Blog dedicated to reporting on Mexican drug cartels
on the border line between the US and Mexico
.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Arming Mexico's Drug Cartels

Top 12 dealers of guns seized in Mexico
In the past four years, Mexican and U.S. authorities have traced more than 60,000 weapons from the nation's bloody drug wars back to some of the 7,500 U.S. gun dealers along the border. The dealers with the most traces in the past two years are in Texas, Arizona and California and are near highways that cross the border and go deep into Mexico.
By James V. Grimaldi and Sari Horwitz Washington Post Staff Writers

No other state has produced more guns seized by police in the brutal Mexican drug wars than Texas. In the Lone Star State, no other city has more guns linked to Mexican crime scenes than Houston. And in the Texas oil town, no single independent dealer stands out more for selling guns traced from south of the border than Bill Carter.

Carter, 76, has operated four Carter's Country stores in the Houston metropolitan area over the past half-century. In the past two years, more than 115 guns from his stores have been seized by the police and military in Mexico.

As an unprecedented number of American guns flows to the murderous drug cartels across the border, the identities of U.S. dealers that sell guns seized at Mexican crime scenes remain confidential under a law passed by Congress in 2003.

A year-long investigation by The Washington Post has cracked that secrecy and uncovered the names of the top 12 U.S. dealers of guns traced to Mexico in the past two years.

Eight of the top 12 dealers are in Texas, three are in Arizona, and one is in California. In Texas, two of the four Houston area Carter's Country stores are on the list, along with four gun retailers in the Rio Grande Valley at the southern tip of the state. There are 3,800 gun retailers in Texas, 300 in Houston alone.

"One of the reasons that Houston is the number one source, you can go to a different gun store for a month and never hit the same gun store," said J. Dewey Webb, special agent in charge of the Houston field division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "You can buy [a 9mm handgun] down along the border, but if you come to Houston, you can probably buy it cheaper because there's more dealers, there's more competition."

Drug cartels have aggressively turned to the United States because Mexico severely restricts gun ownership. Following gunrunning paths that have been in place for 50 years, firearms cross the border and end up in the hands of criminals as well as ordinary citizens seeking protection.

"This is not a new phenomenon," Webb said.

What is different now, authorities say, is the number of high-powered rifles heading south - AR-15s, AK-47s, armor-piercing .50-caliber weapons - and the savagery of the violence.

Federal authorities say more than 60,000 U.S. guns of all types have been recovered in Mexico in the past four years, helping fuel the violence that has contributed to 30,000 deaths. Mexican President Felipe Calderon came to Washington in May and urged Congress and President Obama to stop the flow of guns south.

U.S. law enforcement has ramped up its focus on gun trafficking along the southwestern border. Arrests of individual gunrunners have surged. But investigators rarely bring regulatory actions or criminal cases against U.S. gun dealers, in part because of laws backed by the gun lobby that make it difficult to prove cases.

All of the stores among the top 12 have had double-digit traces of "crime guns" to their stores from Mexico, a statistic that can be a red flag for investigators. A high number of traces does not necessarily signal wrongdoing. It could be the result of sales volume, geography or clientele. Carter's Country, for instance, is the largest independent gun retailer in the region. Most experts and ATF officials agree that the majority of dealers are law-abiding.

Many dealers tip off ATF when they suspect "straw purchases," in which a person buys for someone who is prohibited from owning a gun, a common practice in Mexican gunrunning cases. Many of the dealers "view themselves as the first line of defense," said Lawrence Keane, general counsel and vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearms industry trade group.

The foundation and the National Rifle Association aggressively challenge statistics that show 80 to 90 percent of the weapons seized in Mexico are first sold in the United States, calling the numbers highly inflated. After being criticized by the gun lobby, ATF stopped releasing such statistics this year.

"To suggest that U.S. gun laws are somehow to blame for Mexican drug cartel violence is a sad fantasy," said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action.

Cox said guns are coming to Mexico from other Central American countries and from former Mexican soldiers who have U.S. weapons and are now working for the cartels.

ATF disagreed, saying the biggest factors are the high number of dealers along the border and the convenient location.

"When you look at the highway system in Mexico, the main highways that come into the United States are through Laredo and Brownsville," Webb said. ". . . As long as it is cheaper and easier to come to the United States to buy them, that's going to be the source they'll go to."

Guns from the United States "have been feeding the violence and overwhelming firepower being unleashed by drug traffickers," said Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico's ambassador to the United States. "We need to defang drug trafficking organizations of these high-caliber and semiautomatic and automatic weapons, and we need to do it now."

