Gun-Running in Mexico: Hiding in Plain Sight
It turns out that America’s gun lovers are not completely paranoid. Second Amendment advocates have been taking aim these last weeks at media reports stating that guns smuggled from the U.S. are being used to arm Mexico’s drug cartel gangsters. These gun advocates have tried to discredit the conventional wisdom that the cartels are using these firearms to murder thousands of our southern neighbors. In attacking at this choke point, the gun advocates hope to erode the political footing of those who would like President Obama and the Democrats to enact gun control legislation. Sure enough, just as gun lovers feared, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and several other groups are now exploiting Mexico’s gun smuggling problem in an effort to push for an assault rifle ban.
But these Second Amendment advocates are firing at a phantom target. Their attacks consist mainly of a frontal assault on the only available government statistics that can point to where Mexico’s guns originate: the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) traces of serial numbers on weapons captured from the cartels. According to ATF data, at least 90 percent of the guns submitted for tracing originated from American retailers. This number amounts to about 23,843 guns between 2005 and 2008. That’s a fraction of the total Mexico claims to have seized in the same time period. (The Mexicans have provided conflicting totals).
Here, Second Amendment advocates take a mighty leap. They assert that the only possible conclusion is that the untraced guns are coming from another country. And as proof, they point to some of the seized military weapons that can’t be bought in the U.S. Their thinking is as follows: Conspiratorial gun banners and their political and media bedfellows (myself evidently included), keep parroting the inflammatory “90 percent” propaganda because it serves a liberal political crusade to impose restrictions on gun and ammo sales. If policymakers can be made to believe all those untraced guns in Mexico are military weapons from another country, the argument for banning guns is reduced to a shoulder shrug.
However, a cavalcade of consistent anecdotal evidence such as the continuing weapons interdictions at the border, federal prosecutions, and testimony from agents with decades of experience and people involved in the trade, weighs heavily in favor of the official U.S./Mexican government hypothesis that many of the rest of the untraced weapons in Mexico’s vaults also come from U.S. guns stores. One of those agents is J. Dewey Webb, the ranking agent in charge of the Houston ATF field office, which covers much of the Texas border. I asked Webb where he thought the untraced guns were coming from. Without hesitation, he answered: “The United States. I tell you why I say that; I’ve been doing this for 33 years.” Webb said that in 1991 he produced a study detailing where Mexico’s seized guns originate, using access to Mexican archives of gun seizures that he personally traced and other previous ATF studies where predecessors did traces dating back to 1971. Almost all the guns came from U.S. sources. “To assume that just because it didn’t trace that it didn’t come from the U.S. is ridiculous,” Webb said. “I’ve been doing this a long time. The U.S. is the number one supplier all the way back to 1968,” the year Mexico banned most private gun ownership.
Webb told another interesting story from his trip earlier this month to Mexico with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. At the firearms conference she attended in Cuernavaca, the Mexican military brought in 30 randomly-seized guns to display as show pieces. Webb said his ATF guys very quietly pulled the trace information on the weapons and ran them. They learned that not one of them had previously been submitted for tracing. All of the weapons in the show display turned out to be from several U.S. states. Webb said he’s pretty sure his guys could repeat those findings in any armory in the Mexican inventory.
It’s hard not to lend credence to this kind of expertise, particularly when any amateur examination of news photos of seized guns always shows only a couple of military grade weapons, with a huge majority of the guns commonly available over the counter in the U.S. Same thing with after-battle news photos of dead cartel gunmen with their U.S.-available weapons — not anti-aircraft guns — at their sides.
Much has been made about why more of the Mexican capture isn’t traced. Because the Mexican military takes control of all seized weapons, some gun advocates conclude in their blogs that Mexico is only cherry-picking guns they know will be traced to the U.S. so that they can deflect potentially embarrassing blame from their own corrupt military services for arming the cartels with their guns. But this doesn’t sit squarely with what I was told by another ATF agent with Mexico experience who now works the U.S. side of the border. This agent literally guffawed at the suggestion that the Mexican government was competent enough to carry out an organized propaganda operation.
The reality is more in line with the military’s spotty competence, he said. The Mexican military refuses to let the ATF do the tracings and instead insists on doing them itself, using an eTrace system provided by the agency. A Mexican intelligence service then forwards the results to the ATF, so agents can start investigating the stores. But the Mexican soldiers have repeatedly proved themselves incapable of properly completing the task. Why? They are untrained to identify the four or five other pieces of information that are often required for a successful trace. They simply don’t know or don’t care that import stamp numbers, caliber, and manufacturer identifiers are often just as important as a serial number.
Another major problem, the agent noted, is that Mexican military officers tend to like store-bought American weapons just as much as drug cartel gunmen. They’re skimming from the caches, sometimes in large quantities, and either keeping them for personal use or reselling them in Mexico. Obviously these weapons aren’t being traced, either.
We may never learn exactly how many confiscated weapons can be traced back to the U.S., but current records of interdictions of southbound guns and ammo reveal that many more could be added to the 23,848 guns the ATF has already traced back to the U.S. Take, for example, the 540 weapons seized in Reynosa in November 2008, billed as the largest weapons seizure in Mexican history. As I reported last month, 383 guns from this stash were submitted for ATF traces that led back to U.S. retailers in eight states, clearly indicating that plenty of cartel guns are being smuggled from America. In typical fashion, the Mexican military refused to allow the ATF access to the cache and offered the ATF no accounting for the 157 other guns not submitted for tracing.
