Mexican Narco Trafficers Getting Military Weapons Smuggled in From Central and South America
March 14, 2009 · Filed under Terrorism
I thought that the recent surfeit of stories blaming Americans for guns in Mexico was just so much bullshit promulgated by those in government that want to stomp on our ability to protect ourselves and have good reason for an unarmed citizenry. It looks as though I was correct in my assumption.
Per the LA Times, via Rayra at Gulf Coast Pundit:
The Feb. 21 attack on police headquarters in coastal Zihuatanejo, which injured four people, fit a disturbing trend of Mexico’s drug wars. Traffickers have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals.
Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semiauto- matic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
The proliferation of heavier armaments points to a menacing new stage in the Mexican government’s 2-year-old war against drug organizations, which are evolving into a more militarized force prepared to take on Mexican army troops, deployed by the thousands, as well as to attack each other.
These groups appear to be taking advantage of a robust global black market and porous borders, especially between Mexico and Guatemala. Some of the weapons are left over from the wars that the United States helped fight in Central America, U.S. officials said.
WHAT? You mean that narco trafficers can’t get those items in local gun stores across the border in Arizona, California, and Tejas? Well, not hardly.
The Feb. 21 attack on police headquarters in coastal Zihuatanejo, which injured four people, fit a disturbing trend of Mexico’s drug wars. Traffickers have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals.
I’m wondering if and when our esteemed government (yeah, that’s sarcasm, in case you couldn’t tell) is going to wake up and realize that there is one hell of a civil war going on in our neighbor to the south and the forces of civilization, such as there are, are outgunned. The violence isn’t confined to south of the border or even “just” to border states.
Grenades or military-grade weapons have been reported in at least 10 Mexican states during the last six months, used against police headquarters, city halls, a U.S. consulate, TV stations and senior Mexican officials. In a three-week period ended March 6, five grenade attacks were launched on police patrols and stations and the home of a commander in the south-central state of Michoacan. Other such attacks occurred in five other states during the same period.
At least one grenade attack north of the border, at a Texas nightclub frequented by U.S. police officers, has been tied to Mexican traffickers.
Move along, nothing to see. No terrorists here, boss. There are no consequences to having a porous border.
In addition to grenades, high-powered guns such as the .50-caliber Barrett sniper rifle have become a weapon of choice in narcotics traffickers’ arsenals, Mangan said. Unlike grenades and anti-tank weapons, the .50-caliber guns can be obtained by ordinary citizens in the U.S. and smuggled easily into Mexico, like the tons of assault rifles and automatic pistols.
What I don’t understand is why the government would rather strip the constitutional right of U.S. citizens to buy weapons rather than addressing the real issue, the porous U.S. border that allows illegal aliens, drug runners, and weapons trafficers to travel back and forth at will and with armed protection.
Beyond the weaponry, drug gangs for several years have demonstrated the ability to form squads and employ military tactics, including the use of assault rifles, hand grenades, grenade launchers and fully automatic weapons to pin down army forces. This has enabled them to attack army patrols frontally, as they did with lethal results Feb. 7 in the central state of Zacatecas, killing one sergeant and critically wounding a colonel.
“At this stage, the drug cartels are using basic infantry weaponry to counter government forces,” a U.S. government official in Mexico said. “Encountering criminals with this kind of weaponry is a horse of a different color,” the official said. “It’s not your typical patrol stop, where someone pulls a gun. This has all the makings of an infantry squad, or guerrilla fighting.”
The fear of guerrilla warfare was compounded in February when 270 pounds of dynamite and several hundred electric detonators were stolen from a U.S. firm in the state of Durango. On Valentine’s Day, about 20 masked gunmen, led by a heavyset man wearing gold rings and chains, stormed the warehouse of a subsidiary of Austin Powder Co., an industrial explosives manufacturer, according to official accounts. They overpowered guards and emptied the warehouse. Two similar thefts were reported within four days in the same area.
Although the Mexican army recovered most of the dynamite, the incident augurs an even bloodier trend, officials said.
“There is only one reason to have bulk explosives,” said Thomas G. Mangan, spokesman in Phoenix for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “An improvised explosive device. A car bomb.”
So, to recap: There’s a war going on in Mexico that is spilling across our border. U.S. citizens are in danger from this war and have, indeed, been kidnapped and killed. Some of the weapons in this war have been purchased or stolen from the United States and illegally smuggled into Mexico (although I’ve read and believe that the numbers given have been greatly inflated in order to justify gun control activity in this country). The steps being taken to ameliorate this situation do NOT include securing the border with some type of barrier or military reinforcement of the border to prevent smuggling and control access to and egress from the U.S. No, the government wants to prevent the citizens in imminent danger from violence from across the border from buying weapons.
Sure would be nice if the “administration” would use that spare billion dollars they want to give to Hamas to get to work on protecting the border.
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