The flow of guns

To examine the gun flow from the United States to Mexico, The Post reviewed hundreds of court documents and federal reports and interviewed Mexican officials and dozens of current and former U.S. law enforcement officials.

ATF in 2006 launched Project Gunrunner - a program that now involves more than 220 agents who make criminal cases against gun traffickers and about 165 inspectors who check gun dealers for compliance with federal regulations. The agency has conducted about 1,000 inspections in the border region, leading to the seizure of more than 400 firearms. Two dealers have lost their licenses to sell guns.

On the criminal side, a recent Justice Department inspector general's report called the program weak and ineffective, with most of the cases brought against single defendants hired to buy small numbers of firearms.

U.S. law enforcement has traditionally focused on seizing drugs moving north from Mexico, not guns moving south. In 2008, only 70 guns were seized at U.S. border crossings.

The cornerstone of the $60 million program is gun tracing - tracking weapons to the dealers who originally sold them. It has long been considered a powerful tool for combating trafficking.

But the Justice IG report said that Mexican gun tracing has been "unsuccessful." ATF officials complain that, in the past, most guns seized in Mexico were not traced. Although the number of traces has increased, problems persist, ATF officials say.

"We're not getting all the information we need from them," said Bill Newell, special agent in charge of ATF's Phoenix field division.

Mexican officials say they send information in but get little that is useful in return. An official in the Mexican attorney general's office called tracing "some kind of bad joke," the Justice inspector general's report said.

A Government Accountability Office report on Project Gunrunner found that ATF has not done "recent systematic analysis and reporting of aggregate data," hampered by congressional restrictions on the tracing information. ATF officials said that they do analyze the data and that tracing information has led to some major cases.

One investigation showed that 23 traffickers had purchased more than 335 firearms, including 251 rifles, from 10 dealers. One of the suspects bought 14 AK-47s in one day from one dealer.

About one-third of the weapons were traced to incidents in Mexico involving 63 deaths, including those of 18 law enforcement officers. Some of the guns ended up being seized at the site of the "Acapulco Police Massacre," where drug gangsters disguised as soldiers invaded two offices of the state attorney general and killed three investigators, one prosecutor and two secretaries. One gun sold at Carter's Country was recovered 65 days later by police investigating the kidnapping and murder of a businessman.

Fifty of the guns were purchased at three Carter's stores, including 29 at the chain's flagship store in Spring, Tex. When one of the traffickers purchased eight Bushmaster .223-caliber sniper rifles for nearly $9,000 on May 12, 2007, an employee of the store contacted ATF.

The ringleader of the gun buyers was U.S. citizen John Phillip Hernandez, a 23-year-old unemployed machinist living with his parents. He pleaded guilty last year to one count of making a false statement to a gun dealer.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark White asked for the maximum 10-year sentence.

"He knew [the guns] were going to go to drug killers in Mexico," White said.

Hernandez got eight years.

There was no indication that the gun stores named in court documents - Carter's Country, Academy Sports and Outdoors, and Collectors Firearms - had done anything wrong. All three retailers are on the list of top 12 stores.

The Academy purchases by Hernandez were at an outlet in Houston. Another Academy store in McAllen, about 10 miles from the border, has had about 95 traces in two years. After the Hernandez case, Academy stopped selling all military-style tactical weapons, including AK-47s and AR-15s, at its eight stores near the border.

In the rest of the chain's 120 stores, such "assault weapons" are limited to one per customer per visit.

"We wanted to do what we can to make sure that our firearms aren't contributing to the border problem," Academy spokeswoman Elise Hasbrook said.

Collectors owner Mike Clark said the 60 traces to his Houston store were insignificant given the store's volume, which he would not reveal. "Pretty small, I'd have to say," Clark said.

Carter's Country

In his "Ol' Bill Sez" commentary atop his weekly newspaper advertisement in April, Carter made light of the guns leaving Texas for Mexico: "Why all the talk about guns going south when so many drugs are coming north that our cows along the interstate are gettin' high off the fumes!"

Volume might factor into why many dealers are on the top-12 list, including Carter's Country, which sells thousands of firearms and is the largest independent gun retailer in the region.

Greeting a reporter last month in his store in Spring, standing near giant ivory tusks and stuffed grizzly bears and lions, Carter declined to be interviewed. "I'd like to talk to you, but I just can't," Carter said. "We're in litigation."

