“I don’t believe gun owners have rights…”–Sarah Brady, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, October, 1997; “Handguns in America“
What is Project Gun Runner? Project Gun Runner is a program implemented by the ATF for the express purpose of interdicting weapons used by the Mexican drug cartels into Mexico. Mexican drug cartels have emerged as the leading illegal gun traffickers in the U.S. First implemented in 2005 as a pilot project in Laredo Texas, the ATF went national with the program in 2006 with the objective of reducing or eliminating cross-border firearms and drug trafficking, as well as the high level of associative violence occurring on both sides of the border.
Project Gun Runner segued an expansion of the ATF’s eTrace firearm tracing software system to Thirty-two nations, a number of which have a demonstrative track record of police corruption anti-gun biases and overt fraud. eTrace results provides these nations complete and unfettered access to American gun owner’s identities, names, addresses and personal information. Now, why would some government hack in Guyana have some need to access Rick Olson’s ATF purchase trace data? Most likely, none. But having such infrastructure in place would certainly interface well with the machinations of the future U.N. Treaty on Small Arms.
It has also been found that Project Gun Runner has netted an inverse result to its’ original stated purpose. Senator Charles Grassley, (R) Iowa, initiated an investigation after he received credible evidence that the ATF had facilitated and allowed for the sale of over 2,500 firearms, consisting of AK-47 rifles, FN 5.7mm pistols, AK-47 pistols, and .50 caliber rifles in ‘straw purchases. Also determined was the destiny of these guns were Mexico. The Phoenix Field Division of the ATF now only allowed but facilitated the sales, despite objections and discomfort of law-abiding Federally Licensed Firearms dealers enlisted to participate following their reports of suspicious purchases.
On December 14, 2010, Customs and Border Protection Agent Brian Terry was on patrol along a smuggling route in Arizona when a firefight erupted and Agent Terry was killed. In the immediate aftermath, assault rifles were recovered at the scene, one of which was traced back to a gun Shop in Arizona. on February 23rd of this year, Insiders told CBS’s Scott Pelley, “(This incident) surpasses the shoot-out at Ruby Ridge and the deadly siege at Waco.”
Special Agent John Dodson accuses the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allegedly let gun runners walk off with weapons – thousands of them – to see if they’d end up in the hands of the cartels, in an ABC News interview. The Justice Department and ATF have denied it ever happened and Senator Grassley went on to further investigate allegations of Retribution against Dodson as a “whistle-blower.”
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