There’s no doubt that one or two of those 157 guns were military weapons smuggled in over the Guatemala border with hand grenades found in the same stash (plainly visible in the news photos). But most of the stash was traced to the U.S. or was obviously available in any U.S. sporting goods store. Extrapolating what we know about Mexican incompetence on the tracing issue, I’d bet a paycheck that most of the 157 were probably from the U.S.
A week ago, an undercover Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigation nabbed two Mexicans in El Paso who’d negotiated a $2 million weapons purchase that included a shopping list for more than 300 Colt AR-15 rifles and 10 Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifles commonly available at gun stores here. They also wanted two military grenade launchers, reflecting once again the small sliver of the total take these kinds of weapons probably represent in cartel arsenals.
Some gun advocates have cast aspersions on reporting about cartel ammunition smuggling from U.S. retailers. They claim a nationwide shortage spurred by fear of gun control was ignorantly attributed to cartel ammo smuggling, which must therefore not be happening at all. This flies in the face of the 500,000 rounds found in Reynosa and the nearly three million that Mexican authorities have seized elsewhere since 2007, as well as federal prosecutions and customs interdiction reports.
There is indeed a domestic ammunition shortage. But a couple of weeks ago, Freddie Farhat of Eagle Pass, Texas, allegedly found 10,400 rounds of .223-caliber rifle ammo and attempted to smuggle them into Mexico, along with 200 magazine clips for the AR-15 semiautomatic assault style rifle (ever popular with cartel gunmen).
Every time I write one of these stories, gun advocates accuse me of parroting government or liberal lies and propoganda even though I’m a proud gun owner. But doubters need not take my word as gospel. The respected, non-partisan Factcheck.org just weighed in with its own analysis of this issue and concluded: “Whether the number is 90 percent, or 36 percent, or something else, there’s no dispute that thousands of guns are being illegally transported into Mexico by way of the United States each year.”
You had me interested until this “Webb told another interesting story from his trip earlier this month to Mexico with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.”… seriously try not to shoot yourself in the foot so quickly and bleed everywhere.
This is also another joke “The respected, non-partisan Factcheck.org just weighed in with its own analysis of this issue and concluded: “Whether the number is 90 percent, or 36 percent, or something else, there’s no dispute that thousands of guns are being illegally transported into Mexico by way of the United States each year.”
Factcheck is hardlt respected when it comes to issues of much “confusion”.
Heres an easy fix… SHUT THE BORDER DOWN. Not only will it stop the evil US guns from going south… it will stop the drugs going north… their by starving the drug cartel…
O and even better is it doesn’t require violating the US constitution to do it. Funny how this makes every single person happy and fixes the problem… o wait that doesn’t fix the problem because it
1. Stop Dem votes from crossing the border to illegally vote for Dem and socialist repubs.
2. It doesn’t remove guns from the hands of the US ppl
3. It doesn’t completely stomp the US constitution which we need to set case law quickly that its a meaningless piece of pap…. error living piece of paper.
there’s a host of questionable, dodgy, contradictory or wrong stuff here, but I’ll just go to one statement–that most private ownership of guns was outlawed in mexico in 1968. I was UPI’s mexico city correspondent from 1965 to 1970. if there was any change in mexican gun laws then, it was too minor to come to my attention. I recall nothing important enough for even strictly local news reports.
private ownership of firearms for most mexicans had been illegal for many years by 1968; can’t say how many, but it was nothing recent.
there were of course, as always in mexico, exceptions for the influyentes, and a fair amount of slippage between law and practice through corruption, criminality or incompetence. perhaps there was some paper change, but nothing important was any different in 1969 than it was in 1967. or maybe decades earlier.
The abjectly unbelievable thing about this article is that you are taking for granted what any ATF employee says. They should have no credibility–they are instructed to perjure themselves, for example, anytime any question about the accuracy of the NFA gun registry comes up in court.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, & pfpp
“Every time I write one of these stories, gun advocates accuse me of parroting government or liberal lies and propoganda even though I’m a proud gun owner. But doubters need not take my word as gospel.”
I don’t and shouldn’t care if you are a gunowner, if you aren’t making sense on this topic. The fact some non-negligible fraction of guns in Mexico come from the US is not our problem with respect to it’s supposedly justifying even one more law restricting private ownership of firearms here.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, & pfpp
“there’s no dispute that thousands of guns are being illegally transported into Mexico by way of the United States each year.”
Does it matter how many are crossing our border? Most definitely, contrary to your implied conclusion. The intelligent response is to close the biggest “hole” first, no? And I don’t think you’ve made the case at all.
We should take Factcheck at its word? Non-partisan? Hahahah. Only for people who were under rocks during the last election cycle.
If you are correct (and the plural of ATF anecdotes is not evidence) then you have a very good argument for closing the border, no? So we’ll wait to see you make that one in public. Probably be waiting a long time, too.
I wonder if sealing the border would help?
So? Who IS buying the guns and smuggling them back? Or is that Un-PC to ask?
Why do we allow non citizens to buy? We can’t track who is and is not?? Too Un-PC also?
I only have one observation. For years, conservatives have been in favor of closing our Southern border, and liberals have denounced this movement as racist. Now we’re told that we need to stop people from selling guns in Mexico. Alright, does that mean that if the guy who’s interdicting the gun shipments going south happens to see a group of illegals coming north, he’s allowed to stop them? Or does the line in the sand only prevent passage in one direction?
And when is Mexico going to stop its insatiable demand for our guns? Isn’t this their problem (as we were told our cocaine and heroin problem was ours, and not that of the nations that allowed it to be smuggled into our country)?