Dogged for years by lawsuits over his business practices, Carter pushed for the 2003 federal secrecy law governing gun traces because trial lawyers had been using the information in lawsuits against gun stores.

"If the gun-ban lawyers succeed, the floodgates will open," Carter said at the time in a newsletter he issued as president of the Texas Gun Dealers Association.

In one suit, a former employee who filed a wrongful-termination suit said Carter's Country permitted straw purchases. Carter's Country, which settled the suit for a small amount, denied the allegations.

In another case, a man who killed a Houston police officer said he bought the murder weapon, a 9mm Smith & Wesson, "in the name of my wife" at Carter's Country in Pasadena, outside Houston. An illegal immigrant who had been convicted of a felony sex offense, he was prohibited from buying a gun.

The officer's wife, Joslyn Johnson, a Houston police sergeant, alleges that Carter's Country knew the sale was illegal. "I think it is all about money and that it is a common practice for them," Johnson said. "They are putting guns in the hands of criminals."

Carter's Country denies the allegation, saying the gun was purchased legally by the man's wife

Hormigas

Small-time gunrunners along the border are known as "hormigas," the Spanish word for ants. Hernan Ramos, a 22-year-old U.S. citizen, was one of them. On May 17, 2008, he headed to a gun show in Arizona, where he bought an Olympic Arms .223-caliber rifle from a Tucson firearms business, Mad Dawg Global.

That same day, a friend of Ramos's, another U.S. citizen, bought two more .223-caliber rifles from Mad Dawg. Over the next three months, the two men and several of their associates returned to Mad Dawg repeatedly to buy rifles.

They smuggled the guns across the border, an hour south of Tucson, to "Rambo," a member of the Sinaloa drug cartel.

All in all, Ramos and nine others bought 112 firearms worth more than $100,000 - 30 from Mad Dawg and the rest from 14 other firearms dealers across Arizona, court records show.

The hormigas were eventually arrested and charged with firearms violations. Ramos, one of the ringleaders, was sentenced this summer by a federal judge in Tucson to four years and two months in prison.

No charges were brought against any of the gun dealers involved, and there was no indication the dealers did anything wrong.

One of the dealers, J&G Sales in Prescott, ranks third on the top-12 list, with about 130 of its guns traced from Mexico over the past two years. The store owner said he is diligent about making legal sales.

"I would stand by every transaction we make at the time we make it," said J&G owner Brad Desaye. "But I'm disappointed to hear that number. It saddens me. It should not happen."

The lack of charges against dealers is not unusual, in part because it's difficult to prove a straw purchase took place.

"If you're a gun dealer and you see a 21- or 22-year-old young lady walk in and plop down $15,000 in cash to buy 20 AK-47s, you might want to ask yourself what she needs them for," said Newell, the ATF special agent in charge in Phoenix. "If she says, 'Christmas presents,' technically the dealer doesn't have to ask for more."

Under federal law, a gun dealer who sells two or more handguns to the same person within five business days must report the sales to ATF. The agency has identified such sales as a red flag, or "significant indicator," of trafficking. But multiple sales of "long guns," which include shotguns and rifles such as AK-47s, do not have to be reported to ATF.

The Justice Department inspector general said in a report last month that "the lack of a reporting requirement of multiple sales of long guns - which have become the cartels' weapons of choice - hinders ATF's ability to disrupt the flow of illegal weapons into Mexico."

Over the years, the gun lobby has successfully opposed such a requirement, arguing it is not needed, because long guns are far less likely to be used in crimes. But the percentage of long guns recovered in Mexican crimes has been steadily increasing, from 20 percent in 2004 to 48 percent in 2009, reports show.

"The reasons that the deaths are so high in Mexico are the long guns," said James Cavanaugh, a former high-ranking official with ATF. "The velocity of the round and the amount they can put out quickly is what makes it so deadly."

Roadblocks for ATF

The biggest case ATF brought against a gun dealer in Project Gunrunner illustrates the obstacles agents face when they try to do something about stores sending guns to Mexico.

It was a case that seemingly had everything in its favor.

Corrupt gun stores usually are hard to catch because law enforcement needs evidence that the stores knowingly sold weapons intended for criminals. In this case, the agents had tons of evidence: surveillance, recorded phone calls, confidential informants and undercover agents posing as straw buyers.

In late 2007, ATF agents busted suspects who told the agents they had purchased hundreds of weapons from a single dealer: George Iknadosian, who owned a Phoenix gun store called X-Caliber.

