Posted on 12/20/2008 7:14:37 AM PST by SwinneySwitch
WASHINGTON — A senior U.S. law enforcement official said Friday the Bush administration never assessed whether a decade-long assault weapon ban had reduced the flow of high-powered guns into the hands of Mexican drug gangs.
"I don't think we've ever really tracked it," said William McMahon, of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Since the expiration of the ban in 2004, Mexican drug syndicates have built up their stockpiles, Mexican officials say. They have long maintained that the weapons — many bought in Texas and smuggled into Mexico — have escalated the country's drug-fueled violence that has killed more than 5,400 people this year.
U.S. officials, by contrast, have insisted that the overriding challenge is to stem the relentless flood of illegal narcotics to American users.
The controversy flared Friday when the U.S. secretary of state and the Mexican foreign minister appeared at a joint news conference.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the ban's expiration had no bearing on Mexico's violence.
"I follow arms trafficking across the world, and I've never known illegal arms traffickers who cared very much about the law," Rice said. "And so I simply don't accept the notion that the lifting of the ban somehow has led arms traffickers to increase their activity."
But Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa said authorities in her country would favor restoration of the ban.
"If on the U.S. side there were a legislative decision to adopt an initiative like that, we would obviously be very attentive to that," she said.
Gun rights' groups suspect that President-elect Barack Obama may try to revive the ban on some automatic weapons. Obama's transition team listed "making the expired federal assault weapons ban permanent" as one of the goals of the incoming administration.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
Make it permanently expired!?
Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
—Mehico—(snicker) BUILD A FENCE—
Failure of Mexican law enforcement is due to too much Liberty here; only a democrat could suggest that, let alone try to act on it.
And many more smuggled in from elsewhere...if not a one came from the U.S. ther would be no fewer than there are now, just different sources.
Why waste time and money figuring out what one of our own laws does to Mexico? We have more than enough to worry about for ourselves.
Gee, I didn’t know that the AUTOMATIC WEAPONS being used by Mexican drug cartels can be purchased in Texas.
What about the Jets and the Sharks?
Yep. Nary a one was smuggled into mexico by the dope dealers before 2004. Zero.
"I don't think we've ever really tracked it," said William McMahon, of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Therefore that is exactly what the Mexicans will blame the problem on.
But Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa said authorities in her country would favor restoration of the ban.
Sooo, tell us Patricia, exactly why are we supposed to give a rat’s azz what you “favor?” The problem is yours and if the mexicas in general were not so corrupt the problem could be stopped.
Apparently the problem with Mexico is that it is full of Mexicans. Personally I no longer care if our “much needed economic angles to the south” dry up and blow away. I have heard all of the lies and seen all the corruption I can stand out of that bunch of arrogant jerks.
Why would Mexican gangs buy look-a-like assault weapons in the U.S. when they could by the real thing from their from the Mexican military or from Central America?
Exactly. Why would they smuggle in semi autos bought at retail in the US, when they could buy full auto AKs, and more modern designs, wholesale in bazaars all over the world? I'll bet a lot of the weapons are submachine guns and machine pistols.
If I hear Obama claiming he is taking away our rights to please drug-running Mexican politicians, I will take that as a Bad Thing.
The trafficantes can get even more fancy firearms from other countries easier than they can get them from the USA.
When the FDN disarmed in Nicaragua after the civil war, if memory serves, they turned in something like 3500 out of about 15,000 Chinese AKs that they had “purchased on the world market”. In El Salvador the FMLN was armed mostly with former ARVN and ES M16s. There is no record of how many they had but I don’t think many were turned in after the war. In Flores Guatemala in 1992 a Guat AF Sargent tried to sell me a Galil he had “found” for $400. I told him I wasn’t carrying cash.
If you want automatic weapons in Latin America you can get them and they don’t have to have come from Texas.
Then again there is a guy I know named Zio Luigi in Sestre Levante, Italy (not actually my uncle, just Uncle Luigi). His proudest possession is the MP38 his older brother carried in the communist resistance during WWII. And as everyone knows Italy has very strict gun control laws so there is no crime there.
Then there is the Finnish farmer who turned in a German FLAK 88 during a “gun amnesty” in Finland.
Face it folks. Gun control just doesn’t work.
I hope so.
I hope Obama is stupid enough expend the political capital to reinstate the AWB and ban the most popular sporting rifles in America. Let's see, this is legislation that at best has lukewarm support among democratic voters, it will do nothing to curtail violent crime and be largely symbolic in implementation. Of course, this "feel-good" legislation will result in guaranteed midterm congressional losses including the strong possibility of handing congress back to the Republicans who will then force Obama towards the center on issues important to democrat voters like healthcare and the economy.
How's that AWB sounding now, Obama? Go for it! I've already got mine and I know you don't have the stones to take it from me so you'll grandfather it in just like Bill did.
Ban on scary-looking guns with pistol grips or "progressive" legislation on healthcare and the economy? It's one or the other.
Actually, it's the ex post facto clause of the Constitution that we have to thank for that, not the largesse of President Billy Bob.
It will not matter as nobody is going to let them anyway, well, at least 98% of them will not.
When the infamous Roos-Roberti Assault Weapons Act was made law in 1989, a deadline was issued for registration of banned weapons. The deadline was pushed back a few times by the last Attorney General, Dan Lungren. By 1995, six years after the law went into effect, the Dept. of Justice in Sacramento admitted that only 2% (two percent!) of the estimated number of proscribed weapons had been registered.
This brings to mind Henry David Thoreau's essay, "On Civil Disobedience". The lawful owners of these rifles can never again enjoy shooting them, but they are secure in their knowledge that the state can never confiscate what it doesn't know exists, or where to find it. Those good guys (1500 of them) that did comply and register their proscribed rifles during the amnesty period that was later ruled illegal by the CA courts will now have their registered firearms confiscated, if the state hasn't done so already. Is there a moral here, somewhere?
Sincerely,
R. Mermelstein
http://www.gunownersalliance.com/Rabbi_0205.htm
and if that is not inspirational enough, they STILL are not turning them in even when they could get payed for them...
Illegal-Gun Buyback Slow Going
Only 250 rifles turned in despite budget for 5,600
Bernadette Tansey, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 29, 1999
(09-29) 04:00 PST CONCORD -- Owners of a semiautomatic assault rifle listed as banned under California gun-control law 10 years ago can saunter into Concord police headquarters, plunk the weapon down and walk away without fear of arrest.
What is more, Concord police property officer Maryann Duncan will give the owners a voucher worth $230 for every one of the cheap SKS Sporter-type guns they turn in.
Duncan is one of scores of law enforcement officers across the state helping to administer a $1.4 million buyback program developed to deal with the fallout from a feud between gun-control advocates and former Attorney General Dan Lungren over the interpretation of California's 1989 assault-weapons ban.
Although the Legislature approved enough money to buy back more than 5,600 guns, only 250 have been turned in so far statewide, said Nathan Barankin, a spokesman for state Attorney General Bill Lockyer. After the January 1, 2000, deadline, anyone who owns, sells or possesses one of the guns could be charged with a felony.
Nobody knows why response to the buyback offer is so slow, but it coincides with a surge in gun purchases of as much as 30 percent in California over the past year.
"Nobody knows why..." HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Whada bunch of idiots! If they can’t get a $100.00 SKS turned in they darned sure are not going to get any $1,500.00 AR's which is exactly what they will want.
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