Sounds like a problem with border enforcement and customs.
n regards to your Pajamas Media posting you are right. You are in bed with the gun banners.
What level of stupidity have you sunk to? The people who run the drug cartels import drugs such as heroin which can not be made in Mexico. Why on earth would those shrewd businessmen who already run an import business bother with going to U.S. gun stores to pay retail for semi-auto weapons that they can import by the cargo container full from Africa, South and Central America in full-auto versions?
If these same shrewd business men are already importing RPGs and grenades why on earth are they going to go to the bother of paying retail, plus tax, plus a share to the straw purchaser, then a share to the mules to get it back across our Southern border.
It boggles the mind that you would think that THIS was the cheap and easy solution that Mexican drug cartels that already have import and export capability will go to.
You cite an ATF agent as your proof. You neglect to advise your readers the number of times ATF field agents have been caught in outright perjury in court. How the ATF has worked its tail off to close gun dealers who are following the law, using any possible procedural error, no matter how trifling, to revoke licenses.
The ATF is the Brady Campaign’s best friend in government. If an ATF agent told me it was sunny I’d get on my raincoat and pack an umbrella. They don’t know anything except how to lie.
You also cite the totally political Factcheck.org, an organization which went all out to promote Barack Obama for President.
You claim you are a gun owner, as though this makes your judgment sound. You cite sources, however, which have been proven to be liars, both the ATF and Factcheck.org. You may have a gun but your support for these liars shows you are nothing but a hypocritical gun-owning liberal. Like Joe Biden.
Do you also plagiarize work?
I have to agree with one thing you wrote: “Every time I write one of these stories, gun advocates accuse me of parroting government or liberal lies and propoganda…”
This article is a joke. You should have titled it “Things My ATF Friends Told Me and I Believed.” Most of us “Proud gun owners” don’t trust the ATF any more than we trust the Mexican authorities – your two sources.
“There’s no doubt that one or two of those 157 guns were military weapons smuggled in over the Guatemala border with hand grenades found in the same stash.” Todd, that is some gutsy investigative reporting there. I liked the way you jumped all over that part of the story and really nailed it down.
Next time you have drinks with your ATF friends, ask them how many of the U.S. sourced weapons were originally sold to Mexican authorities. Maybe that’s why the Mexicans prefer to trace guns themselves – kind of embarrassing when the seized weapon was sold out of their own arms lockers. I know that you’ll get right on that with more of the crack reporting we have come to expect from you.
“Every time I write one of these stories, gun advocates accuse me of parroting government or liberal lies and propaganda even though I’m a proud gun owner. But doubters need not take my word as gospel. The respected, non-partisan Factcheck.org just weighed in with its own analysis of this issue and concluded: “Whether the number is 90 percent, or 36 percent, or something else, there’s no dispute that thousands of guns are being illegally transported into Mexico by way of the United States each year.”
I do wish authors of such pieces would be a little more truthful about where these American guns are coming from. While I don’t doubt that many of the firearms originate in the USA, I seriously doubt they are coming to Mexico directly from American gun stores. That just isn’t happening. In order to purchase a gun of any type in the State of Texas, one must produce a valid Drivers License and prove residence. The same thing goes for NM and AZ. These Mexican drug criminals are not casually walking across the US/Mexican border and buying weapons at the local Wal-Mart. I suspect the vast majority of these guns are the product of home burglary, stolen from lawful gun owners who have no interest in arming Mexican criminals.
For example, I live in Corpus Christi, TX,,, checking the crime stats for my town you will see the rates for burglary, larceny, and theft are 1.56 and 1.79 times the national average respectively. Virtually everything that gets lifted here heads directly to Mexico. That includes everything from guns to lawn mowers to pots and pans. The recovery rate for stolen cars and pickup trucks is so low as not to even make mention. Since it only a 3 hour drive to Mexico, anything stolen by midnight is already in Mexico before the owner is even aware of the crime.
Let’s get serious about controlling our southern border, get serious about evicting illegals, get serious about punishing criminals. Mexico is pretty much a lost cause, there’s not much we can do to help a people who seemingly have no interest in helping themselves. But we can help ourselves.
Oh good grief; yet another member of the MSM trying to fit the facts to his liberal bias. Sorry pal, I’m not buying it.
“It’s hard not to lend credence to this kind of expertise.” Whose expertise? ATF? The liars who were never held accountable for Ruby Ridge? The Mexicans? Are you serious? Janet Napolitano? You must be joking!
Why not check out Mexican Army deserters who took their weapons with them? Because it requires you to actually do some investigative reporting, Mr. Investigative Projects Reporter. Yes, I mean actual work, instead of taking the word of people and groups who can be trusted about as far as you can kick them.
That was the most circular reporting I’ve read in a long time.
Otherwise known as “self-siting” or a “self-licking ice cream cone.”
Strawman argument, much, Mr. Bensmen?
The irony is…
They send us their workers, and half our people don’t want them coming over.
We send them our guns, and half their people don’t want them coming over.
The money from the gun sales helps our economy. The money their workers send back to Mexico helps their economy.
If both countries really cared about border security, and enforced a solid border- instead of the porous mess we have now- we wouldn’t have all these problems. They wouldn’t be shooting each other up and pushing their government to the brink of civil war, and our social safety net would be strained to the breaking point in so many states.
There shouldn’t be any federal legislation passed on further restriction of the gun trade, until Mexico starts treating its side of the border more seriously.
