Posted on 03/23/2005 4:01:40 AM PST by Jane_N
Gun laws good; gun lobbies bad.
CBS News and 60 Minutes are not credible news sources.
Dupe thread..
The main thing is to get as many citizens disarmed as possibile before the enemy gets here. ( Famous quote from Dec. 8, 1941!!)
Good to know we can arm ourselves quickly if needs be.
Who said that?
This story is full of deception, lies, half-truths, and emotional crap designed to get people like Chuck Shumer all het up to pass legislation against any honest citizen who wishes to own a fifty caliber rifle, or purchase any type of ammunition for it. Example: fifty caliber is weapon of choice. OK, all youse guys that want the weapon of choice are doomed to carry it, and the ammunition all by yourselves.
There is a recurring theme in the article that disturbs me deeply. If I am not mistaken, those purchasing said weapons might be related by the "religion of peace", a far more significant statistic than the number of fifty caliber weapons taken to Kosovo.
Wasn't the whole battle in Kosovo about Muslim terrorists attempting to take land by squatters rights so to speak, and thus gain themselves another country just because they could. I'm thinking if all that be true, then sixty minutes is off in left field where they have pretty much been from the beginning, focusing the narrow attention of the American people away from the real problem and helping to fix it so honest Americans will have a great deal of difficulty matching "government in firepower".
A situation brought on by more and more gun control and less and less government control of what government by the Constitution is supposed to be in control of. Since I cannot research my premise without sitting on this post for a half hour, I'll just throw caution to the wind, like 60 minutes, and throw my stuff out on the street and see if it floats.
Now let me see if I can make any sense of this thread.
Problem: An Albanian (read Muslim) illegally enters our country, somehow gains American citizenship, uses his Second Amendment rights as an American citizen to purchase firearms and then illegally exports them. Now, this criminal openly boasts of his criminal activity, and CBS uses his criminal export of firearms as an excuse to attack the Second Amendment rights of all Americans.
Recommended Solution: This self confessed felon should be arrested, prosecuted and appropriately sentenced for his illegal entry into this country, violation of our firearms export laws, his ill-gotten American citizenship revoked, and after he serves time for his crimes he should be deported.
"New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly had a sharpshooter fire the department’s own .30-caliber sniper rifle and the bullets bounced off a half-inch-thick plate of steel."
.30-06 AP ammo will blow through 1/2 inch steel plate with ease and will penetrate 7/8 inch steel.
As far as the .50 BMG goes, if they ban it somebody will come up with a .49 BMG or similar. In fact J. D. Jones already has. 14.5 mm JDJ
http://www.sskindustries.com/14.htm
I thought you had to be a citizen to purchase guns in all 50 States?
I think it far more likely that they are simply going to black market sources that are rampant in places like the Middle East and former Soviet states and getting whatever they need no questions asked. I'm expecting that 60 Minutes will probably gin up some photos and phony documents showing Bin Laden personally buying guns at a local Wal Mart.
One, Barrett Firearms sold rifles to the US Government. They were picked up in US Government trucks and shipped to US Government bases. How any may have ended up in the hands of Afghan "freedom fighters" or in Kosovo is anybody's guess. But to claim that terrorists are shopping US gun shows and stores is pure lunacy.
Any terrorists or drug dealers who want a handy, 30-pound "pocket rocket" that is pretty beat up and used hard for a cool 20 large, email me and I'll tell you where it is.
I think 60 minutes misses the point. We need to secure the borders and keep the terrorists out, not disarm the potential victims.
More info, including Krasniqi - Holbrooke - Clark footing, can be found in the Dutch-produced video documentary 'The Brooklyn Connection'. (Click on one of the "video" links. Except for the first minute or so, the documentary is in English)
Stacy Sullivan, who covered the Balkans for Newsweek, has pulled off an improbable feat. She has written an irresistibly readable book about the grim war in Kosovo, a conflict obscure to many Americans, even during the 78 days in 1999 when the United States was pounding the place with bombs. Sullivan has found an original way to cut through the Balkan fog—the murk of Ottoman history, the unfamiliar names and places, the unsympathetic viciousness of all ethnic groups in the many wars that ripped Yugoslavia apart. Her narrative knife is a guy from Brooklyn.
