“Download this gun”: 3D-printed semi-automatic fires over 600 rounds

And the Department of Justice says there's nothing illegal about it, either.

by Cyrus Farivar - Mar 1 2013

Ars Technica

The white portion of this AR-15, known as the "lower," was manufactured using 3D printing.

Defense Distributed

Cody Wilson, like many of his Texan forebears, is fast-talkin’ and fast-shootin’—but unlike his predecessors in the Lone Star State, he’s got 3D printing technology to further his agenda.

Wilson’s non-profit organization, Defense Distributed, released a video this week showing a gun firing off over 600 rounds—illustrating what is likely to be the first wave of semi-automatic and automatic weapons produced by the additive manufacturing process.

Last year, his group famously demonstrated that they could use a 3D-printed “lower” for an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle—but the gun failed after six rounds. Now, after some re-tooling, Defense Distributed has shown that it has fixed the design flaws and can seemingly fire for quite awhile. (The AR-15 is the civilian version of the military M16 rifle.)

The “lower,” or lower receiver part of a firearm, is the crucial part that contains all the gun's operating parts, including the trigger group, and the magazine port. (Under American law, the lower is what's defined as the firearm itself.) The AR is designed to be modular, meaning it can receive different types of “uppers” (barrels) as well as different-sized magazines.

“This is the first publicly printed AR lower demonstrated to withstand a large volume of .223 without structural degradation or failure,” Wilson wrote on Wednesday. “The actual count was 660+ on day 1 with the SLA lower. The test ended when we ran out of ammunition, but this lower could easily withstand 1,000 rounds.”

Already, he says, over 10,000 people have downloaded the lower CAD file, with more on BitTorrent.

"I just made an AK-47 magazine—I’ve got it printing as we speak"

While it may be easy to paint Wilson as a 2nd Amendment-touting conservative, the 25-year-old second-year law student at the Univeristy of Texas, Austin told Ars on Thursday that he’s actually a “crypto-anarchist.”

“I believe in evading and disintermediating the state,” he said.

“It seemed to be something we could build an organization around. Just like Bitcoin can circumvent financial mechanisms. This means you can make something that is contentious and politically important—not just a multicolored cookie cutter—but something important. It’s more about disintermediating some of these control schemes entirely and there’s increasingly little that you can do about it. That’s no longer a valid answer.”

He added, “The message is in what we’re doing—the message is: download this gun.”

And he practices what he preaches: the group’s entire set of design files are made available, for free, on DEFCAD, an online library for everything from grips to lowers to magazines.

“I just made an AK-47 magazine—I’ve got it printing as we speak,” he added. “[I’ve got a] Glock 17, we got a bunch coming, man. We’ve got a library of magazines.”

Wilson’s group was founded last year on similar principles:

The specific purposes for which this corporation is organized are: To defend the civil liberty of popular access to arms as guaranteed by the United States Constitution and affirmed by the United States Supreme Court, through facilitating global access to, and the collaborative production of, information and knowledge related to the 3D printing of arms; and to publish and distribute, at no cost to the public, such information and knowledge in promotion of the public interest.

Here are .223 Remington bullets loaded into a 3D-printed magazine.

Defense Distributed

Totally legal

So that raises the question: is this legal? For now, it would appear so.

“There are no restrictions on an individual manufacturing a firearm for personal use,” a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) spokesperson told Ars. “However, if the individual is engaged in business as a firearms manufacturer, that person must obtain a manufacturing license.”

Wilson said that he’s applied for a federal firearms license in his own name with the ATF in October, and expects to hear a response “any day now.” The ATF did not respond to our request for confirmation of Wilson’s claims.

Specifically, Wilson said he's looking eventually to become a Class 2 Special Occupational Taxpayer, as licensed under federal law (PDF), which would allow him to become a dealer under the National Firearms Act.

The law student said that anyone with the same type of 3D printer (“SLA resin and P400 ABS on a used Dimension”) could replicate his efforts with “9 to 12 hours” of print time, and “$150 to $200” in parts, adding that “we’ve proven that you can build one for $50,” presuming the builder is using lower quality materials. (Dimensions typically sell in the $30,000 range—but Wilson says his results could be duplicated using the less-expensive Ultimaker ($1500) or Reprap.”

