Here’s a breaking story that’s only reported by Central American media and Fox.
The most fearsome weapons wielded by Mexico’s drug cartels enter the country from Central America, not the United States, according to U.S. diplomatic cables disseminated by WikiLeaks and published here Tuesday by La Jornada newspaper.
Inventory includes grenades and rocket launchers, necessary items for beating the Mexican army.
This corroborates an LA Times report from early 2009, which catalogued “hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets…”
The U.S. still blames American gun owners, by asserting that American guns “fuel” Mexico’s drug war. Even President Obama asserts: “More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States.”
In statistics, “sampling error” essentially means that a small subset isn’t representative of the entire group.
In 2008, Mexico confiscated 30,000 firearms from drug cartels. Out of this, they selected 24% (7,200) to send to the U.S. for tracing. Of these, the ATF was able to trace 4,000. Of the 4,000, 3,480 (87%) were American.
Actually, 90% of all cartel guns are not American. (For more, read here.)
Why would cartels spend over $1,000–plus a background check and smuggling risks–for a decent American semi-automatic rifle, when they can buy 4-5 fully automatic AK-47s for the same price on the black market?
So, another feather in Eva Braun’s (Ms. Janet N. ) cap. She said she cut the weapons leaving the US & she did! Looks like stopping 1 or 2 will do that nicely. But also looks like our spending money to beef up Mexico’s southern border was as successful as her feeble attempts to beef up our border.
It would seem the only guns coming from the U.S. to Mexican drug cartels are the ones smuggled in by the Justice Dept. See project gunrunner. http://michellemalkin.com/
I knew all along they were lying so they could enact more gun control laws. These people lie like other people breathe!
Exactly correct. I knew it was a lie. Like any manufactured good the Chinese make them cheaper than the USA. Why buy from the USA when you can pay off/ terrorize Guatemalan customs officials.
Well, the President of Mexico actually did tell the truth, sort of. He stated that “fully-automatic AK-47s” were coming into the drug gangs’ hands from the U.S.
He just neglected to mention that their supplier was BATFE. And considering that nobody in the U.S. actually manufactures an AK-47/AKM, selective-fire or otherwise, BATFE had to import them before they sold them south across the Rio Grande.
The next question needing an answer is, who was BATFE’s supplier?
My money is on the PRC. Who are also the most likely source for most of the heavy weapons (RPGs, etc.) coming in from South America.
One point rarely mentioned is that if the drug gangs can acquire such hardware from farther south, so can terrorists. And since they have now admitted that at least some Islamists with jihadi ambitions have entered the U.S. across our southern border, it’s a reasonable assumption that they will have access to their usual “toys” from the same source.
However, when they start using them, you can be sure that Obama, Napolitano, Holder, et al., will claim they came from stocking dealers in the U.S. itself. They are not about to let their dogmas, and dreams of power, be impeded by anything as irrelevant, meaningless, and subversive as… reality.
clear ether
eon
Gee, this administration would lie to us, attempt to infringe our basic rights and then have the BATFE supply the “evidence”.
These folks (being kind here) really have got to go soonest.
Next BATFE will clear itself of all charges….the way DOJ cleared itself in the New Black Panthers case.
For the story from the begining: http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/a-journalist-s-guide-to-project-gunwalker
The USA media won’t investigate because they cower when they believe that there are alleged CCW permit law abiding citizens having dinner in the local restaurant. Anyone that has seen the gruesome photos that come out of Mexico know that these are military weapons and not the firearms available to us. When the nightly news believes honest citizens are suspect and Cairo rioters are freedom lovers you have to start getting your news from Pajamas Media.
… And of those 3,480, how many were smuggled under the nose (at the direction?) of the ATF?
ATF’s “Fast and Furious” started after 2008. These data weren’t pumped up by recent ATF assistance. Nice thought, though.
Obviously, the metaphor-mixing Dems are dumber than a barrel of monkeys, but, at least they’re more fun than a box of rocks.
Whoops.
Wrong thread.
Sorry about that!
Kinda made my self look dumber than a box of rocks.
it still applies— dems ready to blame 2nd amendment for arming the cartels
Exactly what percentage of guns traced to the US were guns allowed into Mexico by ATF? How many dead Americans and Mexicans can be traced to that genius program? Janet Nepolitano needs to spend less time lying and more time shaving her back and cheast.
