In Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious, ATF officials who reported to President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice (DOJ) allowed guns to be taken into Mexico via “straw purchasers,” or people who were eligible to purchase guns in the U.S. but were doing so with the known intention of trafficking them into Mexico. The ultimate goal, apparently, was to attempt to track the larger Mexican drug cartels’ gun market.
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The problem with this plan is that it didn’t work. Of the 2,000 to 2,500 guns that were sold, only 1,300 (approximately) have been recovered: which means that right now, as I type, 1,200 guns are passing hand to hand between cartel members and others in Mexico.