Assuming Defense Distributed’s AR-15 lower costs around $150 to print, it likely wouldn’t end up being price-competitive with other, commercially-available polymer AR-15 lowers—a few minutes of Google searching turned up options priced at $135 to $170, depending on the manufacturer.

Of course, lots of 3D printing enthusiasts extol the fact that the price of the technology is rapidly falling—as we reported previously, a California company announced a $600 model last year.

Some experts who have been following the world of 3D printing for a while say that from a policy perspective, not much has changed in terms of firearm production, even if is cheaper to make.

“When you're thinking about it from a policy standpoint [the question is]: was this possible before 3D printing? If the answer is yes, what was the existing policy response?” said Michael Weinberg, a staff attorney at Public Knowledge.

“Has this fundamentally changed the dynamic in a way that we need to revisit the response? The answer strikes me as no—it's amazing. You can imagine a world where the 3D printer is accessible to people—I am not convinced that we need a 3D printing-specific solution.”

An earlier model of the 3D-printed AR-15 lower resulted in a crack by the rear takedown pin.

Defense Distributed

"The guns that will be"

Since December 2012, Wilson and his team have been hard at work on two problems. The first was the fact that the lower’s “buffer tower” (the circular ring part jutting upward that the “upper” fits into) kept breaking—that’s what caused the initial failure that prevented the gun from firing more than six rounds of 5.7x28FN bullets.

So to fix that, the group re-engineered the buffer tower so that it had increased exterior thickness. “We doubled or tripled the thickness,” Wilson said.

With that fix under their belt, the modern gunsmiths tried firing with .223 Remington bullets (standard in an AR-15), which raised the firing range to about 20 rounds before a failure—but that wasn’t good enough.

By the end of the month, there was a different failure, this time on the “rear takedown pin,” where a metal pin fits between the upper and the lower, connecting them together solidly. There, the 3D-printed plastic was cracking around the pin, making the gun less safe to use.

“There was so much force concentrating around it that that was the failure place,” Wilson said. “At first we started using bigger bosses and using longer pins, and realized that it’s still a cross-sectional area. We changed the dimensions of the rear takedown pins.”

He explained that they’ve changed pin design entirely, adding “more surface area around these pins,” as well as an “internal” 90-degree angle, along with various curves and “steps and risers,” that would take advantage of the fact that the housing was made of plastic, not metal.

“The thing was still built like it would be made out of metal,” he said. “This is about plastic and everything needs to be curves, it has to act like more of a spring.”

And that, he points out, is the ultimate lesson in gun manufacture.

“The idea is not to print components for guns that are, but the guns that will be,” he said.

For now though, Wilson said that Defense Distributed has essentially taken over the bulk of his time, and he’s effectively become a part-time amateur engineer.

“I don’t go to [law school] class, but I do pass the exams—here’s looking at you [American Bar Association]!” he told Ars.

Defense Distributed, Wilson says, receives “around $100” in daily donations and has an operating budget of about $2,400 monthly. He says that the next phase will be to publish “primers” teaching people specifically how to make such weapons.

“I don’t consider myself a tech guy, but I do consider myself a crypto-anarchist,” he said.

“I mean the philosophy that Tim May expressed, he predicted WikiLeaks and digital currency. [What I mean is] that the Internet and cryptography are these anarchic tools that can allow for the expanse of citizen action. We like the idea of the market becoming completely black and starving the nation-state from all the money they claim.”

(Thanks to Ars editor Sean Gallagher, a Navy veteran, for helping me with all my gun questions.)

Fast and Furious weapons were found in Mexico cartel enforcer's home

Guns illegally purchased under the ATF operation were found in April hidden in violence-plagued Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, court records show.

By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau

October 8, 2011 -- LA TIMES

 

High-powered assault weapons illegally purchased under the ATF's Fast and Furious program in Phoenix ended up in a home belonging to the purported top Sinaloa cartel enforcer in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, whose organization was terrorizing that city with the worst violence in the Mexican drug wars.

In all, 100 assault weapons acquired under Fast and Furious were transported 350 miles from Phoenix to El Paso, making that West Texas city a central hub for gun traffickers. Forty of the weapons made it across the border and into the arsenal of Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, a feared cartel leader in Ciudad Juarez, according to federal court records and trace documents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The smugglers' tactics — quickly moving the weapons far from ATF agents in southern Arizona, where it had been assumed they would circulate — vividly demonstrate that what had been viewed as a local problem was much larger. Six other Fast and Furious guns destined for El Paso were recovered in Columbus, N.M.