“skimming from the caches, sometimes in large quantities, and either keeping them for personal use or reselling them in Mexico” And what do you think they are doing with those thousands of guns? Establishing a Museum of Gringo Firepower perhaps? No they are selling them to the cartels (or other criminals)themselves. Mexican corruption issue; not the fault of US gun-owners.
“200 magazine clips for the AR-15 semiautomatic assault style rifle ” Did Nancy (it’s OK for my bodyguards to have guns but not your wife) Pelosi write that for you? You claim to be a proud gun-owner. Anyone remotely familiar with firearms knows the difference between a magazine and a clip, yes both hold ammuniton, but they are decidedly different and in no way interchangeable.
“They simply don’t know or don’t care that import stamp numbers, caliber, and manufacturer identifiers are often just as important as a serial number.” Do you have a clue what an “import stamp number” is? It is the mark applied by the ATF when a weapon is brought into the US from another country! So let me see if I understand your implication here; the weapons are made in a place, let’s say Rumania, shipped to the US, sold at wholesale, then retail and then to a straw purchase, and the to a smuggler, and then to a cartel. The same cartel that can move tons of dope and millions of dollars (despite massive governmental intervention) can’t pop round to a Rumanian gun-dealer and score a few hundred AK-47s in a hush-hush deal at a fraction of the price and far less trouble?
“There’s no doubt that one or two of those 157 guns were military weapons smuggled in over the Guatemala border with hand grenades found in the same stash (plainly visible in the news photos). But most of the stash was traced to the U.S. or was obviously available in any U.S. sporting goods store.” Now we are to believe that the guns were smuggled to Guatemala first, then into Mexico? And the rest? What, did they still have Wal-Mart tags on them? Did the hand grenades? You insult everyonoe’s intelligence with such nonsense; because a gun is available in a US sporting goods store it means that it MUST have come from same? Bah!
How about this; Mexico takes back all it’s eleven million or so illegal aliens and we will take back the few thousand illegal guns. Sounds like a fair trade to me, Hell, I would even agree to BUY the guns back (far cheaper than housing just those convicted illegal felons).
This isn’t our problem; Mexico needs to patrol it’s own border.
Very impressed with the vast majority of these comments. Agree totally with the basic themes, I.E., Closing the borders, mistrust of Mexican and/or ATF-sourced data points, ETC.
Be prepared for more and more of this as the anti-Second Amendment crowd tries to use this as their ‘lever-du-jour’.
Incidents like Rudy Ridge and Waco are the only things holding a lot of white people back from moving to Idaho. Female democrats in power, i.e., the two Janet’s, Reno and Napolitano, with the authority to overwhelm and kill American citizens, men, women, and children, with massive federal force is a very scary thing.
I wouldn’t trust the word of an BATF or FBI agent if MY life depended on it. I fear for my personal safety and for that of my country.
BS Todd,Get your facts sraight.YOU KNOW BETTER THAN THAN THAT. Only aout 17% of guns coming from the US.
Argument by assertion might convince some people, but it doesn’t convince me.
What am I going to believe, somebody who writes articles based on what an “authority” told him, or the photographs of military weapons which are not legal in the United States? How am I to believe the grenade attacks are the fault of weapons sold legally in the United States?
Meanwhile, you have overwhelming public support for a workable solution. Build the fence, make everybody happy.
Here is another astonishing fact: almost every gun crime in the U.S. involves a gun illegally obtained in the U.S. And the point is…the point is…what is the point?
If the point of this article is true, so what?
Just close the border. Should have been done long ago.
Evidence please! If you can’t track the weapons, you can’t prove where they came from. Period. Just say ‘of unknown origin’. Or is this going to be another liberal Big Lie, like the no WMD in Iraq thangie?
The problem with big lies is that are always exposed. So the advantage they give is temporary but the harm they do is permanent.
As a famous American once said, ‘You can fool some of the people all the time and all the people some of the time but you cannot fool all the people all the time’. As proof I offer the collapse of communism.
I concede the point that most (who really knows the percentage) of the guns seized in Mexico and NOT submitted for tracing in the U.S. originated in the U.S.
So what? You cannot use that point to argue against controlling the border. In fact, it makes the call to control the border even more compelling. The border is, after all, a 2 way gateway.
Also, you start on a slippery slope when you use your point to argue for an “assault weapon” ban. The second amendment is what it is, and what the Supreme Court has affirmed. Even if the majority of weapons in Mexico originate in the U.S., why should that make any difference to what the Constitution says about arms? To argue a weapons ban in the U.S. is a non-sequitur.
Typical lazy reporter. The real question should be why the Mexican government isn’t allowing US officials access to all the weapons seized in an effort to improve cross border cooperation to stop this international mess. No. The lazy reporter goes for the easy PC angle, blame the US.
If these guns were truly traced to American gun stores, then they would be “arresting” Gun store owners or the people that bought the guns as a straw purchase there’s record of this for every gun sold If they were arresting “Americans” for this, this would be the MSM lead story everyday with every arrest.
Some of those guns in the pictures were from WWII
and most likely been in Mexico since then. Looking at small pictures I cant tell if the others are AR15 or M16 this makes a big difference in what’s sold to the American Public.
How many have been stolen from their rightful owner the sent south by illegal aliens or criminals as if there’s a difference. How many are sold to the corrupt Mexican police and army then sold to drug runners Until the BATF Hands out the “full results of the trace” which they may not because they want this to look like it’s the American gun owner to look bad and the NRA to take the blame instead of criminals.
