Here comes the Propaganda Blitz!

[bbbthreat]

Here comes the PR spin from our good friends at MSNBC.

Straw Buyers and possible ATF regs and Southwestern State long rifle limits.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41257218/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts

AB962 and why its "Good" for you...

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2011/01/online-ammunition-sales-to-continue-for-now.html

Interesting reads and I will let you guys form your opinions, but personally got me riled up with the direction they are going with these articles. Makes me and all other "law-abiding-joe-blow-gun-owners" look like criminals all on account of a very minute minority of the population. Obviously, nothing has come of this and it is all speculation, but thats how it alwasy starts.

I would appreciate your guys input on any of this, good or bad.

[audihenry]

How do those articles make the average gunowner look bad? Don't you acknowledge it's a problem when cartels buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of guns - in cash, no less - from American gun shops, only to funnel them into vicious gang wars south of the border?

Perhaps the best way is to prevent individuals from buying so many guns all at once? I don't know. But it is a problem, IMO.

[TheSpaceNeedle]

Don't you acknowledge it's a problem when cartels buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of guns - in cash, no less - from American gun shops, only to funnel them into vicious gang wars south of the border?

Step away from the kool-aid.

[Werewolf1021]

How do those articles make the average gunowner look bad? Don't you acknowledge it's a problem when cartels buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of guns - in cash, no less - from American gun shops, only to funnel them into vicious gang wars south of the border?

Perhaps the best way is to prevent individuals from buying so many guns all at once? I don't know. But it is a problem, IMO.

No, they don't. Do some research.

[jonzer77]

How do those articles make the average gunowner look bad? Don't you acknowledge it's a problem when cartels buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of guns - in cash, no less - from American gun shops, only to funnel them into vicious gang wars south of the border?

Perhaps the best way is to prevent individuals from buying so many guns all at once? I don't know. But it is a problem, IMO.

Who let the brady spy in here?

[bbbthreat]

How do those articles make the average gunowner look bad? Don't you acknowledge it's a problem when cartels buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of guns - in cash, no less - from American gun shops, only to funnel them into vicious gang wars south of the border?

Perhaps the best way is to prevent individuals from buying so many guns all at once? I don't know. But it is a problem, IMO.

The way I am interpreting the article is that there are individuals of questionable moral fortitude are commiting unscrupulous acts at the expense of others, because the law affords us the opportunity to do so. Basically fancy talk for bad people who have bad intentions are doing bad things; you know and I know that these bad people represent a small, minute fraction of the legally acquired gun owning community, and yet the media uses a large brush to paint us all as individuals who are looking for the next opportunity to do wrong because we are in possession of a black piece of metal that is evil-incarnate on Earth that will destroy all it touches though its own volition. (IT'S ALIVE I TELL YOU!! HIDE THE KIDS!!)

These straw buyers do not make up the majority of people who purchase firearms, and yet because of the actions of these inidividuals the rest must suffer. The same for AB962 article in which LA and Sacramento show that 2.5-3% of ammo sold, came to be in the hands of felons; a small minority of the gun community, and yet they will use these few individuals as a means to dictate legislation to the law abiding citizen; thus punishing the majority who have done no wrong.

Also, one must ask why would the cartels want to bother going through the proper legal channels of purchasing a firearm, when I am sure they could get a hold of an arms dealer. If these guys have no problems getting illegal drugs as well as people in and out of countries, would it not make sense that they could also acquire and move large amounts of illegal firearms?

Alright let me get off my fricken soap box now. Stupid Zest and its catchy slogan!

[Interloper]

How do those articles make the average gunowner look bad? Don't you acknowledge it's a problem when cartels buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of guns - in cash, no less - from American gun shops, only to funnel them into vicious gang wars south of the border?

Perhaps the best way is to prevent individuals from buying so many guns all at once? I don't know. But it is a problem, IMO.

Pure fiction.

[EchoFourTango]

As I understand it, the mexican military and police buy U.S. made firearms and then corrupt individuals sell them or use them for and to the carrtels.

[TKM]

Please don't quote people who should be on ignore lists.

[Interloper]

So, if not from the U.S., where do they come from? There are a variety of sources:

-- The Black Market. Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.

-- Russian crime organizations. Interpol says Russian Mafia groups such as Poldolskaya and Moscow-based Solntsevskaya are actively trafficking drugs and arms in Mexico.

- South America. During the late 1990s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) established a clandestine arms smuggling and drug trafficking partnership with the Tijuana cartel, according to the Federal Research Division report from the Library of Congress.

-- Asia. According to a 2006 Amnesty International Report, China has provided arms to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Chinese assault weapons and Korean explosives have been recovered in Mexico.

-- The Mexican Army. More than 150,000 soldiers deserted in the last six years, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo. Many took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.

-- Guatemala. U.S. intelligence agencies say traffickers move immigrants, stolen cars, guns and drugs, including most of America's cocaine, along the porous Mexican-Guatemalan border. On March 27, La Hora, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported that police seized 500 grenades and a load of AK-47s on the border. Police say the cache was transported by a Mexican drug cartel operating out of Ixcan, a border town.

'These Don't Come From El Paso'

Ed Head, a firearms instructor in Arizona who spent 24 years with the U.S. Border Patrol, recently displayed an array of weapons considered "assault rifles" that are similar to those recovered in Mexico, but are unavailable for sale in the U.S.

"These kinds of guns -- the auto versions of these guns -- they are not coming from El Paso," he said. "They are coming from other sources. They are brought in from Guatemala. They are brought in from places like China. They are being diverted from the military. But you don't get these guns from the U.S."

Some guns, he said, "are legitimately shipped to the government of Mexico, by Colt, for example, in the United States. They are approved by the U.S. government for use by the Mexican military service. The guns end up in Mexico that way -- the fully auto versions -- they are not smuggled in across the river."

Many of the fully automatic weapons that have been seized in Mexico cannot be found in the U.S., but they are not uncommon in the Third World.

The Mexican government said it has seized 2,239 grenades in the last two years -- but those grenades and the rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) are unavailable in U.S. gun shops. The ones used in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey in October and a TV station in January were made in South Korea. Almost 70 similar grenades were seized in February in the bottom of a truck entering Mexico from Guatemala.

"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 semi-automatic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California," according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/02/myth-percent-small-fraction-guns-mexico-come/