"These Fast and Furious guns were going to Sinaloans, and they are killing everyone down there," said one knowledgeable U.S. government source, who asked for anonymity because of the ongoing investigations. "But that's only how many we know came through Texas. Hundreds more had to get through."

Torres Marrufo, also known as "the Jaguar," has been identified by U.S. authorities as the enforcer for Sinaloa cartel chieftain Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman. The Fast and Furious weapons were found at one of Torres Marrufo's homes April 30 when Mexican police inspected the property. It was unoccupied but "showed signs of recent activity," they said.

The basement had been converted into a gym with a wall covered with built-in mirrors. Behind the mirrors they found a hidden room with the Fast and Furious weapons and dozens more, including an antiaircraft machine gun, a sniper rifle and a grenade launcher.

"We have seized the most important cache of weapons in the history of Ciudad Juarez," Chihuahua state Gov. Cesar Duarte said at the time, though he did not know that many of the weapons came from the U.S. and Fast and Furious.

Torres Marrufo has been indicted in El Paso, but authorities have been unable to locate and arrest him.

In the U.S., intelligence officials consider the Sinaloa cartel the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world. Weekly reports from U.S. intelligence authorities to the Justice Department in the summer of 2010, at the height of Fast and Furious, warned about the proliferation of guns reaching the Sinaloa cartel.

Under Fast and Furious, begun in fall 2009, the ATF allowed illegal buyers to walk away with weapons in the hope that agents in Phoenix could track the guns and arrest cartel leaders.

Three months into the program, El Paso began to emerge as a hub, perhaps the central location, for Fast and Furious weapons. On Jan. 13, 2010, El Paso police stumbled upon 40 firearms after following a suspicious dark blue Volkswagen Jetta that backed into a garage at a local residence, according to federal court records.

Alberto Sandoval told authorities he acquired the weapons three days after they were purchased from someone he knew only as "Rudy." He said he was paid $1,000 to store the guns and "knew the firearms were going to Mexico."

Sandoval pleaded guilty in federal court in El Paso and was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison. A month later, on Dec. 17, 2010, he escaped from a minimum-security prison in Tucson; officials believe he fled to Mexico.

Two others, Ivan Chavira and Edgar Ivan Galvan, were subsequently charged in that gun recovery, along with the recovery of 20 Fast and Furious weapons on April 7, 2010, in El Paso. Those guns also were discovered by chance by local authorities, and ATF trace records show that the weapons were purchased in Phoenix two weeks before they were found in El Paso.

Chavira and Galvan pleaded guilty. Chavira received eight years in prison; Galvan is to be sentenced next month.

Medical-pot users fuming over ATF’s gun-sale ban

By Valerie Richardson

The Washington Times

Thursday, October 6, 2011 

DENVER — You can have your gun, or you can have your medical marijuana. But the Obama administration now says you can’t have both.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is in the crosshairs for a recent memo prohibiting gun merchants from selling firearms to anyone who uses marijuana, including those with state-issued medical-marijuana cards.

An open letter dated Sept. 21 from Arthur Herbert, ATF assistant director for Enforcement Programs and Services, said that, “any person who uses or is addicted to marijuana, regardless of whether his or her State has passed legislation authorizing marijuana use for medicinal purposes, is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance, and is prohibited by Federal law from possessing firearms or ammunition.”

That didn’t sit well with Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock, who fired off a letter this week to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. saying that the policy raises “serious legal issues under the Second Amendment, and the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Fifth Amendment.”

The conflict illustrates the contradictory state of affairs between the states and federal government on the subject of medical marijuana. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have passed medical-marijuana laws, a situation the Justice Department has agreed to tolerate despite continuing to enforce federal laws banning marijuana use.

Where the agency draws the line is often a source of confusion. The Sept. 21 letter was issued in response to gun sellers who asked the agency for guidance because buyers were showing them medical-marijuana cards as identification.

Mr. Bullock blasted the ATF for failing to consult with state officials before issuing the directive, saying a cooperative approach “would be much better than the type of unilateral proclamation represented by the ATF letter.”