Indeed. Occam’s Razor would suggest that many of these rifles are being bought by Mexicans to sell to either gangs that are too poor to buy in scale or to Mexicans who are sick and tired of relying on their government.
The US has a much more porous border with Canada than with Mexico as it is, and yet Canadian gun crime is relatively low. That would point to Mexico, and Mexican culture, as being significantly more important in the equation than the American right to bear arms. It’s time for Mexico to fix itself, and stop blaming others. (Fat chance though…)
I have to give the PJ commenters a Big non-Cramer BOO-YAH!!! Todd Bensman seemed to do a decent job on reporting the Islamic border jumpers some time ago, at least I think he did but after reading this crappy reporting on and passing the apparent lying that comes out of Mexico & Obama B-Crats, I’ll have to go back and check on his past reporting!
..yet another dodge by the Obama administration to cover up the piss-poor job this clown is doing.
One hundred days in and this guy just campaigns, shifts blame, and creates these fire drills. Typical freaking liberal victim of circumstance.
2012 cannot come soon enough.
Every time I read one of these stories, I keep wondering what gun shows I can go to to buy some of those automatic firearms. I’d love to be able to go to the range on the weekend and do some target practice with a gun on full auto. I keep looking, but none of this stuff is ever for sale. I’ve also checked various gun magazines and no one is selling Browning machine guns or fully automatic AK-47s. It’s obvious it must be for sale all over the place for so much of it to have made its way to Mexico, so I’ve just got to be looking in the wrong place. I hate to admit I am so clueless, but does anyone know where to purchase this stuff?
Every Hollywood Democrats Very Bestest Friend (Hugo Chavez) just bought an AK factory last year. It is up and running now, I would love to see the number of guns that came from that land of happiness and freedom. Probably a pretty good source for the grenades as well.
Well, that being the case, I think there are a few more things we should ban here in America that is slipping through the Mexican border and is also killing Mexicans – IN GREATER NUMBER THAN GUNS.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080324/news_1n24obese.html
http://www.healthline.com/blogs/health_observances/labels/Mexico.html
McDonalds, Coca Cola, Lays, Hostess, etc.
I mean, WE awful Americans load it with sugar and caffeine making it virtually irresistible to Mexicans. Are WE awful American not to blame for this epidemic?
Yeah, the ATF would NEVER EVER lie in regards to civilian gun ownership in the US. We can trust them.
You become an ATF agent because you failed to get into the FBI.
“…and 10 Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifles commonly available at gun stores here.”
I have seen one, just one Barrett at a gun store in my local vicinity (out of the 7 or so I’ve been to the last 6 months) and it has been sitting up there looking ever so pretty with a $6k+ price tag on it. It is not ‘commonly available’… you have to either love big bore, long range competition or big game hunting to get one of those. The lowest cost Barrett I’ve seen is in the $3.5k range and it was damned stripped down, too. You can get other 50 cal hunting and target rifles at a lower cost… going Barrett is going very high end. Extremely so.
Of course you could just ask the Barretts to trace them starting from their end. It is a family concern, and they might be interested to see where some of those wind up. That would be considered ‘investigative reporting’ not talking with your friends in the ATF but actually contacting a manufacturer to see where the problem is in the supply chain.
And there are a lot of US weapons in Mexico: we send them in aid to the Federal forces there (military and police) many of which defect to criminal operations taking their weapons with them. Of course Mexico doesn’t report those ones since they are responsible for them.
So, no stories second or third hand from ATF agents not willing to go on the record. Get the numbers, get them run and show where they are coming from and where the leak in the supply chain is, please. Surely that could be done for the Barretts? Only 10 of them, after all. An ‘undercover agent’ surely wouldn’t break his cover by supplying those to you… lots of sources for that in Mexico, with a bit of palm greasing.
It might take awhile to do, yes. But accurate information, not third hand-accounts, are very persuasive and helps to solve any problems… that is what reporting is supposed to be about, no?
I live in Honduras, Central America. I am a full blooded red neck, not a democrat, a BATF agent, or work for Homeland Insecurity, so my views are completely unpartisan. I recently drove to Honduras from the U. S. for the fourteenth time. While waiting at Brownsvlle, Tex. for permission to export my truck, I walked down to the Rio Grand River. There I saw several people swimming from Mexico to The U. S. There were two or three Border agents on duty, but all they were doing was sending some of the criminals back for another swim when the agents went for coffee. In short, there seems to be almost no attempt by the O misadministration to protect our borders.
According to sources here in Honduras, arms are coming from Colombia and Panama on their way through Honduras, Guatemala, on to Mexico. Is my memory correct, did the Mexican Governent print comic books giving instructions on how to cross over into the U. S. illegally? Now are the gun runners just reading the “how too books” from end to beginning?
I recently legally bought a pump 12 ga. shotgun in Honduras that was made in Turkey, for the protecion of our orphanage. It has a 19 in. wide open barrel, and holds eight rounds of buck shot. With just one load, I can send 72 round balls of hot lead whizzing throught the nigh air toward some creep attempting to molest our chilren. With a weapon like that, who needs a pea shooter from Wal Mart?
I don’t have a problem with you owning a gun. I choose not to own one because I think there are other ways to ensure my safety, but if you are trained and responsible, by all means, go for it. I do have a problem with gun advocates fighting every piece of legislation that might keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.
How is it that American bought guns end up in Mexico. they are stolen, bought by a US citizen and sold, or a Mexican comes here and buy them. Some how I do not believe that they are all stolen. I’m for background checks and waiting periods. I also would like to see the gun show loop hole closed. Having been in Colorado when Columbine went down, it is rather disheartening when you realize that some of those guns used to kill all of those kids were purchased legally.
