Feds Bust Drug Cartel Gun Smuggle Ring in Ariz.

[El Supremo]

Source: CBSNEWS / AP

20 Indicted for Allegedly Smuggling More Than 700 Guns into Mexico for Sinaloa Cartel

(CBS/AP) PHOENIX - A grand jury has indicted 20 people on firearms charges for allegedly participating in a ring that bought more than 700 guns that were to be smuggled into Mexico for use by a drug cartel.

Dennis Burke, the U.S. attorney for Arizona, says the ring is believed to have supplied the Sinaloa cartel with guns.

Authorities say some of the weapons were used in shootings in Mexico's drug war.


(snip)

According to MSNBC, officials said the alleged "straw buyers" had no trouble buying the guns and passing federal background checks despite buying multiple firearms and spending large amounts of cash. In one case, seven people spent $104,251 in cash at several Phoenix-area dealers to purchase 140 firearms, according to officials.


Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/25/national/main7282661.shtml?tag=cbsnewsSectionContent.2

[xchrom]

1. interesting. nt

[jillan]

2. ughhhh. Why do we have gun laws if no one follows them?

[slackmaster]

3. Good news. I hope the perps go to prison for a long time.

I'd like to see more stories like this.

[appal_jack]

4. Agreed.

Present gun laws being used to bust straw-purchasing criminals is a good outcome.

-app

[truthisfreedom]

5. Excellent work.

Good news.

[Ozymanithrax]

6. U.S. arrests 17 in Mexico gun running bust

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - U.S. police arrested 17 people and broke up a gun running network that sought to funnel more than 700 firearms including high-powered Kalashnikov rifles to Mexico drug cartels, authorities said on Tuesday.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, said police arrested 17 suspects in a multi-agency operation across the Phoenix valley on Tuesday. Three other suspects remained at large.

The operation involving ATF, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Internal Revenue Service, as well as Phoenix police and Mexican authorities, dismantled a network allegedly buying weapons for Mexico's powerful Sinaloa Cartel, investigators said.

***SNIP***

"The investigation is further proof of the relentless efforts by Mexican drug cartels, especially the Sinaloa cartel, to illegally acquire large quantities of firearms in Arizona and elsewhere for use in the ongoing Mexican drug war," he added.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70O6O820110125?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews

---

Clearly, the Mexican Drug Cartels are strong advocates of the U.S. 2nd Amendment, and the rumor that they are seeking to buy weapons here in the U.S. of A. are accurate.

[Kennah]

7. So criminals willing to violate the law ...

... would be dissuaded by a new law?

[Ozymanithrax]

8. Not my position...

I am only stating that the Drug Cartel leaders appear to be strong advocates of the Second amendment, and they are smuggling guns purchased in the United States back to fight the war in Mexico. The American mania for guns fuels wholesale murder in Mexico. No surprise.

[Kennah]

12. Because they'd never get guns from anywhere else?

[fascisthunter]

21. I guess they don't have to look elsewhere, do they?

[Kennah]

31. So we're wanting to emulate the "highly successful" Drug War?

[Ozymanithrax]

24. These guns they get from us. A bullet in the head of a baby in Mexico...

isn't a sacrifice for our freedom. It is a symptom of an irresponsible, uncarring society.

[timo]

30. speaking of dead babies

whats your take on Obamas murderous drone killing spree? I bet if there was a body count kept, more "babies" have died in the drone kills than have in Mexico!!

[Tejas]

19. "American mania for guns fuels wholesale murder"

Yep, drugs have nothing to do with the violence in Mexico.

[fascisthunter]

22. they both do

[Tejas]

26. Oh please, the drugs cause the violence....not the guns, baseball bats, machetes.

Were it not for the drug trade, there wouldn't be people constantly beat to a pulp with bats, beheadings with machetes etc.

[pipoman]

23. What can't be bought?

The second amendment to the US Constitution has nothing to do with it.

[damntexdem]

14. So they go to Arizona, with weak, almost nonexistent, gun control.

Instead of California, with stronger gun control. Hmmm.

[Tejas]

20. Geography, it's really not that difficult.

Where are the cartels at, south of California or Arizona?

[plumbob]

9. They're just trying to make Mexico safer with more guns!

R-i-g-h-t?

