I am not a book reader. Since graduating high school thirty-seven years ago, I might have read a half-dozen books. I read a lot, but I seldom read books. I glean information from magazines, newspapers, and the internet. I read to gain knowledge. I never read just for the entertainment value of doing so, but I do admire folks that read a lot. I wish I had the spare time and the patience to do the same.

When I do actually read a book, it has to be dealing with a topic that is very important to me, and that brings me to the subject of the book reviewed here; "Guns Across the Border, The Inside Story", written by my friend Mike Detty.  There were two factors which led me to read this book. The first is that I am very interested in the subject with which this book deals; that being the crooked way in which the BATFE (hereafter referred to as ATF) attempted to get a firearms ban passed in the United States by illegally sending guns to Mexican drug cartels. The second reason is that I know the author, and that he was directly involved in this activity.

Mike Detty is not telling this story from an observer's point of view. Mike Detty was a gun dealer based in Tucson, Arizona, and he was willingly used by the ATF. The Bureau  of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives is the US Federal gun police. They, among other duties, oversee the licensing of firearms dealers in the US.

This book outlines in detail Mike's involvement in allowing the transfer of hundreds of semi-automatic weapons to straw purchasers who were buying the weapons to smuggle them into Mexico. The ATF agents involved lied to Mike, telling him that the weapons would be allowed into Mexico, where they would then be tracked by the Mexican police, for the purpose of taking down the drug cartels who were using these weapons in Mexico.

The real reason that the guns were sent to Mexico was to get passed a weapons ban in the US. This Project Gunrunner program was titled "Wide Receiver", and it was the predecessor to the infamous "Fast and Furious" gunrunning program, which came to national attention when one of our US Border Patrolmen was killed with one of the weapons that our government allowed to be smuggled to the drug cartels in Mexico. After CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson broke the story on national television, she started digging deeper, finding that the Project Gunrunner program was a lot deeper than just the "Fast and Furious" debacle.

These two gun-smuggling programs, among others, instituted by our own government agency, are only known to us because we had a good officer murdered, and because Mike Detty kept meticulous records and audio tapes of his conversations with the ATF agents and the gun runners involved. In my informed opinion, if Mike had not kept this proof and guarded it closely, he would be dead today, at the hands of our government agents, as it was never intended that the American people learn of our government's illegal activities to subvert and to repeal our Constitutional right to own and use guns. With a total disregard for the lives lost at the hands of criminals, the ATF allowed and encouraged gun dealers to assist gun runners with the purchase of weapons to be used in crimes against our Mexican neighbors and US citizens.

In this book, Mike Detty gives details about the conversations between himself, the gun runners, and the ATF agents involved, as well as the later conversations with US Federal prosecutors. The conversations are detailed, and very revealing, while giving the reader a clear understanding of the depths at which some of our government officials are willing to reach in order to achieve their intended purpose of subverting our Constitution.

"Guns Across the Border" is available in book stores, or online from Amazon.com, and is also available online for Kindle devices. While I seldom recommend a book for anyone to read, I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning the facts behind our government's dirty dealings, lies, and betrayal in operations "Wide Receiver" and in "Fast & Furious", and to anyone who wishes to preserve our right to keep and bear arms.

Click HERE to order Mike Detty's book "Guns Across the Border" ($18.27 as of May 7th, 2014).

Click HERE to order the Kindle edition of "Guns Across the Border" ($12.99 as of May 7th, 2014).

Jeff Quinn

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