Hey, look at all this stuff that didn't come from US gunshows

Grenades, suppressors, RPGs, mortars. Make sure you click through all of the pages now.

How about all of that body armor. Why, I bet those Mexican drug cartels are buying them and placing 'Policia' on it just to confuse US politicians. It's all in good fun.

And just where in the world have we seen well worn H&K G3s? Absolutely not in the hands of any Mexican military or law enforcement. Uuuugh ugh. No sir.

And those beat to shit AK-47s? There's no way those came from Central America. Nope. I heard that you can pick one of those ugly things at US gunshows. No, really!

Those nasty gun dealers artificially age them by putting them into washing machines filled with poker chips, and then let them rust all to hell in order to make it look like Columbia is the one selling them at next to nothing. Honest!

Dismantling the Mexican Drug Farce piece by piece

An excellent rundown of the Mexican Drug Farce at the Gun Rights Examiner by David Codrea of The War on Guns.

A teaser:

And remember, that's a third of the relatively insignificant quantity of guns reported, vs. actually warehoused, and that assumes what is in official inventory reflects 100% of what has been seized. Any bets that it's even close?

Which is probably a good thing, because if it takes 100 newly-assigned "Project Gunrunner" ATF agents "(and those are in addition to the organization already in place!) to help unclog the 700-weapon backlog," imagine what a boondoggle it would be if you dropped 300,000+ serial numbers into their trough. Especially since, based on "time to crime," it looks like most of them are 14 years old!

Smashing drive sir!

Go read the whole thing.

Mexican violence in the US

"The majority of kidnappings and home invasions are involved directly or indirectly with the drug or human smuggling business." Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris

This madness is definitely in our country.

No statement yet from Mexican President Felipe Calderon on what his country plans on doing about the violent drug cartels that are sending violent killers armed with automatic weapons and grenades into the US from Mexico. Perhaps his country should ban them. That seems to work out well.

Anti-aircraft gun seized in Mexico

Reported by FOX News - foxnews.proteus.com/content.html?contentId=32423

I'm waiting for ABC News to pick up on it and use sockpuppet ATF Agent Bill Newell to parrot how it was bought at a US gun show. Perhaps they will even give a Virginia Tech survivor $75,000 to buy one.

Update: Michael W. from Doin' the Time Warp (on the blogroll, too) in comments points to a post at Lagniappe's Lair who notes that the super deadly "Anti-aircraft gun" is actually a .30 caliber Browning 1919A4 machine gun, not a .50 caliber, and definitely not anti-aircraft. But guess what? It was built in the US many moons ago, so it qualifies as "coming from the US."

More proof that the media is full of shit.

And the truth shall set you free

FOX News did some investigative journalism on the Mexican Gun Fiasco and managed to find some truth.

It's about time.

The "90% of guns seized from cartels" line that you keep hearing? It's more like 17%.

The article goes on to state that many of the automatic weapons come from over 100,000 Mexican soldiers that left their post and took their guns with them.

"The predominant source of guns in Mexico is Central and South America. You also have Russian, Chinese and Israeli guns. It's estimated that over 100,000 soldiers deserted the army to work for the drug cartels, and that ignores all the police. How many of them took their weapons with them?"

Ed Head, an instructor at Gunsight Academy in Arizona said:

Some guns, he said, "are legitimately shipped to the government of Mexico, by Colt, for example, in the United States. They are approved by the U.S. government for use by the Mexican military service. The guns end up in Mexico that way -- the fully auto versions -- they are not smuggled in across the river."

And there you have it.

Read the whole thing.

Update: Watch the video. Good stuff, huh? The reason most of the weapons such as select fire AK47s seized from the cartels are not traced back to the US is because they don't have serial numbers. How can they be traced without them? US firearms must have a serial number in order to be legally owned and transferred, with the exception of weapons made or imported before 1968. Good luck finding any of those in the US.

Update: AG Eric Holder is now saying that the US is not looking to change gun laws to stop over and under shotguns from being smuggled into Mexico:

Holder said the U.S. is not seeking to change any of its gun laws as part of the effort to curb weapons smuggling.

"I don't think our Second Amendment will stand in the way of what we have begun," he said.

Let's hope he means it.

Update: ABC News is still saying that guns are coming from the US, but tries to change the tone into something subtle that the casual reader will not pick up:

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reports that up to 95 percent of guns seized at scenes of drug violence in Mexico can be traced to U.S. commercial sources. These weapons are increasingly higher-powered, including .50 caliber rifles and armor-piercing ammunition.

So now it's 95%, huh? I would love to know where they got that number from, and why they didn't bother to tell the readers that the weapons were originally sold to the Mexican government.

Update: Damn!! ABC News put out a ton of articles on the Mexican Gun Farce yesterday. This one is the most interesting though:

Try to bring a refrigerator into Mexico in the back of your pickup, and you are almost certain to get stopped by Mexican customs officials.

Stick a couple of AK-47 rifles in your trunk, and chances are you'll whiz right through.

Chances are that if this article was printed on paper it wouldn't be worth letting your dog whiz on. This fantasy crap is somewhere in the vicinity of the "teddy bears are more regulated than guns" fiction that the media loves to spread. But there's more:

North of the border, however, the cartels simply pay straw buyers to pick up weapons at gun shops, gun shows or flea markets, then resell the arms to smugglers.