Agents examined the dealer's traces and found that 86 guns had been recovered by police in the United States and Mexico between 2005 and 2008. Of those, 47 had been traced from Mexican crime scenes.

The store had sold 710 guns of the types known to be popular with Mexican drug cartels - more than 500 AK-47s and SKS-style rifles, plus one especially lethal .50-caliber Barrett rifle capable of piercing armored vehicles.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix declined to take the case, because it started out with low-level straw-purchaser charges and was going to require a lot of time and resources to develop further. So ATF took the case to the Arizona attorney general, who worked on it for more than a year with the Phoenix Police Department.

Iknadosian instructed undercover agents posing as straw purchasers about how to sneak weapons across the border, advising them to cross on weekends and Fridays when border agents might be off fishing.

"When you guys buy them [guns], I run the paperwork, you're okay, you're gone," he said. "On my end, I don't give a crap."

Iknadosian was charged with violations of state fraud, forgery, racketeering and money laundering laws.

"This was an amazingly well-prepared case," said Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard. "The evidence was all there. There is no question what was going on."

But in March 2009, a state judge, Robert Gottsfield, dismissed the case before it went to the jury.

"The judge's decision was inscrutable," Goddard said. "It was a real shock to our office."

Iknadosian's attorney, Thomas M. Baker, said he showed on cross-examination that ATF's informants were not credible.

"The ATF and Terry Goddard decided to give every single one of them probation if they would testify against George," Baker said. He said the conversations with Iknadosian were "out of context."

In an interview, Gottsfield defended his decision, which he said was one of the few times in 30 years he had dismissed a case before it went to a jury.

He agreed that there was ample evidence against Iknadosian, but he called the case "overcharged."

"There certainly was evidence that Iknadosian was selling to people who were not buying the guns for themselves, and that's a class-one misdemeanor," Gottsfield said.

About guns going to Mexico from the United States, the judge said: "It is a terrible problem. They have to do something about it."

Research editor Alice Crites and staff writer William Booth contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/nation/guns/arming-mexicos-drug-cartels/

42 comments:

  1. this is going just like the US has planned, arming the cartels, buying drugs, creating chaos to eventually intervene, look like the savior of Mexico, when its agenda is to take control full control of the oil, oil reserves, and drug trade to raise oil prices and let more people die during all this chaos to reduce the population for the great harvest coming soon. The world will be better off and comtrolled more efficiently if it remains under 500,000,000 not the 7 billion it is right now! Wake up!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Why do these dealers even sell AK-47's ? These are military weapons. Used for the mass killing of people. I suppose most of these are stolen and smuggled into Mexico.
    No one has a need for an AK-47...unless you are a drug cartel hitman.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You seem to love to repeat anything you think will slam the states but overlook the same of Mexico.How about the southern border of Mex.being wide open to anyone to import anything? 300 officers for 600 miles.The USA has 30,000 officers for 1,900 miles.You tell me,who is at least trying?No,you'll just keep crying and blame it on big brother,you've been doing it since we kicked ass a 100 yrs ago.You were big brother then and those gringos'came and showed you how it was done.By the way,You are always bitching about gun and money coming back into Mexico,what are your border guards doing to stop it?Look at any picture of the border and you'll see ten lanes going north and maybe one heading south,so just what are the Mexican doing to prevent the import of cash and guns?I would believe they could search EVERY car heading south.Nah,do nothing and cry.I'm getting sick of it.Your destany is in your hands and you don't seem to realize it.Well,i've said enough.Your turn.BYE

    ReplyDelete
  4. I just saw Capos'post.See what i mean?

    ReplyDelete
  5. December 13, 2010 10:17 AM

    LOL get your head on straight.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm so excited to see how many people here on borderland beat will comment!!! all the right wing blind to fact, white guys!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Contrary to what this article suggests:
    Fully automatic ar15's, ak47's & Barrett 50's are not coming from Texas or any other U.S. state. The sale and possession of such weapons is highly regulated and no licensed dealer would be willing to lose his livelyhood over such a sale. ( look to Venezuela or other South American countries for the real truth)
    I'm sure some US semi-automatic weapons are making their way to Mexico, but they are probably going to the citizens who are finding it necessary to arm themselves against this insane terror wave.
    Americans take note: This Is What Happens When They Take Away Your Guns!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I have to agree with Jerry and the other Anonymous person. This is yet another anti-American piece that fails to point out how many weapons are coming in from South America, like Venezuela, FARC, and other criminal organizations. They better not even try to outlaw guns in the US!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. You wanna believe that we are trafficking guns to mexican civilians protecting themselves but it is the very opposite!!! if the people have the money to buy guns they are not going to buy guns they would rather get out of the war zone and move accross the border...don't be ignorant!!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. So...it's not the narco-terror cartels that are evil, it's those EVIL gun dealers who are enabling this chaos, by the same line of thought I've notice that sicarios drive Fords and Chevrolet SUV's we must clamp down on Ford and GM for enabling the drug and extortionist gangs getting around on their SUVs'

