But the weapons were smuggled into Mexico. Are you saying US CBP is responsible for tracking things being smuggled from the US into foreign countries? They're responsible for the US borders and to stop smuggling into the US.

Where was the agent killed?

In Arizona. So what? The guns were sold in the United States by ATF agents to Mexican gun smugglers. Many of those guns made it into Mexico. Some of the guns remained in the US, such as the one used to kill the agent. Nothing in the article indicates that the gun used to kill the agent came from a foreign country into the US. DHS isn't responsible for illegal gun sales within the US.

I couldn't agree more. We need to protect the Coast Guardsmen from Janet Napolitano. They are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which makes them particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse by the DHS.

The Coast Guard should be cut off from the DHS before they are infected by DHS idiocy or used in an unconstitutional manner.

http://www.atf.gov/press/releases/20...ing-cases.html

ATF thanking ICE for help with a similar project.

Sounds like mission creep and overreach to me. Why would ICE be involved in a drug operation that took place in the US and involved smuggling into a foreign country? Unless ICE is now responsible for guns entering Mexico. In any event, I still don't see how ICE could be responsible for ATF's losing track of weapons its agents sold in the US to Mexican gun smugglers.

I think it weakens the argument against DHS to blame them for this, which at best they have an extremely tenuous connection to. Personally, I think DHS should be disbanded. And there's plenty of things it is responsible for that it should be blamed for. Off the top of my head: FEMA trailers, erroneously seizing over 10,000 domains and posting accusations that the small business owners of the domains possessed child porn, TSA, laptop seizures at the border, unconstitutional CBP checkpoints, and on and on.... It just dilutes the argument to add on ATF failures on top of DHS's many egregious failings.

Who do you think were the original masters of DHS....

Coast Guard Admirals

Guess it was the other way around...

Funny, isn't it, how the decline of DHS into sheer idiocy carried out by drooling morons parallels the departure from ex-military control shifting to pure civilian control by people with absolutely no military or even security experience (like Janet)?

Tom Ridge had military experience - but not in the Coast Guard.

James Loy had military experience (and, by the way, appears to have been the only Coast Guard member as a Secretary of Homeland Security.)

I wonder what the latter's opinion would be of the current state of affairs...

The consolidation in DHS had nothing to do with a failure of the Coast Guard. They were innocent bystanders. Nor is there any real evidence that having one cabinet officer controlling all these agencies has improved communication. I think frankly that any failure was at the very top. We don't have those parties at the very top. I think elections took care of the failure. Let's now apologize to the innocent bystanders and let them return to the jobs they were doing very responsibly before 9/11/2001.

BATF(E) (aka "F-Troop") is part of DHS. It's a Charlie Foxtrot no matter how you slice it.

More correctly, BATF(E) leaned on gun dealers who didn't want to complete sales that they (rightly) suspected were of the "straw man" variety.

The current head of F-Troop has gone on record saying that no firearm belongs in the hands of someone who isn't under orders or has a badge. I suspect this was an attempt to cook some statistics so that more federal gun control could be enacted on a Democrat's watch. Unfortunately for them, they've been caught out.

And worse, some BATF(E) agents have come forward stating they were against this from the start. Apparently some manager sent an email saying if they didn't like it maybe they could get a $30K job from Sheriff Joe handing out green baloney sandwiches to prisoners in the tent city.

What scares the hell out of me is that the last time BATF was caught in a major scandal, they burned down a church in Texas. God only knows what they'll try to do to divert attention this time around.

If that's the case, then why do we have to declare cash >10k to customs when leaving the country? That's just one example, but the government cares a lot about things leaving the country as they do entering.

Smuggling is a problem any time it crosses a border in either direction. It hurts both countries and can strain relations.

Because of specific treasury laws that require this reporting ostensibly to prevent money laundering and foreign currency manipulation.

Are you suggesting customs should be performing border inspections of people leaving the US as general law enforcement to make sure they aren't taking contraband (guns, drugs, etc.) into another country?

The southern border is secure, Nappy says so!

The agent was NOT killed in Arizona. The agent was killed on a road in Mexico. He was traveling between Monterey Mexico and Mexico City.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_16...-10391695.html

For those that care about accuracy ATF is under the Department of Treasury, ATF does NOT fall under DHS at all.

FB