The Mexican Gun Canard
Once more, it’s misleading.
The other biased Washington paper reports:
Mexico has long tried to get the United States to curtail the number of guns – many purchased legally – that wind up south of the border, where gun laws are much stricter. The State Department says firearms obtained in the United States account for more than 90 percent of Mexico’s drug-related killings.
Interestingly, this picture accompanies the article. Are the grenades and the LAW Rocket coming from the US? Probably not. They’re illegal here. Also, I find it curious that all rifles are displayed with their selector switch down.
March 26th, 2009 at 10:10 am
The media is spinning Obama and Holder’s talking points on this as if it is the Gospel truth.
Mexican authorities need to send the guns to our government, which could auction them off and generate immediate revenue.
But the Mexican gun canard is nothing more than a pretext, divined by some WH/Brady consultants, for the administration’s imposing another AWB and other gun control laws.
I fear the Executive Order more than anything on this issue.
March 26th, 2009 at 10:12 am
I doubt they can. A few SBRs in there and I’d bet most have happy fun switches. After all, in Mexico, owning a semi-auto carries the same penalty as a machine gun. So, why not get the machine gun?
March 26th, 2009 at 11:14 am
ARs are generally stored with the selector switch in the single shot position with the trigger pulled – old military habit.
March 26th, 2009 at 11:50 am
I think he means “down” as in left side of the gun down, so you can’t see if they’re full-auto and therefore, not likely from the U.S.
March 26th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
What’s that small group of ammo between the shotgun shells and .308 (I guess) cartridges?
March 26th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Yeah, the ARs are lying on their left sides and the AKs are lying on their right sides, so the selectors on each type are not visible. That’s awfully convenient.
March 26th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
On that second AK from the right, is that small circle just in front of and below the hammer pin the pin that’s used on a full-auto AK to hold the sear?
I know a full-auto fire-control-group needs an extra pin, but I dunno where it’s exactly positioned. And neither of my semi-auto AKs has a pin at that location.
March 26th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Yep, that location is where the auto sear pin on a full-auto ak is.
Here’s a cropped copy of the picture with the pins in the two AKs that are visible highlighted:
http://s5.tinypic.com/ifam8x.jpg
March 26th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
I notice the M-72 doesn’t have an end cap.
I’d bet a dollar that if you picked it up and looked down it, you’d see light, because there’s no rocket in there.
I own an empty M-72 tube as a prop… they’re not illegal because they’re just tubes, no bang and no boom.
That said, I’m very much willing to believe that the Mini-14 “came from the US”, since that’s where Ruger makes them. Likewise the TEC-9 clone, which unlike the rifles, looks barely used. (The Beretta 92 or clone also looks pristine.)
(Those rifle grenades are British L2/3/4s, as near as I can tell.
They’re definitely not American – while they look a lot like the M61 superficially, they have dents, which means they’re not cast iron like the M61… but sheet steel like the L2/3/4.)
March 26th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
(Also, that bottom “AR”, with the green furniture? Looks like an AR-10 to me.
The AR-10 having been used in Guatemala and the Dominican Republic and the Cubans [Battista bought some in ’58, you see…].
I’d bet another dollar that rifle hasn’t seen US soil in 50 years.)
March 26th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
They are working this angle as hard as they can. Lying doesn’t bother them at all.
March 26th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
the Tec-9 clone is an AB-10 which was made to comply with the 1994 AWB.
For some reason I find that really funny.