His name is Florin Krasniqi. He's an immigrant from Kosovo and an American success story. Arriving in Brooklyn with nine words of English, he became a roofing contractor and before long was taking home $100,000 a year. In the way of many smart guys from Brooklyn, he was persuasive, creative and, if need be, ruthless. In the way of many ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, he believed that forcing Serbs out of his homeland was an end that justified any means.
From Brooklyn, Krasniqi tapped fellow Albanian immigrants for $30 million to fund the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). He shopped American to outfit the insurgents with everything from satellite telephones to .50 caliber sniper rifles. These weapons, with a range of two miles and enough power to punch through armored vehicles, were available to anyone with $7,000, no questions asked. Krasniqi told Sullivan he couldn't believe how lax American gun laws are. He found much of what he needed for guerrilla war right around the corner in Brooklyn. He bought walkie-talkies from a Radio Shack in Kings Plaza mall off Flatbush Avenue.
With this guy from Brooklyn grounding her readers in a known American place, Sullivan is able to tell a war story that never seems remote, even though most Americans would be hard pressed to find Kosovo on a map. The narrative is so strong that you hardly notice that Sullivan's book is deeply serious, historically sophisticated and morally complex. Her protagonist is not a good guy. She suggests—without saying so outright—that Krasniqi murdered an Albanian hoodlum who had killed a key leader of the KLA. She shows again and again how Krasniqi sacrificed his business, his family, his village and thousands of innocent civilians across Kosovo for the sake of defeating Serbs.
A hero framed in black is a good choice, and not just because Krasniqi is such an irresistible character. For as Sullivan well knows, there were few good guys in the Kosovo war, the fourth of four Yugoslav wars that Slobodan Milosevic fomented and lost in his decade of bloody misrule. Milosevic had risen to power in Serbia—and escaped the fate of other communist hacks in Eastern Europe—by fanning ethnic hatred. There was no greater such hatred than that between Serbs and Albanians. History had yoked them together in the Yugoslav federation, with Kosovo a province inside the republic of Serbia. Serbs regarded Kosovo as their historical homeland, but on the ground in the province, Albanians outnumbered them nine to one. Albanians had long taken pride in harassing Serbs, forcing them to sell out and flee next door to Serbia.
Milosevic figured out that avenging Serb resentment over this harassment would cement his power. So he assured Serbs that Albanians would never beat them again. To that end, he created a brutal police state inside Kosovo that bullied and murdered Albanians. That, in turn, set off bullying and murderous retaliation by Albanians who slowly coalesced into the KLA. Sullivan tells this messy story as clearly and succinctly as it can be told. She also explains—in a fresh and fascinating way—how Krasniqi and the KLA sucked the United States and NATO into their nasty war. It was the most cynical and savage of public relations tricks. As Sullivan explains it, the KLA attacked and killed Serbian military and police, knowing full well that Milosevic would retaliate in a way that would nauseate the West. And sure enough, it worked. Serb forces cut throats, gutted pregnant women, mashed the skulls of old men. The United States and Europe, guilty about their sluggish response to Milosevic's war crimes in Bosnia, could not stomach it and quickly threatened to bomb, just as the KLA had hoped. Milosevic refused to back down, bombs fell, and Serbia lost the war. Before being forced out, Serb forces managed to destroy much of Kosovo and kill an estimated 10,000 people. Albanians then committed numerous revenge killings. Milosevic is gone, but the status of Kosovo is unresolved. Impoverished ill-governed and restive, it is still part of Serbia. And it has been all but forgotten by a world obsessed with terrorism and Iraq. The Balkans, though, have an enduringly toxic way of causing trouble that cannot be ignored. With the help of the guy from Brooklyn, Sullivan's engaging book explains why.
Was there any mention of Krasniqi by the locals at all? You said you were in Kosovo and just wondering if his name was uttered among the KLA command.
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