Once more, with feeling
The Mexican gun canard is in full swing again. It’s like there’s a narrative or something. And the inadequacy of U.S. efforts to stop the illegal trafficking? Sounds to me like the inadequacy is from the folks who keep letting the guns get in the country. You know what would stop that? Some sort of border control.
September 13th, 2010 at 9:05 am
So now they need to tell us how many of those 68,000 US-origin firearms were exported to the Mexican government under proper import/export licenses.
September 13th, 2010 at 9:06 am
I would bet that congress is gonna go after some sort of anti gun legislation in their lame duck session
September 13th, 2010 at 9:19 am
On page 19 it says most of the AR15s being purchased are being converted to full auto select fire weapons.
That reeks of bullshit. Whattya wanna bet they’re really Mexican Army and Police deserters’ M4/M16s in the first place?
Converting them to full auto is by what I’ve read no small feat. Right?
September 13th, 2010 at 9:41 am
There are a lot of references there to “conversations with ATF officials” and VPC research (google searches).
My email to the authors:
Gentlemen,
Enjoyed reading your report on arms trafficking to Mexico.
Some questions:
1) Unless I missed it, I didn’t see any mention of what percentage of the arms recovered from DTOs that were supplied by deserters from the Mexican Army and Police. There have been indications that large scale corruption in the Mexican Army and police forces exists, and huge numbers of deserters have fled their low paying, dangerous positions for more lucrative ones with the DTOs. It seems reasonable they’ll take their arms with them when they decide to go–is there any distinction made when the firearms traces are performed to determine whether the traced arms were actually supplied by the US Govt to the Mexican one?
2) Your article mentions AR15s converted to select fire. This process requires skilled machining and precision shop work and expertise. I would be curious to see the communication you reference with ATF officials about that–it doesn’t ring true, given the difficult nature of that firearms machining task. Is this something you can share or reference (officials identity redacted, of course)?
September 13th, 2010 at 9:59 am
There is a Narrative!
The Left leaning journalists have a email list they use to coordinate their attacks on conservatives. It’s called “JournoList”. The following is a long article explaining how the left leaning journalists used the list. You must read it!
http://bigjournalism.com/dweigel/2010/06/28/hubris-and-humility-david-weigel-comes-clean-on-washington-post-the-d-c-bubble-the-journolist/
further information can be found here…
http://dailycaller.com/journolist/
and here…
http://pajamasmedia.com/?s=Journolist
September 13th, 2010 at 10:25 am
I’ve, um… “seen” all the M16 internals for sale, no questions asked, but it’s been some years back. Of the parts that are different, metal must be added to AR15 parts except the trigger itself, which has a bit less. There’s a part you can bolt onto the bolt carrier, and the rest are easier. It could be done.
September 13th, 2010 at 10:36 am
Evil–I’m sure it can be done, but I think the point I was getting at is why would the average third world DTO bother doing that when Mexican army and police schlubs have deserted by the thousands, taking their already select fire rifles with them?
September 13th, 2010 at 11:03 am
I think Sebastian (the guy with no blog) is right. If the cartels want full auto weapons they are probably not too hard to find. They really dont need to go to the effort of converting semi-auto when they can just go out and get some actual M4s.
September 13th, 2010 at 11:09 am
Ok, now my bullshit detector is reaaaaaallly going off.
Their response to my email:
They didn’t find any examples of Mexican Army deserters taking their weapons with them?
Please.
As though people are buying fully auto weapons and explosives the DTOs use at US gun shops. Durrrr.
As for the 15-20 minute full auto conversion…the BS detector just hit the redline.
September 13th, 2010 at 11:12 am
It’s too bad I don’t have a blog or time for one. A sharpwitted blogger doing some poking around here could probably blow this thing wide open.
The question is now…do I write them back?
September 13th, 2010 at 11:13 am
If only there was some blogger you could email that stuff to who would publish it đŸ™‚
September 13th, 2010 at 11:23 am
Hmm…yeah :).
Anyone have a good link I can email them about a) Mexican Army deserters (I know the NRA had something on that a few months ago) being the main source of cartel automatic weapons and b) showing them that it isn’t just 20min of tinkering to make an AR15 or Norinco fire fully auto?
September 13th, 2010 at 11:27 am
https://www.saysuncle.com/2009/03/24/more-on-mexico-4/
and
https://www.saysuncle.com/index.php?s=mexico+army
September 13th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
My response to them (and yes I’m playing a bit coy):
Interesting. I’ll give the full report a look.