Critics contend that the law unfairly discriminates against marijuana users because patients who take other controlled substances, such as OxyContin, have no such restrictions. In his letter, Mr. Bullock pointed out federal law allows those who are prescribed controlled substances by a physician to possess or buy firearms and ammunition.

“The ATF letter does not take this into account,” said Mr. Bullock, who called on the department to work with the states in “exploring a reasonable solution to the problems created by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives letter.”

Mr. Herbert states in his letter that marijuana, as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, cannot be prescribed under federal law, “even if such use is sanctioned by state law.”

The policy puts gun dealers in a difficult position, say critics.

Potential gun buyers must state on an ATF form whether they use marijuana at the time of sale. If they answer “yes,” they are denied the purchase, but even if they answer “no,” the seller cannot complete the sale if there is “‘reasonable cause to believe’ that the person is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance,” according to the directive.

“The dealers have no way of knowing whether someone smokes pot unless they come in toking,” said Gun Owners of America executive director Larry Pratt. “It’s just one more way to aggravate the dealers and play ‘gotcha’ with the dealers. They [the ATF] are totally out of control.”

In an editorial this week, the Denver Post blasted the directive, calling it an “assault on constitutional rights.” Colorado voters legalized medical marijuana in 2000.

“[U]sers of medical marijuana are faced with two choices: pass on gun ownership or illegally lie about their use of marijuana,” the Post said. “Unbelievable.”

Morgan Fox, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, said his organization is drafting a letter asking the ATF to use its discretion “to be more compassionate toward medical-marijuana patients.”

“The ATF said their hands were tied, but that’s not the case,” Mr. Fox said. “This is just another way to single out and harass medical-marijuana patients.”

Montana voters legalized medical marijuana in 2004, but its use exploded after the Justice Department’s 2009 memorandum saying federal authorities would not target marijuana users as long as they comply with state law, Montana Justice Department spokesman John Doran said.

“We went from 3,000 to 30,000 medical-marijuana cardholders in the space of about a year,” he said. “We also saw an increase in the number of types of businesses.”

Those included so-called “cannibis caravans,” which traveled throughout the state signing up people for medical-marijuana cards. Often there was no doctor on site, but rather a doctor from another state who spoke with patients via computer, Mr. Doran said.

The Montana legislature cracked down on the industry earlier this year with a bill that repealed the voter-passed initiative and replaced it with tighter restrictions. In response, advocates gathered enough signatures to place the more liberal version on the November 2012 ballot.

“States, including Montana, have acted to address problems and explore workable solutions,” Mr. Bullock said. “In doing so, however, we also face issues that are, candidly, created or exacerbated by federal actions and policies that do not always reflect the kind of careful approach and appropriate accommodation that should be accorded the states.”

'Fast and Furious' Gunrunning scandal uncovered at the ATF (3 articles)

ATF Director Reassigned; U.S. Attorney Out Amid 'Fast and Furious' Uproar

By William Lajeunesse

Published August 30, 2011| FoxNews.com

 

Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson has been reassigned to a lesser post in the Justice Department and the U.S. attorney for Arizona was also pushed out Tuesday as fallout from Operation Fast and Furious reached new heights.

Melson's step down from his role as head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to the position of senior adviser on forensic science in the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Programs is effective by close of business Tuesday, administration officials announced. U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota B. Todd Jones will replace Melson.

'Fast and Furious' Fallout at Justice

New resignations over failed gun-trafficking scheme

U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke, one of the officials closely tied to Fast and Furious, is also a casualty in a shakeup tied to the botched gun-running program. Burke was on the hot seat last week with congressional investigators and, according to several sources, got physically sick during questioning and could not finish his session.

The purge of those responsible for the firearms trafficking scandal continued as new documents reveal a deeper involvement of federal agencies beyond ATF. 

In Phoenix, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley, who oversaw Fast and Furious on a day-to-day basis, was reassigned from the criminal to civil division. Also in Phoenix, three out of the four whistleblowers involved in the case have been reassigned to new positions outside Arizona. Two are headed to Florida, one to South Carolina.

