Posted on 05/30/2009 8:42:20 AM PDT by Flavius
Federal agents have broken up a gun-smuggling ring in the Houston area that was allegedly sending weapons to criminal gangs in Mexico. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has 100 additional agents in the border region for a 120-day special deployment under what is called “Project Gunrunner.”
The ATF agents involved in “Project Gunrunner” are trying to locate and seize weapons before they can be taken over the border into Mexico and investigate past trafficking of guns as well. This week federal agents arrested eight of ten people indicted for smuggling guns that were later seized by Mexican authorities and provided to ATF for tracing.
The Special Agent in Charge of the ATF Houston region, Dewey Webb, speaking to VOA by telephone, said such smuggling operations are directly linked to murders south of the border.
“We know that this particular group bought over, I think, 338 guns over a 15-month period and spent over $368,000 doing that and out of those 338 guns, 72 of them have been recovered in Mexico and Guatemala, so far,” he said. “Out of the 72 guns, 36 of the guns have been connected to shooting deaths in Mexico. Out of the 36 deaths, 17 of them have been police officers and civilians.”
(Excerpt) Read more at sofmag.com ...
The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.
While 90 percent of the guns traced to the U.S. actually originated in the United States, the percent traced to the U.S. is only about 17 percent of the total number of guns reaching Mexico.
o, if not from the U.S., where do they come from? There are a variety of sources:
— The Black Market. Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.
— Russian crime organizations. Interpol says Russian Mafia groups such as Poldolskaya and Moscow-based Solntsevskaya are actively trafficking drugs and arms in Mexico.
- South America. During the late 1990s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) established a clandestine arms smuggling and drug trafficking partnership with the Tijuana cartel, according to the Federal Research Division report from the Library of Congress.
— Asia. According to a 2006 Amnesty International Report, China has provided arms to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Chinese assault weapons and Korean explosives have been recovered in Mexico.
— The Mexican Army. More than 150,000 soldiers deserted in the last six years, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo. Many took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.
— Guatemala. U.S. intelligence agencies say traffickers move immigrants, stolen cars, guns and drugs, including most of America’s cocaine, along the porous Mexican-Guatemalan border. On March 27, La Hora, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported that police seized 500 grenades and a load of AK-47s on the border. Police say the cache was transported by a Mexican drug cartel operating out of Ixcan, a border town.
No mention in the article concerning the racial makeup of those facilitating the ‘gunrunning’ on this side of the border.
ping to self.
Thanks Flavius.
Don’t they know that guns aren’t allowed in Mexico? /sarc
Lets see, I’m in mexico and run drugs for a living. I’ve already bought the local police, judges, and politicians.
Am I gonna go to the US and buy a semi-auto ar-15 for about $900. Or would I go somewhere else and buy a full auto M-16 for about $200 or less.
What would I do, hmmmmmm
Also no mention if the people were American citizens or not.
Another possibility is entrapment... I don’t believe that the ATF/FBI/whomever are wholly on the up-and-up.
There’s something phony about this piece.
I got the following in an email today- haven’t checked it out yet:
Step 1 in disarming of Americans
This is a call to arms
Georgia Arms is the 5th largest retailer of .223 Ammo in America .
They sell 9mm, .45, .223 ammunition.
They normally buy spent brass from the US Department of Defense.
Spent brass is “one time used” shell cases used by our Military for training purposes.
They buy the brass, recondition it, and then reload the brass for resale to
Law Enforcement, Gun Clubs, Gun Shops, and stores like Wal-Mart.
They normally buy 30,000 lbs of spent brass at a time.
This week the DoD wrote a letter to the owner of Georgia Arms and informed him
that from now on the DoD will be destroying the spent brass, shredding it.
It will no longer be available to the ammo makers, unless they buy it in a scrap
shredded condition (which they have no use for).
The shredded brass is now going to be sold by the DoD to China as scrap metal,
after the DoD pays for it to be shredded.
The DoD is selling the brass to China for less money than the ammo makers have
been paying, plus the DoD has to pay to have the brass shredded and
do the accounting paperwork.
This sure helps the economy now doesn’t it?
Sell cheaper to China , and do not sell at all to a proven US business.
Any hidden agenda working here?
Obama is going after the Firearms Industry and our ammunition!!
The Georgia Arms owner even related a story that one of his competitors had
already purchased a load of brass last week.
The DoD contacted him this week and said they were sending someone over to
make sure it was destroyed.
Shell cases he had already bought!
The brass has no value to the ammo maker if it is destroyed/shredded/melted.
The ammo manufacturer only uses the empty brass cases to reload
different calibers, mainly .223 bullets.
The owner of Georgia Arms says that he will have to lay off at least half of his 60 workers,
within 2-3 months if the DoD will no longer sell spent brass cases to the industry.
Georgia Arms has 2-3 months of inventory to use, by summer they’re out.
If the Reloading Industry has to purchase new manufacture brass cases,
then the cost of ammunition will double or even triple,
plus Obama wants to add a 500% tax on each shell.
You can read the information and see the DoD letter to Georgia Arms here:
The Shootist Site
http://www.theshootist.net/2009/03/dod-ends-sale-of-expended-military.html
“There’s something phony about this piece.”
My first though as well. I’ve seen other stories where the White House is refusing reporters access and generating their own news stories. I wonder if this isn’t one of those.
That did happen but I heard the action was reversed after a few days.
I read that after this came to light, the DoD reversed course on this, and are going to continue to sell to ammo manufacturers.
Thank you.
Interesting, the ole "I think", an if so it computes to about $1100 per gun, a little high.
Then again, only 72 have been recovered in Mexico AND GUATEMALA.
I suspect that there are theft recovery guns included in that group rendering "gun running" minuscule.
Disinformation
Couldn't agree more.
Self preservation (and by extension, self-defense) is a universal, God-given right - a right that the Mexican government has been denying its own citizens for many years. Why are we devoting money and manpower to helping Mexico violate the civil rights of its citizens?
BS? Trying to validate the claim the 90% claim?
FYI, there is no NEED for the Supremes to consider 2nd Amendment “Incorporation”! FACT: The 2nd Amendment is SELF-incorporated to all government entities at every level. It is MORE ABSOLUTE than the 1st Amendment, or any of the others, because the wording forbids not only CONGRESS, but ANYONE from infringing on it. The 1st says “Congress shall make no law...”. The 2nd say “shall NOT be infringed!” Period! End of debate!
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