Perhaps in small amounts, and most of them are handguns. Now, we're getting into the good stuff here, and ABC News uses their single source of information, ATF Agent Tom Mangan, to disseminate the same lies that they have been spreading for at least a year:

"A year ago, we never saw those guns [Barrett .50 cal] going south into Mexico," said Tom Mangan, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "Now we refer to it as one of the weapons of choice."

Did you mention the hundreds, if not thousands of Barrett rifles that were sold to the Mexican army? Of course not. But Associated Press Writer ALEXANDRA OLSON did think it noteworthy to point out this garbage:

And while cartels get most of their high-caliber assault rifles from the U.S., they are turning to Central America for other military-grade weaponry like grenades and even the occasional rocket launcher.

"High caliber" weapons come from the US? Like M16s? The M16s that we sold to the Mexican government so they can outfit the army with them? Sorry, they fire the 5.56x45mm round which is a far cry from "high caliber."

"You're seeing truly military-type guns, like grenade launchers," Mangan said. "They're not coming from the U.S. The hand grenades that are being used, you're looking at that stuff migrating up from Central America."'

Wow! ATF Agent Tom Mangan says something true! Weird. But not so fast:

Experts also agree that the Mexican military, which is often outgunned by traffickers, has not been a significant source of weapons despite the potential for corrupt soldiers to sell out to the cartels.

Many of the cartels' grenades and other heavy weapons could be leftovers from Central America's civil wars, Mangan said.

Just who are these experts? I presume that you actually meant Agent Mangan, since he is the only person you retards seem to be able to get information from and he has no problem being your sock-puppet when you need him to be.

What your "expert" is saying is that the corrupt Mexican government has too big of a heart to sell US made M16s and M203s to the cartels, and that the Mexican soldiers don't bother to keep their issued M60s and M4s when they walk off the job. If I was "outgunned" by the cartels because I only had an M16 or an M60 I probably wouldn't keep it either. Who wants to fight with such inferior hardware anyways. We all know that real narco-terrorists outgun the army and their silly H&K G36s with those AKMSUs.

What do you get when you don't bother to investigate to find the truth, but instead rely on one idiot ATF agent? Junk.

(H/T to Seth)

Our government the snakepit

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tells Mexico that the US shares the blame for the mess South of our border. It's all our fault, see.

Mexican officials have in the past, particularly under the Bush administration, complained that Washington never acknowledged the extent that the U.S. demand for drugs and weapons smuggling played in fueling the violence.

It's all our fault.

"These criminals are outgunning the law enforcement officials," she said, referring to guns and military-style equipment like night vision goggles and body armor that the cartels are smuggling into Mexico from the United States.

"Outgunned?" You know, I keep hearing that from the media, the Mexican government, the US government, but I just don't believe it. Something about the Mexican military and police being armed with H&K G3s, H&K MP5s, Barrett M82A1s, Galils, and WARSHIPS makes me have to call bullshit! The Mexican government has a fucking AIR FORCE!! And now we have our Secretary of State saying that it's the United States' fault that the cartels have night vision and body armor; the same stuff that we've been selling to the Mexican government for years?!?! Don't take my word for it, take former drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey's word for it:

"As a result, the U.S. government has stepped up military assistance to the Mexican military and police, mostly through transfers of free military equipment. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the White House drug policy director, traveled to Mexico in March 1996 smoothing the way for an agreement between the two governments which has resulted in Mexican soldiers beginning to train at Ft. Bragg and other American bases, and in the gift of 73 "surplus" helicopters, four C-26 surveillance planes, night vision goggles, radios and other military equipment. In addition, the White House has requested $9 million in military aid for Mexico for fiscal year 1998 (up from $3 million in fiscal year 1996) for the purchase of new weapons from U.S. arms manufacturers.

That was in 1996, but what does Gen. (Retired) McCaffrey have to say now:

The outgunned Mexican law enforcement authorities face armed criminal attacks from platoon-sized units employing night vision goggles, electronic intercept collection, encrypted communications, fairly sophisticated information operations, sea-going submersibles, helicopters and modern transport aviation, automatic weapons, RPG’s, Anti-Tank 66 mm rockets, mines and booby traps, heavy machine guns, 50 cal sniper rifles, massive use of military hand grenades, and the most modern models of 40mm grenade machine guns.

Emphasis all mine.

So let me get this straight. We train the Mexican military and police here at US bases with US Soldiers, give them US equipment like night vision goggles, encrypted radios, helicopters, C-26 planes, automatic weapons, destructive devices, and millions of dollars so they can fight the bad people, and then we have Hillary and McCaffrey telling the world that the drug cartels are buying this shit from US gunshows and it's all our fucking fault?!?! Letting the Mexican government blame us for their incompetence?!?!

How bout' telling those dipshits to look at the plank in their own eye before pointing the finger at the only people who have been helping them thus far!

This is the excuse our corrupt and incompetent government is giving the world right before they make a move to take our rights. Awesome.

It's all one big gigantic lie, and our government is expecting us to pick up the tab. Typical.

