Atf

The ATF has yet to justify its actions in Waco, Tex. I am no supporter of the Davidians. Yet, with the standoff lasting weeks, no detailed explanation has been given by the ATF concerning why they were there. The Second Amendment is in place to protect the population from the government in power, not from foreign invaders. The ATF claims the justification of a warrant, yet no one has seen or heard the justification for that warrant. Texas gun laws differ from California laws.

U.S. authorities in Mexico charged with stemming the flow of U.S. weapons to drug cartels have been hampered by shortfalls in staffing, agents with limited Spanish skills and the difficulty of recruiting new agents to the dangerous posting because they can't officially carry weapons, current and former staff members say. Facing new accusations that investigators with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed buyers to...

Newly obtained emails show that the White House was better informed about a failed gun-tracking operation on the border with Mexico than was previously known. Three White House national security officials were given some details about the operation, dubbed Fast and Furious. The operation allowed firearms to be illegally purchased, with the goal of tracking them to Mexican drug cartels. But the effort went out of control after agents lost track of many of the weapons. The supervisor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation in Phoenix specifically mentioned Fast and Furious in at least one email to a White House national security official, and two other White House colleagues were briefed on reports from the supervisor, according to White House emails and a senior administration official.

The Dec. 16 editorial, "That Smell at the ATF Is More Than Gunpowder" is erroneous and unjust. It does a disservice to the dedicated and caring employees of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms who work to protect the public by fairly enforcing the often complex federal firearms laws. Any dissatisfaction with those laws should be addressed in the political process, not by making unfair attacks on career public servants. There is no basis for the allegations that there is a "rogue operation" at ATF or that ATF has a "penchant for rubber-stamping assault weapon permits."

WASHINGTON -- Fourteen federal law enforcement officials -- from field agents in Arizona to top managers in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Justice Department in Washington -- created a "significant danger to public safety" under Operation Fast and Furious , an investigative report found. Those officials still employed were referred for possible job discipline for carrying out the gun-trafficking operation that saturated the Southwest border with more than 2,000 illegally purchased firearms.

Manuel Celis-Acosta, the chief suspect in the ATF's "Fast and Furious" investigation who was caught but released at the U.S.-Mexico border in May 2010, was also stopped and released two months earlier while in possession of a Colt .38-caliber pistol purchased illegally under the gun-tracking operation. The revelation that officials twice declined to arrest their prime suspect shows that agents were keenly aware of Celis-Acosta's activities yet repeatedly turned down opportunities to charge him with felony offenses and bring a quick end to the Fast and Furious probe.

Congressional investigators probing the controversial Fast and Furious anti-gun-trafficking operation on the border with Mexico believe at least six Mexican drug cartel figures involved in gun smuggling also were paid FBI informants, officials said Saturday. The investigators have asked the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration for details about the alleged informants, as well as why agents at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which ran the Fast and Furious operation, were not told about them.

As a backlash mounts over the government's failed Fast and Furious gun-tracing operation, the Justice Department will begin requiring firearms dealers in California and other border states to alert officials anytime they sell more than two semiautomatic rifles to someone in a five-day period. The new reporting requirement will help the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives "detect and disrupt" border gun-smuggling operations, Deputy Atty. Gen. James Cole said Monday.

Congratulations on your editorial "A Rebuke to the Government" (March 1). It was appropriate but did not go far enough. All law is force. Behind each law is the bayonet. How many Wacos lie behind the Brady bill and other proposed plans designed to disarm law-abiding citizens? In spite of Atty. Gen. Janet Reno's rhetoric to the contrary, the chapter on Waco is not closed and won't be closed until she resigns and the ATF and FBI officials responsible are brought to justice.

This is in response to "Raid Terrifies Orange Family" (Aug. 29). The article describes as victims the family of Henry Truong, a Vietnamese-born, American-educated electrical engineer, whose members were terrorized by an early-morning "storm trooper"-style raid on their home Aug. 28 by (federal) agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. It appears that, although these agents obtained a search warrant, it was only after their raid was over that they discovered that the people they were after (former tenants)