeland Security, between 2004 and 2008 (five years) Mexican authorities siezed 30,000 drug crime guns; submitted for US ATF eTrace 7,200 guns (mostly those that appeared to be of US origin). ATF had records in its trace system (guns legally made in, or imported into, the US) on 4,000 of those 7,200 guns and 3,480 of the 4,000 (87%) traced to US sources. That's an average of about 700 Mexican drug crime guns a year traced to US sources. In little over a year (sep 2009-dec 2010), Operation Fast and Furious allowed 2,000 to 2,500 US guns to "walk" into suspected gun trafficker hands with only 600 accounted for (both the ATF field agents and the "Cooperating FFLs" (US gun dealers) objected to ATF supervisors over the gunwalking policy to no avail).

Naaman Brown (talk) 14:10, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

lets make a new article

Fast and Furious might be the largest known so far, but it has now become clear that the ATF has tried several "gunwalking" operations dating to at least 2006, all of them with similar techniques and results. To provide a more complete and understandable background of the whole subject, we should make an article covering all of them.Hazydan (talk) 22:41, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I created ATF gunwalking scandal and did a lot of work on it...in fact, I think there is a deeper background of F&F there than on this article. I think much of this article would be good in explaining the aftermath and investigations of gunwalking in a merge. Hazydan (talk) 21:09, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I disagree - the operation has become a scandal, and should not be incorporated into another article since this it a unique event having a lot of stigma attached to it. People will be searching for information specifically about it - and including a bunch of other information will do nothing but obfuscate things. It would be like burying the article about "Watergate" in an article titled 'government corruption'. Joebray (talk) 00:50, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

First, I would ask you to take a look at ATF gunwalking scandal if you haven't already. F&F is explored in detail, and in fact it is the largest section of that article, and in many ways it is clearer than this article. But to say F&F is unique is not supported by the facts in my opinion. So far that article doesn't have much on the investigations of gunwalking, but that's a goal for the future.

I would point out that there are 2 basic options: (1) detail each instance of ATF gunwalking separately, which would lead to at least 3 shorter and disjointed articles, or (2) have one article that explores them all and their legacy. Which option would be more prone to obfuscation? The ATF walked guns repeatedly between 2006 and 2011. The tactic of gunwalking itself is the primary issue in the controversy, so it makes sense to address it in one place; F&F being the largest example by far, that should be the focus, which I think it is. Adding information is by definition the opposite of obfuscation assuming the info is relevant and understandable. hɑzʎɗɑƞ 19:15, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

There are levels of noteworthiness, even with scandals. I might concede this one is, but the comparison here and on the main page to Watergate is inaccurate. I removed the comment, ref'd from a Fox News piece stating that some have called this Obama's Watergate. Perhaps they have, but until it becomes noteworthy, it has no place in this article. 67.149.196.50 (talk) 00:43, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Merge proposal straw poll

I see that user Hazydan has indeed created the article he proposed above, ATF gunwalking scandal, and placed a tag on this one to propose that this article be merged into that new one. Let's use this section for a straw-poll and corresponding discussion of the proposal.  – OhioStandard (talk) 08:23, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

• Merge. I think it's helpful to have all these closely-related ATF "gun stings gone amiss" discussed in a single, comprehensive article, and the just-created ATF gunwalking scandal article seems the right place to do that. Further, it's my impression that that article is of similarly high quality relative to this one, and an appropriate "home" for the content for that reason, as well.  – OhioStandard (talk) 08:23, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

On review, I'm going to suspend my merge !vote, for the moment, at least, and have struck it through. I just discovered our Project Gunrunner article. That appears to be a likely "parent" or "umbrella" article candidate, as well, into which subsidiary articles like this one might conceivably be merged. This isn't really my topic area, so I'll wait to see what editors who are more active with it have to say before indicating my ultimate preference about this proposal.  – OhioStandard (talk) 08:46, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Okay, then: Having read the opinions other editors have expressed below, and having taken a closer look at our Project Gunrunner and ATF gunwalking scandal articles, I'm convinced. I agree with the remarks made below, that this article should most appropriately be merged into ATF gunwalking scandal, and have thus "unstruck" my original !vote. Also, I just want to express a word of praise for user Hazydan's fine work in producing ATF gunwalking scandal, and also one of thanks to user ComputerJA, as well, for his follow up to alert other previously involved/interested editors to this proposal and solicit their opinons here.  – OhioStandard (talk) 04:35, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