Update: I'm finding more and more blasphemy from our Secretary of State, such as this:

The United States needs to stop the flow of guns, body armor and night-vision goggles to the cartels, Clinton said.

"When you go into a gunfight or are trying to round up these bad guys and they have military-style equipment that is much better than yours, you start out at a disadvantage. Since we know the vast majority of that comes from our country, we are going to help stop it from getting there in the first place."

The cartels have better night vision than the US supplied Mexican Army? Good to know that our gear sucks. I wonder if the F5 Tigers that the US provided to Mexico are inferior to the fighter jets that the cartels don't have? If the cartels steal one, will Hillary go back to Mexico and point the finger at US citizens for allowing the NRA to provide assault style aircraft to narco-terrorists?

"I think that the fact that the Obama administration is seized with the importance of this issue is a clear indication that they understand that, to defang the drug syndicates in Mexico, we have to eliminate two of their most powerful sources -- bulk cash from the United States into Mexico and illicit weapons."

So the US government is going to do that by giving the corrupt Mexican government more bulk cash and illicit weapons just like we've been doing for decades? What could possibly go wrong? And don't tell me that Obama is going to just send a hundred agents and $700 million dollars to the border and say that we're helping Mexico. The US government is going to shovel money and arms into that country like we've always done, and then bitch about the easy access to this stuff when the cartels wind up with the gear.

Now, I agree that we need to stop the flow of thousands of gaudy handguns and some semi-automatic rifles to Mexico; they're hard enough for US citizens to find at gunshows as it is, but let's put ourselves in the shoes of a Mexican drug kingpin in charge of a multi-billion dollar narcotics industry.

Your sitting there on your genuine ivory throne with a gold plated Magnum Research Desert Eagle wondering how to outfit your army of twenty thousand narco-killers with military hardware. You could pay a few thousand of your guys a nice salary to sneak across the border and convince Sally soccer moms to buy a dozen semi-auto AK-47 clones for $700 apiece and then have them smuggle them back into Mexico where you will have to pay $200 apiece to have the rifles modified for full auto fire (spanish). Not very economical, but it could work in the short term. You could call one of your several high ranking henchmen who are down in Guatemala brokering a deal on a shipping container of fragmentation grenades and see if he can get a sweet deal on a shipment of a couple of thousand select fire AK-47s while he's there, considering they don't need modification and the going rate on the world market is $100. Now, if only you could get M2 Browning Machine Guns, anti-tank rockets, mortars, night vision, body armor, encrypted radios, helicopters, and some Special Forces training. What to do what to do. I KNOW!! You can pay thousands of Mexican Special Forces soldiers who were trained in the US at top-of-the-line facilities and were issued all of this gear that you want to desert their job that pays them beans to be fodder in front of your current narco-killers and have them come work for you! Brilliant!!

Far fetched? I think not. These cartels didn't get this powerful by being stupid, and riping off the same government that they're fighting by buying out their troops is the smart play, and you don't think those soldiers will turn in that night vision and their automatic weapons before going to work for a drug syndicate, do you?

Update: I told you so!

Clinton also said Wednesday that the White House will seek an additional $80 million to help Mexico buy Blackhawk helicopters.

Wanna bet that in ten years when the cartels have control of several of these Blackhawks that Mexico will blame it on lax US laws?

And look at this "arsenal of shotguns" that FOX News is reporting:


This is the "iron river" of arms flowing by the hundreds into Mexico that the Obama administration is destined to stop via "assault thingy" legislation.

Why does anybody neeeeed more than one barrel anyways?





Those fully automatic bolt action rifles and double barrel shotguns are capable of tremendous rapid fire. All the drug militias have to do is pour these assault style bullets down the barrel and launch a barrage of shrap-nel at the Mexican police! They don't stand a chance!

More 'prominent' news on the Mexican drug fiasco

Top-shelf reporting courtesy of CNN's hard working journalists, which struggle night and day to bring you unbiased facts on the the drug war in Mexico. Let me sum this up for you:

President Obama on Tuesday vowed to invest the resources. . .blah blah blah. . ."We are going to continue to monitor the situation". . .blah blah. . .praised the efforts of Mexican President Felipe Calderon to counter drug cartels. . .blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah. . . illegal guns and cash do not flow from north of the Rio Grande to the cartels in Mexico.

Wait, WHAT!!!

Relax, I took that out of context. That's what they should be saying, or at least doing cursory research into where machine guns, mortars, M72 LAWs, or hand grenades are coming from, but that's not going to happen.

The same big box news agencies that give excellent coverage of Iraq, celebrity sex scandals, and the day to day occurrences of our awesome government that is in no way corrupt will also continue to bring you the exact same information on illegal arms smuggling into Mexico as they did last year, all from the comfort of Washington. I mean, there's absolutely nothing that could be gained by sending investigative journalists to Mexico to find out where the cartels are getting the explosives to make IEDs or .50 caliber Browning Heavy Machine Guns. Why do that when they can count on the expert advise from such prominent places such as the Brady Campaign, which has a crack team of, like, a dozen people that have knowledge of such things because the person the group was named after was shot with a .22.

Those who have not been shot have no authority on this subject, so CNN does not need to consult with anyone else.

The one sided fight

Hello?!?!? Is there one single solitary journalist who gives one teeny tiny little shit about doing a balanced gun related post?