    ReplyDelete
  11. This is a bunch of sensational anti-gun bullshit. When you read about a shootout with AUTOMATIC gunfire and GRENADES do you think it is the fault of the US dealers. You can't buy automatic weapons without extreme paperwork. Semi-Auto yes, but not auto. And no US dealers sell Grenades. Those are coming from Mexican Army, Guatemala, Colombia etc..

    With tons of cocaine flowing from and through countries with an abundance of $100 fully automatic AK-47 you want us to believe that semiauto $500 AK-47 are pouring over the border from the US and "fueling" violence in Mexico? BULLSHIT. Propaganda. Sure some guns from the US end up in Mexico. But that is a symptom of weak government and corruption in Mexico that is a result of the US desire for drugs made illegal by the government.

    How about all those beheadings, arms, and legs being chopped off? Whose fueling all that violence?

    Answer: the CHINESE. They're supplying easy access to inexpensive and highly dangerous knives and saws that are used to hack people up. Damn those evil Chinese. Why doesn't FECALderon go to Beijing and bang his fist about that issue? Pendejos...

    ReplyDelete
  12. First a NPR copy and paste - now quotes from the Washington Post!!!?
    Should we expect nothing less from Smurf?
    Frontera

    ReplyDelete
  13. Everybody wants it his way. I say ban 'em all. There's no reason anybody needs an assault rifle - none. BUT where are the grenades, grenade launchers coming from? Stolen from Mexican army arsenals while the comandante turned his back and collected a nice fee. It's not a simple solution and, as usual, blame the gringos.

    But you can't have it both ways you bunch of hypocrites. If you're gonna hate the US you have to stay in Mexico. If you come to the US you can't bitch, you have to become a citizen and contribute something.

    Capo is hilarious. He's got an entire global conspiracy theory. You're funny Capo.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Wow! What a lot of incredibly misinformed (or at least underinformed) "opinion". Anon at 10:53, where does the article state fully-automatic? No soldier worth a crap would ever use a fully automatic weapon because of the huge waste of ammo. Even the US Military practices 3 round bursts. A semi-automatic is more effective at killing - fires as fast as you can pull the trigger without screwing up your aim.

    As for Capo, really? A conspiracy against Mexico? C'mon. You need to step away from the processing plant jefe. You are inhaling too much product.

    As for the right wing NRA nuts....the government is NOT going to take your dog and rape your women if you don't have an AK-47. And the vast majority of civilized countries in the world have very stringent controls over guns and much lower per capita gun crimes, so get your stats from somewhere reliable...and Fox News ain't it.

    The ATF and DEA both detailed the tens of thousands of US guns captured in Mexico. So far, the estimate exceeds 60%.

    No one said the gun dealers are evil, but maybe we should think twice about semi-automatic military weapons. These have nothing to do with hunting or sport and everything to do with killing people. And, of course, making insecure people feel a little more brave and macho.

    C'mon, get your facts straight before sounding off...

    ReplyDelete
  15. Nothing stirs the hornet's nest like an article that is even mildly critical of our holy blessed guns.

    Let's see, we've got a New World Order guy at post one.
    At post three, we have someone who is so outraged he has inexplicably decided that no one one on this site pays attention to anything critical of Mexico.
    Then we've got some who know more about this than the ATF along with others who stop in to make their tired "so I guess we should ban GMCs"/ "I guess we should ban knives"/ "I guess we should ban cowboy boots" kind of arguments.

    Americans will never be able to look at this issue rationally.
    Never.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Funny how gringos react when the evidence is stack up against them...and turn a blind eye to everything and blame everyone else...How about you man up and take responsibility? Oh wait that is to hard for you right??? But so easy for all you gringos to blame mexico for ur drugs going north right?? bunch of hypocrites... and you say keep crying some more oh please..seems like your doing all the crying for us hahahaha...