Just a thought.
The 2nd Amendment applies to U.S. citizens, not Mexican nationals.
Our gun stores are not selling guns to Mexican drug cartels- they are being transferred illegally. Is this not self-evident?
Close the border to illegal entry and exit- problem solved!
Mexicans don’t really need our guns when they can get full auto elsewhere (the more lead you can throw the better) as they apparently do along with grenades, rocket launchers, auto pistols etc… Mexico, as said before, has had up to 150,000 defectors from it’s military that took the issued US made M16′s with them when they left. What do you suppose they did with them? Try to leave the US Military with an issued weapon and see what happens. Only legal guns are coming from the US and they don’t kill by themselves, they have help from the idiot with his or her finger on the trigger. All that Mexico has to do is stop people at the US border and search for guns and maybe we could get the real truth about US guns but you can’t expect that from Mexico. One thing for certain right now is that you will get nothing but gun hater spin/lies from the Obama administration.
To 37. C
Ummm so you understand basic law in the US? Legally owned guns account for about 5-10% of crimes committed almost all guns used in crime are already illegally owned. Laws don’t prevent crime and passing need laws that make legal guns(which account for a very small percent of firearms used in crime) illegal don’t stop already illegal weapons being used in a crime…
New laws are changing anything to due with crime they are simply cracking down on currently legal usage and ownership of legal guns. They also seek to prevent legally owner weapons from being used legally(at least currently) to defend themselves and kill criminals. Almost every new gun law to dated is centered not on preventing crime on protecting the public but on banning guns and protecting criminals. When we ppl like you who know nothing about guns, crime and a host of other topics leave it to ppl that have half a clue the world will be a better place.
Goodness. Many of the logical remarks in the comments thus far suggest enforcing the laws re illegal weapons transport and (gasp!) closing the border.
Didn’t you guys get the memo? SanFranNan has said publicly that she thinks enforcing immigration laws presently on the books is immoral.
Neapolitan whoever doesn’t think that protecting our borders is really such a hot idea. (But then, she’s just the Homeland Security temp, as well as CDC, DHS and whatever else, so whatd oes she know.)
All I can say is, keep buying ammo before they start tracing it. We’re stocking up.
Let’s assume for a minute that all the semi-auto firearms come from the US.
Would an AWB deny access to such firearms to people who move TONS of illegal chemicals ACROSS CONTINENTS??? Since they apparently have access now to automatic weapons and explosives which clearly are not coming from AZ gun stores, why would they care about a US AWB?
These are the only questions that matter here. Brady et. al. are hoping that the focus on the wrong questions will produce the answer they want.
The answer of course is that a US AWB will have no impact on the cartels, what they do or what they do it with. They break Mexican gun controls with near impunity…and we are going to do better? We can’t keep our own felons away from guns.
Ask the right questions and the answers are pretty obvious. This gentleman has not done that. He wasted my time with his essay, and his energy in writing it.
I’m with tballard, what stores in America or Gun shows can I go to and buy these things? I don’t have any fancy licences (that are required to own the few legal Full Auto guns in the US) but I pass all background screens. Yay!
Seriously, this entire article and the whole debate is another damn attempt at taking guns from the law abiding. It does JACK and SHEET to stop criminals. Once again all of you folks trying to add more gun control laws, answer this question:
“What is the deffinition of a Criminal?”
Answer: SOMEONE WHO BREAKS THE FRIGGIN LAW! So what the hell do you think creating another law going to do to stop them?!
Sheesh. I wouldnt’ be surprised if my Glock 21 comes back some day from Mexico in one of these raids. It was stolen from my house two years ago, plenty of time in the black market to get down there. It counts as a “US Originated Firearm.”
My favorite line is
“…I’d bet a paycheck that most of the 157 were probably from the U.S.”
Pretty well sums up the strength of the arguments in this piece.
–The UnPatriot
This article is sheer unadulterated horsepucky. Wherever the Mexican cartels are getting full auto firearms, they certainly aren’t coming from US gun stores. More likely, they are coming from Mexican military and police arsenals (viva la corrupcion!), Hugo Chavez’s AK factory (spasiba, Tovarich Putin!), international arms dealers of the Victor Bout stripe, or leftover weapons from the Central American wars of the 1980′s.
MLBSFD= more lame bull sh** from dems.
>> SHUT THE BORDER DOWN. Not only will it stop the evil >> US guns from going south… it will stop the drugs >> going north… their by starving the drug cartel…
>> O and even better is it doesn’t require violating the US >> constitution to do it.
Really? And the millions of US citizens that cross the worlds most heavily trafficked border every day? You can’t shut either border down without invoking martial law, because otherwise you will have constitutional problems. Good luck with justifying that.
46. Joe.
“[T]he millions of US citizens that cross the worlds most heavily trafficked border every day” legally will continue to do so as they have for decades.
Note that this discussion is not centered on the US citizen but on the Mexican. If Mexico wishes to impose their own controls on Americans illegal crossing into Mexico, that is their prerogative.
As much as border crossings are a pain in the a** everywhere (and they are), anyone who has spent any time crossing them understands that they are a requisite for defining national sovereignty.
