The Biden administration’s long-winded project aimed at reducing gun violence by examining criminal gun trafficking over two decades conveniently omits Obama’s disastrous Mexican gunrunning operation that let drug traffickers obtain U.S.-sold weapons. Known as Fast and Furious the failed experiment was run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) and allowed guns from the U.S. to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels. Instead, federal law enforcement officers lost track of hundreds of weapons which were used in an unknown number of crimes, including the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Arizona.
In 2021 Attorney General Merrick B. Garland directed the same agency that orchestrated that fiasco, the ATF, to lead a drawn-out comprehensive study, known as National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment (NFCTA), aimed at curbing gun violence and illegal gun trafficking across the nation. This week the Department of Justice (DOJ) published the final volume of the extensive four-part series, which claims to include an in-depth analysis of how firearms enter illegal markets and fall into the wrong hands, including Mexican drug cartels. The analysis covers 20 years of data and is vital to helping law enforcement nationwide solve crimes and take shooters off the street, according to Garland. “This landmark series represents the most thorough research, analysis, and examination ever of firearms commerce and how firearms enter illegal markets and fall into the wrong hands,” reads a DOJ statement announcing the final NFCTA report this week.
The agency, charged with upholding the rule of law and keeping the country safe, defines criminal gun trafficking as the intentional movement of firearms into the illegal market for a criminal purpose or possession. “This final volume of the NFCTA concludes the most comprehensive look at America’s crime gun data in over two decades and confirms that ATF’s advanced intelligence tools are vital to helping law enforcement nationwide solve gun crimes and take shooters off the streets,” Garland says in the DOJ statement, adding that the expanded use of ATF’s crime gun tracing has provided more investigative leads than ever on violent gun crimes and improved the apprehension and prosecution of violent criminals. In the press release Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco is quoted saying: “From conducting enhanced background checks to stopping firearms trafficking by cartels, the Department has prioritized addressing the most significant drivers of violent crime and identifying emerging threats to our communities.” She adds that the government needs to “bring more crime gun intelligence to more law enforcement agencies.”
Yet the exhaustive probe fails to mention Fast and Furious, a major scheme that illicitly sent firearms south of the border under the leadership of Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, who was cited for contempt by Congress for refusing to turn over documents related to the botched operation. The portion of the report dedicated to the southwest border only reveals that firearms originating in the U.S. and recovered in Mexico between 2017 and 2021 represented 74% of all international crime guns traced to a purchaser. It also states that crime guns recovered in Mexico often originate from firearm transfers at Federal Firearm Licensees (FFLs) in four Mexican border states—Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. “Further analysis indicates that transnational gun traffickers exploit the same criminal channels to divert firearms from legal commerce as domestic gun traffickers,” the report states, adding that relative to all other states the four Mexican border states had a notably higher proportion of “lawful” firearm sales from an unlicensed seller to an unlicensed buyer. “For Mexico crime gun trace requests submitted between 2022 and 2023, 36% (18,206 of 50,409) were traced to a purchaser in the U.S.,” the report says, adding that the guns were not part of lawful exports to Mexico.
Perhaps some were part of the Fast and Furious debacle. In 2016, Judicial Watch obtained Justice Department documents showing that Fast and Furious weapons were widely used by members of major Mexican drug cartels, including Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, head of the Sinaloa drug cartel. The documents reveal that 94 Fast and Furious firearms were recovered in Mexico City and 12 Mexican states, with the majority being seized in Sonora, Chihuahua, and Sinaloa. Of the weapons recovered, 82 were rifles and 12 were pistols. Twenty were involved in “violent recoveries,” which means they were utilized in several mass killings. Among them was a .50 caliber rifle seized from Guzman’s hideout in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, where he was eventually arrested.
