I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post reports on how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives mishandled a gun-running sting along the U.S.-Mexico border termed Operation Fast and Furious. The agents were instructed not to arrest straw purchasers as they handed over semi-automatic weapons to middlemen. One of those guns ended up killing Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry on December 14, 2010 in Mexico.
More from the Post:
In November 2009, Newell’s agents in “Group 7,” one of the squads in the office, began following a particularly busy suspected gun trafficker. In 24 days, he bought 34 firearms. The next month, the man and his associates bought 212 more.
The case began to grow exponentially, with more than two dozen suspected straw purchasers. It was named Fast and Furious because the suspects operated out of a sprawling auto repair shop and raced cars on the streets, like Vin Diesel, the star of the movie.
But a mutiny was brewing in Group 7. Dodson, Casa and two other agents were furious about letting the guns walk. The chemistry in the office was bad. Many of the agents had been sent in from outside Phoenix and were working together for the first time under David Voth, a Marine Corps veteran and brand-new supervisor sent in from Minnesota. The agents’ outrage overrode any sense of loyalty to their bosses.
Every day, Dodson and the other agents watched and stewed while the straw purchasers bought boxes of guns and sometimes took the weapons to stash houses and cars waiting in parking lots. Each time they called in to supervisors, they were told to stand down.
The Obama administration has approved new reporting rules for multiple gun purchases of semi-automatic weapons in border states. However, over 1,400 guns are still unaccounted for from Operation Fast and Furious.
