Has to be, because the rationale that ATF higher-ups gave to the operators makes no sense at all:
Agent Dodson and other sources say the gun walking strategy was approved all the way up to the Justice Department. The idea was to see where the guns ended up, build a big case and take down a cartel. And it was all kept secret from Mexico.
How could it possibly matter where criminal Mexican drug gangs get their illegal weapons? ALL their guns are illegal under Mexican law. If the illegality of their weapons could bring them down, there would be no need for their guns to come from America.
Unlike our sweepingly stated Second Amendment, the Mexican constitution only enumerates a highly qualified right to possess arms, and as in my state of California, enumerated gun rights in Mexico are not enforced. Thus Mexico’s armed-to-the-teeth criminal gangs could in theory be taken down by gun prosecutions (if Mexico had the wherewithal to do it) by enforcing MEXICAN law. Evidence of violations of AMERICAN law is completely irrelevant, never mind its being tainted by U.S. government complicity.
The only actual reason the ATF would have to let American-sourced guns “walk” into Mexico is to provide facts in support of the Obama administration’s ongoing effort to blame Mexican gun violence on American arms dealers, as justification for further infringing the constitutionally protected gun rights of American citizens. They have been putting out trumped up charges of U.S. blame for Mexican drug violence since they got into office, but their weak evidence hasn’t stood up to scrutiny. So they decided to manufacture some hard evidence. It is the only logical explanation.
Where do Mexican drug-war weapons actually come from? This from James G. Conway Jr., “a former FBI special agent and program manager of FBI counterterrorism operations in Latin America”:
On the surface, a cursory review of the high-powered military-grade seized weaponry — grenades, RPGs, .50-caliber machine guns — clearly indicates this weaponry is not purchased at gun shows in the United States and can’t even be found commercially available to consumers in the United States. The vast majority of the weaponry used in this “drug war” comes into Mexico through the black market and the wide-open, porous southern border of Mexico and Guatemala. This black market emanates from a variety of global gunrunners with ties to Russian organized crime and terror groups with a firm foothold in Latin America such as the FARC, as well as to factions leftover from the civil wars in Central America during the 1980’s. Chinese arms traffickers have managed to disperse weapons, particularly grenades, on the streets of Mexico. In addition, many of the Mexican military-issued, Belgian-made automatic M-16s currently in the hands of traffickers have been pilfered from military depots and the thousands who have deserted the Mexican army in recent years.
The exception would be those few thousands of semi-automatic M-16’s and AK-47’s let into Mexico by the AFT, along with however many Barret-50’s. Yeah, those are serious weapons. Obama’s minions definitely added to the murder spree, all in pursuit of their unconstitutional war against gun rights here at home.
Mexico getting guns from America?
For those leftists who have trouble with this language, no, Mexico is NOT part of America. It is part of North America (the continent) and is part of The Americas (the two continents), but the only country with America in its name is The United States of America. We, and only we, are “America.”
Wrong and wrong, pea brains.
Reminds one of the Waco Branch Davidians show, doesn’t it?
In any other justice department, people would be going to jail. Where is the independent prosecutor. They got Scooter Libby for not remembering. How about someone who provided the weapons to actually get a government employee killed?
The issue along the Mexican border is the result of TWO unconstitutional wars on the individual rights of Americans.
In answer to your question, YES!!! As more US-sold guns are traced to Mexican drug cartels and crime, the hue and cry for tougher gun control legislation increases. All a creation of the left and its media stenographers, of course.) The fact that those weapons were WALKED to Mexico by the ATF is unimportant. Witness the number of media outlets which have reported the story…FOX and CBS. PERIOD!! The goal of the left has always been the destruction of the 2nd amendment and the consequent confiscation of firearms from the American people. It’s very difficult–and rather dangerous–to enslave 100 million armed citizens, after all.
Talk about openly blatant hypocrisy! President Bozo just a few months ago was BLAMING gun manufacturers and dealers for ignoring what was going on down there just to sell them guns! If this was approved by the DOJ, then one must assume President “holy shit! we can’t arm our agents” Bozo knew of this. At the least the racist in charge of the DOJ should sure as hell be brought up on charges! sorry for the “french” but this one ticks me off as bad as the race Baiter in the White House and his AG.
