Thursday, January 18, 2007

Mexico Points The Finger at US for Violence

Well, well, well...via THR, it seems the Mexicans are blaming the United States for the fact their country's such a crime-ridden shithole, and they want a new Ban on Scary-Looking Weapons on top of that!

Combat-style rifles are pouring into Mexico, aided by the end of the U.S. Assault Weapons Ban in 2004 and an arms race among several Mexican cartels battling for control of lucrative drug routes.
The weapons are purchased at stores and gun shows, then smuggled into Mexico under car seats or tucked into suitcases.
...
At a gun show in Tucson, Tom Myers of Phoenix hefted a jet-black AR-15 with all the extras: short barrel, telescoping stock, 30-round magazine and a menacing-looking flare launcher.
"I can sell this to you for 9½ ($950)," he said. "And there's no paperwork at all."
Because Myers is a private seller, he is not required to do a background check on the buyer or keep any records. The gun he was selling was a semiautomatic, meaning each pull of the trigger fires one round.
When asked if he had any of the deadlier automatics, he led a reporter to a nearby table.
There, James Ramey of Little Rock, Ark., was selling Hellfire and Autoburst trigger activation devices, $30 gadgets that turn any assault rifle into a rat-a-tatting machine gun.
Ramey works about 50 gun shows a year. He explained how the Mexican gangs buy their weapons at weekend shows in border cities.
"They send over a scout on Saturday to see if there's anything they want," he said. "Then they show up on Sunday with a big wad of money and somebody who's got a clean record, who's legal to buy."
...
Reimposing the U.S. Assault Weapons Ban would go a long way toward stemming violence long the border, Santiago Vasconcelos said.
"These weapons come from your country, we know that for a fact," he told The Republic.


Vasconcelos! Hey, buddy, guess what? People and things go both ways with the currently porous borders we share! You and your government wanted open borders, you basically have them for now...ain't it a bitch to find out that's a double-edged sword?
But I must admit it really burns my tail as a peaceful gun owner to find out you want my rights to be clamped down on because your government can't keep the drug cartels at bay. I am sensing a pattern here...you want us to keep out borders open so your people can come north to partake of our milk and honey that you can't seem to produce yourself, threats to OUR sovereignty and security be damned, and now you want basically to go in the direction of disarming us, too? My, but you folks are astoundingly arrogant south of the Rio Grande. I can only say, this is yet another thing we should most assuredly keep in mind when our own President calls your government and its leaders a friend and partner of America.