[4Runner]

So Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton's Main Gate is done up in PINK?

[Rebelbase]

“A vehicle with his license plate number was photographed at the Fort Hancock Border Patrol checkpoint in Texas.”

Fort Hancock, that’s where Andy crossed...

[gaijin]

Awesome story for a movie!

[csvset]

I suspect it’s red, bleached out by the sun.

an automatic rifle, an M14 rifle, a semi-automatic shotgun, and a pistol, all belonging to Wallace,

I suspect the weapons wear issued to him, they probably actually belong to Uncle Sam.

However well intentioned his cause may be Uncle Sam takes a dim view on AWOL and weapon theft. He’s looking at a stint in the big house. Hope he doesn’t do something really stupid and get in a shootout with authorities.

[Openurmind]

“Wallace reportedly claimed that he began to hear voices”

How many times have we heard that over the years now?

[ZOOKER]

If he managed to WALK across the border carrying 3 illegal, military-style weapons, what does that say about border security?

[katana]

an automatic rifle, an M14 rifle, a semi-automatic shotgun, and a pistol

To quote Major Kong, "Shoot! A fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff."

[napscoordinator]

Good grief. You think it’s cool to just leave the military for any reason? I think you are the nutty one.

[Svartalfiar]

A day later, an automatic rifle, an M14 rifle, a semi-automatic shotgun, and a pistol, all belonging to Wallace, were reported missing

Actually his issued weapons, I presume. So then, how did he get ahold of them? I know big Army's a little different from Guard, but even they don;t just let you take everything you're issued out with you all the time. That stuff is generally locked in the armory, and only issued for training or deployment. The only guys that I know of who always have weapons are if you're on a specific guard duty, MPs, and a few others. JoeSchmo definitely isn't carrying an 'automatic rifle' around all the time, every weekend. (The M14 is an automatic weapon, but very rare across the Army nowadays.) And that's a lot of weapons for one guy to be issued. You'll get certain stuff based on your role in the squad/platoon, but not usually all that stuff. As an actual MG gunner, he would have a SAW or 240 (machine gun). But then, he wouldn't be issued an M14 (actually 16 probably), or a shotgun. Some units do give their MG crew pistols. He would have an M16 assigned, but as the MG he'd never take it out of the armory except for M16 range days / qual.

So long story short, this smells rather fishy. Or just idiot reporters. Occam's razor, I suppose.