As far as desertions go, apparently 150K Mexican soldiers have turned tail and left the Army in the last six years. See here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/03/11/mexico.desertions/index.html
It’s highly probable they’re taking their rifles with them. I would say it’s at least worth investigating–why go to the trouble of importing rifles on the sly at great expense and then trying to convert them to full auto when guys splitting from the Mexican Army can just bring their already full auto rifles with them? It’s also worth noting that the types of munitions the cartels are using in addition to rifles (explosives, grenades, man-portable rockets and anti-armor weapons) aren’t for sale at any US gun shops, as they’re regulated by the NFA and are prohibitively expensive even for those with the Title 3 tax stamp to by them. They’re not buying TOW rockets and Claymores and grenades at US gun shops…those are clearly war materials coming from the Army (presumably from corrupt officers and deserters). No reason to think they’re not also getting rifles that way. I would say digging on that would be important.
The “authorities” have a vested interest in kicking sand over that. It paints a much uglier picture because it shows that the breakdown of the Mexican govt and society writ large (and not the easy to vilify US gun market) is the real problem. It’s cleaner and easier to blame a gun shop in Arizona than the fact that 150K soldiers are tired of making $300 a month and taking off to make 20 times that with the DTOs because Mexico is essentially a failed country with tremendous corruption and falling apart military and govt institutions.
Of course ATF can tell which rifles came from the US–but all the rifles we send south (either illicitly or via the sale to the Mexican police and Army) are going to have US traces when you trace them.
As for doing the conversion, nothing firm that I’ve been able to research says how long it’ll take (though the consensus seems to be it isn’t that easy), and you’ll need a drop in auto-sear and M16 style bolt and carrier to make it work. The ATF tends to make it sound like you’re just doing a little machining on a die or jig and rubbing the trigger group with a file…but it’s not that simple. A lot goes into it.
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=162278
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKLD5yVl0PM
I would use that sort of information (uncredited ATF sources and the like) with caution. Doesn’t seem to tell the whole story.
September 13th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Heh. keep me updated. will link it up at its conclusion.
September 13th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
“If the cartels want full auto weapons they are probably not too hard to find. ”
And it would certainly not matter if they -were- hard to find! These are drug -cartels- they buy up smaller central and south american governments and trade them around like your kids trade ball cards. These aren’t hard working schlubs who file taxes and go to the kids’ scout meetings. They’re international businessmen who meet a very heavy demand for pharmaceuticals that the government has built a phenomenal profit into (see “black market pricing” or scarcity rents at your local search engine).
I agree that the guns are probably come with LE deserters, but this brand of pablum fails on a lot of levels in addition to that. -Boydk425
September 13th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Earlier today they wrote right back. Crickets for three hours.
Either they’re busy going “huh…wonder how we missed that” or more likely “another one of those gun nuts has stumbled onto our campaign to spread the narrative…if we ignore him maybe his molon labe shouting ass will go away.”
September 13th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
Sebastian (The blog deprived one) = Patriot
Keep up the supressive fire!
September 13th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Not just Mexican Army. How many M-16 pattern weapons (much less AK patterns from elsewhere) have we sold south of the border en toto?
The Mexicans don’t control much of their Southern border at all, moving military weapons acquired by any means from South and Central America along with the drug shipments in bulk would be child’s play and a lot cheaper and more efficient than onesie-twosie from “gun shows” and strawman sales.
September 14th, 2010 at 9:20 am
They are trying to say deserters don’t take their weapons with them????? BULLSHIT!!!
I was watching a news story on TV a few weeks ago about the Mexican border and they had video of a Mexican Army Humvee crossing the river into the US, so either the Mexican Army is invading the US, or Drug Cartel people have them, most likely thanks to army deserters bringing their equipment with them when the left the army. More than likely that humvee arrived at the Cartel loaded with “supplies” the ex-army guy thought would come in handy in his new line of work.
September 14th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Sort of reminds me of El Salvador in the 80’s when the narrative was that the Commie rebels were getting their weapons through battlefield success and .gov troops defecting with their weapons.
Turns out a lot the US weapons recovered from the rebels had serial numbers that traced to lots we supplied to the South Vietnamese in the 60’s and early 70’s.
But of course the Rebels were an internal spontaneous group. Not being supplied or encouraged by the Com-Bloc. Nope. Not in the narrative.
September 14th, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Why should Mexican drug cartels steal weapons (or buy them in the US) when they can get them free from Hugo Chavez? FARC has reportedly begun operations in Mexico, and Venezuela is an AK manufacturer. The guys who got shot-up in Nuevo Laredo back in July were carrying more AK’s than AR’s.
September 14th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
@Doug May:
That was probably the Mexican Army. They frequently cross over into the US as distraction and cover for the drug runners and coyotes.