Obama's Growing Gun Problem

„Now that Republicans in Congress won important concessions from President Obama in the debt ceiling debate, the next partisan battle is likely to be over what promises to be the first major scandal of the Obama administration: the botched gun sting known as Operation Fast and Furious. The administration should waste no time and come clean about what happened, who approved it, and how it can be avoided again. Unfortunately, the early signs are that Obama is going to handle this controversy as poorly as he handled the debt ceiling debate.

First, a little background. The operation began in November 2009 in an effort to crack down on Mexican drug cartels, which have been known to use military-style firearms purchased in gun shops on the U.S. side of the border. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive (ATF) allowed approximately 1,700 guns to be sold illegally to suppliers of the cartels and then failed to keep track of the weapons. Many of the guns have since been recovered at crime scenes, including two guns recovered at the scene of a fatal attack on a U.S. border agent.

A congressional oversight committee has already launched an investigation, headed up by California Republican Darrell Issa. The administration has dug in its heals and appears to be cooperating only superficially with the committee. Kenneth Melson, the acting director of ATF, reportedly told members of Congress that the Department of Justice is hiding information in an effort to protect »political appointees«, perhaps including Attorney General Eric Holder. And a report last week disclosed that the administration also gave misleading answers to an inquiry from U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley about the guns found at the border agent's murder. If the Obama administration doesn't act quickly to address this scandal, the squall over the misguided sting could become a Category 5 hurricane.”