    ReplyDelete
  17. We don't need need "assault" rifles, but unlike mexico we don't need a reason to own them. Mexico is a model for "when guns are outlawed only criminals will have them". I belong to a hunting club down there and do own some weapons in Mexico but it's a lengthy process with a lot of hoops to jump through. The guns you see in the hands of cartel members in Mexico are not being stolen from the mexican army, do any of you conspiracy theory buffs know what rifle is carried by soldiers in Mexico? They mostly carry the h&k g3 in 7.62x51 nato or .308, not really the preferred weapon of sicarios. The grenades and a lot of the weapons are coming in along with the tons of cocaine from central/south America. Some weapons are coming from the U.S unfortunately bought by straw buyers. If you ever witness a straw buy please call atf. Anyway I would like to see sicarios try pull off the same crap they are doing in Mexico here in the states, not very many would be left as we are very well armed.

    ReplyDelete
  18. The facts speak for themselves. the overwhelming majority are US origin, SEMI-automatic guns. Period full-stop. You can claim an anti-gun agenda all you want, but the numbers are very very clear. Remember, reporters get a little excited with headlines like "Automatic Gunfire" but the weapons seized are in fact semi-automatic.

    The $100 Chinese AK-47s are a ruse. A) They don't really exist and B) the sicarios want US guns because the cheap Chinese copies are shit. And no one wants fully automatic!! Except maybe for a couple of the armchair critics and gun-nuts commenting here. At 350-600 rounds per minute and a 20 round clip, on full auto you would be through that in 2 seconds. Even sicarios know that you conserve rounds and are more effective and accurate when you are on semi-auto.

    The ATF has acknowledged that some of the grenades are US origin but have probably been sold/stolen through Guatemala or Honduras (boy were we smart to sell them to those guys)and the ammo comes from all over.

    You hardcore gun-nuts love to label everything "propaganda" when it contradicts your opinion. Facts are undeniable. Like or it hate it, the majority of guns used in crimes in Mexico are of US origin. The other issues in Mexico are separate and reflect deficiencies within the Mexican system. And I agree with some - while we should work to limit access, it is Mexico that is letting these guns in...

    ReplyDelete
  19. Yay 1:13! You have the most rational point today! I agree with you totally! : )

    ReplyDelete
  20. @December 13, 2010 1:13 PM
    Great points, exactly Americans will never be able to look at this issue rationally. Never. I am was in the military and think we should ban assault weapons. Who the fuck really needs AK-47 or AR-15 or Barret .50 unless china or another country is invading, no reason!!! but lets recount some of the pointless arguments these ppl say...bz its so funny!!!

    "This is yet another anti-American "

    "This is a bunch of sensational anti-gun bullshit. "

    "same line of thought I've notice that sicarios drive Fords and Chevrolet SUV's we must clamp down on Ford and GM for enabling the drug and extortionist gangs getting around on their SUVs'"

    "The USA has 30,000 officers for 1,900 miles.You tell me,who is at least trying?No,you'll just keep crying and blame it on big brother,you've been doing it since we kicked ass a 100 yrs ago.You were big brother then and those gringos'came and showed you how it was done"

    "the CHINESE. They're supplying easy access to inexpensive and highly dangerous knives and saws that are used to hack people up. Damn those evil Chinese. Why doesn't FECALderon go to Beijing and bang his fist about that issue? Pendejos..."

    What intelligent ppl we have here in the U.S. haha...no one is talking about having GUNS ban maybe another weapons assault ban which is a good thing. Being in the military I NEVER FIRED on FULL AUTO NEVER!! not even in a combat zone bz its a waist of ammo and bz were trained as expert marksmen haha...so quit bitching all of you.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Black market suppliers of Asian AK type weapons and even Eastern Block countries have these suppliers; that is how cartel/zeta killers are getting some of the guns. How many are coming right from the Mexican Federal Armory? This, after all, is where the zetas came from to start with.60,000 guns confiscated and less than a few thousand come from sources in the US that are named in the article. The same way the drugs make their way in to the US, so do the guns make their way into Mexico. Law abiding citizend need not have to fear owning weaponry to defend themselves, their families, and even their community. Mexican citizens, on the other hand, are subjects thanks to their idiotic gun laws.

    ReplyDelete
  22. That Capo character should buy Jessie Venturas new book, it's full of other wild conspiracy theories.

    I heard Obama is personally involved in the new world order and wants to conquer mexico and become mexico's first black president.

    Capo be afraid be very afraid.

    ReplyDelete
  23. @December 13, 2010 1:22 PM

    Great points!!