[slackmaster]

10. Good bust.

K&R

:kick:

[X_Digger]

11. Please, to be continuing to enforce existing laws, kthxbuhbye. n/t

[mistertrickster]

13. It always kills me how every rifle is described as a "high powered" rifle.

What's a low powered rifle?

A 22 caliber, I guess.

Other than that, practically every rifle imaginable is a "high powered rifle."

It's like "high alcohol" whiskey or "very sharp" razors.

[SlipperySlope]

17. You may be close...

The definition of "High Power" used to determine acceptable rifles for official "High Power Rifle Matches" includes *all* center-fire rounds. In terms of modern calibers, that pretty much means all rifles are high power rifles unless they shoot .22 rimfire or .17 rimfire.

[gratuitous]

15. Beck was right! The gun grabbers are upon us!

Just beating the usual suspects to the punch. And you just know you will see something like the subject line said with an incomplete reference to this event, along with the usual "Send us money to stop the infringement of some of our sacred and oh-so-holy Second Amendment rights."

[iamhuman]

16. The cartel is clearly against the 2nd amendment,

The criminals in Mexico love the gun control because it doesn't apply to them.
The Mexican civilians are under some of the harshest gun control laws in the world.
Because of the gun laws in Mexico they can, with almost complete impunity.
Kidnap,Rape,Rob and kill almost anywhere they want.

Have you noticed how well it works to have gun control?
It doesn't work.

My guess is 95% of the world have really nice people. If they had guns the kidnappers,assassins, crooked cops. would lose the war.
After the real defense of country took back the streets they would put the guns back in their closets,
and go back to loving and living like most people do in the USA.

The population of Mexico lives in Fear. If your brave enough to go to Mexico,
Go to any shopping center parking lot and watch how if your a stranger how people react to you.
They cautiously watch you till they see your not there to shoot them.




The cartels have gotten guns for years,
They used to get most of their weapons from the ex members of the death squads
Plus they where already to go. Didn't have to machine anything to make them full auto.

http://www.truth-out.org/article/greg-grandin-death-squads-disappearances-and-torture-from-latin-america-iraq

FEAR
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=es&tl=en&u=http://www.diario.com.mx/notas.php%3Ff%3D2010/12/30%26id%3D7f8650d95b3b9069c704edbaf3097e13&rurl=translate.google.com&twu=1&usg=ALkJrhg2jd5APOjfrieZbRyxNJPCTO-5Rg

IAM

[Ozymanithrax]

25. Your wrong...They get guns here where there is no control.

Our irresponsibility as a society is what it is.

[Tejas]

27. So, 100% of THE guns in Mexico came from US gun stores?

[Tejas]

18. "high-powered" Kalashnikov rifles - LOL!

Guess the cartels don't care for "MEDIUM-powered" Kalashnikov rifles, much less "LOW-powered" Kalashnikov rifles. Adjectives, where would the media be without them? :rofl:

[Bragi]

29. Guns! Criminals! Guns! Death! LOL ! LOL! LOL!

It's all just 'effin hilarious, innit?

[Tejas]

33. "It's all just 'effin hilarious, innit?" - yes, it is.

The whole situation is laughable and will continue to be until somebody (and I'll guess it won't be you) does something about the smuggling of weapons into Mexico from China et al by arms dealers.


Oh wait, you're probably one of those that think the RPG's and full-auto machineguns in use by the cartels come from Academy or Gander Mountain.....

[Bragi]

28. Most Americans don't feel they need guns

The problem here is that easy-gun access by criminals is inevitable when you have a small minority who are so afraid of other people that they actually think they need to have guns everywhere they go.

I don't understand why these fearful and scared people can't be helped so they can learn to live their lives like most Americans -- unarmed and unafraid.

Maybe there should be a public awareness campaign to help gun owners get over their irrational fear of everybody else. Society could then put proper controls on lethal killing tools that end up in the hands of criminals and cartels.

[Tejas]

32. And the criminals that use knives, clubs, and all

the other things the Center for Disease Control and the DOJ chart the use of in crimes would just start an honest clean life eh?

[friendly_iconoclast]

34. Vex not the Savonarola of The Great White North with your snark, heathen!

Seriously, certain of our Canadian members seem unable to resist lecturing us violent, primitive Yanks.

They're far from the first- just the latest.