Mexico seeks US help on Arms Trade

[Thin Black Line]

The usual agitprop piece. One can only speculate how this will play into
the North American Union and the troika's coordination of *security*
arrangements.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060804...xIF;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHVqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA--

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's top organized crime prosecutor called on U.S. officials Thursday to do more to halt illegal weapons trafficking to help Mexico stem a wave of bloody, drug-fueled violence.

How about addressing the "drug-fueled" trade as the actual root of the
violence? Which came first to Mexico: the drugs or the guns?

"It's foreseeable that this type of violence will continue like this," Santiago Vasconcelos told a small group of foreign reporters, "because the Mexican government will never make any deals" with drug gangs.

We need a rolling-on-the-floor-laughing icon.

The two alliances have begun using heavier weapons, like rocket-propelled grenades, Santiago Vasconcelos said. Most of those weapons come from the United States, and he called on Washington to do more to halt their flow south.

I was just at a large gunshow yesterday and I did not see a single RPG
for sale --not even out of the trunk of someone's car in the parking lot
Let's see if I understand this: the Mexican drug cartels can get cocaine from
Columbia and the FARC rebels, but the FARC draws the line when it comes
to selling them some RPGs? Puh-leeeze.

"We know that there is a large amount of arms traffic ... in the United States, that they have to bring under control," Santiago Vasconcelos said. "There's this incredibly big black market that has to be controlled."

"The last time we spoke with (U.S. officials), we told them ... 'If these types of weapons weren't flowing through, they'd have to use stones to attack each other,'" he said.

This is what passes for a "news conference"?! I can't take anymore
Surely, none of these weapons could be coming in from the "Ciudad del Este"
area of ***South*** America?!

 

[crazed_ss]

Actually, I read a report that a lot of the guns in Mexico come from the US.. in the border cities at least. It's much eaiser for one person to legally purchase 100 AR-15's from a gun shop in Texas and drive them across the border, rather than go through the trouble of dealing with a bunch of shady gunrunner characters in Ciudad del Este.

Obviously Mexico's problem is a social one. Guns are widely available here, but we dont have hit squads assassinating police cheifs in broad daylight without any fear of reprisal.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4667960

 

[armoredman]

The Chaipas rebels use full auto AKs - show what gun shop in Texas is selling them wholesale? 90% of the long guns used illegally in Mexico come from further south. Many of the handguns may come from the US, but many of them were LEGALLY imported into Mexico - remember the Colt El Presidente?
More political posturing, maybe a setup for Mexico's call to the UN for "peacekeepers" on the border? Let the blue hats set up shop along our border, disarm/remove the Minutemen, and take over border policing from the Border Patrol, and then it will be Katy, bar the door - all hell is breaking loose.

 

[crazed_ss]

Like I said.. moreso in the border cities.http://www.csgv.org/news/headlines/lat_mexico.cfm

 

[Preacherman]

As armoredman has said, most of the guns used by nasties in Mexico come from further south. Latin America is awash with guerilla weapons - the Russians supplied them to Sandinistas and other left-wing groups, the US supplied the Contras and other right-wing groups, and governments across the continent who couldn't pay their troops due to poverty, corruption or plain ol' inefficiency found that their troops would sell their weapons for food! One can pick up a full-auto AK47 or equivalent for $50-$100 in places like Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, etc. No surprise that they're ending up in Mexico, where dollars are available to buy them.

 

[Thin Black Line]

I also think it's not a coincidence that given Mexico's post-election problems
that this issue has come up: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/08/mexico-presidential-challenger-vows.php

I went to the Mexican gov't's official election site and could not find much
info on the English language version.....gee, surprise.....

 

[Father Knows Best]

I wonder

How many weapons used by drug gangs in the U.S. are actually coming in from Mexico? I'd be willing to bet that the same gangs running cocaine, pot and others drugs into the U.S. from Mexico and points south are also bringing in a lot of their more military weaponry through the same channels. I bet it's a lot easier to buy a real (full auto) AK in Mexico than it is in the U.S.

 

[Old Fuff]

crazed_ss:

It's much eaiser for one person to legally purchase 100 AR-15's from a gun shop in Texas

Not very likely. ATF&E give border gunshops special attention. U.S manufactured firearms that are recovered by Merxican law enforcement authorities are almost always traced by ATF&E who then investigate. And no, our gunshops don't carry 100 gun inventories of AR-15 rifles. If they did they would soon be noticed and checked out.

There is a problem of gunshops being broken into and their guns of all kinds stolen, but the combined quantity would be in the high hundreds at best.

And as Preacherman has pointed out, the favored small arm is the full-automatic AK-47, and those don't come from the good ol' USA.