Associated Press Writer SUZANNE GAMBOA sure doesn't bother. She decides to drum up the tired "US gun shows are supplying guns to Mexico" canard, all the while skewing the facts and overall just writing on one side of the argument.

The caption on the page shows six hand grenades, six rockets, a M72 LAW, and at least one Short Barreled Rifle; none of these are purchased at gunshows without six months of paperwork, and that lying punk Tom Diaz sure as hell can't register any of those in DC. These are real military weapons that so far the media could care less about finding the source of. That would require not only work, but possibly an unbiased opinion; and let's face it, journalists don't really want to risk life and limb discovering that machine guns and RPGs are actually coming from the corrupt Mexican government when it's way easier to just blame it on US firearm laws. Click on the caption to see 40mm grenades, silencers and other such things that are difficult or impossible to get here.

That should be all it takes to discredit this piece, but I will go further because the sixty freaking seconds that it takes to show that Tom Diaz is a liar is just too much for "authorized journalists."

Tom Diaz states that he bought a .50 caliber rifle and had it registered in DC:

Tom Diaz, an analyst at the Violence Policy Center, a gun control group, said cartels use military-style weapons such as the Armalite AR-50, a .50-caliber sniper rifle.

He brought one to a recent congressional hearing — with the help of two police officers — and said he found the weapon on the Internet, bought it for $3,200 from a Maryland "kitchen table" dealer and had it registered in the District of Columbia, all in about six hours.

You can see a picture of it here (picture 38). There's one problem with that: .50 BMG rifles are not authorized for registration, and thus ownership, in DC. I mean, Armalite is not even on the list. So Tom Diaz is a bald faced liar.

There was no mention whatsoever of the discussion on military weapons that went down last week during the Senate Judiciary Committee "Law Enforcement Responses to Mexican Drug Cartels." That's because it refutes a lot of the garbage that we have been hearing about the cartels and their sources for weapon acquisition.

I could go further than that but to tell you the truth I don't care. This is the bullshit that passes as journalism these days. It's a good thing we have "pushy" bloggers to point out all of these biased lies so they don't go unanswered.

Vetting Wikipedia

Those of you who stop by Legion's Fate every now and then know that I have taken personal issue with the claims made by the mainstream media regarding the flow of weapons from the US into Mexico.

Now I'm sure that the cartels in Mexico are acquiring semi-auto rifles from the US in some amount, but the claims of every media outlet, as well as the ATF (who are driving the media's claims) border on the absurd. The story goes that these cartels are sneaking across the border into the US and paying soccer moms $100 to straw purchase full auto AK-47s, RPGs, M60s, .50 caliber M2 Heavy Machine Guns and smuggle them into Mexico. Those of us who are knowledgeable in the US firearms market and US firearms law know that this is patently untrue.
My investigations have led me to believe that this whole fiasco is the result of one tall tale telling ATF Special Agent who has led a retarded media to the cool waters of ignorance to drink.

My argument is that the cartels may be buying semi auto AK and AR copies from the US to some extent, but that the bulk of the weapons are coming from South American countries who have as standard issue all of the weapons that the ATF and Mexican government says the cartels are using, or the Mexican government itself. I'm sorry, but these weapons are just not available in sufficient quantity in the US to outfit an army of 100, much less the army of 100,000 that the cartels are known to have. They are, however, readily available from foreign countries for prices a fraction of the cost lower than that here in the states, and many of these failed socialist foreign countries wouldn't hesitate for a second to sell a truckload of grenades to some druglord.

But CTone, what the hell does any of this have to do with Wikipedia? I'm glad you asked.

I'm an advocate of Wikipedia. While you can't take anything said there as the absolute truth unless you check a secondary source, it does provide a handy base of information to start a search. Since anyone can change any article, there are sometimes crazy things posted (like what happened with the Chuck Norris page), but it does give those who are knowledgeable a means to make the information correct.

So there I was, this past Monday, reading through one of the many fraudulent stories about soccer moms buying RPGs at gunshows when I happened upon the Wikipedia entry for the Mexican Drug War. Seeing that the article lacked a great deal of fact, I created an account and proceeded to edit the page, adding a few legitimate references to round things off. Two days later the information I had added was removed by what I can only determine as a moderator of some sort named BatteryIncluded, who you may notice is knowledgeable in Viking Biological Experiments, Mars Science Laboratory, and Paragliding, but not Small Arms. It is also apparent that he (or she) is not knowledgeable in economics either, and neither am I for that matter, but I digress. As I am just learning the voodoo that is Wikipedia editing and don't want to step on any toes, I find my way into the discussion tab under the entry and proceeded to make my case.

I was informed that my argument on the price and availability of select fire AK-47s and RPGs and such was "interesting," but that I had not "[brought] forth any references," (which I quickly provided) and then I was provided dissent to my argument with exactly one link to a news report written in Spanish. I translated the linked page to English and showed that it reaffirmed my point, and I provided more information with references.

Boy, open forums for the exchange of ideas sure are great, huh!?!?

Not so much.

I was rewarded for all of my work with "The published reports by the FBI, ATF and DEA disgree with your opinion."