Alec,
Good post. I was thinking the same as you have laid out as soon as I read about this. I don’t like conspiracies, but it sure appears to be an attempt to stoke the evidence pile for a US crackdown on legal gun possession and sales… if only for certain classes of weapons, ie, another assault ban/magazine capacity ban, etc.
Makes me sick to have these ideologes in charge.
I remember a report last year where Nappy Jan claimed that the US/Mexican coalition had recovered thousands of weapons. The DoHS claimed they were mostly American weapons. Oooops. When the truth came out, the weapons were mostly Chinese, smuggled in via South and Central America. Napolitano had tried to spin the story to make it look like it was American gun dealers who were contributing to the mass slaughter of Mexican citizens.
And let’s not forget that the Democrats allowed Calderon to stand in front of them, blaming the U.S. for all the ills of Mexico.
Now, let’s take a look at history: when Columbia finally fell into anarchy, they had enough. Columbia agreed to allow the U.S. to help them take down the drug lords, like Pablo Escabar, to try to clear those drug cartels out of Columbia. And it was a success; Escabar was killed with the help of our DEA. But Columbia was not just the drug lords; it was also the runners, the middle men, and the drug lords had already established drug routes through Mexico to bring in Columbian drugs to the U.S. via the Mexican contacts.
When the drug cartels in Columbia were broken up (not all the players were eliminated) they simply moved to Mexico and changed their tactics from the form of cartels to the form of gangs. There are few “lords” in Mexico, now it is just gangs who operate as one body.
There were many in the DEA who warned this would happen. Columbia lower echelon drug runners organized Mexican gangs using Columbian drug “lord” tactics but each administration ignored the warnings (Mexico being our friend and all that crap). Now Mexico has become Columbia, only more vicious and violent. With the help of U.S. based gangs, like the ever growing MS13, Mexico is on the verge of anarchy. Corruption runs rampant and I promise you, goes all the way to the top. When Kiki Camarena was murdered, the drug connectin went all the way to the Mexican’s president’s office.
Remember what Mexico faces: Carlos Slim, just a few years ago the wealthiest man in the world, is Mexican. But Mexico functions under a Pan-American attitude of a caste system. So while Mexico is one of the wealthiest Spanish speaking nations in the world, the “charitable” rich are as rare as jackalopes. The wealthy, who can trace their heritage all the way back to Spanish royality, care nothing for the peon. So poverty is also rampant and a prime breeding ground for gang recruitment. The same tactic used by Pablo Escabar.
Yet, even though Mexico is wealthy (our second largest supplier of oil, next to Canada) we continue to fund Mexico with foreign aid in the billions of $$. Why? And why doesn’t the U.S. demand that instead of placing their troops on Mexico’s southern border to prevent entry from countries like Honduras, the Mexican government concentrate on their northern border with the U.S. to prevent the entry of illicit drugs into our nation? One word: politics.
No party wants to take on the Hispanic vote. Democrats view Hispanic illegals as an ever growing voter bloc that will help them regain power. There is just one fly in the ointment. Border state Hispanics are also dying due to the drug gangs, and the number of Hispanic Republicans are growing. Texas Hispanic, Bill Flores, defeated the lily white Chet Edwards in a race that the media said Flores could not win. Both Flores, and Conseco, another Texas Republican, are closed border advocates. They also understand that Mexicans, who are willing to act as mules for the drug gangs in Mexico, in order to pay the coyotes for their trek across the desert to chase El Norte, will a) never assimilate and b) have a different view of “law and order” than their American Hispanic counterparts.
What we are seeing is a bended knee attitude to Mexico for the pupose of political power. Instead of making demands on Mexico that they act in our interest as well as theirs, we cow-tow to the pressures of Mexico. Unfortunately, we now have a President who is more than happy to let Mexico blame us for all its troubles.
We will continue to see the deaths like those of Agent Terry and Jaime Zapata. And on the Mexican side, Kiki Camera will become a statistic, not a isolated case.
Why is it such a big deal to adhere the Constitution? And why can’t politicians and judges be held accountable when they don’t? Gun ownership is not a grey area in the constitution, in fact it is very clear on the right to bear arms. Canada had a very low murder rate prior to there gun registration laws, now its become an expensive milestone around the neck of the Canadian people, and like most human rights issues, the majority of Canadians have thrown in the towel(they are such nice people though…).
