We’ve been hearing the quote lately all over the news, from Hillary Clinton and other appointees of the current Administration, that semiautomatic weapons should be banned from good citizens such as those reading this because 90% of the firearms used in drug-related gun crimes in Mexico come from the United States.
Man, they didn’t have that much manure at the county fair I attended the other night.
It seems that only 17% of recovered crime guns down there actually originated in the USA. The 90% figure comes from traces done by the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Those traces were requested because the guns in question were made in the USA. “Well, duh…”
I never was good at math, but I did OK in logic class, so let’s look at it from that direction. The nation of Mexico has lawfully imported firearms in huge quantity from its north border neighbor over the course of the 19th through 21st centuries. From the days of the Western Frontier onward, American brands such as Colt, Smith & Wesson, and Winchester have been hugely popular there. The Mexican government has armed its police and its soldiers alike primarily with North American weapons, from the Colt .45 pistol to the same manufacturer’s M16 machine gun.
Reliable reports tell us that Mexican soldiers are deserting the military in droves, lured by the better paying drug cartels who give them bonuses if they bring Government-issue M16s, pistols, grenades and rocket launchers with them. (Did anyone but Obama appointees seriously believe that smugglers were buying fully automatic weapons, grenades, etc. from gun shops in Tucson and El Paso?) Those deserters now number well into six figures, and that’s before we start asking how many of the notoriously corrupt Mexican police have also diverted weapons to the drug cartels. And there are all those AK47s and similar weapons from Communist bloc countries smuggled into Mexico from elsewhere in Central America, and from South America, and beyond. Among them are obsolete American military weapons shipped to friendly governments for lawful use, and liberated by the drug kings and smugglers for “unintended consequences.”
More details can be found here, from our friend Jim Shepherd at The Shooting Wire. (Scroll down to the bottom of the page to “Finally Some Truth Leaks Out.”) The assertion that the heinous drug violence in Mexico can somehow be stopped by denying sale of semiautomatic firearms to law-abiding citizens of the United States doesn’t just fail to pass the smell test. It also plainly flunks Logic 101.
I always find it amazing the logic polititians will use to skew the numbers to match their adgenda.
If I remember right wasn’t it Bill Clinton that approved all the money and help to Mexico during his tenure as El Presidente.’ And then we look and see what our current President is doing on his world tour. I think we in a heap of trouble.
What absolutely amazes me is the fact that CNN and Fox News have actually been reporting this. I honestly expected them to bury it instead of giving it airtime.
Very well put and I think that most of us have understood this from day one. The issue at hand is not explaining and proving this to us but how do we explain this to the mainstream kool aid drinkers ? We need to stop the misinformation and brainwashing as quickly as possible before it becomes even more widespread than what it is now.
I think it`s clear from past experience with these pinheads, that real world facts and common sense isn`t their strong suit. This is just more disingenuous horse crap for the sole purpose of enacting their agenda. One day soon they will start a real fire and be the first ones amazed at how brightly it burns and how completely unexstinguishable it will be, all the while trying to convince the sheeple that, “Seee!!?? We told you they were whackos! They must be stopped with more useless legislation!”. There ain`t enough hollow, warm and fuzzy rhetoric to quench those flames once ignited. Keeeeep pushing….just keeeeep pushing.
I don’t do drugs nor have I been south of the border shooting up any thugs. It takes a real tortured sort of logic to restrict my rights. I’ve been to a lot of gun shows and I’ve never seen the armament the userper’s administration’s talking about. Hell- not even in the service. They’re not even trying to make it believable any more. Shows how out of touch with reality they are, ditto for those who voted them in.
“The assertion that the heinous drug violence in Mexico can somehow be stopped by denying sale of semiautomatic firearms to law-abiding citizens of the United States doesn’t just fail to pass the smell test. It also plainly flunks Logic 101.”
Logic is not something that is known to this socialist president and his administration.
If they had common sense, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. They will use any excuse they can to come after our guns. See you in a couple of days Mas.