Hurley's reassignment came after three ATF supervisors responsible for the operation were promoted. William G. McMahon, a former deputy director of operations, took over the Office of Professional Responsibility. Field supervisors William D. Newell and David Voth also moved up despite heavy criticism. 

The moves follow a series of reports by Fox News detailing the face-off between Attorney General Eric Holder, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, whose investigators have recently broadened their probe. It now reportedly shows a deeper involvement of the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

"While the reckless disregard for safety that took place in Operation Fast and Furious certainly merits changes within the Department of Justice, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee will continue its investigation to ensure that blame isn't off-loaded on just a few individuals for a matter that involved much higher levels of the Justice Department," Issa, chairman of the House panel. 

"There are still many questions to be answered about what happened in Operation Fast and Furious and who else bears responsibility, but these changes are warranted. ... I also remain very concerned by Acting Director Melson's statement that the Department of Justice is managing its response in a manner intended to protect its political appointees," Issa continued. 

Operation Fast and Furious, a program designed to track illegal gun sales, turned into an embarrassing scandal after weapons linked to it were found at the scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent's murder last year (see article below). Thousands of guns ended up in the hands of Mexican cartel members. 

Melson has led the agency since April 2009, supplanting a Bush administration acting director who was also unable to get Senate confirmation over the objections of gun rights groups. It was during his tenure that the ATF Phoenix office began Operation Fast and Furious in the fall of 2009.

According to the Justice Department, Jones will take over ATF in place of Melson beginning Wednesday, and will continue to serve as a U.S. attorney. A permanent replacement at ATF would need to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

"As a seasoned prosecutor and former military judge advocate, U.S. Attorney Jones is a demonstrated leader who brings a wealth of experience to this position," Holder said. "I have great confidence that he will be a strong and steady influence guiding ATF in fulfilling its mission of combating violent crime by enforcing federal criminal laws and regulations in the firearms and explosives industries."

Without mentioning either Melson or Burke's role in the Fast and Furious fiasco, Holder also praised the two for their "dedication" and "commitment" to the Department of Justice.

+++++

Sunday, September 4, 2011 by The Hill

Weapons Manufacturers 'Lost' More Than 16,000 Guns over Two Years

by Jordy Yager 

 

More than 16,000 guns were “lost” from gun manufacturers’ inventories over the last two years, according to a report by a gun control advocacy group.

The report, released by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, pulled data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) and found that 16,485 guns left the inventories of nearly 4,500 licensed gun manufacturers throughout the country without a record of them ever being sold.

In 2004 Congress passed the Tiahrt amendment – named for its sponsor then-Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kansas) – which prohibited the ATF from requiring gun manufacturers to track their inventory. The Brady Campaign has long advocated for a repeal of the Tiahrt amendment.

“It is shocking that gun makers are so oblivious to public safety that they lose track of thousands of guns every year,” said Dennis Henigan, the acting president of the Brady Center. “ Given the lethality of its product, the gun industry has a special duty to act responsibly. Instead, it has a scandalous record of carelessness.”

The report states that the unaccounted for guns are often used in crimes because a trace of the weapon is not as likely to lead law enforcement officials back to the criminal.

“This lack of any security or inventory requirement for gun manufacturers and dealers makes it easy for gun sellers to claim falsely that firearms they have sold illegally and “off-the-books,” were lost or stolen,” the report states.

“Firearms that disappear from gun manufacturers’ plants without records of sale are frequently trafficked by gun traffickers and prized by criminals. Guns taken from gun manufacturing plants may also be removed before they have been stamped with serial numbers, making them virtually untraceable.”

The report was not able to identify which specific gun manufacturers had the greatest number of missing guns.

The Brady Center released the report in the wake of an internal shakeup within the ATF and the Justice Department.

Three top officials, including the acting head of the ATF Kenneth Melson, left their positions as a result of their role in the botched Fast and Furious gun tracking operation, which attempted to sell thousands of guns to known and suspected straw buyers for Mexican drug cartels. But officials declined to provide the weapons and their buyers with adequate surveillance, allowing the guns to flow into the hands of criminals on both sides of the border.

The ATF has been without a Senate confirmed director since 2006 largely because of lobbying efforts by the National Rifle Association (NRA), which views some of the agency’s power as an infringement on Second Amendment rights.

