From Mother Jones ...
According to Fortune, though, almost everything about the story that Republicans have been flogging is wrong. And the magazine makes the case that the GOP's allegations against Holder and the Obama administration aren't just inaccurate—rather, they distract from the possibility that GOP's politics are actually to blame for the deluge of three-quarters of a million American guns per year into Mexico. "Republicans who support the National Rifle Association and its attempts to weaken gun laws are lambasting ATF agents for not seizing enough weapons—ones that, in this case, prosecutors deemed to be legal," the report states. ...
A couple of summary points ...
- Seven ATF agents based in Phoenix were tasked with trying to stop the "river of iron"—2,000 American guns crossing into Mexico every day. (Those sales represent millions of dollars a week to gun manufacturers—who are major donors to the NRA's lobbying efforts.)
- Their job was hard, because there's no federal law against gun trafficking, there's no electronic database of gun purchases, and you can buy as many guns as you want in Arizona, and resell them to anyone, anytime—all thanks to the NRA and pro-gun lobbyists. "In Arizona," says Dave Voth, the ATF agent who ran the Phoenix operation, "someone buying three guns is like someone buying a sandwich."
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