One more thing to know: The weapon was WALKED across the frickin’ border.
I dunno about walking a nuke across the border, but I worry about it being driven over. Driven over in a Mexican truck—sealed in a container that is not inspected. Bypassing US customs without a second glance. And all for the price of bribbing a low level Mexican shipping clerk.
Think it can’t happen?
Unfortunately, I don’t think even a nuke going off would wake this country out of its stupor. After one nuke, you’d have the NYT (if NY got nukes, substitute the WAPOST of LATIMES) calling for immediate negotiations, urging restraint, and stressing the many benefits of diversity and free-trade. Maybe if they took out Washington DC, NY, Boston, and LA it would do the trick. Very sad, but I suspect true. The reality-free liberal mindset is so entrenched in this country that it would take the death of a massive number of them to spur action.
ORLY? Enough resources to buy and arm a nuclear bomb, but so stupid as to "walk" it around and detonate it on the ground?
They will be more creative than you, because they want to cause damage, not gripe about their pet politic.
Sneak it on a US-bound aircraft from a low-security airport (like central america or caribbean)and quietly fly it in. Detonate on descent into, say, San Jose or Miami Airport while 500 feet up over dense city.
But you're not really interested in the nuke issue....just a borderbot bouncing around.
Probably didn’t walk across the border.
A tiny fraction of the containers were checked for such for a very long time. Probably even now it’s still a minority of the containers are checked.
Then there are personal or mini-sized subs . . .
Shoot, even a good sized van would do, IIRC.