There is a huge difference. Under Bush, the administration was not trying to use the investigation to generate anti-gun legislation. Under Obama/Holder, that was exactly the focus. I accept that anti-gun zealots in ATF had this idea under Bush, but it was clearly not Bush's policy to push anti-gun legislation. The whole thing is ridiculous, as proven repeatedly by the NRA. Do you really think that mexican drug cartels, with billions of dollars of free cash at their disposal, have to depend on single weapon buys at Fred's Gun Shop to arm themselves? When anyone with money can buy fully auto AK's on the international arms market for $50 a piece? When arms merchants deal in tens of thousands of assault rifles at a deal? Plus, the cartels use weapons, eg grenades, heavy machine guns, etc, that are simply not available over the counter in the US. They come from a combination of arms merchants, mexican military stockpiles and other latin american militaries. This affair was nothing but a propaganda exercise designed to create a crisis atmosphere to justify more gun laws, such as assault weapon bans, mag limits and registration of rifles.