July 4 2011

Firearms Bureau Finds Itself in a Rough Patch


By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG


WASHINGTON — The last time the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was caught up in scandal, its director faced accusations of lavish spending on his new office. Before he resigned, Congress, flexing its oversight muscles, decided the Senate would confirm all future A.T.F. chiefs.

That was five years ago. Nobody has been confirmed, and the nation has been without a chief firearms inspector ever since.

Today, the bureau is again under scrutiny, this time over a gun-trafficking investigation in which federal agents knowingly let weapons slip across the Mexican border; two later turned up in Arizona, where an American Border Patrol agent was killed in a shootout. Congress and the Justice Department are investigating; President Obama vowed last week to take “appropriate actionsâ€