Look at why this has happened to canada:
Civil rights in Canada are granted by Parliament in a law called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Many of these rights are similar to rights found in the US Constitution (including the Bill of Rights). However, note the various “notwithstanding” clauses, such as section 33, which give the Canadian federal and provincial governments the power to ignore these rights at their choosing.
http://www.panda.com/canadaguns/
The US does not have a “section 33” but they sure act like it….
The “Heros or Ruby Ridge” need a lot of scrutiny. Wouldn’t put anything past them. Best I can say about that group is that they should be disbanded.
One obvious reason law enforcement lets contraband continue on its way is to map a supply chain.
Does anyone honestly believe that enormous quantities of firearms aren’t being illegally smuggled from the United States into Mexico? Guns can be obtained very easily here. The warring cartels across the border are rolling in drug money there. The result isn’t hard to figure out.
Saying the illegal gun trade across the border is a multi-million dollar industry would probably be a serious understatement.
Greg wrote:
The only supply chain in this case was the ATF letting known criminals buy guns from legitimate dealers in the U.S., against the wishes of the dealers. In other words, the ATF itself was the top of the supply chain.
As for whether there is reason to think many Mexican drug guns originate in the U.S., absolutely not. Black market guns are cheaper. Why buy a couple guns at a time from U.S. retail dealers when you can get them by the crate from China? The ATF did manage to cultivate a significant little market, but probably only because not all the Mexican criminals are connected.
Black market guns follow the same supply channels as black market drugs and those who control the channels typically try to keep supply from rivals. The big players would all have their own connections with black market arms dealers. Upstarts, not so much, which explains how the ATF’s little operation could have an outsized impact on Mexican drug violence. It probably armed some upstarts who wanted to move up in the black market world and didn’t have all the connections yet.
@ Alec Rawls, Croatia, Serbia, China and “Other Places” offer weaponry at greatly discounted rates.
The BATFE is a dog that just ain’t gonna hunt on this one. Tracking is ultimately preposterous for the reasons that You stated.
Weapons trafficking World Wide is an INTERPOL Gig. Not the BATFE’s bailiwick. Anyone Who believes otherwise is not aware of the situation enough to comment with credibility.
If this makes you mad look up ” operation Northwoods”
The ATF – Selling guns that Americans won’t sell.
You Lost me at..
That is not true , Do you people just make stuff up now?
look at the whole world today for a sec , do you see how much the world is destabilized? you see the regimes being overthrown? its to create anarchy and so America can look much better for investors. Last week America received Billions in capital inflows from around the world. It was not a mistake.
That’s the only way the American Dollar will survive. America looks more attractive if we have anarchy around third world countries. This is not about Republican or Democrat or Your Guns , It’s about the Dollar!
These actions approved high up the chain of command has caused the lives of borderagents; if this sleazy business is not criminal, I don’t know what is. If I were the family of borderagent Terry, I’d sue the govt in the complicity of murder.
Frank,
Hilarious how you whack-job libs accuse others of “making things up.” Stats about arms in the hands of Mexican drug gangs come from the MExican government. As does the fact that most arms are Chinese in origin. But Mubarek was overthrown in order to prop up the dollar?? From which left-wing loon site did you dig that one up…MoveOn, Huffington, Democrat Underground??
Hey Greggy,
Care to clue us in on where in the US full auto rifles and rpgs can be had so “easily”?
Then go ahead and let us all know the logic of the cash rich cartels paying $7-900 plus for semi-auto AK’s. Then smuggle them across the most heavily patrolled border Mexico has. Then have them converted at additional expense to full auto capable. Instead of buying full auto Chinese AK’s for $150-$200 a piece brand new ready to go virtually anywhere in Asia, Africa or Latin America and then bring them in across the relatively unpatrolled southern border of Mexico.
Have you ever actually purchased a gun?
Have you ever actually traveled to the Mexican border towns?
Have you ever actually discussed this with people who live there?
I have.
Your logic is as inescapable as a light from a black hole.
So, Frank, on how many conservative sites have you posted that same Cut-n-Paste?
Just saw one over on thetruthaboutguns.com under the nick “Level1”. Likely to be others…
Is BATFE paying you by the word, sentence or post?
