U.S. Agents Dying In Order Not To Offend The Gun Lobby

The ATF is scared of the U.S. gun lobby and their useful-idiot Second-Amendment-fanatic lackies, particularly since there is Big Money to be made from smuggling and illegal gun sales and the people making the Big Money have guns. It's no surprise that our border agents are being killed:

In a sign of the cost of widespread U.S. weapons smuggling into Mexico, federal law enforcement sources have confirmed that two guns, part of a series of purchases that were being monitored by authorities, were found at the scene of the firefight that killed a U.S. Border Patrol agent in southern Arizona.

Sources said U.S. authorities did not have the ability to adequately monitor the movement of the guns toward the southern border, in part because current laws and low levels of staffing.

..."My worst fear was that they would be used in a homicide of a Mexican military official or a Mexican police official. It crossed my mind that they would be used against U.S. forces, but I didn't think it would happen this soon," said another federal law enforcement source.

The disclosure comes amid a widening congressional investigation into allegations lodged by whistleblowers within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. They allege the agency has been aware of the purchase of assault weapons in the U.S. by buyers suspected of selling across the border, but failed to adequately track them.'"