BATF's "Project Gunrunner" fiasco

This is an absolute outrage.

CBS News uncovers the rotten truth behind the BATF's rotten practices. How much longer are we American's going to continue giving $1.12 BILLION to this ridiculous joke of an agency?

Congress: Please shut them down. Now.

Couldn't this have been posted in one of the other half dozen threads on this topic?

eye95 said:

Couldn't this have been posted in one of the other half dozen threads on this topic?

Click to expand...

no

"Project Gunrunner" wasn't a fiasco.

It has proceeded exactly as planned, and has borne EXACTLY the fruits that BATFE planned that it would.

--Dead Border Patrol Agents. (that will put those uppity LEAs in their place)

--Outrage among the "anti's" that "American guns killed American LEOs". (boost the flagging disarmament movement in the US)

--An excuse to crack down on long gun sales in the US. (strength against the ever-growing pro-2A movement)

--More mayhem on the border, leading to more illegal immigration, more drugs getting through, and more knee-jerk reactions among border state LEAs.

--fodder for the MSM to push in support of their anti-gun agenda...


Seems like a total success...

You just don't understand the BATFE's goal set... :banghead:

Dreamer said:

SNIP "Project Gunrunner" wasn't a fiasco.

It has proceeded exactly as planned,

Click to expand...

Even if it was a fiasco, it really highlights something--that stopping the guns isn't really all that important to BATF. What is more important is the bureaucratic goals.

This concept first occurred to me in an argument with a cop forum member a few years ago about CHP's. He made some argument that it was important for police to check CHPs so they could recover those cancelled by the courts but not returned. I thunk about that for a moment or two, then realized that CHPs are actually completely unimportant. Because, if they were all that important, the sheriffs office would waste no time sending deputies to recover the invalidated permits. But, no. They just send a letter or something, and leave it up to street cops to recover during traffic stops whenever the cop happens to bump into the holder of the rescinded permit.

Same here with the BATF. If stopping guns were all that important, they would have arrested the suspects first chance they had. And, not played games with sending guns.

Same for some of what the FBI does in building cases (so they say). They've got enough to arrest, indict, and try mobsters. But, notice they spend vast amounts of time "building a case" against so-and-so, and "collecting evidence" against an entire family before they move in and make a "sweep" so they can trumpet their "big success". In the meantime, the crooks continue to ply their trade.

Recently there was a gang (the MS-13 kind) sweep hereabouts. Whole bunch of arrests. They spent something like a year or two on the investigation. Suuuuure. And, how much crime was committed while the "task force" built its case against every single gang member arrested. Its not like the last piece of evidence that made a whole puzzle fit dropped into place against every arrestee the week before.

This stuff is drama for bigger budgets and resume dressing. At best.

While I might not agree with how long it can take them to "build a case" part of that is likely to try and prevent a sleazy lawyer getting the person off the hook. Because we all know how a good lawyer can get someone who is guilty off the hook (OJ anyone?) since all you have to do is cast "reasonable doubt" that the person in question didn't do the exact crime they're charged with.

Dreamer said:

"Project Gunrunner" wasn't a fiasco.

...

Seems like a total success...

You just don't understand the BATFE's goal set...

Click to expand...

Please don't mistake gross incomptetance, or even ulterior motives intertwined with empire-building and gross incompetance, for some conspiracy theory.

If they had any integrity, they'd disband themselves, but either lack of integrity or simple lack of self-awareness is another problem with that agency.

Well, given that PR memo that surfaced recently, perhaps it's merely a lack of intregity.

Dreamer, I'm going to share with you two famous precepts which, when combined, explain 99% of all conspiracy theories:

Occam's Razor:

"Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate [Plurality must never be posited without necessity]"

and

"Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora [It is futile to do with more things that which can be done with fewer]."

Richard Swinburne's translation into modern English and idom is one of the better ones: ""... the simplest hypothesis proposed as an explanation of phenomena is more likely to be the true one than is any other available hypothesis, that its predictions are more likely to be true than those of any other available hypothesis, and that it is an ultimate a priori epistemic principle that simplicity is evidence for truth" (Swinburne 1997)."

Perhaps the simplest is the best, "The simplest explanation is usually the correct one."

Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Then there's the Peter Principle: "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."

Most conspiracy theories assume governmental coverups which our governments couldn't orchestrate with triple their budgets, nor twice their talent pool. In fact, I'd argue 75% of government waste is a direct result of people having risen to the PP level, that incompetance at their level abounds (the "what do I do now" syndrome), and that this simple explanation is usally the correct one: What looks like conspiracy is 99% incompetence.

BATF's "Project Gunrunner" has all the earmarks of all of the above.