Gun control debate hangs over U.S.-Mexico violence

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Gun control debate hangs over U.S.-Mexico violence

Postby hammAR on Tue Mar 24, 2009 4:54 am

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090324/ap_on_go_co/border_violence_guns

Gun control debate hangs over U.S.-Mexico violence
By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Members of Congress may be alarmed by the surge in Mexican drug violence and its potential to spill across the border, but they grow silent when the talk turns to gun control as a solution.

With related kidnappings and killings occurring in the U.S., the Obama administration is likely to shift dozens of enforcement agents and millions of dollars to the fight against Mexican drug cartels.

Yet when Attorney General Eric Holder suggested reinstituting a U.S. ban on the sale of certain semiautomatic weapons, many lawmakers balked. The 1994 ban expired after 10 years.

"The Second Amendment Task Force opposes the discussed ban and will fight any attempts that infringe on our Second Amendment rights," said Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., a chairman of the group. Six Democrats and six Republicans co-signed his statement.

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 U.S. account for an estimated 95 percent of Mexico's drug-related killings.

"If President (Felipe) Calderon's policies to roll back organized crime are to be successful, we need to defang the power of the drug syndicates to inflict damage upon our state, local and police forces," Arturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the United States, said in January. "The best way we can do that is for a real ratcheting up of the United States' capabilities of shutting down the flow of weapons."

That may prove tough to do.

After opposition from the National Rifle Association, 22 Democrats joined Republicans in a Senate vote this month to negate the District of Columbia's tough gun registration requirements and overturn its ban on rapid-fire semiautomatic weapons. More than 80 House Democrats backed a similar measure last year.

The gun lobby has raised more than $20 million for political candidates since the 1990 election cycle, with about 85 percent going to Republicans. That ranks 68th among about 80 industry groups tracked by the OpenSecrets.org campaign finance watchdog.

When border violence comes up in hearings, lawmakers say they don't see a need for new gun laws.

"I don't think the solution to Mexico's problems is to limit Second Amendment gun rights in this country," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, chairman of the Senate GOP's election committee. "What we can do is help our Mexican friends enforce their own laws."

Republican Rep. Jeff Flake said he believed a recent hearing on Mexico drug violence was actually a discussion of gun control.

"Instead of punishing law-abiding Americans with stricter controls, we must continue to punish those who break the law," said Flake, of Arizona, where 700 cartel-related kidnappings have occurred over two years.

For his part, Obama has signaled a willingness to tighten restrictions on guns, calling the flow of drug money and guns "a two-way situation." Yet 65 Democrats said in a letter to Holder that they would oppose any attempt by the administration to revive a ban on military-style weapons.

Congress did provide $45 million this year for Project Gunrunner, a federal program aimed at curbing the flow of guns. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, a Texas Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said he will seek another $30 million over two years for the program and $30 million more to fund efforts by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to crack down on gun trafficking.

Tom Diaz, an analyst at the Violence Policy Center, a gun control group, said cartels use military-style weapons such as the Armalite AR-50, a .50-caliber sniper rifle.

He brought one to a recent congressional hearing — with the help of two police officers — and said he found the weapon on the Internet, bought it for $3,200 from a Maryland "kitchen table" dealer and had it registered in the District of Columbia, all in about six hours.

Semiautomatic rifles used by the cartels are imported legally into the U.S. as "sporting" weapons, a policy that was stopped for years but revived under President George W. Bush. The government could stop importation of those weapons under the 1968 Gun Control Act and thus keep them from winding up in Mexico, Diaz said.

Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., who chaired a hearing on guns going to Mexico, said he is not seeking widespread gun control but Congress must do something.

"We don't want to get distracted by the gun industry lobby of the NRA trying to talk about (how) every attempt to bring some sanity to the situation is somehow an attempt to get rid of everybody's Second Amendment rights," he said. "That's a red herring."

Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador, said Mexico simply wants existing U.S. gun laws applied.

"Just on the Arizona and Texas border, there are 12,000 gun shops and countless other gun shows that week in and week out rove around the border area," Sarukhan said.
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Re: Gun control debate hangs over U.S.-Mexico violence

Postby elmerfuddem on Tue Mar 24, 2009 5:48 am

THIS IS FROM 2007:
COPS LOSE GUNS, ARE ISSUED SLING SHOTS.


updated 12:07 a.m. CT, Tues., Jan. 23, 2007

TIJUANA, Mexico - The police department has issued about 60 slingshots to officers in the violent border city of Tijuana, where soldiers confiscated police weapons two weeks ago on allegations of collusion with drug traffickers.