–The UnPatriot
TO ALL GUN-CONTROL RETARDS: Once and for all, I will say it again, and hopefully you will get the gist of what I am saying. I know people commit crimes with guns. I know that criminals typically purchase guns illegally, do not register them, and otherwise ignore all relevant gun laws (concealed carry, keeping a loaded firearm in the glove-compartment, etc…). I know that these CRIMINALS use their illegal guns to kill people, like fellow drug dealers, rival gang members, and the poor clerk behind the counter at 7-11. I know all that. So here is my question: how does all of that effect me? A law abiding, registered gun owning, ammunition tax paying, 40-year old trained firearm specialist? Why in God’s name should I be deprived of the ability to own and train with a firearm? And what in God’s good name do the murdering retards south of our swiss-cheese border have to do with my 2ND AMENDMENT RIGHT to own a firearm. I guarantee you one thing: take my firearms and it won’t do a darn thing to stop gun violence in Mexico, New or old. IF YOU AGREE WITH WHAT I SAY, JOIN THE NRA!!!!!!!
To 46. Joe
Ummm yeah you don’t seem to understand the constitution very much do you? Do tell where preventing foreign from illegally entering the US is going to cause constitutional problems…. WE CAN SHOOT THEM AND IT WOULD BE PERFECTLY LEGAL UNDER THE CONSTITUTION….
The simple fact is we can shut the border down… we can shut it down for the swine flu(another thing that it would fix). We can shoot everyone crossing the border and thats legit as well… your understanding of law and the constitution is frankly a joke.
You suggest that Americans should give up their unalienable rights because the Mexican government is too corrupt to rule it’s self?
Based on the lies of the ATF and the Mexican government, is this the Onion?
I felt like I was reading an article from Soviet era “Pravda”. Substitute NKVD for ATF and instead of Mexico, they are visiting client states like Poland and Romania. The quality and reliability of reporting is the same.
How about restricting the border to authorized points of entry?
Mexico whines about guns from the US? They could interdict their citizens from crossing illegally.
The US sees a problem with the Swine Flu? We could require authorized points of entry and patrol the rest of the border with folks from NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM and probably get some help from PACOM.
That would satisfy all international law, all national law, and be completely legal and justifiable: all of those having legitimate business can undergo scrutiny at the ports of entry. And protecting the borders during times of communicable disease outbreaks is a legitimate use of them. Defending the borders is a purpose of the armed forces, after all. All other Nations use them for such.
And I would love to see the place where Barrett 50 cals are sold in such high numbers and have such high ownership that they are considered ‘common’. You figure folks with that much cash to spend on the high end ought to have exhausted the low end of things for personal recreation and have some of the best ranges on the planet… there must be some zip code where you can find 10% saturation of the population of those expensive rifles for them to be considered ‘common’. And no backtracking to other makers of big bore target and hunting rifles, either… I would really love to know the zip code that has that many of those rifles! Its hard to scare up a non-military mile plus range where I live… that ought to help finding that place where those are ‘common’, no?
Simple solution. CLOSE the border completely… The illegals don’t get in and guns don’t get out. Isnt it the federal governments constitutional obligation to control the border? Instead of doing this they are spending trillions doing something they DO NOT have the authority to do, take control of businesses.
Doesn’t Mexico have border patrols? They should quit complaining and do something useful.
[...] Banditos with American guns [...]
Er, no. Banning guns here is not the answer.
“Here is another astonishing fact: almost every gun crime in the U.S. involves a gun illegally obtained in the U.S. And the point is…the point is…what is the point?”
The point is to punish all the folks who didn’t do it.
So,
We can’t keep drugs out of the US from Mexico and we can’t keep guns out of Mexico from the US?
And guns are illegal to possess in Mexico and drugs are illegal to possess in the US.
Hmmmm…..what is in common?
OH YEAH, that pesky wide open border…
To 40, I actually learned something from your comments about gun laws. I wrote from partial knowledge and you and sevreal of your online friends actually convinced me to read and learn more. Thanks. I come here to read a different perspective and I got it. It is unfortunate that you feel a need to attack me in making your point. You assume that I am the “problem” because I refuse to take responsiblity for my own safety and (I presume) carry my own gun.
1. I can take responsibility for my own safety without carrying a gun. I am not all to concerned about a nutjob walking into my classroom and just shooting because most death by guns are not the result of mass shooters. I do not keep one in my house because I have kids and I feel that there is a greater risk of my kids getting it and doing something stupid. This is my opinion and if you feel you can secure your weapon properly, that is your right (just tell me you own a gun and ensure that my kid will not find it before my kids comes over).
2. I think you get right and responsibility confused. I have a right to carry a gun. I also have the right not to carry a gun. There is a difference. I say that if you exercise your right to carry a gun, you have a responsibility to use it responsibly. I assume you are responsible, so by all means exercise your right, but you should respect my right to abstain. I don’t carry a gun because I know myself. I am not confident that I would be able to pull the trigger when push come to shove. I am acting responsibly by being true to myself.
I know that there many of you will blast me for being an idiot and being naive. You have the right to do sobut I hope you realize that you are attacking someone who supports your right to own a gun.
This is MEXICO’S Problem. I’ve never been stopped or inspected going into Mexico (San Diego to TJ), but coming back?? It can sometimes take several hours. As long as they are going to continue to let criminals, felony fleeing hideouts and god knows what else to enter their country un-impeded….Why should we give two flying f’s about them!!!
c: I won’t attack you for your decision. Might type only gets riled up when know-it-all nannies try to take away our right to decide.
So Todd, I must say your piece was pretty much a waste of time and energy. I can only hope that you were well paid for your efforts and the Express-News can recoup their losses with a bit more paid advertising.
How about doing your next piece on the need to enforce the laws that are currently on the books. I would suggest you focus on those of the US, but a reference or two to Mexico and it’s current political corruption laws couldn’t hurt.