I’ve thought it obvious that the majority of guns that can be traced can be traced to US purchases, because you can trace guns from the US; most gun dealers here keep records and comply with the law. The Mexican govt prefers to exaggerate the ‘river of iron’ from el norte to use against the US for political purposes and downplay the fact many weapons — and I bet “90 percent” of the heavy weapons and military gear — used by the cartels come from the south (anybody looking at Venezuela in this arms trade?) or are stolen or purchased illicitly from the Mexican military & police; that would highlight the corruption and ineptitude of the Mexican government itself; “mejor culpar a los gringos.”
Grenades, Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs)
the occasional ground-to-air rocket or
crew-served weapon…
I wonder what the upper limit is on weaponry
the Drug Lords could acquire; When one wishes
to intimidate a nation-state, Mexico or the US,
some heavy metal is required.
I
The mujaheddin chased the Red Army out of Afghanistan with nothing heavier than MANPADS, RPGS, and heavy MGS, plus IEDS.
One of the pluses of asymmetric warfare from the guerrilla’s POV is that you don’t necessarily need heavy iron, because no guerrilla in his right mind tries to fight a set-piece battle with the enemy’s heavy forces.
The Viet Cong tried it in the 1968 Tet offensive. After Tet ’68, the U.S. forces were mainly dealing with the North Vietnamese People’s Army, because they had virtually wiped out the VC in crushing the Tet offensive. Which was exactly what the NVA had been counting on when they talked the VC into trying it; Ho Chi Minh & Co. had no interest in sharing power with the “Communist Party of South Vietnam” (Viet Nam Cong Sam) after their victory. (There is no honor among Communists, anymore than there is among any other kind of thieves.) The NVA launched two “conventional” offensives after U.S. ground forces left. The one in 1972 failed due mainly to U.S. airpower; the one in 1975 succeeded because we left the ARVN without support, air or otherwise. (Thank you, Democrats.)
The mission of guerrillas is simply to inflict casualties, i.e. kill as many people as possible. The object being to convince the enemy that they can’t win without casualties too heavy for them to tolerate.
Or, in the case of terrorists attacking a country like ours, to kill as many civilians as possible to demoralize us until we tell them “OK, we’ll give you what you want, just go away.” (This is made easier in areas with governments which forbid their citizens from protecting themselves- like Mexico, or Chicago, or New York, or Washington D.C.)
Trouble is, we can’t give the Islamists- or the drug gangs in Mexico, for that matter- what they want. The former want us all dead, the latter want either (a) all our money and/or (b) the “Reconquest of the Stolen Territories”, depending on how far gone they are from sampling their own wares.
As for what the drug cartels want in Mexico on a purely domestic basis, they already control the country through graft, extortion, terror, and the utter corruptness of the entire political process below the border. It’s Capone’s Chicago on a national scale. I’m not sure there’s much else they can get, unless it’s a license to kill anybody they want to just because they’re bored.
Or maybe they already have that.
clear ether
eon
Mr Nemerov, See Michelle Malkin”s column re:project Gunrunner. This actually got started in 2005. Fast and Furious Began in the Phoenix area approximately Dec 2008. The latest Estimate by the ground pounders at ATF is 2700+ firearms alllowed across the border. George Friedman published a very exhaustive analysis of the actual percentage of recovered firearms in Mexico in his Stratfor newsletter.
Malkin sources Town Hall.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2011/03/14/did_president_obama_order_atf_project_gunrunner
From that Town Hall article: “ATF started approving sales of guns to known cartel members in late 2009.”
Malkin mentions Fast & Furious began in 2005, but she doesn’t source that date, while one of her sources mentions 2009 for gun walking.
From Malkin: “First, some background. Like so many border programs run amok, Project Gunrunner was the spawn of Beltway bipartisanship. It was established in 2005 as a pilot project under the Bush administration and run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.”
She doesn’t say the guns started walking across the border in 2005, only that the program began in 2005 in order to “stop illicit firearms trafficking,” and then later, it warped into something worse, when ATF began assisting gun smuggling across the border.
Are we going to argue about who’s more right, or are we going to focus on dumping every prostitician and bureaucrat into the Potomac?
I’ve known for about 10 years that the gun laws here are so tight that you can’t get anything faster than 1 shot per trigger pull for less than 10,000 dollars and it has to be registered to the owner. But for 4 of those years one couldn’t even get a rifle that fit a normal human being with a magazine over ten rounds. How the hell do the dems think mexico’s drug cartels were getting full auto weapons as well as rockets from American stores when we can’t?