Municipal police spokesman Fernando Bojorquez said Monday that the slingshots, along with bags of ballbearings, were given to officers patrolling areas of the city visited by tourists.
Tijuana’s police force of 2,000 officers has been without guns since Jan. 5, but some patrol alongside armed state police.

President Felipe Calderon sent 3,300 soldiers and federal police to Tijuana at the beginning of January to hunt down drug gangs. The soldiers swept police stations and took officers’ guns for inspection amid allegations by federal investigators that a corrupt network of officers supports smugglers who traffic drugs into the U.S. The weapons are still being checked.

About 100 police demonstrated outside Tijuana town hall on Monday demanding the return of their guns. “The arms are our tools for work,” said officer Juan Manuel Nieves. “Do they want more police to be killed?”

More than 300 people were slain in Tijuana last year including 13 police officers.
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Re: Gun control debate hangs over U.S.-Mexico violence

Postby justaguy on Tue Mar 24, 2009 7:32 am

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/6311682.html

But beheadings are becoming distressingly routine amid Mexico’s gangland turmoil. More than 200 victims have been decapitated in the past few years, according to the count by the National Human Rights Commission, a government agency. Four more beheaded victims were discovered in a Juarez grave on Saturday.


They have bigger problems than the guns.

If we legalized dope it would solve a lot of this problem and we would make money instead of spending it.
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Re: Gun control debate hangs over U.S.-Mexico violence

Postby Stradawhovious on Tue Mar 24, 2009 7:47 am

justaguy wrote:If we legalized dope it would solve a lot of this problem and we would make money instead of spending it.


+1.

All but eliminate the "war on drugs"(well, the weed end of it anyways....), all but eliminate spending for these projects, increased tax revenue (the math dictates that there would be an unbelievable increase in tax revenue), all but eliminate the "illegal gun trafficing" caused by the mexican drug runners, lighten the load on our overburdened law enforcement, revive the manufacture of really kick ass rope, and calm justaguy down quite a bit.

And that's just a start. ;)
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Re: Gun control debate hangs over U.S.-Mexico violence

Postby jac714 on Tue Mar 24, 2009 7:51 am

Getting rid of the war on drugs would certainly be a solution, I do not recall who said it but. "You cannot win a war you are paying for on both sides." is very true in this case.

Imagine the amount of prison space that would suddenly be freed up to house dangerous bad guys. The tax revenue would be staggering and some of it could be targeted for taking care of the attendant problems to legalization (addicts and treatment).
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Re: Gun control debate hangs over U.S.-Mexico violence

Postby 1911fan on Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:10 am

A fallacy exists when one tries to discriminate between violent bad guys and the drug trade. The most violent offenders are usually drug gangs. The users are thieves, they have to be, no one doing that much drugs can hold a job capable of paying enough. The dealers are violent to protect product, territory , and or wealth.
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Re: Gun control debate hangs over U.S.-Mexico violence

Postby Stradawhovious on Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:15 am

1911fan wrote:A fallacy exists when one tries to discriminate between violent bad guys and the drug trade. The most violent offenders are usually drug gangs. The users are thieves, they have to be, no one doing that much drugs can hold a job capable of paying enough. The dealers are violent to protect product, territory , and or wealth.



True, for now, but if you eliminate the need for the drug trade, you eliminate the need for the drug runners, and you eliminate the associated violence. Plain and simple. I think what Jac was getting at is there are some people who have never commited a violent offense in their life in jail for a bag of weed. Their place could easily be taken over by someone who removed the head of a prostitute because he didn't want to pay her. This new housing arrangement could come with no additional overcrowding. Nobody is saying that the drug trade does not enable violence.
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Re: Gun control debate hangs over U.S.-Mexico violence

Postby jac714 on Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:40 am

Strad is correct in his attempt at clarification of my post.

Absent the law against drugs (think 21st Amendment) the gangs go away, the "drug trade" goes away, much of the violence goes away. This leads to a reduction of the number of criminals available to be incarcerated which reduces the prison population.

In the 70s NORML had an add that revealed that at that time more people were going to prison each year than live in St. Paul.

Seems kind of silly to attempt to legislate morality, we have enough criminals without creating an entire class through created vice natural laws.
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Re: Gun control debate hangs over U.S.-Mexico violence

Postby 1911fan on Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:47 am

I will agree that there is a massive mismatch in the sentences for the crimes, but I am a strong believer that some things are just beyond the pale of all acceptability. I have seen heroin, Meth, and Crack destroy lives of loved ones, they are not drugs like alcohol or pot, or even to some extent powdered coke. For most people, pot and booze can be managed, only a small percentage fall victim to it, Heroin, Meth and Coke eat every one they touch alive.

