Andrew Kennis: Why is our US Government Giving Military Rifles to Mexican Drug Cartels?

The men in our Phoenix field office of our Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms want to know. "Are you prepared to attend the funeral of a federal officer killed with one of our guns, an ATF agent shouted to one of his superiors?" As it turned out, one of our US agents was killed in December 2010. Anonymous testimonies offered to CBS past February provided detailed revelations and a flurry of controversy. The agents were dissenting against the continuance of the previously classified "gun-walking" program, named "Fast and Furious", which permits gun sales to suspected "straw purchasers", meaning buyer conduits to drug cartels, for the sole purpose of tracking the weapons in the hope of prosecuting prominent drug cartel members when they use those guns to commit crimes, or when guns are seized by authorities. The program was first started in October 2009 and accelerated in September 2010. In effect, a US federal law enforce -ment organization charged with regulating guns was deliberately permitting the sales of high -powered weaponry, which included AK-47's and military-grade .50 caliber rifles, to flow directly into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.