Following the various threads of Project Gunwalker -- "Gun Dealer: 'ATF Approved Sales to Mexican Gun Runners'"

(A tip of the boonie and a deep genuflection goes to Irregular Tommy S. who brought this story to my attention and to Kurt "45superman" Hofmann who posted the video.)

I missed this story when it hit on 12 December last year:

No other state has produced more guns seized by police in the brutal Mexican drug wars than Texas. In the Lone Star State, no other city has more guns linked to Mexican crime scenes than Houston. And in the Texas oil town, no single independent dealer stands out more for selling guns traced from south of the border than Bill Carter.

Carter, 76, has operated four Carter's Country stores in the Houston metropolitan area over the past half-century. In the past two years, more than 115 guns from his stores have been seized by the police and military in Mexico.

As an unprecedented number of American guns flows to the murderous drug cartels across the border, the identities of U.S. dealers that sell guns seized at Mexican crime scenes remain confidential under a law passed by Congress in 2003.

A year-long investigation by The Washington Post has cracked that secrecy and uncovered the names of the top 12 U.S. dealers of guns traced to Mexico in the past two years.

By the next day, the Post ran another story whose headline didn't mention the salient contradictory fact buried under this headline: "Carter's Country, a Houston area gun seller, under investigation by federal grand jury."

It wasn't until the third and fourth paragraph that the really important allegation was mentioned:

DeGuerin said Carter's Country and the salesman did nothing wrong and were acting as tipsters to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in developing cases against suspected gun traffickers.

"They tipped them off to dozens of purchases," DeGuerin said. "What's outrageous is that there could be this kind of suspicion that Carter's Country or anyone at Carter's Country did anything unlawful, when they were just doing what ATF wanted them to do."

The local FOX affiliate on the same day did a much better job.

When it comes to selling weaponry to the drug thugs of Mexico, Houston gun dealer Carter's Country has been labeled a profit hungry merchant willing to turn a blind eye to bad guys south of the border.

A Washington Post investigative story linked 115 firearms confiscated over the past two years by Mexican authorities waging the drug war to Carter's Country outlets. That makes the largest independent gun dealer in the region among the biggest sources of fire power for the murderous cartels.

It certainly looks bad, until you hear a different side of the story.

"Let me tell you something about Carter's Country. They have been co-operating with ATF from the get go," says attorney Dick Deguerin who represents Carter's Country owner, Bill Carter.

Deguerin says the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms asked Carter's Country to complete transactions, even when sales people strongly suspected the weapons were headed to Mexican drug gangs.

"They were told to go through with what they considered to be questionable sales. They were told to go through with sales of three or more assault rifles at the same time or five or more 9 millimeter guns at the same time or a young Hispanic male paying in cash. It's all profiling, but they went through with it," said Deguerin.

Here is some of their video of this story:



As the FOX reporter stated, Dick DeGuerin is no ambulance-chasing schmuck. And he has plenty of experience with the lying bastards at the ATF:

As MSNBC reported:

DeGuerin represented Koresh before he died with about 80 followers in a fire that erupted during a federal siege of their Waco compound in 1993. Hired by Koresh’s mother, DeGuerin went inside the compound during the 51-day standoff that preceded the blaze and took part in negotiations between Koresh and the FBI. He blames the government for the fiery ending.

It was DeGuerin and his fellow attorney Jack Zimmerman who later testified at the Waco hearings that during visits to their clients inside Mount Carmel before 19 April they saw the metal door (which later disappeared after the fire) and who said that the bullet holes showed entry from the outside in. They also testified that they saw the same pattern in the roof of the building that was being ground into the dirt by the tanks before the fire started. The two of them made very powerful "speakers for the dead" at the hearings. Not even that bullying shithead Schumer could intimidate them. (See the documentary film by Mike McNulty, "Waco: The Rules of Engagement.")

The fact that DeGuerin now represents Carter's Country and its employees ought to send shivers up and down the spines of the ATF and Main Justice. In fact, I'm sure it does.

I think I'll put DeGuerin into the email loop on Project Gunwalker. Maybe we can pull the various threads of this scandal into a seamless whole by the time the promised hearings begin. Wouldn't that be just special, Mr. Traver?

Mike
III