Thread: Feinstein challenger: Drop Fast & Furious gun-control agenda

Published: 11:03 AM 02/21/2012 | Updated: 12:24 PM 02/21/2012

Matthew Boyle

California Republican Elizabeth Emken, who is challenging 20-year incumbent Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein for her seat in November, told The Daily Caller that her opponent is “protecting Washington insiders” with regard to Operation Fast and Furious.

“Rather than Feinstein trumpeting her own gun control agenda here, she should be working to the get the truth out to the American public,” Emken said in a phone interview. “And, I think [House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell] Issa is very meticulous in ensuring that this is a fact-based investigation. Where will it end? I think you and I both have a pretty good guess, based on the obfuscation, deflecting and delay — everything that they can do rather than actually produce the records.”

The Department of Justice program claimed the lives of at least 300 Mexican civilians, Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and, possibly, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata. Feinstein has used the incidents as a platform to promote her gun control agenda.

“My concern, Mr. Chairman, is there’s been a lot said about Fast and Furious, and perhaps mistakes were made, but I think this hunt for blame doesn’t really speak about the problem,” Feinstein said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last November that Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer testified at. “And the problem is, anybody can walk in and buy anything: .50-caliber weapons, sniper weapons, buy them in large amounts, and send them down to Mexico. So, the question really becomes, what do we do about this?”

Feinstein proceeded to make a case for new gun control regulations. Feinstein made a similar argument during Attorney General Eric Holder’s Nov. 8, 2011 appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

It’s unclear, though, how Feinstein believes that more gun laws would stop government officials who are charged with enforcing gun laws from breaking the laws they’re supposed to enforce — which is exactly what happened in Operation Fast and Furious.

During the program, rather than interdict weapons that were being trafficked into Mexico by “straw purchasers,” the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed the weapons to “walk.” In Fast and Furious, those straw purchasers turned around and trafficked about 2,000 weapons to Mexican drug cartels. Straw purchasers are people who buy weapons in the United States with the known intention of turning around and illegally selling them to somebody else.

ATF officials knew what these straw purchasers were doing in Fast and Furious, and chose to allow these transactions to continue instead of intervening. That means the ATF allowed the guns to get into the hands of the drug cartels — or let them “walk” — instead of seizing the weapons beforehand.


Dianne Feinstein | Elizabeth Emken | Fast and Furious | The Daily Caller

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