That's it. No linkage, no reference, not even a single solitary quote from a discredited ATF agent.
Now how is a website like Wikipedia supposed to keep any hope of correctness if the other person doesn't even bother to read the information provided? How do I know that my information wasn't read? Because when I noted that US regulations like the NFA, GCA, and FOPA kept prices of select fire AK-47s high, and also made them rare, BatteryIncluded responded to my point with:

"PS: due to its durability, low production cost and ease of use, the AK-47 remains the most widely used assault rifle in the world - so much so that more AK-type rifles have been produced than all other assault rifles combined. (Reference: AK-47). So much for your expensive and rare asumption."

The obvious problem in this statement is that US firearms regulations have absolutely nothing to do with production costs of foreign made weapons that were last imported into the US in 1968, but have everything to do with supply. The less supply, the more the demand, and the higher the cost, but BatteryIncluded would know all of this because I had already said it twice; he or she just didn't bother to read it (we wouldn't want something as trivial as fact to interfere with someone's opinion, now would we?)

I have provided a substantial rebuttal of facts, complete with legitimate and respected references, that is totally void of Spanish and not written by some idiot reporter late on a Friday afternoon, but I am asking my readership to take a stroll over there and provide some facts of your own.

This issue is important as it has a political impact on public opinion and US firearms law, and Wikipedia is used worldwide, and it would be a shame to let truthful information get trumped by media hysteria.

If anything, do it for the children!

Update: It seems he had a change of heart. I'm pulling together my sources to come up with something closer to the truth.

Maybe Wikipedia is not so bad after all.

Mexico is "lying through it's teeth" on US firearms trafficking

Seen at Clayton Cramer's Blog, CNN's Lou Dobbs and Bill Tucker say that Mexico may claim that US weapons are flowing across the border to feed the drug cartels, but they don't provide any serial numbers for the weapons confiscated; meaning that the weapons are probably coming from the corrupt Mexican government or elseware.

That truth would be an embarrassment to Mexico, for sure, and is probably why they failed to mention it.

Note that this is the first time that any news source has brought this to light, thus reaffirming what I've been saying all along.

(Found at Snowflakes in Hell)

We need to stop the flow of armored vehicles to Mexico

The REAL Iron Pipeline:

The drug violence in Mexico has gotten so bad that booming numbers of Mexican and American professionals are having their cars fitted with armor plates, bulletproof glass and James Bond-style gadgets such as electrified door handles and push-button smokescreens.

What could possibly go wrong with electrified door handles and smoke screens? It's not like they would be a danger to kids in parking lots or motorists on the highway. I guess if you have the bucks for all this stuff, than to hell with everyone else's safety.

Now, for those who think carrying a gun is for the paranoid:

"I feel we need to be in a cocoon that is impenetrable," said a businessman who runs factories in Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and has gotten two Chevrolet Suburbans armored since October 2007.

Maybe you should try crawling up inside a US Senator's head. I hear they're pretty impenetrable.

Now for your daily dose of obfuscation:

Customers get not only armor plating but tires that will run when flat and bulletproof glass, which bursts into a spider web pattern but won't break, even when shot with an AR-15 assault rifle, a weapon of choice among drug smugglers.

But I thought they were "patrol rifles?" Tomato, tomahto. Whatever, right Michelle Roberts?

Other customers buy a package that will turn a Ford F-150 pickup or SUV into something out of a Batman movie: A button releases a cloud of white smoke for escaping a pursuing car.

Or for putting pesky tailgaters into the guardrail.

If the assailant makes it through that, the driver can release spikes to flatten the pursuer's tires.

If you haven't already killed all of the occupants of the tailgating vehicle by obscuring the road, then some tire spikes will ensure that the vehicle ends up a flaming wreck burning at the base of the nearest tree.

And finally, if the attacker makes it to the car, electrified door handles can give him a non-lethal jolt.

Great for keeping the neighbors kids from stealing your new Chris Isaak CD too!

And here's your daily dose of stupid:

Under a 2004 regulation, U.S. companies need an export license from the Commerce Department to ship a car that has been armored out of the country. The rule is aimed at preventing drug dealers and other criminals from acquiring such vehicles.

What a fantastic concept! We should license everything to keep them out of the hands of criminals! I'm glad my tax money pays for the salaries of such brilliant men and women to make such common sense laws on everyone's behalf!

With laws like this, there's no way a drug dealer can get ahold of steel and a welder to make his own armored ride. Besides, if the Mexican drug cartels can just ride around in armored vehicles with impunity, then the Mexican government would be forced to stop selling them those RPGs and M72 LAWS.

Whew! I feel safer now.

CNN joins the fray

More on the dogma, as SayUncle correctly calls it, regarding the non-existant flow of extravagantly priced and ultra-rare weapons from the US into violence infested Mexico.

Linked to the CNN piece is a post about it from DownWithTyranny that takes the bait hook, line, and sinker. I posted a comment to try to enlighten; we'll see how that goes, but check em' out if you've got the time. There's plenty more gun confusion for you there, so comment if you can, but be polite.

There it is!

For all the nay sayers that don't think that our enlightened President would possibly ban guns, I link to Bruce who reflects on the dumbassery of Obama and his AG pick, Mr. Eric Holder.

RTWT.

Back already? See how Holder confuses automatic weapons (AKA machine guns) with semi-auto rifles?

