Sen Grassley, ATF and the Mexico guns

The efforts of David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh to proclaim what they call "Project Gunwalker" has resulted in our Senator Chuck Grassley firing off letters asking for explanations from the ATF. (You can read the letters at Sipsey Street.)

In what appears to be straw purchases that were directly approved by the ATF, firearms were transported to Mexico. Some of the weapons were then used by criminal thugs in a shootout with Border Patrol agents leaving one killed.

David and Mike's (and others') effort to get the Judicial committee members interested in the ATF actions as a rogue agency has resulted in Sen Grassley taking a hard look at what's going on.

A sanitized version:

PHOENIX -- A U.S. senator is examining a claim that two guns sold in purchases sanctioned by federal firearms agents were later used in a December shootout that left a Border Patrol agent dead near the Arizona-Mexico border.

Senator examines gun claim in border shootout

Mike also has a few other scandals for the committee to look into:

I also heard early this evening from an experienced lobbyist well connected to the new Congress. That there will be ATF oversight hearings -- dealing with not only the death of Brian Terry and the Project Gunwalker scandal but with the whole panoply of ATF scandals mentioned in these pages over the past two years -- is said to be a bet-the-farm certainty.