A while back, I mentioned 60 Minutes piece on 50 Caliber rifles, wherein they interviewed terrorist weapons supplier and book pimp Florin Krasniqi. I said:

The guy [Florin Krasniqi – ed] said (and reporter agreed) that exporting rifles and weapons was perfectly legal. It is legal, if you are a licensed exporter of firearms which this guy was not. This was a lie. Additionally, they even pointed out in the story that they set up a dummy hunting reserve so they could justify exporting to authorities while in Switzerland for a layover. Seems the Swiss became suspicious that this guy had a few 50 calibers in the cargo hold. The guy can leave the country with guns for legitimate sporting purposes (such as going on a hunting trip) but he was exporting without a license. So, would you set up a dummy hunting reserve if what you were doing was perfectly legal? A source said he exported several hundred 50 caliber rifles out of the country by hiding them in humanitarian aid shipments.

Now, the lies have gotten more daring:

Fifteen years ago, Osama bin Laden sent one of his operatives to the United States to buy and bring back two-dozen .50-caliber rifles, a gun that can kill someone from over a mile away and even bring down an airplane.

In spite of all the recent efforts to curb terrorism, bin Laden could do the same thing today, because buying and shipping the world’s most powerful sniper rifle is not as difficult as you might think.

Name one plane that has been downed by such a rifle. And it is possible to kill someone with one a mile away but, to my knowledge, it has happened only one time by one highly and specially trained Canadian sniper who took two shots to hit his target. And I’d like a cite on OBL purchasing 50 Calibers. As I recall, the US supplied Afghanistan with weapons for a while.

The rest of the article is basically the same as the first. The only difference seems to be the scarier intro. They continue to push the lie that this is all perfectly legal. I suppose by legal, they mean easy to do. Because this was done in violation of the Arms Control Export Act and, if the guy lied on his form 4473, these are illegal straw purchases.

And as a KABA commenter says:

Conveniently timed to support the UN’s campaign against gun ownership everywhere by highlighting the international impact of this band of unprosecuted criminals.

It’s also timed with the 50 caliber ban being potentially offered up as the sacrificial lamb to appease gun-banners to get the gun immunity bill through.

Posted in uncategorized on July 18th, 2005 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |