Largest weapons cache in years seized in Laredo

AP via Houston Chronicle ^ | June 2, 2010, 2:20PM | CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN

[a fool in paradise]

Laredo police say they made one of their largest weapons seizures in years after pulling over a truck laden with brand new assault rifles, bayonets and ammunition that they believe was headed to Mexico.

The seizure Saturday afternoon came less then two weeks after Mexican President Felipe Calderon asked Congress to help stem the flow of guns from the U.S. into Mexico.

Acting on a tip from the Webb County Sheriff's Office, Laredo police stopped a vehicle containing 175 brand-new, boxed assault rifles, 200 high-capacity magazines, 53 bayonets and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. One of the two men in the vehicle tried to flee, but was apprehended, said Laredo Police Investigator Joe Baeza...

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are investigating the seizure, but Baeza said the presumption is the vehicle was heading to Mexico.

"Two Joe Blows aren't going to buy a bunch of weapons and it stops there," Baeza said. "We're pretty positive it was headed to Mexico." He declined to release the names of the two men in custody...

Baeza said the seizure hit home in the context of Calderon's recent visit to Washington, during which he suggested the U.S. reinstate its ban on the sale of assault rifles.

Mexico has long complained that its violent drug war was fueled in large part by weapons smuggled across the border...

"I fully respect, I admire the American Constitution and I understand that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to guarantee good American citizens the ability to defend themselves and their nation," Calderon said to a joint session of Congress during his May visit. "But believe me, many of these guns are not going to honest American hands."...

[Dayman]

*cough* BULLCRAP! *cough*

The gov’t better put up or shut up on this one. I didn’t read where any of the guns, bayonets, or ammo were illegal. Hopefully the people arrested are exercising their rights to keep silent.

[Dayman]

If the buyer is legal and meets the requirements then it’s none of the dealer’s business. As a former FFL I can tell you first hand that many buyers will buy several guns at once and many more buyers are very private people who wouldn’t put up with a busy-body dealer. It doesn’t mean they’re breaking any laws, just that they are private people.

[Yorlik803]

Good question. The thing is:1 were they fully automatic:2, what type of weapons were they?
Back in the Clinton years, there was a Chinese cargo vessel that was found to have thousands of fully auto AKs.Since the Chinese are owners of America, I bet nobody inspects their ships with any detail.

[super7man]

Agreed. 30’ above ground and 30’ below ground.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

If they bought that much stuff in one place there is either a big time illegal importer or rogue gun dealer. They damned sure didn’t pick them up at a gun show or from a legitimate dealer.

[riverrunner]

I would really like to know the brand of rifles type and caliber if they are brand new in the box it is a real easy trace.

[P8riot]

Acting on a tip from the Webb County Sheriff's Office, Laredo police stopped a vehicle containing 175 brand-new, boxed assault rifles, 200 high-capacity magazines, 53 bayonets and 10,000 rounds of ammunition.

Sounds like a good start.

[B4Ranch]

>Dealer—no problem. Buyer on the border... maybe some inquiry might be ok? Would you sell 175 rifles to some guy without any inquiry?<

Sure, then I’d call my friends at the local police station and give them the details of the buyer with the suggestion to pass it on to the ATF. That way I’ve got the money and the cops can do their job.

[oldenuff2no]

Most of the firearms that are recovered in Mexico have no numbers on them and can not be traced. Most nations do not require serial numbers as are required here. Note that this article states that 80%of the firearms that can be traced came from the US. It does not state how many of them can be traced so the implication is in itself a bold faced lie.
An assault weapon has to have selective fire, semi-auto and automatic. I would be willing to bet my next years pay that the weapons they are talking about in this post are AR-15’s that are classified as modern sporting rifles and are semiautomatic only.
As for the communist chump that they quoted who wants to decide who does and who does not have full constitutional rights I have one reply. From my cold dead fingers and only after I run out of ammo. May you be the first in line.

[wastedyears]

After 1986, Americans don’t legally own new full autos.

[Pearls Before Swine]

That way I’ve got the money and the cops can do their job.

Patriot. LOL.

[TXnMA]

“Calderon said that 75,000 guns had been seized in Mexico in three years and 80 percent of those that could be traced came from the U.S.”

Operative phrase: “...those that could be traced...”

Big deal. None of the other countries smuggling arms into Mexico have record systems that enable tracing...

[TLI]

Calderon said that 75,000 guns had been seized in Mexico in three years and 80 percent of those that could be traced came from the U.S.

Propaganda designed to be misleading.

