Heckler & Koch GMG, a modern 40 mm automatic grenade launcher of the German Army
Ours is called the Mark 19, Launcher, Automatic, Grenade and has been around since 1966.
Mark 19 Mod 3 Automatic Grenade Launcher.
Posted on 04/15/2009 1:45:24 AM PDT by Cindy
Note: The following text is a quote:
April 14, 2009
BEST team arrests 2 men who allegedly tried to smuggle guns into Mexico Mexican nationals were willing to pay $2 million for cache of automatic weapons
El Paso, Texas - Two men were arrested April 11 by members of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-led (ICE) Border Security Enforcement Task Force (BEST) after they tried to buy automatic weapons and ammunition to smuggle into Mexico.
In December 2008, the El Paso Police Department provided information to BEST team members that led to a joint investigation and resulted in the arrests. Las Cruces Police Department and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' (ATF) Las Cruces office also participated in the case.
Osvaldo Tostado-Gonzalez, 31, and Gabriel Gonzalez-Gonzalez, 38, both of Guadalajara, Mexico, were arrested after they arrived in El Paso to negotiate the final payment for a cache of firearms they intended to illegally export to Mexico, according to a criminal complaint.
The two men met with undercover agents Dec. 20 to provide a detailed list of automatic firearms and ammunition they wanted to buy. The weapons and ammunition were valued at about $2 million. BEST agents and El Paso police detectives seized $148,045 in cash Jan. 29 that Tostado-Gonzalez and Gonzalez-Gonzalez provided as a down payment for the weapons they planned to buy.
Among the weapons on their list were: 300 AR-15 or AR-16 rifles, 300 short-barreled .223 rifles, 10 Barrett .50-caliber rifles, two 40-millimeter grenade machineguns, 10 .45-caliber handguns with silencers, 10 .40-caliber handguns with silencers, and a large amount of ammunition of various calibers.
According to a criminal complaint, both men met with undercover agents in February and March and inspected the firearms they planned to buy.
"The success of BEST is due to the seamless cooperation among federal and local law enforcement agencies, and the sharing of intelligence and information about criminal activity that threatens border security," said Manuel Oyola-Torres, acting special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in El Paso. "This partnership is a force multiplier that makes our ICE efforts that much more effective against criminal organizations."
Tostado-Gonzalez and Gonzalez-Gonzalez made their initial appearance in federal court Monday. Their detention hearing is set for 10 a.m. April 16 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Norbert J. Garney.
ICE is charged with enforcing a wide array of laws, including those related to securing the border and combating criminal smuggling. BEST members routinely conduct joint operations with other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, which join forces and authority at the ports of entry, to prevent U.S. currency, weapons and technology from being illegally exported into Mexico.
BEST is a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE-led national initiative created along the U.S.-Mexico border. BEST in El Paso was formed in October 2006, and is one of 15 such teams nationwide.
El Paso's BEST members include: ICE; U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Border Patrol and Office of Field Operations; the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); the U.S. Department of State; the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); the El Paso County Sheriff's Office; the El Paso Police Department, and the U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Texas.
Officers from federal, state and local law enforcement agencies are collocated in the task force to share information. This close coordination among law enforcement agencies also helps identify and eliminate cross-border criminal organizations, such as drug and alien smuggling networks, and their supporting infrastructures that sustain them.
-- ICE --
two 40-millimeter grenade machineguns,
Wake me up when they start making those. - I want a 40-millimeter grenade machinegun...
Okay. I don't so much have a problem with that.
What I DO have a problem with is the idea that this will be brayed as one more excuse to attempt to ban the paltry rifles we can buy, because it will be used as "evidence" that Mexicans are smuggling in arms from the US.
Pretty bad when ICE doesn’t know the difference between “automatic weapons” and semi-auto AR-15s, etc. You don’t suppose they’d deliberately use the scariest terms they can think up, do you?
TC
I’ve never heard of an M-16 referred to as an “AR-16 rifle”. They will pump this up for maximum propaganda. I seriously doubt if there were any weapons at all to begin with. Just a sting, which I think is great. It will be spun by the MSM that the deal was just about to go down and ICE/BATF stepped in at the last moment to save the day.
We’re off to a TEA Party. You all have a nice day.
Heckler & Koch GMG, a modern 40 mm automatic grenade launcher of the German Army
Ours is called the Mark 19, Launcher, Automatic, Grenade and has been around since 1966.
Mark 19 Mod 3 Automatic Grenade Launcher.
Never mind the fact that the 40mm grenade launchers have *never* been sold to civilians ever....
“it will be used as “evidence” that Mexicans are smuggling in arms from the US.”
Actually, there’s no real evidence of anything! Just a set up. I’m glad they got the guys too. But evidence of anything? “We don’t need no steenking evidence!”
Nice! Now I’m wondering what type of rifles were involved? AR’s (semi-auto like your dear rifle) or actual M-16 style automatics.
I guess it really doesn’t matter. They were never going across the border, and the media will call them whatever they want to, and the sheeple will buy it.
Wow. I want one.
Might be a bit heavy to redeploy quickly, but I still want one!
I have to study up on more exotic arms...
Usually best employed from vehicles.
In simulations, my favorite use is to set up a HMMWV with one of these behind the crest of a hill with just the top of the gunner’s head clearing the hill (and giving him a line of sight to the target). When the enemy appears, use the indirect fire capabilities to lob a few grenades into them - and before the last one lands, the HMMWV leaves for the next ambush site.... Best of all, since they have indirect and direct fire capability, they have no real minimum range. :D
There was a youtube video of a misfire on one of these things - round blew in the gun - not a pretty sight. I’m not sure I’d want one, but that’s just my personal preference for not wanting explosive ordinance around the house. Rather have ma deuce or the russkie 14.5 kpv heavy machine gun.
I know one ICE employee, ex-military, and who definitely knows the difference. My bet is the reporter did not.
Well, the person who wrote up the press relesae. Either that or the obfustication may be intentional.
Dunno about that. Why does everyone assume ignorance in the media, when it is obvious that malice and a deliberate attempt to deceive is what is really happening.
Take this scene for example
This could easily be deployed against "right wing radicals" - after all, it already has been deployed against civilians, and that included killing women and 20 children, in America...
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/mk19.htm
They make them, it is a military only item...
I generally do not ascribe to conspiracy what mere stupidity will suffice to explain.
It may well be that the deception and obfustication are intentional and malicious, though.
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