The part that I'm going to slash at is this paragraph taken from the ABC News piece that Bruce linked to:

Holder said that putting the ban back in place would not only be a positive move by the United States, it would help cut down on the flow of guns going across the border into Mexico, which is struggling with heavy violence among drug cartels along the border.

"I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum." Holder said at a news conference on the arrest of more than 700 people in a drug enforcement crackdown on Mexican drug cartels operating in the U.S.

Where have we heard of this lie before? Oh, that's right. From ABC News.

My question is when is that lying douche bag Eric Holder going to address the glaring loophole in our border? If Mexican gangs are able to smuggle overpriced semi-auto rifles into their country, and are able to smuggle people and drugs into our country, just how long do you think it's going to take for them to start smuggling RPGs, grenades, bet fed machine guns, and real AK47s that they got from bankrupt former soviet nations into the US in order to continue their drug trade?

You sure as hell can't get that shit here, and you know there's a huge market for it if the average cost of a AK47 in the US is $15,000.

Update: I didn't get a chance to read the second page of the article, but I notice another demon that raises its ugly head:

"I think closing the gun show loophole, the banning of cop-killer bullets and I also think that making the assault weapons ban permanent, would be something that would be permitted under Heller," Holder said, referring to the Supreme Court ruling in Washington, D.C. v. Heller, which asserted the Second Amendment as an individual's right to own a weapon.

I guess that would be two demons. The gun show loophole is not actually a loophole as gun dealers at gun shows have to follow federal regulations by law, which means they have to run a background check on gun buyers. The "unlicensed dealers" at gun shows that the Brady Campaign like to lie about don't have to follow federal regulations and run background checks for firearm purchases because they're not selling firearms, they're selling tools, books, military surplus, knives, etc. What they want you to think is that the occasional citizen walking around at a gun show with the Mosin-Nagant slung on his or her shoulder with a price tag is actually a unscrupulous arms dealer that is trying to find a bearded terrorist to sell the offending weapon to, instead of a free citizen looking to score an extra $100 in order to have enough money to purchase that Springfield Armory Operator he saw at table 14 - after a qualifying background check, of course.

The second thing is that silly "cop-killer" bullet nonsense. People eat that shit up because they don't know any better, and who could possibly be against something that saves cops, right? See here for a test that I did on this very subject that is actually the reason I started this blog.

There's no such thing as cop-killer bullets, and someone who is holding the position as the head law enforcement agent of this country should take the time to actually Google the subject before spouting ignorance.

The sounds of war

In Mexico, a reporter is on an overpass while listening to automatic gunfire between drug dealers and the Mexican Army. None of it sounds like it's coming from a FN Five SeveN, and none of these automatic weapons came from gun shows in the US.

That doesn't stop CNN from publishing another fraudulent piece on how the US is responsible for the violence.

Pastor and Hakim note that the United States helps fuel the violence, not only by providing a ready market for illegal drugs, but also by supplying the vast majority of weapons used by drug gangs.

Pastor says there are at least 6,600 U.S. gun shops within 100 miles of the Mexican border and more than 90 percent of weapons in Mexico come from the United States.

And it's not just handguns. Drug traffickers used a bazooka in Tuesday's shootout with federal police and army soldiers in Reynosa, Mexico, across the border from McAllen, Texas.

Robert Pastor has never been to a gun shop or gun show in the US, but has instead been living inside of his own little fantasy world where anyone can go to a gun store in the US and buy a bazooka. Seriously hoss, good luck finding one.

As I've stated before, Mexican drug dealers and cartels are not buying automatic weapons, grenades, bazookas, RPGs, mines, machine guns, and the like from the US, and 6,500+ people did not die in Mexico last year from handguns. That's a myth.

They're getting their weapons from the corrupt Mexican government, or from former soviet nations who have no reservations of selling heavy hardware to drug dealers. Why would these cartels go through the trouble of finding rare, expensive, coveted, and heavily regulated weapons in the US when they could get them cheap from Russia, China, or Czechoslovakia? Doesn't make sense, does it?

What, you don't think that the Mexican government would be that corrupt? Right after the article blames the US for all the violence:

"There is so much money involved in the drug trade, there is so much fear involved in the drug trade, that no institution can survive unaffected," Birns said.

"This has really revealed just how corrupt Mexican officeholders are," Hakim said.

In one recent instance, Noe Ramirez Mandujano, who was the nation's top anti-drug official from 2006 until August 2008, was arrested on charges that he accepted $450,000 a month in bribes from drug traffickers while in office.

You don't suppose some weapons were exchanged somewhere within that $450k, do you? So to all the alphabet news agencies out there: quit drumming up this garbage. Please find something nonfiction to write about, or at the very least do some fundamental research before spreading this stuff around.

Burning dog poo and the human response

Update: Scroll to the bottom for more info.

I just don't get it.

David posted at the War on Guns on another round of deceitful reporting on the "Mexico-drug-cartels-getting-guns-at-gun shows" alarmism; this time being reported by Fox News.

This story has been going round and round and round for a long time, and it stinks to high heaven, yet it keeps drawing attention because people still believe what the news tells them. I posted another story about it on Monday.

What are the facts?

