Remember the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’s (ATF) fiasco with Operation Fast and Furious? Probably not if you only follow major media outlets as they seem to be more than happy to help the Department of Justice (DOJ) sweep the entire fiasco under the rug (I say this, ironically, as a point out an Fast and Furious article on a major media site). But for those of you who are outraged that your government provided guns to violent Mexican drug cartels we have some more bad news; firearms linked to Fast and Furious have been linked to 11 more violent crimes:
Firearms from the ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious weapons trafficking investigation turned up at the scenes of at least 11 violent crimes in the U.S., as well as at a Border Patrol agent’s slaying in southern Arizona last year, the Justice Department has acknowledged to Congress.
The department did not provide details about the crimes. But The Times has learned that they occurred in several Arizona cities, including Phoenix, where Fast and Furious was managed, as well as in El Paso, where a total of 42 weapons from the operation were seized at two crime scenes.
The government is in a unique position as they are able to pass laws, enforce laws, and disregard laws as they see fit. Even though the owners of various gun stores were going to refuse sales to people they thought seemed sketchy (i.e. they were going to obey the law) the ATF said they had to allow the sale (because the ATF suspect the buyers were linked to illegal activity which made the sale illegal, meaning the ATF knowingly broke the law).
Double standards, another service provided by the government.