 

 ++++++

 

Before this Failed effort was named "Operation Fast & Furious," It was Called "Project Gunrunner"--new name but same ineptitude

 

By Sharyl Attkisson (CBS News) 

 

 

WASHINGTON - Keeping American weapons from getting into the hands of Mexican gangs is the goal of a program called "Project Gunrunner." But critics say it's doing exactly the opposite. CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports on what she found.


December 14, 2010. The place: a dangerous smuggling route in Arizona not far from the border. A special tactical border squad was on patrol when gunfire broke out and agent Brian Terry was killed.


Kent, Brian's brother, said "he was my only brother. That was the only brother I had. I'm lost."


The assault rifles found at the murder were traced back to a U.S. gun shop. Where they came from and how they got there is a scandal so large, some insiders say it surpasses the shoot-out at Ruby Ridge and the deadly siege at Waco.


To understand why, it helps to know something about "Project Gunrunner" an operation run by the ATF the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.


Read the indictment


"Project Gunrunner" deployed new teams of agents to the southwest border. The idea: to stop the flow of weapons from the US to Mexico's drug cartels. But in practice, sources tell CBS News, ATF's actions had the opposite result: they allegedly facilitated the delivery of thousands of guns into criminal hands.


CBS News wanted to ask ATF officials about the case, but they wouldn't agree to an interview. We were able to speak to six veteran ATF agents and executives involved. They don't want to be quoted by name for fear of retaliation. These are their allegations.


In late 2009, ATF was alerted to suspicious buys at seven gun shops in the Phoenix area. Suspicious because the buyers paid cash, sometimes brought in paper bags. And they purchased classic "weapons of choice" used by Mexican drug traffickers - semi-automatic versions of military type rifles and pistols.


Sources tell CBS News several gun shops wanted to stop the questionable sales, but ATF encouraged them to continue.


Jaime Avila was one of the suspicious buyers. ATF put him in its suspect database in January of 2010. For the next year, ATF watched as Avila and other suspects bought huge quantities of weapons supposedly for "personal use." They included 575 AK-47 type semi-automatic rifles.


ATF managers allegedly made a controversial decision: allow most of the weapons on the streets. The idea, they said, was to gather intelligence and see where the guns ended up. Insiders say it's a dangerous tactic called letting the guns, "walk."


One agent called the strategy "insane." Another said: "We were fully aware the guns would probably be moved across the border to drug cartels where they could be used to kill."


On the phone, one Project Gunrunner source (who didn't want to be identified) told us just how many guns flooded the black market under ATF's watchful eye. "The numbers are over 2,500 on that case by the way. That's how many guns were sold - including some 50-calibers they let walk."


50-caliber weapons are fearsome. For months, ATF agents followed 50-caliber Barrett rifles and other guns believed headed for the Mexican border, but were ordered to let them go. One distraught agent was often overheard on ATF radios begging and pleading to be allowed to intercept transports. The answer: "Negative. Stand down."




CBS News has been told at least 11 ATF agents and senior managers voiced fierce opposition to the strategy. "It got ugly..." said one. There was "screaming and yelling" says another. A third warned: "this is crazy, somebody is gonna to get killed."


Sure enough, the weapons soon began surfacing at crime scenes in Mexico - dozens of them sources say - including shootouts with government officials.


One agent argued with a superior asking, "are you prepared to go to the funeral of a federal officer killed with one of these guns?" Another said every time there was a shooting near the border, "we would all hold our breath hoping it wasn't one of 'our' guns."


Then, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered. The serial numbers on the two assault rifles found at the scene matched two rifles ATF watched Jaime Avila buy in Phoenix nearly a year before. Officials won't answer whether the bullet that killed Terry came from one of those rifles. But the nightmare had come true: "walked" guns turned up at a federal agent's murder.


"You feel like shit. You feel for the parents," one ATF veteran told us.


Hours after Agent Terry was gunned down, ATF finally arrested Avila. They've since indicted 34 suspected gunrunners in the same group. But the indictment makes no mention of Terry's murder, and no one is charged in his death.


Kent Terry said of his brother, "He'd want them to tell the truth. That's one thing my brother didn't like was a liar. And that's what he'd want. He'd want the truth.


In a letter, the Justice Department which oversees ATF says the agency has never knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to suspected gunrunners.