Fact: Mexican drug cartels are in an outright war with their government. They are waging this war with the traditional weapons that wars are fought with: anti-tank rockets (M72 LAWs, apparently), RPGs, general purpose machine guns (specifically, the M60), heavy machine guns, mines, grenades, and finally, rifles like the AK47 (of the automatic kind, mostly), and M16s (with some AR15s). I'm sure there are weapons like the FN FAL and such, but I have no proof.

Fact: M60s like the one portrayed in this video are not purchased at gun shows; they are rare and expensive in the US ($25,000-$50,000), and are not being sold out of the backs of NRA member's vans here in the states for $100. It just ain't happening. With very rare exception, they are not used by US forces, but they are used by the Mexican Army. That's where the M60s are coming from, not the US.

Fact: M72 LAW (66mm) are no longer used by the US military because we have better equipment. It is, however, used by the Mexican Army. That's where they're getting them.

Fact: RPGs are rare in the US and regulated by the NFA, but you can buy them. The problem is that the rockets for them are regulated by the ATF. You file a bunch of paperwork with the ATF and then go through months of waiting, and on top of that you have to pay a $200 tax stamp - for every rocket, and that's if you can find them. But, RPGs are available for a low low price from Russia, China, and Czechoslovakia, which is where they're getting them.

Fact: Real AK47s and M16s are available in the US. They're subject to the NFA and regulated by the ATF, which keeps prices around $10,000-$15,000 each. That's no counting the $200 tax stamp and the above mentioned ATF paperwork. Cartel members are not buying them at gunshows because nobody is going to sell a rare $15,000 M16 or very rare AK47 for $400. Not happening. You can, of course, get a semi-auto AR15 or Ak47 look-alike for $1,000 at a gun show, which is likely what some of the cartel guys are doing, but the auto weapons are probably coming from Russia, China, Czechoslovakia, and the corrupt Mexican soldiers and police for a more affordable price, and would seem to be more popular.

As far as mines, grenades, and heavy machine machine guns go, they are too rare to be getting in the US; would be subject to the NFA; would be regulated by the ATF; would be prohibitively expensive, but would be way more available and affordable from unscrupulous countries like Russia, China, Czechoslovakia, and corrupt Mexican soldiers and police.

Now, I also see that people are alarmed by the cartel's acquisition of the dreaded FN Five SeveN pistol, which you will notice are used by the Mexican military, but are otherwise available from the US. I wonder where they're more affordable? Some of these cartels may be getting them from us by sending 'straw purchasers' to buy them from gun shows, but such buyers are getting a NICS check to get them, despite what you may have heard in the news. The little 5.7x28mm round may penetrate a Kevlar vest, but not nearly as readily as a rifle round. I would point out that wars are not fought and won using pistols; they're fought and won using rifles.

Honestly, do you think that these massive wealthy cartels have no foreign relationships? Do you really think they're sending gun-buying senoritas to the US to straw purchase premium priced weapons, many of them unobtainable, almost all of them rare, when they could just buy them from one of the many third world former soviet countries by the truckload without any sort of background check whatsoever? Why pay US prices for civilian semi-auto rifles when you can get real full-auto battle rifles for a fraction of the cost. Do you not think that the Mexican government is a major supply for these weapons? The Mexican government is as corrupt as it gets, and they're dirt poor to boot. You think that altruism is going to keep a police chief from handing over a couple of crates of automatic weapons to these cartels if they grease his pockets and refrain from shooting his officers?

If so then your as gullible as it gets.

So the next time you see one of these flaming news articles on your doorstep, pay it no attention because it's definitely full of shit.

Update: A Keyboard and a .45 shows us where the Barrett .50 caliber rifles came from, as well as the probable origin of grenades, dynamite, RPGs, and other splodey things - the Mexican military.

Sailorcurt, cross posting at The Sentinel, reaffirms that the 5.7x28mm rounds for the FN Five SeveN pistol - again, used by the Mexican military - are not coming from the US. If the rounds are coming from Mexico, than it's pretty fair to say that the pistols are coming from there as well. It makes sense considering the .38 Super "Super Guns" are popular in Mexico, and not so much here in the States as Snowflakes in Hell points out.

Same lies, different day

The War on Guns catches the media flounting the same garbage about Mexican drug cartels getting class III weapons like machine guns from gun shows. The FN FiveSeveN hysteria is bunk too.

At least they're not getting any more Super Pistols, or things could really get out of hand.

Update: A Keyboard and a .45 has more.

Super guns

This is the same regurgitated article that has been circulating the media for the last three or four months regarding Mexicans crossing the border into the US, and then somehow buying the type of firearms that make ABC news pee in their Levi's. "Gun show loophole" my ass.

But I found a picture of the dreaded ".38 caliber 'Super Pistol" that Jerry Seper of the Washington Times was talking about:
I've heard that this type of pistol can push that 38mm caliber round clean through a garbage truck; from front to back; in-one-end-and-out-the-other! Yeah, it's that powerful, that's why the Mexican Federali's call it el penetrator de camión de la basura!!

And you better hope they don't get ahold of one of these:

That thing fires a round that can penetrate the planet, that's why terrorist drug runners call it "el penetrator del día del juicio final de la tierra," not "mata policia" like ATF special agent in charge Bill Newel says. Apparently, the other news sources haven't found out that the same 'bullet' is chambered in the Walther P99!!

