Maybe this is why Helmke quit: The "question-that-must-not-be-asked seems to be spreading.

Editorial: Was Fast And Furious A Gun-Control Plot?

Not the sort of question I'd expect Investors Business Daily to be worrying itself over.

Scandal: Rather than a botched attempt to catch criminals, was the ATF program actually an attempt to advance gun-control efforts by an administration that has blamed Mexican violence on easy access to U.S. weapons?

If "Operation Fast and Furious" was merely a botched attempt at law enforcement, why was a supervisor of the operation, David Voth, "jovial, if not, not giddy but just delighted about" marked guns showing up at crime scenes in Mexico, as career Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent John Dodson told Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight Committee?

The piece goes on to deconstruct the "90% lie," as succinctly as I've ever seen it done:

...the administration has charged that much of Mexico's gun violence is our fault. Both governments have pushed the myth that 90% of weapons confiscated by Mexican authorities originate in the U.S.

Fox News has reported that, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico sent about 11,000 guns to the U.S. for tracing in 2007-08, out of about 35,000 confiscated. Of that 11,000, 6,000 were successfully traced. And of that number, 5,114, or 90%, were found to have originated in the U.S.

Weapons that originated in foreign countries are not sent to the U.S. for tracing. Neither are weapons of Mexican army deserters or those stolen from armories.

Bill McMahon, ATF deputy assistant director, testified that of 100,000 weapons recovered by Mexican authorities, only 18,000 were made, sold or imported from the U.S. And of those 18,000, just 7,900 came from sales by licensed gun dealers. That's 8%, not 90%.

Nothing that hasn't been said before, of course. Over and over, in fact. But always in gunblogs, and thus ignored. Look how long it took before anybody but Codrea and Vanderboegh wanted to talk about Gunwalker at all. Seems the MSM's dike may be leaking just a tad.