Task Force Uses Mexico Crime to Push For U.S. Gun Control
On October 13, the Associated Press reported that the so-called Bi-National Task Force on Rethinking the United States-Mexico Border has produced a report, which, among other things, calls for re-imposition of the federal “assault weapon” ban of 1994-2004, saying it would improve security in both countries.
The “border-rethinking” group has been put together by the Pacific Council on International Policy and the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations. The group consists mostly of former U.S. and Mexican officials and journalists, none of them currently elected by the people of the U.S. or Mexico to make policy on these issues.
According to the Pacific Council, the report is being released under the auspices of the Mexican CFR on November 13th and is absolutely unavailable until that time. The Brady Campaign, naturally, has a copy of the report anyway, and quotes its executive summary as saying “The United States should intensify efforts to curtail the smuggling of firearms, ammunition, and bulk cash into Mexico by aggressively investigating gun sellers, regulating gun shows, [and] reinstituting the Clinton-era ban on assault weapons.”
Congress finished its hearings on the Mexico situation several months ago, and many members of Congress have declared their line-in-the-sand opposition to re-imposition of the ban. So given that Brady Campaign seems to be the only outfit that has a copy of the embargoed report, it’s safe to conclude that the “task force” is trying to keep the public primed for the next attack on the ownership of firearms like the AR-15 and Remington 11-87, and ammunition magazines designed for defensive purposes.
Whatever the opinions of those who sip tea and nibble biscuits while musing about how to restrict the rest of us, re-imposing the ban would have no effect on Mexico’s historic problem of crime and corruption, for at least three reasons.
First, as has been amply demonstrated, the cartels are not limited to semi-automatic AR-15s and AK-47s. They have hand-held and tripod-mounted, belt-fed machine guns; grenade launchers and grenades; and a variety of other high-end firearms, explosives, and special-purpose optics and communication gear acquired from countries other than the United States. Thanks to some Americans’ insatiable appetite for mind-altering drugs, they have enough money to buy the “task force” 10 times over, along with any weapon that can be found among any infantry platoon on Earth, no matter what kind of gun law gets imposed.
Second, most of the firearms seized from the cartels do not come from the United States. The claim that “90 percent” of Mexican "crime guns" originate in the U.S. is false. It does not relate to all firearms the Mexicans have seized from the cartels, but only to guns that the Mexicans have asked the BATFE to trace. As the Government Accountability Office has explained, “In 2008, of the almost 30,000 firearms that the Mexican Attorney General’s office said were seized, only around 7,200, or approximately a quarter, were submitted to [BATFE] for tracing.” The 6,700 guns that BATFE traced to the U.S. accounted for about 90 percent of the 7,200 guns that BATFE traced, but only 22 percent of all firearms seized by the Mexican government
Third, the ban did not stop the production and sale of any guns, it merely put a one-attachment limit on new guns. For example, before the ban, AR-15s had a pistol-type grip, flash suppressor and bayonet mount. The 750,000 AR-15s made during the ban had only the grip. If the “task force” thinks the fate of Mexico hinges on whether a relatively small number of semi-automatic rifles have flash suppressors and bayonet mounts, its members ought to switch to decaffeinated tea and sugar-free cookies during their get-togethers.
Make no mistake, however. Even if the “task force” doesn’t understand the finer details of the old “assault weapon” ban, leading gun ban advocates like Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, the Brady Campaign, the Violence Policy Center, the Joyce Foundation, and the Legal Community Against Violence do. If they have their way, they will eventually drag us into a much larger battle over the right to keep and bear semi-automatic shotguns, M1 Garands, M1 Carbines, and Ruger Mini-14s, in addition to the AR-15s, semi-automatic AK-47s, and other commonly owned firearms that were at issue during the 1994-2004 ban.
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If the Mexicans did not want guns going into Mexico from the U.S., they would inspect cars going into Mexico just as the U.S. inspects vehicles entering the U.S.
Obviously, the Mexican gov't doesn't care.
Grenades and other explosives are outright illegal in the US this is a no-brainer. Automatic firearms are heavily regulated and registered by the BATFE, meaning that those are also accounted for. The Brady Campaign article on OV which showed up shortly after this one was merely a counter - a retort, if you will - to the fact that we as a country are not as responsible for Mexico's arms problem as we're made out to be.
We should have stricter patrols and regulation on our borders, that's for sure. However, neither political party wants to take heed of such a difficult task because it would hurt voting blocks and cheap labor if we shut our Southern border and alienated Mexican- Americans . That much is probably opinion.
Remember Chris, the guy in Arizona that showed up to the Town Hall meeting with an AR-15 on his shoulder and a sidearm on his hip? You can easily find the footage on the Tube. He was the man who MSNBC cropped in their covering of the story to ensure that they perpetuated the image that only white people were bringing guns to Town Hall meetings and protests .
Chris was asked by a rather uninformed man: "Why do you feel the need to bring an automatic weapon to one of these events?" While it wasn't an automatic weapon, many people who do not own guns or do not understand the need for them are ignorant towards their function and the concept of lawful use. In fact those who were pro-liberal, gathered at the event, were unaware of Arizona State Law which allows for the Open Carry of firearms.
The bed-wetters didn't see a semi-automatic rifle on Chris' back. All they saw was something they've been told is taboo, therefore dangerous. But only dangerous in the wrong hands, I tell you! They are righteous in the hands of the Free. Even though there is no Right to Live in the Constitution, Life is a fundamental right for EVERY human being. Therefore self defense is necessary to survival and there should be no law which restricts or takes that from the People.
The point, indeed, is to exercise our Rights while we have them. If we do not then the Brady Campaign and the ill-informed will gladly take them from us with a smile. They will feel that they are safer, until they realize that the only ones left with instruments that can kill you are the bad guys and, as history shows, a government which does not fear its citizens for they could never pose a threat.
While the NRA does downplay the effect of our guns on Mexican violence, it's still a poor justification for a ban here. Any weapons that come from the United States come from here as a matter of convenience. There are many, many other outlets that would be willing to fork over guns to Mexican drug lords (granted it would cost them more, but I doubt the cost would be high enough to hinder purchase).
To put it in perspective of how many alternative outfits their are. Consider that, according to the International Monetary Fund, the global arms trade on the black market makes up 0.6% of the global GDP (mostly concentrated in Russia ). I think it's safe to say that an illegal industry well over a trillion dollars that is thriving would be able to run weapons into Mexico ...