If they bought one of these .22 caliber pistols, called "el pequeño 0,22 que puede" by terrorist extremists, they can shoot through a standard ballistic vest and save a few thousand peso's:

I just peed myself..

Update: Check out this video of an ATF agent shooting not only the "el penetrator del día del juicio final de la tierra," but a full-auto M60 general purpose machine gun that he uses to shoot up a car door. All humor aside, the M60 costs about $40,000, and you can't buy one at a gunshow without 6 months of paperwork. They are lying to the viewers.

The ATF agent, and also ABC news, would lead you to believe that the gun fires some amazing type of cartridge that can "penetrate light armor" just because it can shoot through a car door. It cannot penetrate light armor; that is a bald faced lie. It can, however, penetrate a car door like just about any other type of firearm. Whoopity-doo.

This is why the mainstream press pisses me off so much. Liars!

Update: I just sent ABC news an email concerning this article:

This is one of the most disingenuous articles I have ever read - http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=4695848&page=1. Not to mention that it’s the same trifling article regurgitated among other “news” agencies for the last four months.

You are tricking your viewers into believing that Mexicans are sneaking across the border, going to a gun show, and buying a $40,000 M60 - a Class III machinegun that even a qualifying American can only own after filling out months of paperwork with the ATF/rock that the lying ATF agent crawled out from under.

Wow, so a FN FiveSeveN pistol can pierce a Kevlar vest meant to stop anemic handgun rounds? So can the common .22 Magnum - http://fateoflegions.blogspot.com/2008/03/part-3-ballistic-vest-live-fire-test.html. So can a knife too, by the way.

How about doing some actual research for once; instead of relying on some ATF fraud who agrees with your bias opinion that every firearm is evil because you heard it can shoot down satellites.

“Assault weapons made in China and Eastern Europe, resembling the AK-47, have become widely and cheaply available in the U.S. since Congress and the Bush administration refused to extend a ban on such weapons in 2004.”

Take this quote from your article for example. These “assault weapons...resembling the AK-47” were available before, during and after the “ban,” which didn’t ban them at all. A quick Google search would have brought that to you attention, but don’t let the facts get in your way, because it does sound frightening to keep calling everything an “assault weapon,” despite the fact that it is not so.

Keep up the work, lest I run out of material to mock on my blog.

Sincerely,

Carlton Revell

I'm waiting with baited breath for a response...

Update: Confederate Yankee has lots more; H/T to Says Uncle. It seems ABC news has been caught in a perpetual lie about this issue before.

Update: Initial ABC generic response:

Dear ,

Thanks so much for sending us your contribution. We read everything we get from our users, and will pass on this information to our reporters and editors. We hope you'll continue to send along facts and information. Thanks again --The Team at ABCNEWS.com

Sure thing, Team! The question I have is: what will you do with the facts and information given to you?

I will see your assault weapon and raise you a Super Pistol!

Ok, how about a google search Jerry! Really, this is sensationalism and BS at its finest, with no fact checking or research conducted at all. What do they pay journalists to do anyways?

Hillarious story here. I'll cover the good stuff:

A flood of high-powered weapons purchased by Mexican drug smugglers from sellers in the United States has been targeted by agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as part of a law-enforcement initiative aimed at stemming rising border violence.

A "flood" eh? Those illegal alien drug smugglers must be going to gun shows, how else are they getting these:

Thousands of firearms already have been seized by the ATF and other federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies, including M-16 and AK-47 assault rifles, AR-15 semiautomatic rifles, 40 mm grenade launchers, M-4 carbines, 9 mm pistols, .38-caliber "Super" pistols, and .45-caliber pistols.

I'm sure those $12,000 M16's and $15,000 AK-47's are just flying off the tables! Either that or they're breaking in to National Guard armories, and considering how unlikely that is I think it is safe to raise the bullshit flag on this story. And what the hell is a ".38-caliber Super pistol?" Truly absurd! We also have this dribble:

Violence on the U.S.-Mexico border is undergoing what U.S. law-enforcement authorities call "an unprecedented surge," and federal, state and local officials from Texas to California, concerned about the impact of illegally imported weapons into Mexico, say they are outmanned and outgunned by the drug gangs.

Outmanned I'm sure is an understatement, outgunned is a lie. That is unless he is talking about the sheer numbers of armed drugrunners that we have pouring into our country everyday. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey is on the right track for a solution:

"..the ability to control "who and what comes into and out of a country is one of the most important attributes of a sovereign government, and being able to do that is vital to our nation's security."

Maybe we should put up a wall or let the National Guard shoot these criminals as they cross into this country. I'm sure our friend Michael Sullivan will just double his efforts to drive law abiding gun shops out of buisiness. There's more:

ATF also has conducted firearms seminars with federal firearms licensees, commonly referred to as licensed gun dealers, to educate the firearms industry on ongoing gun trafficking and "straw buyers," those who purchase guns and then illegally turn them over to criminals for a profit.

"Commonly referred to as licensed gun dealers?" As opposed to.."un-licensed gun dealers?" Come on Jerry, you know you want to say it.

Next time try a consult with google-the-wise.