Thoughts Aloud

Archive for March 31st, 2009

Dan Gifford has an informative piece in Big Hollywood entitled, “The ‘America Is Arming Mexico’s Drug Gangs’ Lie“:

“There is an iron river of guns that flows South into Mexico [from the United States] to supply criminal organizations on the border,” says Tom Mangan, senior special agent with Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) in Phoenix. “They are in the market for machine guns, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles,” he continues. That’s right. The drug gangs can’t buy that and other military stuff like the 40MM grenades (the silver things in the upper left) and the rifles with launchers shown in the photo below in Mexico, so they drive to the United States and purchase them from American gun dealers at retail. Isn’t that the story you’ve been told?  Well, congratulations. America’s First Amendment protected propaganda ministry has punked you on another important issue — this time on behalf of dissembling officials and gun confiscation advocates.

After explaining the obvious that they are not available in our gun stores either, he offers a snippet from a 1996 Washington Post piece that really disappointed me, because I like Charles Krauthammer:

Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is symbolic — purely symbolic … In fact, the assault weapons ban will have no effect either on the crime rate or on personal security. Nonetheless, it is a good idea … Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation … Ultimately, a civilized society must disarm its citizenry if it is to have a modicum of domestic tranquillity of the kind enjoyed in sister democracies like Canada and Britain … Yes, Sarah Brady is doing God’s work.

Then, from the LA Times, of all places, the truth regarding their source:

Most of these [military] weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semi-automatic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. . . . The enhanced weaponry represents a wide sampling from the international arms bazaar, with grenades and launchers produced by U.S., South Korean, Israeli, Spanish or former Soviet bloc manufacturers. Many had been sold legally to governments, including Mexico’s, and then were diverted onto the black market. Some may be sold directly to the traffickers by corrupt elements of national armies, authorities and experts say … These groups appear to be taking advantage of a robust global black market and porous borders, especially between Mexico and Guatemala. Some of the weapons are left over from the wars that the United States helped fight in Central America, U.S. officials said.

So, after all the hard work and gains of the NRA, et al, over the past decade; we are back to square one in ’96, and the sheeple are being once again brainwashed about how some guns are too scary, have no place in a civilized society, and need to be banned. This won’t end well this time. ◄Dave►