Oh wait they were lieing to sell America a bill of goods to further disarm us.
Twenty years ago I held a Federal Firearms License. I think in the six years I had it I sold maybe 50 guns (and probably about 40% of them to myself). In their defense, the BAFT was always very helpful anytime I had a question or needed assistance. But then again, I wasn’t selling a bunch of guns to bad guys. What I do know is that full auto weapons are rare in the US market because they require a Class III permit for legal transfer. The full auto firearms found in Mexico almost certainly didn’t originate in the US. I’ve never been to a gun show in my life but still I can’t believe they could possibly transfer enough guns to cause the situation we’re seeing in Mexico. The vast majority of these guns are obviously obtained from the international black market. This is a smokescreen. One could easily pick up 3 full auto Chinese made AKs for the cost of a single semi-auto AR-15 in the US. Guns are expensive in the US. They are also well regulated.
Gee, the way the MSM tells it, every gun dealer on the border has a drive thru window where they toss weapons by the gross into every SUV owned by the Mexican drug cartel. You mean they’re xaggeratin’?
Obama, Holder, and good ole Janet, blame the gun shops and the American gun owners. Create another crisis, pass new gun laws, play stupid, vote present about the ATF role. Hipe up the MSM and let them make the case for new gun laws. Every gun owner in this country should be calling for firings and impeachment against thia corrupt adm. Create a crisis in Lybia , to take the heat off the budget, out of control spending unemployment, high prices,4.00 gas, etc. Same old tactics. It’s time to stop this runaway adm.
I wonder if there will be a banner headline one day …
“PRESIDENT OBAMA SPOKE THE TRUTH TODAY !!! — ONE WHOLE SENTENCE !!!
On that day, the New York Times will put out a stop-press Extra with the headline
HELL HAS FROZEN OVER
Which of course will require an Environmental Impact Statement and immediate action from EPA to “Stop Catastrophic Climate Change”.
clear ether
eon
Everyone seems to forget that we have armed the Mexican military with full-auto Mp-16s. Many of those used by the drug cartels are either stolen from the Mexican army or are sold to them by deserters. It’s a free gun market in Mexico. The cartels have the money to afford anything they want. Why buy an AK-47 when you can afford an M-16? But I do agree. Because AK-47s are much less expensive, there should be more of them.
The AK is also much simpler mechanically than the Armalite, and much more tolerant of poor troop maintenance or even non-maintenance. The Armalite is a precision weapon that requires careful cleaning (especially of the gas tube and bolt carrier) to ensure reliability. (Been there, done that.) I doubt most of the drug gangs’ gunboys even know what a gas tube or bolt carrier is.
The Armalite is more accurate once the range exceeds 250 meters, but in the kind of close-range urban shootouts the Mexican cartels specialize in, this is pretty much irrelevant. Under 150 meters, either one will hit, and generally kill, if the shooter actually knows how to use the sights.
My SWAG is that the drug kingpins view the M-16 variants as the “prestige” weapons they give to their most trusted men (who also have at least some basic skills in the small arms department, like aiming, field-stripping, and cleaning), and give the AKs to their “common” foot-soldiers who practice the typical Third World Military Small Arms Drill, i.e. shooting from the hip on full-auto. (Aka the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy, or Jihadi “If Allah Wills It, It Will Hit” Method.)
N.B.; The fact that the drug gangs mainly engage government force in cities, and now apparently control several cities, is noteworthy. Traditionally, revolutions in Mexico and points south have always started in the countryside. By the time the insurgents or whatever have reached the point where their “liberated areas” are based in cities, it’s pretty much all over, and whoever the sitting president is generally has two choices; running for the nearest border with the numbers of his Swiss bank accounts in his back pocket, or getting ‘dobe-walled.
It will be interesting to see what Mexico’s President does next.
cheers
eon
The gun laws in Mexico were passed by corrupt politicians to prevent the peons from rising up against them. They resulted in the average person being at the complete and utter mercy of criminals and corrupt politicians who don’t have any. The criminals running Mexico can do anything they want and all the citizen can do is cooperate or die.
That is the exact prospect that is being pushed by the Brady Bunch, the administration, and a handful of billionaires for us. While there are plenty of Transnational Progressives who loudly disparage the ubber wealthy in our country they are actually promoting their strangle hold on power and privilege.
This article is missing 2 key factors that further rip this rumor apart:
1] the only weapons sent to the US for tracing were “small arms”
2] the only weapons sent to the US for tracing were those that still had serial numbers