    To all of you conspiracy theory buffs its funny how all of you say they were given by the Mexican military when that is false. Do you even know what type of gun the Mexican military uses? I'm guessing by your answers you do not, so get your facts straight before you start making false accusations and maybe you should provide proof also!! By the way they used the G3 for a while, now they use the FX-05, a G36 knockoff but again don't you think we would be seeing more G36 on the streets instead of AR-15 or AK-47s if they were getting them from the Mexican military?? Blaming Mexico for why these weapon are in criminal hands is another way of saying that most Americans want to blame there responsibility on firearm control on the Mexicans when the sad fact is they do come from the US, bought legally or illegally. DUH!!! Just read the recent arrest of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics undercover agent Francisco Javier Reyes Luna also reported by Borderland Beat on Aug. 13 2010 maybe u should read it. He is facing three counts of federal firearm violations. Then come talk to me about where the cartels get there guns??

    ReplyDelete
  24. IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT THEY ARE GETTING WEAPONS FROM OTHER SOURCES!!! THE ISSUE IS THAT WE ARE SUPPLYING A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT!!! RETARDS I SWEAR!!!

    ReplyDelete
  25. Everybody now is supposed to act shocked and surprised because there is an arms race going on out there, but why? The arms industry is big time and is centered in the production of weapons in the US, several Western European countries, Israel, Russia, and China. But after half a century of Cold War fed arming of anybody and everybody, followed by still more of the same.... what's really new here? Nothing. Big gun store sales in Texas? Why I'm shocked!... NOT.

    Ernest1

    ReplyDelete
  26. http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/counting-mexicos-guns/

    ReplyDelete
  27. I AGREE WITH ANONYMOUS AT 2:26PM

    ReplyDelete
  28. the whole list is 1021 guns...i am sure a lot of guns come from the us...would it be better if they got them ALL from somewhere else?..would they be less deadly or something?

    ReplyDelete
  29. This is why it's called the black market. People will go to great lengths to get whatever they. Be it a heroin addict in the US, or a farc terrorist in the jungles of Columbia.

    ReplyDelete
  30. So what is the Mexican gov doing to stem the flow of arms from the north? If it's such a problem, Mexico oughta build a wall across its norther border!

    ReplyDelete
  31. "By the way they used the G3 for a while, now they use the FX-05, a G36 knockoff but again don't you think we would be seeing more G36 on the streets instead of AR-15 or AK-47s if they were getting them from the Mexican military??"

    Most South American militaries have issued the M16 family. The M16 is one of four rifles considered standard issue in Mexico along with the G3, G36, and FX-05. They bought something like 30,000 G36s and have made 50,000 FX-05s. I haven't found numbers for the M16, but since they've been standard issue since 1971, it's probably a lot more than the others. Now that they're phasing M16 out in favor of the FX-05, you're also going to see increasing numbers of those M16s sitting in on shelves in arsenals where they can conveniently go missing without anyone noticing.

    ReplyDelete
  32. I have a simple solution.
    Close the border effective immediately.
    No people can cross, no goods, nada, nothing.
    Seal it tight.
    Zero tolerance for anyone caught crossing the US/Mexico border either direction, death penalty.
    That way Mexico is saved from guns and the US is saved from drugs.
    Do it for the children!

    ReplyDelete
  33. Of course the majority of weapons confiscated that can be TRACED are traced to US dealers. What % of guns aren't traced????? There is no way to trace guns that come into Mex through the southern border via Central America and those that come in through ports in Veracruz, Manzanillo and Lazero Cardenas because guns from China, Russia and the worlds black market are not tracable due the lack of there being databases and widespread corruption. The last time I drove into Mexico, it was raining at the 12 km entry station, so the Mex Gov closed the station so they wouldn't get wet. What a fucking joke. Build a wall Mexico!

    ReplyDelete
  34. @December 13, 2010 4:36 PM

    Another conspiracy theory buff haha..Do you know the freakin difference between the AR-15 and M16 cuz obviously you dont!! Many of the weapons confiscated are AR-15!!! And again you make assumptions you use words like

    "it's probably"

    "I haven't found numbers for the M16" and

    "you're also going to see increasing numbers of those M16s sitting in on shelves in arsenals where they can conveniently go missing without anyone noticing."