I believe its simple, you destroy organizations. I would easily offer the kid who is the mule full exemption or immunity for turning on his two or three superiors, offer them (mid level importers) 10 years off or more if they flip, and then finally summary execution for those who rise above a certain level in the drug gangs who are not US citizens. If they do not willingly talk, there are very capable medical ways to get people to talk without resorting to torture, simply hook up the anesthesia and a capable Doc can get them where there is no ability to deceive. Talk willingly they get the years off, submit to the drugs, and you serve the whole time, at a place run by someone like Sheriff Joe.

I believe the US Constitution only applies to US Citizens, and that if we catch you trying to subvert our nation thru importing drugs, you get a bullet and a hole.

The answers to stopping the drug war is in our prisons, we just have to use the resources we have to get the names, places and relationships whether they want to give them up or not.
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Re: Gun control debate hangs over U.S.-Mexico violence

Postby Stradawhovious on Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:56 am

People are going to do drugs whether you want them to or not. If you eliminate the current cartels, you have succeeded in allowing someone else to come to power, and start flooding the market again. You won't have "won the war on drugs" because that, quite frankly, is impossible. You will have only changed the game. Legalize it. Tax it. If you remove the mystique, and "naughty" allure of the drugs you can eliminate many of the up and comers. Decriminalizing the substances will also open doorways for those people who absolutely want the help, but are too embarassed or turned off to the idea because of the social implications of being a user. There will always be the problem of people destroying their own live, and the lives of those around them, but we have a legal drug that enables this right now.... its called alcohol.

What better way to win the game than to put your enemies to work for you?
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Re: Gun control debate hangs over U.S.-Mexico violence

Postby jac714 on Tue Mar 24, 2009 10:15 am

The bottom line here is that people who want drugs will get them. As long as that demand exists someone will supply that demand.

Given that simple law of economics we then have to look at where the money comes from. We are paying for both sides of this war and as long as that is true we cannot win.

The legalization of most of the less impactful drugs (powdered coke, weed...) would reduce the price and therefore increase the use of those rather than the more impactful (Meth, crack, smack etc...) which would reduce the damage of legalization as would the availability of a huge new revenue stream to pay for the attendant collateral damage (treatment for addicts, increased health care costs due to drug use...)

We did not learn the lesson of Prohibition and now we are repeating it with all the gang and crime problems attendant to it.

I am not a fan of many types of drugs but the reality of the situation is that we are paying for both sides of the war and losing both sides, maybe it is time for a change in tactics.
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Re: Gun control debate hangs over U.S.-Mexico violence

Postby justaguy on Tue Mar 24, 2009 10:54 am

I don’t think many will argue that drugs are bad for you. It’s up to the individual to not let drugs destroy them. Not the United States government. Laws don’t save people from themselves. Drug laws are just like gun laws, but cost a lot more money, and make drug lords rich. Don’t let freedom scare you into think laws solve problems.
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Re: Gun control debate hangs over U.S.-Mexico violence

Postby nyffman on Tue Mar 24, 2009 11:07 am

I agree with you, but personal responsibility is not what got hope and change elected. It's also not what got most of Congress elected. At this point, freedom and personal responsibility have been shown the door and are on the way out. The type of thinking that created all these bailouts in order that these businesses not fail is the same thinking that prevents drug addicts from being responsible for their own situation. And the sad thing is, that this one attitude that did not come from the government. It came from the majority of the people. That's the real scary part of this.
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Re: Gun control debate hangs over U.S.-Mexico violence

Postby lenny7 on Tue Mar 24, 2009 2:09 pm

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.


Maybe they were purchased legally but they sure weren't brought across the border legally. Instead of creating new gun control laws, do a better job enforcing the current smuggling laws.
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Re: Gun control debate hangs over U.S.-Mexico violence

Postby Vlad on Tue Mar 24, 2009 2:19 pm

lenny7 wrote:
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.


Maybe they were purchased legally but they sure weren't brought across the border legally. Instead of creating new gun control laws, do a better job enforcing the current smuggling laws.


in the words of my sister: "Well, DUH!" I agree whole heartedly with you. Take care of your own issues and stop making someone else liable. turns into the chicken or the egg argument. if you didnt have guns over there, we wouldn't have to control our gang problem... :x :roll:
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