For example, ask your ATF buddies if they will be enforcing the laws regulating the importation, sale, purchase, and use of controlled substances any time in the near future.
You could also check with the rest of your friends in the Federal Government to see if they have any plans for meeting their legal obligations to protect the nation, maybe by securing our national borders?
The point is all the laws in the world don’t mean squat or accomplish diddly if the folk who are collecting pay checks to enforce the laws, don’t!
At this point in time I suspect that all the new gun control laws and anti-2nd ordinances the boys from Foggy Bottom can come up with will just create a whole new, and very dedicated, group of outlaws. The question to be answered is: Will the Government, and it’s hirelings, be any more eager to do their jobs when these new outlaws are also their neighbors?
This piece is incredibly shoddy work.
First, you provide no stats but freely denigrate those used by 2nd Amendment Advocates. Lame.
Second, you point to the arms interdictions at the border, but with no context it’s meaningless. How many guns are being siezed compared to the number siezed? How many are fully automatic like those that are the largest issue in Mexico? How many hand guns? How many Grenades? Grenades being relevant to indicate the broader source of weapons such as grenades and RPGs that are in use which you can’t get in the US.
Third, you apparently are missing the gun advocates point that the weapons with largest use in this conflict are of a military standard, being fully automatic. You can’t buy those in the US without informing the ATF, both from the seller and buyers side of the transaction. If the source is citizens, please indicate how the came by fully automatic weapons and at what cost.
Fourth, the Napolitano quote is sad. You actually believe that the guns at that show weren’t a culling of weapons known to have been available in the US and not a realistic cross section of the weapons siezed in Mexico? You then go and use ATF as a source of information and state that the Mexican’s aren’t competent enough to make selective choices on what weapons to send to ATF. Do you think before you write? Any thought that maybe they were put out because they new that a high level US politico was coming?
Fifth, funny how you blog on the topic and denigrate other bloggers expertise. Evidently they have much more knowledge than you do, but since you apparently taken any time to review their discussions beyond the 90% ATF figure you show you have taken a half witted attempt on commentary.
Sixth, as for the ammunition, want to describe how the RPGs and grenades are supplied?
Seventh, Factcheck.org? Oh please, that peice was so shoddy that it makes this piece look like a doctoral thesis. And how do you come by the thought that they are non-partisan. They’ve been reported as supporters of Obama directly, so that doesn’t make them non-partisan. Not taking a political affiliation would.
You’re facts are as limited as those provided by any 2nd Amendment blogger, but their conclusions have more logic. Please explain why cartels with known access to military grade weapons would come to the US for non-Military weapons. I’m not arguing that the US isn’t a source, I’m arguing that the majority of the weapons can not be sourced to civilian trade arms. And those that are are taken illegally. That would lead you, if you tried, to come to the conclusion that further regulations are ineffective since there are regulations already in place.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/Smuggler_of_ammo_gets_4_years.html
So Todd, does this mean that you now are providing all with definitive facts and evidence that all those guns and all those bullets come from the legal sales of firearms in the US? Get a grip lad.
Since ICE kicked off its Armas Cruzadas weapons interdiction effort in June, the agency has made 267 arrests along the southwest border and seized more than 1,400 firearms and about 120,000 rounds of ammunition heading to Mexico, said ICE’s Jerry Robinette, head of the San Antonio field office.
I got hit and almost killed by a black man in a International 18 wheeler.
Using your logic, we should ban black people and 18 wheelers. So, where is the legislation to get this going?
He was high, so maybe we ban drugs as well..
“There is indeed a domestic ammunition shortage. But a couple of weeks ago, Freddie Farhat of Eagle Pass, Texas, allegedly found 10,400 rounds of .223-caliber rifle ammo and attempted to smuggle them into Mexico, along with 200 magazine clips for the AR-15 semiautomatic assault style rifle (ever popular with cartel gunmen).”
I’m always amazed at how criminals can find 10,000+ Rounds of ammo to ship south and yet I cant find 100 at the store. Hmmmm.
Why should we care what is sneaking into their country they don’t care what is what or who is sneaking into ours?
Finally I would think they would be thankful for the help in arming their cops and military with nice high quality US made goods.
This issue is not about stopping crime but about further criminalizing a CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT!
Tolerance should be the name of the game. I think it is a wonderful thing that the United States’ constitution and law enforcement mechanism works so well. I also think that the fact that the US citizens are allowed to own and operate firearms plays a critical role in the well-being of your legal system.
However it is important to realize that US purchased guns are a real part of the problem. Perhaps we should consider legalizing drugs as well and seeing how everything plays. Legalizing drugs should starve the cartels from cash while increasing it for law enforcement agencies. Let us tolerate both evils, drugs and guns, which can of course be harmful when in the wrong hands, while being a source of well-being and fun when used properly.
1. Some of Guns are in good Shape too! We Can Assurt the Almost Guns from the Used Guns too! Agreed!The Ammo to Needs to be collected backed the U.S.A. too! Some the Ak-47s need to sent back to U.S.S.R too! The Ammo from U.S.S.R can take back the Ammo from U.S.S.R. If the want to Clear there Name of the Druge War InCidentent of Mexico Nation too! Agreed!! We are not Accussing them at all too! Agreed!!!! China Ak-47s Rifles to: are There too! True China can Take back there Guns an Ammo backed Immeadly too! to Clear there Name to agreed!!!! Thankyou,
Hi there.
Great article, thank you for sharing! I�m excited about reading more!