Editorial

No Excusing the A.T.F., or Congress

Published: July 28, 2011

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — perennially hogtied by the gun lobby’s power over Congress — made a colossally dumb decision when it concocted a sting operation that let 2,020 high-powered weapons slip across the border into Mexico.

The goal of Operation Fast and Furious, begun in 2009, was to tolerate suspicious large-scale purchases of assault weapons on the American side of the border in order to track the guns all the way up the Mexican drug cartel ladder and then score major arrests. It turned to dangerous folly as A.T.F. agents in Mexico were kept totally in the dark while their superiors botched surveillance.

Some of the guns turned up in deadly shootouts, including one in which an American border patrol agent was slain. At least 122 of the guns have been recovered from crimes in Mexico; 1,430 are still unaccounted for.

“The impact of all this has been devastating,â€