What is behind this is that certain countries - including Mexico in particular - are pushing for United Nations control of firearms, including and specifically control of firearms owned by private citizens in the United States. The Clinton Administration favored this concept, while the Bush Administration has so far - almost singlehandedly - stopped this from happening. Now the Mexican Government is trying to make it look like smuggled arms coming from the United States - and they are, the gangs move drugs one way, and guns the other - include R.P.G.'s and full-automatic rifles, which is absolute bull. Also like the mayor of New York City, they have to find an excuse to explain why their own strict gun control laws aren't working.

 

[Erebus]

Mexico's top organized crime prosecutor called on U.S. officials Thursday to do more to halt illegal weapons trafficking to help Mexico stem a wave of bloody, drug-fueled violence.

I think old Vincente is

 

[longeyes]

They think we're exporting trouble to Mexico? O Irony of Ironies! O Chutzpah of Chutzpah! Mexico is bringing the narco-economy into every nook and cranny of the United States. The North American Union will be called, in whispers, Narco-America. For the people who want to suppress free men this will be one more phoney reason to crack down on law-abiding citizens who want the right to keep and bear arms for protection. The War On Guns will be the next brainstorm of the poobahs who hope to run this continent. As for Mexico not dealing with the dope princes, they know very well that it is all one big happy family from top to bottom. The problem in Mexico is cultural, and we would be well-advised to face this squarely and not romanticize what we are bringing into the United States. We are losing America neighborhood by neighborhood, and already the problem is way too large to be dealt with by traditional law enforcement. In the end, if it's capable of being solved, it will be solved by the U.S. military and loyal citizens working in concert with them.

 

[longeyes]

Mexico won't make deals with drug gangs. Mexico's government IS a drug gang--as are the governments of so many brutal fiefdoms around this globe. And their tentacles stretch everywhere, including the toney estates around D.C. and NYC. You tell me what it will take to save The Light.

 

[nico]

I say we make a deal: Mexico stops getting illegal guns from the US when the US stops getting illegals from Mexico.

 

[Thin Black Line]

Erebus,

Thanks. The icons add the artistic touch I was looking for.

 

[ArmedBear]

Television viewers across Mexico were horrified last month by the airing of a video in which members of the one cartel competing for control of the drug trade in Nuevo Laredo torture hit men from another cartel.

As long as they just kill and torture each other, who cares?

Here's the deal, crazed... They get guns wherever they can. Say we could stop selling any AR-15's to anyone who will take them to Mexico. These are drug cartels. They'll get guns from somewhere else, just like drugs. You know that "War on Drugs" we've been fighting for years? Doesn't sound like it's stopping them.

Mexico has to stop blaming the US, which supplies many millions of its families with income even though it's illegal, for the fact that there are powerful drug gangs in Mexico. They use guns, they wear shoes, they drive cars, etc., many of which came from the US. That's really not the problem; it's just that the guns are a powerful visual image for NPR to feed its educated but unthinking listeners as they commute to and from their drone jobs. Rampant government corruption and organized crime don't make for nice iconic pictures.

 

[longeyes]

Television viewers across Mexico were horrified last month by the airing of a video in which members of the one cartel competing for control of the drug trade in Nuevo Laredo torture hit men from another cartel.

Interesting this horror, considering that there are probably few families in Mexico who don't have a member of the familia in the drug business. When your society makes the decision that it is okay to make a living by illicit means, things go south in a hurry.

Mexico is not big on self-scrutiny, a vice they share with too many, unfortunately, in this country.

 

[seeker_two]

Let he who is without sin throw the first jalapeno.....

 

[larry starling]

We should help them when the help us and stop encouraging there citizens to come to the US illegaly......

 

[ArmedBear]

Look, if there's any reason to blame the US for Mexico's drug cartels, it's that we BUY THE DRUGS, and we buy them at inflated prices on the black market.

I'm thinking that legalizing the stuff would put an end to a lot of this, just like re-legalizing booze stopped a lot of cross-border organized crime and violence in the 1930s.

Also, it sounds to me like the average Mexican government official is a lot more worried about being shot by druglords than actually doing something to stop the gang activity OR the flow of drugs into the US (surprise). They don't seem to give a crap about the damage that their drugs do to the people in the US, either. (I never said I thought drugs were good, just that our way of dealing with them is worse.)

Screw 'em.

 

[ccw9mm]

So long as one can still be "rolled" for dollars (aka, held for ransom, essentially) by policia in Mexico, nothing stands a chance. Not much honor amongst thieves.

 

[Thin Black Line]

RPG Source

Please forward to: Santiago Vasconcelos
Subject: Look South Instead of North

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060809/od_nm/brazil_grenade_dc_1

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - A Brazilian man died Tuesday when he tried to open what police believe was a rocket-propelled grenade with a sledgehammer in a mechanical workshop on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.

Another man who was in the workshop at the time of the explosion was rushed to a hospital with severe burns, a police officer told Reuters. The workshop was destroyed and several cars parked outside caught fire.

 

[Henry Bowman]

A Brazilian man died Tuesday when he tried to open what police believe was a rocket-propelled grenade with a sledgehammer in a mechanical workshop on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.

Alert the Darwin Award people.