American ME!
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Vol. 18, No. 25 06/17/11
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The congressional hearings held this week by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform revealed that the gun smuggling investigation known as “Fast and Furious” that was implemented out of the Phoenix Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) office was conducted in a reckless manner that led to the illegal sale of thousands of firearms. Many of those firearms ended up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels and other criminals, and may have contributed to the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.Some of the most important findings of the hearing and the investigative report compiled by the Committee staff include:
<UL>BATFE knowingly allowed as many as 2,500 firearms to be sold illegally to known or suspected straw purchasers. One of those purchasers accounted for over 700 illegal guns.
BATFE ordered its agents working the program not to arrest illegal gun buyers or to interdict thousands of guns that were allowed to “walk” into criminal hands.
<SPAN>Senior BATFE officials in