The President included a crucial qualifier in his statement: he was referring only to the guns that Mexico has (with U.S. assistance) been able to or wanted to trace. And in that context, the President’s claim is correct: he was referring to a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report concluding that, of the guns seized in Mexico and given to the ATF for tracing from 2004 through 2008, approximately 87 percent originated in the U.S.

But this number says nothing about the percentage of guns seized in Mexico that originated in the U.S., because the U.S. does not trace the majority of guns seized in Mexico. Figures like “87 percent” sound impressive, but actual numbers are more illustrative. According to the GAO, the number of guns seized in Mexico that have been traced back to the U.S. has ranged from 5,260 in 2005 to 1,950 in 2006 to 3,060 in 2007 to 6,700 in 2008.

Thus, if the “last three years” the President mentioned are 2007, 2008, and 2009, only 9,760 of the guns seized in those years – the total of 2007 and 2008 – definitely came from the U.S. The U.S. share for 2009 has not yet been reported, but even if it doubled the total of 2008, the U.S. share for all three years would be less than a third of the 75,000 seizures in Mexico. A more realistic U.S. share is between 20 and 25 percent.



Actually it is less than half that. The 9,760 is only about 13% of the 75,000 total. The rest are not mentioned. We are led to believe they are all AR-15's from Wal-Mart. AK-47's are rarely mentioned. It is always "assault weapons."

So where are the AK-47's coming from? They are brought in from places like Brazil, Pakistan, Albania, China, Bulgaria, Poland, Egypt, Iraq, India, Nigeria, Viet Nam, Venezuela and various African countries. But hey, that does not do anything to screw American Citizens so it is never mentioned. And the bullshit from little bammy and mexican president calderon is repeated over and over by the Ø-bots...

-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.

-- CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.

-- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors ... come from the United States."

-- William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."

Lie after lie after lie, the Ø-bots drone on and on.

So where are they coming from exactly?

Ok...

-- The Black Market. Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.

-- Russian crime organizations. Interpol says Russian Mafia groups such as Poldolskaya and Moscow-based Solntsevskaya are actively trafficking drugs and arms in Mexico.

- South America. During the late 1990s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) established a clandestine arms smuggling and drug trafficking partnership with the Tijuana cartel, according to the Federal Research Division report from the Library of Congress.

-- Asia. According to a 2006 Amnesty International Report, China has provided arms to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Chinese assault weapons and Korean explosives have been recovered in Mexico.

-- The Mexican Army. More than 150,000 soldiers deserted in the last six years, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo. Many took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.

-- Guatemala. U.S. intelligence agencies say traffickers move immigrants, stolen cars, guns and drugs, including most of America's cocaine, along the porous Mexican-Guatemalan border. On March 27, La Hora, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported that police seized 500 grenades and a load of AK-47s on the border. Police say the cache was transported by a Mexican drug cartel operating out of Ixcan, a border town.

Grenades? Select fire AK-47's and shoulder fired rocket launchers?

I must have missed that aisle at Wal-Mart...

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/02/myth-percent-small-fraction-guns-mexico-come/

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/05/21/president-calderons-misleading-claim/

[PilotDave]

Americans owning full auto link...

http://www.autoweapons.com/pagelinks/buyandsell.html

Get a C+R license and pay class 3 tax and get approval from you local chief and you can own machine guns, silencers, cannons, tanks, ect.

Or we can play with the definition of automatic weapons and include hand cranked gatling type guns and mechanical triggers. All legal and kewl and fun.
In action..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw970lgZjUo
Cabella’s gatling gun..
http://www.cabelas.com/p-0034775227757a.shtml
triggers
http://www.rapidfiretriggers.com/

[eaglesiniowa]

Let’s also not forget that Mexican police and Army are supplied American arms which they promptly sell to the bad guys, thus no serial numbers will ever be forthcoming to substantiate JosA’s and JosB’s (POtuS) claims.

[wastedyears]

Per Wikipedia: As debate for FOPA was in its final stages, Rep. William J. Hughes (D-N.J.) proposed an amendment (House Amendment 777 to H.R. 4332) to ban the civilian ownership or transfer of any fully-automatic weapon which was not registered by May 19, 1986. - which is what I meant about Americans not owning new full autos.

[devane617]

I posted a story last week of another guy caught with about 60 rifles in his truck in the same area.

[ExSoldier]

This just wreaks REEKS.

There. Fixed it.

[devane617]

Walk into any Cabela’s or Bass Pro in north Texas and you will find hispanics carting out ammo by the dolly full. The amount of ammo being sold is staggering.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks. If you could follow me around and fix these things more often, I’d appreciate it. Har...