    Well shit if we all could make false accusations without proof then I could easily say were going to be seeing more M16 A2 on the streets bz the Marines are replacing them with the M16 A4. Like you said "you're going to see increasing numbers of those M16s sitting in on shelves in arsenals where they can conveniently go missing without anyone noticing." But do I say that, NO, bz im not a fucking moron like you! Here read these reports on the bottom I actually back my shit up with facts and not with false accusations and use words like "probably" haha

    http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09709.pdf

    http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/bitstreams/19331.pdf

    ReplyDelete
  35. If you read the pgr bulletins you can see for yourself that a lot of weapons do not have serial numbers. It's not because they file them off. In a small machine shop you can manufacture all the ar and ak receivers you want. Getting the uppers is a simple matter since they can not be considered a firearm. So they build them without a serial number to become untraceable versus buying them complete and then smuggling them across the border. Ar and ak rifles are considered disposable by cartel members. Also military deserters don't just take off with an arsenal of weapons. Afaik no soldier in Mexico can take weapons home. Sedena has a very strict count of inventory. H&K products are not cheap and are not usually found in weapon caches. I have seen pics of Hk mp5's confiscated with select fire lowers, I can guarantee you those were accuired from Europe or south america.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Smurf, looks like you have all the NRA's cheerleaders after your butt. Watch your back buddy. I'm with you.

    ReplyDelete
  37. To Anonymous simple solution. That is the only thing that will work. I agree. Shut down the border. no one in no one out. no drugs or guns.

    Mexico can deal with the sick people who seem to think that cutting people up is normal.

    ReplyDelete
  38. "Another conspiracy theory buff haha..Do you know the freakin difference between the AR-15 and M16 cuz obviously you dont!! Many of the weapons confiscated are AR-15!!!"

    The only real difference between an M16 and an AR-15 is the trigger group. If you knew anything you'd know that. The AR-15 often has a different bolt carrier and most have A2 sights, but neither of those things have to be true.

    "Here read these reports on the bottom I actually back my shit up with facts and not with false accusations and use words like "probably" haha"

    Your reports rest on the same bullshit we've seen before. It's all based on Mexico conducting traces of guns through the ATF. But they only do this for suspected US guns (which are relatively easy to discern by inspection). There is a big difference between 87% of US traces of Mexican crime guns coming from the US and 87% of Mexican crime guns coming from the US.

    ReplyDelete
  39. This is very easy, seal the border. We have more than enough troops to carry out the mission. Begin mass deportations to cleanse out criminals, end all aid to Mexico both monetary and military and let them deal with their problem and their South American/Russian guns.

    And I am not white just in case you racist pricks try to say Im some white right wing christian mexican hating nut.....

    ReplyDelete
  40. HEY LITO BRITO!!! I REALLY ENJOY READING UR COMMENTS BECAUSE U ADD A LOT TO BB....BUT I HAVE TO SAY THAT YA I WOULD WAY RATHER HAVE THEM BUYING ARMS FROM OTHER PLACES BECAUSE THEM BUYING FROM US TOTALLY SUPPORTS BLAME ON THE US IN MORE THAN ONE ASPECT OF THE BLOODY WAR....PEOPLE CAN SAY "HEY THATS NOT THAT MANY GUNS WE ARE CONTRIBUTING!" BUT THE FACT STILL REMAINS THAT WE ARE SUPPLYING THE ENEMY IF IN FACT THEY ARE ENEMIES.....IT SEEMS AS IF THEY ARE ALLIES AS MUCH TRADE GOES BETWEEN THE US AND DRUG CARTELS....JUST FOOD FOR THOUGHT...I DO RESPECT U LITO AND THIS IS ONLY MY OPINION....

    ReplyDelete
  41. @December 14, 2010 4:50 AM

    "There is a big difference between 87% of US traces of Mexican crime guns coming from the US and 87% of Mexican crime guns coming from the US."

    I guess I proved my point and rest my case haha...big difference huh???

    ReplyDelete
  42. Yeah we shouldn't be supplying guns to mexico at all! that is the main point! it wouldn't matter if we only sold 1 gun, we still would be supporting the downfall of our civilization as we know it! this isn't like the 80's when guns where being sold in record proportions black market on our streets as a form of extermination, with the idea that we (minorities) would just take each other out.....i think this is how gov't saw this, but the simple fact of the matter is those who provide arms for the cartels are committing treason! the cartels are not just simple gangs against each other like bloods and crips or surenos and nortenos..they are very cunning and intelligent almost corporation themed criminal enterprizes against anyone standing in their way...they are against us and anyone else who supports anti-drug and criminal activity policies.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated, refer to policy for more information.
Envía fotos, vídeos, notas, enlaces o información
Todo 100% Anónimo;

borderlandbeat@gmail.com