Biker
Fine piece and I’ve seen several along the same lines, none of which will make any knid of dent. We talk to ourselves. Until we get past the idea that the current administration or congress can be reasoned with, we will continue along the same road. The objective is power – control, pure and simple.
The objective here is to control every aspect of our lives to engineer us into their idea of utopia. Think of Ayn Rand’s line in Atlas Shrugged: “Therefore we must control men in order to make them free.” When they control what car you can drive, whether you get a loan and what health care you can have, having taken away your ability to say “no thank you” requires your guns in their hands, not yours.
Elevate the debate. We are witnessing the greatest threat to individua rights in our history. “The devil’s in the details” has more than one meaning. In this case it’s “keep them mired in the details and we’ll steal the whole society before they realize it.”
Logic and facts aren’t useful to gun banners. They use emotions. Once again I’ll cite my brother in law as the prototypical example of the breed. When confronted with facts regarding guns and concealed carry he said, and this is a direct quote, “The facts don’t matter, guns are bad”. Let that sink in. “The facts don’t matter.” I am at a loss as to how to change the mind of a blockhead like that.
We must concentrate on supporting our allies in Washington, converting the fence sitters and defeating our opponents. Liberal blockheads like Clinton, Schumer, Obama, my brother in law, etal won’t change.
How can anti-gunners spin the story that the govt of Mexico is failing in such a robust way that violence and gangs are in almost each US State?
Bury the concept that we’re all at risk, and blame the way we defend ourselves if we’re going to acknowledge the risk.
Shift the debate…”give em something to talk about”!
Mexico’s problem isn’t the few guns that come from the United States. It’s that deep river of US dollars flowing south into a country so corrupt that every low level civil servant requires a gift to do his or her job. And I don’t just mean policemen either. The mailman requires an occasional gift to keep the mail coming to your house and security of Mexican postal system is so poor that companies I worked with insisted on electronic payment because their checks were being stolen. The phone repairman gets an honorarium too, otherwise your phone stops working. And corruption extends to private industry as well. Mexican companies suffer huge losses because their purchasing and bid processes are compromised by employees who sell information on competitor’s bids. Companies I know of keep their purchasing functions under tight control to minimize losses. As one of my colleagues, a long-time resident of Mexico observed, “In Mexico, there’s a monetary solution to every problem.” The corruption south of the border is systemic, that fact, along with America’s seemingly endless appetite for illegal drugs are Mexico’s biggest problems.
Just throwing this one out there; majority of SKS rifles in America manufactured by who? Yes, Norinco. Which former El’ Presedente still to this day has strong ties with said company? Yes, the very same that introduced the 1994 AWB to begin with, the same that approved their importation by the MILLIONS, the same that now today calls them the “scourge of law enforcement”. After all moneys have traded hands of course……anyone else see the flawed logic / irony in this logic101 class?
I think Bob Wagner is right on the money. They are trying to control us and baffle the gullible into believing their lies.
It all boils down to money.
It’s sad that greed has ruined our wonderful country.
God help us.
I don’t know Mass, I’ve posted elsewhere about this but didn’t came to your blog until today.
I really respect your background and achievements, but this post seems to defy your usual cold thought logic.
And besides some other mistakes.
For example, you list the Méxican army as M-16 tooting, well, it’s actually G3 tooting, and you don’t see many of those in the cartels hands, furthermore, I could show you AKs with Ultimak rails, thumb-hole-stocked-Aks, and even the more or less popular PS90, which admitedley are manufactured in Belgium, but why bring it over the pond when they can get those across the river?
And also, while Barrets/M107s where sold to México a while ago you also see cartels rolling with .50cal rifles, Armalite AR-50 among others, just tell me one thing that could convince me that they didn’t got it in the USA?
IDK Mass, I certainly didn’t wanted to even comment on this topic but I really expected a bit more in depth of a gun rights defender.
I’m certainly a pro-gun Méxican, and I cannot even stand sometimes the attitude of the important people in the pro-gun movement.
I know it’s old news by now but by ignoring all those facts the gun community is basically shooting itself on the foot rather than assessing the actual problem.