By Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services

Posted: Tuesday, January 24, 2012
AZ Daily Sun 

PHOENIX — Not willing to rely on a congressional probe, House Speaker Andy Tobin created a special panel Monday to investigate the botched Fast and Furious program that let straw buyers purchase weapons in Arizona for Mexican gangs.

(Photo by Arizona Tea Party Network)

“This happened here in our state,” Tobin said.

“This happened to people who lived here and worked here,” he continued. “And now a Border Patrol agent who worked here was killed here.”

That refers to Brian Terry who was shot to death in 2010 near Rio Rico. Two of the weapons that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were supposed to be following — and lost track of — showed up at that scene.

Rep. David Burnell Smith, R-Scottsdale, who will head the committee, said he has two goals.

One, he said, is whether federal officials broke any Arizona laws in allowing the gun sales to move forward. The other is to see if state laws need updating to prevent future occurrences.

But Smith already is making some charges of his own against ATF about how they treated owners of Arizona gun shops.

“They were forced to sell guns when they didn’t want to and threatened to have their licenses taken away from them” if they did not cooperate, he said. “We want to protect Arizona citizens from this type of conduct.”

Under the program, weapons dealers were instructed to allow purchases to go through to straw buyers, those who were legally entitled to have weapons but where there was reason to believe they were getting them for someone else. The Department of Justice said the idea was to follow the guns into the hands of those not legally entitled to have them, creating an opportunity for prosecution.