• Merge Agree with Ohiostandard's original vote above. It is true that Project Gunrunner was the umbrella initiative that gunwalking became a part of, but it is also a lot larger than the gunwalking scandal. My understanding of Gunrunner as a whole is that it has involved a lot of differing operations (many of them ongoing, I think), most of them not involving gunwalking, and many of which were productive and totally non-controversial by most measures. See the ATF's site for a little background. That article could become overly complex if gunwalking and all the rest were put there, and anyway gunwalking has become very much its own story. Unless there's a wikipedia policy that would suggest using Project Gunrunner. Hazydan (talk) 21:06, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

• I'd go for a Merge, too. Having one complete article is a lot more helpful for users. And having them set on the order in which they happened can help readers get a whole "picture" of the situation. Having one article can also help expansion grow a lot faster and avoid confusions. Thanks! ComputerJA (talk) 19:52, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

• Merge - 1) The topics are very closely related and should be presented in the same article, as they are not too complex or too long, and 2) seems a common working theme within the ATF. BatteryIncluded (talk) 21:25, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

• merge I think they would be better presented together, and would provide the user with more information without having to continue the search.MilkStraw532 (talk) 21:27, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Sting

I'm surprised that editors are insisting on keeping the "sting" designation which the media keeps repeating. There was no intended "sting".

By Wikipedia's own definition, a sting is "a deceptive operation designed to catch a person committing a crime". Exactly how many persons did ATF catch committing the crime? The ATF Gunwalking operation had no intention of catching persons committing the crimes. Look beyond parroting mass media. Solo I Fatti (talk) 03:29, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

complete merge?

With some recent additions to ATF gunwalking scandal I think that that article covers pretty much all the info in this one. Are there any objections to me blanking this article and redirecting to make it official? hɑzʎ ɗɑƞ 22:30, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any objections, so I'm finishing it off. hɑzʎ ɗɑƞ 21:56, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Some of the content that was deleted from this article does not appear in the other article, such as:

According to the Los Angeles Times, federal court records and trace documents from the ATF show that in April 2011, 40 of the weapons from the operation were found by Mexican police at a home owned by Torres Marrufo in Ciudad Juárez. Marrufo is thought to be the top enforcer for the Sinaloa cartel, which U.S. intelligence officials consider to be the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world.

On October 3, 2011, CBS News reported that internal DOJ emails showed that Attorney General Eric Holder had been sent briefings about 'Fast and Furious' as far back as July 2010. This contradicts Holder's testimony to Congress from May 3, 2011, where he had stated, "I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."

That's just two examples that I quickly found when I checked - there may be others too. This info (and any other such examples) should either be put into the other article, or the merge should be undone. Magenta 447 (talk) 01:24, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

That information is already present in the other article. Perhaps you misread, and overlooked it. I see that these are your very first edits to Wikipedia, yet you appear rather familiar with this set of articles, as well as related discussions about merges, etc. Would we know you by another login name? Xenophrenic (talk) 07:29, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

The quote from Holder, and the info that it contradicts his previous statement, are not in the other article. And the phrase "which U.S. intelligence officials consider to be the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world" is not in the other article either. These things were erased during the so-called "merge."

Yes - quack quack!

Magenta 447 (talk) 18:24, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect; the Holder quote does indeed exist in the other article. As for "things erased", the whole old article was erased as redundant. Not every word of the redundant article exists in the present article, however. Some unsourced items and undue or irrelevant content were not reproduced. Xenophrenic (talk) 18:48, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Replaced original article

After reviewing the original article and the smaller ATF gunwalking scandal section, Operation Fast and Furious is worthy of it's own article. Cramping up all the information into a tiny section of another article just doesn't do it justice. It made it really difficult to read and understand. 24.104.78.206 (talk) 05:15, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Stop. The decision was made months ago to merge them. What you are doing, without even consulting anyone, is inappropriate. – ʎɑzy ɗɑƞ 11:38, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

months ago was prior to hundreeds of news stories being written/broadcast on this topic, congressional hearings, and a historical contempt finding by congress. Reverting back to independant article. Gaijin42 (talk) 14:26, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I've corrected the redirect so it now takes the reader to the information conveyed by hundreds of news stories being written/broadcast on this topic, congressional hearings, and contempt theatrics -- instead of to the simple blogger's talk-radio version. Xenophrenic (talk) 15:55, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Not to mention that months ago was actually after hundreds of news stories being written/broadcast on this topic, and congressional hearings. I'll give you that it was before the contempt finding. – ʎɑzy ɗɑƞ 16:56, 18 July 2012 (UTC)