Wednesday, January 14, 2009

More BS from the Left

ForeignPolicy.com

I saw this somewhere else recently but can't remember where, but its a new meme from the antis where our "lax gun laws" get blamed for the violence in other countries. But it's not really a new approach. States like New Jersey and New York have been doing it for years. It holds about as much validity in either case.
There are nearly 7,000 gun shops along the southern U.S. border, about three for every mile. They sell thousands of hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, AK-47s, and "cop killer" guns and bullets that cut through Kevlar body armor. The weapons quickly flow south, again with barely a nod from U.S. Border Patrol.Apparently drug runners buy all their hardware out of gun shops along the U. S./Mexico border.
Any rifle round short of a .22 long rifle, will penetrate a Kevlar vest. So any deer rifle is a "cop killer" gun and any rifle round is a "cop killer" bullet.

I won't say that illegal weapons don't cross the U.S. border but I venture to say they don't come from gun shops or gun shows. If the Mexican Army is out-gunned by the items listed in this article they have more problems than a U.S. gun ban will solve, and it's always easier to blame someone else than take responsibility yourself. I've read that units of the Mexican Army are working hand in hand with the cartels. I think it likely that the true source of these weapons is Mexico itself. Maybe if Calderón would take a little of that $400 million we're giving him and spend it on his military rather than letting it fuel the corruption in his government his country's problems would ease. To paraphrase P. J. O'Rourke giving money to Mexico is a lot like giving whiskey and car keys to a teenage boy. Oh and by the way Ms. O'Neil if you could tell me which gun shops are selling those items I and a lot of other gun owners would greatly appreciate it.

H/T to David Codrea

3 comments:

the pistolero said...

Yep. The Houston Chronicle has been running stories here and there about the Mexico violence, and just the other day there was a snippet in there about the cartels using .50s for long-range sniping. I remember reading that and thinking, "couldn't they more or less do the same thing with most popular deer hunting calibers?"

kahr40 said...

I'm not sure if anythng would stop the violence down there. Just at a glance it strikes me as a power struggle. Now if the US govenment would reassess the war on some drugs it might hit the cartels in the pocket book but then there are too many in the US government with a vested interest in keeping it going. It easier to blame guns.

the pistolero said...

That's pretty much the long and short of it. I've been beating the legalization drum for a while now myself. I do think it'll be interesting to see if the legalization movement gets any more traction with the new administration, but then I am not holding my breath on that one.