Legal U.S. gun sales to Mexico arming cartels

CBS News ^ | December 6, 2011 | Sharyl Attkisson

[HammerT]

(CBS News) Selling weapons to Mexico - where cartel violence is out of control - is controversial because so many guns fall into the wrong hands due to incompetence and corruption. The Mexican military recently reported nearly 9,000 police weapons "missing."

Yet the U.S. has approved the sale of more guns to Mexico in recent years than ever before through a program called "direct commercial sales." It's a program that some say is worse than the highly-criticized "Fast and Furious" gunrunning scandal, where U.S. agents allowed thousands of weapons to pass from the U.S. to Mexican drug cartels.

CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson discovered that the official tracking all those guns sold through "direct commercial sales" leaves something to be desired.

[HammerT]

To quote the Dr. Jeffrey Pelt in the movie ‘The Hunt for Red October’:

“Andrei, you've lost another submarine?”

First it was Fast n Furious, now they’re Finally talking about all the weapons diverted to the cartels from the army.

Drip..drip..drip..

[Tenacious 1]

Most guns on this planet are made by private companies. They take orders from governments, dealers and individuals. To suggest that the cartels would have a hard time purchasing weapons if not for the US is ludicrous.

That said, we certainly aren't doing anything to diffuse the hypocrisy. If Springfield Armory gets an order for 1500 pistols from a dealer in Mexico, what law prevents them from filling that order? Same goes from all kinds of manufacturers from Israel to Croatia. Hell, if memory serves me correctly, there are several manufacturers that have assembly plants in Mexico. I would be surprised if “lost parts” wasn't an item on the expense side of the ledger for accounting.

[Joe Brower]

More cheery news from "our friendly neighbor to the South"...

[milagro]

And then there was this line:

"The bastard has just killed us!"

Eerily apropos.

[Venturer]

We supply the gune to the police and the military and the police and the military sell them to the Cartels.

How do you control a country where the military and the police work full time for the Government and part time for the Cartels.

They don’t have a Government there , its every man for himself.

[Tallguy]

The Mexican police/military can’t secure their weapons, and the US gunmakers along with their distributors are responsible for that? Sounds like the old gun control argument writ large.

[SwinneySwitch]

Ping!

[oldenuff2no]

This is and always has been crap. There are a lot of fully automatic weapons down there that US gun stores have been accused of selling by the liberal media. They lie out their butts.
There are a few legal sales of full autos by select gun stores in this country but accountability and massive paper work/permits are in place to track every one of these sales. The full auto sales are going around the public gun stores and have to have our governments OK. There are lists that clearly state who can be sold fully automatic small arms and explosives world wide. These lists are from our government.
Secondary sales after these firearms leave US soil are not easily tracked.
The socialist liberal media in this country are full of lies about our firearms stores. We need to publicly call they liars every time the come up with this crap. I am a gun smith. There is no part that can be exchanged to make an AR-15 into am M-16. You have to totally exchange the complete guts of the lower including drilling new holes in the receiver to hold this new parts set. I even read in the national liberal media one time that a look alike air-soft version of the black rifle could be converted into an M-16. The pot metal of that POS would blow up in your face not to mention that the specs on the whole weapon don't match. You might be able to keep the trigger guard and replace the rest of the weapon but you will never convert that weapon to a real firearm. The liberal media are just out and out liars where firearms are concerned. Call them on it every chance you get.

[backwoods-engineer]

Sharyl Attkisson is one of the few journalists worthy of the name.

[philman_36]

Sharyl Attkisson is one of the few journalists worthy of the name.
All this woman did was ride the coattails of Vanderboegh and Codrea.
They called her to break the story nationally, not the other way around.
Any awards for this story will probably go to her instead of them.

[WKUHilltopper]

“Legal U.S. gun sales to Mexico arming cartels”

You mean more than the ATF and Dept of Justice?

Nice try See-BS.

[TigersEye]

"Grenade-walking" part of "Gunwalker" scandal

......................................

Worse Than Gunwalker? State Dept. Allegedly Sold Guns to Zetas

Phil Jordan, a former CIA operative and one-time leader of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s El Paso Intelligence Center, claims that the Obama administration is running guns to the violent Zetas cartel through the direct commercial sale of military grade weapons:

Jordan, who served as director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s El Paso Intelligence Center in 1995, said the Zetas have shipped large amounts of weapons purchased in the Dallas area through El Paso.

(snip)

“They’ve found anti-aircraft weapons and hand grenades from the Vietnam War era,” Plumlee said. Other weapons found include grenade launchers, assault rifles, handguns and military gear including night-vision goggles and body armor.

More about State Department involvement...

— has sources claiming “Obama’s man in the State Department,” (former) Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg, was the State Department operative who helped Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and the Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General David Ogden formulate the strategy that led to the tactics used in Operation Fast and Furious.

Steinberg took office as Deputy Secretary of State on January 28, 2009

A little more than two years later, it was announced that Steinberg's time in the Obama State Department was over. From the New York Times, 30 March 2011:

Mrs. Clinton heaped praise on Mr. Steinberg, describing him as an “indispensable” partner. “On every foreign policy challenge, big and small, he has helped formulate our policy and oversee its execution,” she wrote. Mr. Steinberg, she said, played “Oscar to Jack Lew’s Felix,” referring to Jacob J. Lew, her other deputy, who left earlier this year to become Mr. Obama’s budget director.

Want to read even more about State Dept. involvement? ...

Sipsey Street Exclusive: "In at the beginning." The State Department & the Gunwalker Scandal.

[TigersEye]

Yes, she does mean more than that.

[TigersEye]

This article is not about sales from gun stores. It is about direct sales from the U.S. government to the Mexican government.

[TigersEye]

...and the US gunmakers along with their distributors are responsible for that? Sounds like the old gun control argument writ large.

I don't think that's what this article is saying.

Here's how it works: A foreign government fills out an application to buy weapons from private gun manufacturers in the U.S. Then the State Department decides whether to approve.

And it did approve 2,476 guns to be sold to Mexico in 2006. In 2009, that number was up nearly 10 times, to 18,709. The State Department has since stopped disclosing numbers of guns it approves, and wouldn't give CBS News figures for 2010 or 2011.

[Blood of Tyrants]

To be fair, it is the Mexican government’s job to keep track of the weapons we sell them, not ours.

[MestaMachine]

-—and where it stops, nobody knows. Ping

[Buffalo Head]

"....what law prevents them from filling that order?"

Goggle "ITAR" for the answer to your question.

[oldenuff2no]

This entire crock was to take shots at our 2A rights and to put more legs on the lie of gun store sales of guns that go to Mexico.

[TigersEye]

I don’t know what article you read. This one isn’t about any private sales ie no gun stores.