This kind of crap is nothing new for the ATF or the crooks in just-us. The ATF is an illegal un-Constitutional agency and should have been shut down yesterday. How many more men women and children do we let them kill before they get prosecuted and imprisoned? This makes me sick, they are an agency to disarm America at any cost, so don’t expect anything to happen till the “we the people” get rid of all the murdering crooks in Wash. DC…
1/ There to many Bad ones Smaller Gun Dealers Retailers Are Selling Guns to Mexicans Carteal Groups in Mexico, central, South american Counties are currupt Offocals in the Illegal Druges & Buying Guns as well too.True We should make a list of Names of Bad Gun Busineses Retailers Are selling Guns to Immergrents in the Dope & Buying Illegal Guns from smaller Gun Stores too! true!!! Start Revoking (01) Licences ,And Cut off Renual Applications for the (01) Regular Gun Dealers too! Also all the (09) Title-1 N.F.A. Class-03 Retailers Dealers too! Agreed! of Suspects Roge Gun Dealers Are Involved with the Gun running Groups & Drugs from the Carteals of Immergrents of Mexican Citizens & Centreal, South American ,Aisa Nations, Afferica Nations, Arabs Nations too! true Selling Druges as Product to our Stupid Young People are Taking and getting Druges in the Blood stream to true!! It true! Start Cutting The Bad Gun Dealers Number down too! Limiated them out of busineses too! agreed!!! This got stop now to before it to Late to Stop it too! Agreed!!
@Greg: Mexico’s drug gangs don’t need our semi-auto rifles when they can buy the real thing anywhere else in the world they want. Obama and the illegal ATF agency want all gulible Americans to believe this crap so they can pass some more anti-gun laws, period…
@David: David, What are you talking about, and where did you learn to speak and write English?
They are using the SOE’s to now buy a fertizler plant in Idaho so they can also arm domestic gangs in the US heartland with weapons.
http://rideriantieconomicwarfaretrisii.blogspot.com/
Rider I
Just wanted to mention on your affirmation: “Mexico is NOT part of America. It is part of North America (the continent) and is part of The Americas (the two continents), but the only country with America in its name is The United States of America. We, and only we, are “America.””
You’re completely wrong. You should REALLY read a book about Geography.
We’re NOT the only ones in America. The US stands for United States, the USA for United States of America.
North America IS NOT a continent. Neither is South America. America is ONE single continent and we are a great part of it. We’re in fact part of the north area, part of North America, along with Canada and Mexico.
That sign is right. America is not a country, it’s a continent. We’re just extremely used to call the US America because of historical reasons. We came from Europe, when America, the continent, was discovered and colonized. In those days, it made a lot of sense to say “I’m going to America” or “I’m from America”. It was a clear statement to someone in Europe or any other part of the old world. But it was as valid statment for us as it was for someone from Spain living in what is now Mexico.
We, the people who came from Europe, mainly from England, and that now live in the USA, still like to refer to our country as America. But there’s a huge jump from that to stating that America is specifically the US. Or even worst, to state that any other country in the continent IS NOT part of America. That statement is as ignorant and racist as it gets.
America is a huge continent. There are conventions to call certain areas North and South America. Even Central America. But “America” as such, is all the continent, from Canada to Argentina. We are “The United States of America”, not America itself or the whole America.
– Jeff
1 Complaint is Serious one in all the States An near the border of Mexico is four States near the Mexican border too!!. The solution is lets get make is harder to apply for FF.L.s License is (01) And let’s cut off the Application off for pawn shops& Gun Dealers renewals An state license applications off too. Do you agree? IS 02 F.F.;L.S License is not available no more too This for bad Gun Dealers to(01) (02) Attention B. A.T.F.E.A.. too. is (09) N.F.A. is CLASS-3 ONLY TOO! START TO REDUICE THEM IS SMALLER & MEDIUM GUN DEALERS are not going by the Federal Laws State Laws too. Do you agree??
1 the total of Gun Dealers in 50 States is around 63,000. now!
Oh I see this is a site of the white power bull—- people right? Or just a bunch of ignorant gringos… as usual.
I heard in New York a professor saying something smart during his speech, he said “I always call this country United States because I think is a little arrogant to appropriate the name of a whole continent just to refer to a single country”.
By the way 8 of your states are really Mexican, you took them by the force…as usual.
@marcela lopez olmos: How did the Spanish get Mexico from the Indians, like they always did?