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Border war... Flow of guns to Mexico endangers Texas safety

Kevin Jensen

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Feb 23, 2007
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Santaquin, Utah, USA
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/6152163.html

Guns don't kill people. Gangsters kill people. But Mexican narcotraffickers buy Texas guns, and thousands of people die as a result.

No turn of phrase can hide the link between gun sales in Texas and the violence just over the border. If we want Mexico's cartels under control for our own security, we need to halt their incredibly easy access to military-grade weapons on this side of the border.

Last year alone, Mexican authorities confiscated 1,131 Texas guns from drug cartels or their killing fields. Houston was the No. 1 source of these arms. Using "straw buyers" — U.S. citizens without criminal records — narcotraffickers buy weapons, often in bulk, then have them smuggled south to equip private armies.

According to a Houston Chronicle story by Dane Schiller and Dudley Althaus, the U.S. Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agency traced — in 2007 alone — at least 328 firearms bought in Houston to weapons suppliers for the Gulf drug cartel.

While buying guns is close to impossible in Mexico, consumers in Texas can purchase unlimited quantities of cheap imported assault weapons, or .50-caliber sniper rifles strong enough to shoot down helicopters. The stores peddling these weapons rarely break the law. The problem is there are few laws for them to break.

For most gun buyers, the one hurdle before walking out with a weapon is the federal background check launched in 1994. The Bush administration weakened that system, requiring all records of approved purchases to be purged within 24 hours. This means authorities have no database to find guns that shouldn't have been sold. It also means that the most effective way to trace suspected straw buyers is to wait until a crime is committed.

If Mexican authorities share serial numbers from weapons recovered at crime sites, ATF can track these guns back to the licensed dealers. This limited, passive approach has proven deadly. The agency should be more rigorously identifying those dealers who supply one client with dozens or hundreds of weapons. And the ATF should monitor even more closely retailers whose weapons turn up, again and again, next to corpses in Mexico and Central America.

The narcotraffickers, after all, also supply the drugs to our country — and they control the networks smuggling illegal workers, including slaves, across our border.

So it is in Americans' interest to upgrade our regulation of gun sales. Sensible restrictions on military-grade weapons is not punishment — it's self-preservation. This is why we regulate pesticides and prescription drugs.

Smart regulation of a potentially dangerous consumer product isn't going to hamper law-abiding citizens' constitutional rights. In fact, imported assault rifles were effectively banned (independent of the now-expired federal assault weapons ban) with no ill effects, from 1989 until just eight years ago. But in 2000, the Bush administration began allowing foreign manufacturers to circumvent the law.

The import ban embodied the spirit of the Second Amendment, which cites regulation, as well as the right to bear arms, as part of public security. And Americans still managed to pursue their favorite sports and protect their families from intruders.

With the stroke of a pen, President George W. Bush can restore the ban on imported assault weapons. Using his executive authority, he can instruct ATF to halt the import of these arms — as his father, President George H.W. Bush, did in 1989. This would instantly cut off narcotraffickers' access to their preferred weapon of terror. With a similar goal in mind, Congress can pass pending legislation outlawing deadly .50-caliber sniper rifles.

In the end, only federal laws can choke off narcotraffickers' gun purchases on U.S. soil. But Texas — a first stop for drug smugglers, illegal migrants and other illicit activity — has good reason to make itself a less attractive magnet for criminal gun-buyers.

We can do that by limiting our easy access to assault weapons and other military hardware. Though the right to buy such arms seems an emblem of Texas liberty, in fact it exposes us, our law enforcers and our children to the region's most vicious elements.

Tony Garza, Bush's ambassador to Mexico, was blunt about the connection last week in a speech.

Mexico, Garza said, "would not be the center of cartel activity or experiencing this level of violence, were the United States not the largest consumer of illegal drugs and the main supplier of weapons to the cartels."

Texas is the center of that arms trade. Do we really want to be the place gangsters go when they're planning to kill?
 

cccook

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DFW, Texas, USA
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In the end, only federal laws can choke off narcotraffickers' gun purchases on U.S. soil.
Ah yes, only the benevolent government can protect us.
Mexico, Garza said, "would not be the center of cartel activity or experiencing this level of violence, were the United States not the largest consumer of illegal drugs and the main supplier of weapons to the cartels."
Clearly the United States is responsible for Mexico's corrupt government and police and rampant organized crime. What a great steaming pile of editorial poo.
 

SlackwareRobert

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Gee, why doesn't the FBI just cross reference the tax stamps. You have to have one
BEFORE you are allowed to take the military weapons home with you.
Seems like this is more brady garbage. If those black unmarked helicopters
are violating Mexico's airspace, then they deserve what they get. I don't
see where it is americas buisiness to tell people south of the border if they are
allowed to defend themselves.

There would be no free flow of weapons or anything else if the border were secured.
That is the problem, as it is already illegal to be a straw buyer, and I haven't even
heard of one being charged let alone prosecuted, I take this as more propaganda.

Then the shootout in Pheonix, and our government plays it down, I think you
will find that it is the government, not the citizens who are arming the cartels.
After all those poor imigrants have to be able to outgun american with our limited firepower.
 

solderingiron

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I second that: Brady garbage. I saw a sign the other day " Take an AK off the streets: Buy it, take it home. Know that it is in good hands...."
 

solderingiron

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Last time I looked, there were a bunch of Mexicans living in TX. Maybe that has something to do with the problem.
 

sheepdog

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Mar 12, 2008
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Texas
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...here we go again...rather than honestly arrest and prosecute the straw buyers, they choose to further encumberus law- abiding citizens with more hoops to jump through...or take more rights from us...and so get credit for doing something...even though it has nothing to do with the problem.....
 

Citizen

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Fairfax Co., VA
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The governor just needs to activate the militia in the affected counties.

The first time the drug-murderers run into a squad of pissed-off Texans, things will quiet down shortly.

Time to renew Sam Houston's lament, "But the fly in the buttermilk is that there ain't no army in Texas."(--John Wayne's version in The Alamo.)And solve the problemthe waySam Houstondid. Make one.
 

ironclad

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To "SGT"(?) Jensen...from Utah(?),

I agree with the rest of the former repliers!! First of all, when did anyone from Utah have a right to get involved with Texas? Secondly, it sounds a lot like you are not a "valid" ID/Person..."SGT"...?? Sounds like you are actually a college student from California, who is on this website, with pro-govt, anti-gun, anti-second amendment propoganda... aren't you!? Who are you, really? What are you a SGT of?? Youmight be a "SGT" of my big fat rear end!?
 

Jim675

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Bellevue, Washington, USA
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ironclad wrote:
To "SGT"(?) Jensen...from Utah(?),

I agree with the rest of the former repliers!! First of all, when did anyone from Utah have a right to get involved with Texas? Secondly, it sounds a lot like you are not a "valid" ID/Person..."SGT"...?? Sounds like you are actually a college student from California, who is on this website, with pro-govt, anti-gun, anti-second amendment propoganda... aren't you!? Who are you, really? What are you a SGT of?? Youmight be a "SGT" of my big fat rear end!?
SGT Jensen is not the author. He pasted an article for discussion.
I believe he's a member of Utah's 23rd Anti-Bovine Regiment.
 

ironclad

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Jim675 wrote:
SGT Jensen is not the author. He pasted an article for discussion.
I believe he's a member of Utah's 23rd Anti-Bovine Regiment.

"Utah's 23rd Anti-Bovine Regiment"...??#!...YAHH HAH HAH!!!

Jim... that's funny!! How does the old website saying go?..."I just blew beer suds out my nose onto my keyboard!?"

I bet"SGT/MR" Jensenalso has a college degree from the Univ of Utah... a Doctorate in Animal Husbandry!! ...yahh hah hah

"Mr." Jensen...I apologize, I am sorry that we are picking on you. But, ...well, ...uh, ...well, no---I'm NOT sorry that you are getting picked on!! What a load of crudd that you posted here. I suggest you come on down to Texas and live here a while... and see that this situation is NOT a theoretical/hypothetical/political issue to be bantered about bynamby pamby social-scientists from the ivory towers. This is real life for us...especially those of us who live close to the border. Illegal Aliens / Drug Wars / Government Incompetence.

The lawlessness and corruption, invading us from Mexico,is one of the reasons that we want and need a new law that allows us to "Carry Openly". Only six states out of the entire country do NOT allow Open-Carry... and one of them is...TEXAS!!???? What the heck is this all about? Texas is the ONLY state that was NOT annexed. We allowed our Republic to join up under the protective rights of a treaty. We are the only state in the Union that reserves and deserves the right to fly our state flag at the same height, as the American flag! And we are one... of the six...who stilldoesNOT allow Open-Carry??...what the heck!?

My opinion...I think the Federal Govt, and the state politicians in Austin (besides our Governor who said he WILL pass the open-carry law if it gets to his desk)... I think they are afraid! I think the Govt Lackeys are..."AFRAID" of giving Texans the right to Open-Carry.

We once were... a Soverign and Independent Republic. We might be, again?
 

Sonora Rebel

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Aug 6, 2008
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3,956
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Gone
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Pure Brady BS! Secure the :cuss:border (both ways) and you'll curtail this problem.I live on the border. I can see Mexican mountains from my veranda. There's a war goin' on not 35 miles from here. The cartels are usin' full auto stuff... 'n THAT's not comin' from Texas. I suspect Argentina or Cuba... or the Mexican government itself.

There is SO MUCHMONEY involved in drug trafficking... they can afford ANYTHING... they can BUY nearly anyone... anywhere. I can sit here in the desert with my little semi-auto pop guns and HOPE I don't have to repel these banditios... but at leastI can carry them 'OPENLY'. If I was Texas... I'd declare Texas a Republic 'n this 'drug war' would be over in about a week.
 
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