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Posted on 01/16/2009 6:57:16 AM PST by rabscuttle385
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) today renewed their push to enact legislation to reduce drug-related violence in the border region by cracking down on organizations smuggling weapons illegally from the United States into Mexico. Senators Richard Durbin, Dianne Feinstein, Jon Kyl, and John McCain are also cosponsors of the legislation.
Ongoing violence in Mexico is having a devastating impact on Mexico and is raising concerns for border communities on both sides of the border. In 2008, more than 5,300 people were killed in Mexico -- double the number in the previous year. More than 1,600 of those deaths were in Ciudad Juarez, near El Paso, Texas. Drug traffickers are at war with each other. Assassinations of police and government officials are commonplace. Lawyers and journalists have been killed, and many innocent civilians have been caught up in the crossfire.
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), 90 percent of the weapons seized in Mexico are from sources within the United States. These weapons are used by drug cartels to violently control their drug shipment routes and funnel illegal narcotics into the United States. Because Mexico has stringent rules on gun possession, stopping the flow of illegal guns into Mexico is essential in the fight against transnational drug trafficking organizations.
To that end, the Senators today introduced the Southwest Border Violence Reduction Act of 2009 – a measure to crack down on illegal gun smuggling networks. They first introduced this bill last spring.
"This escalating violence isn't just a problem for Mexico. It's also a serious concern for the many New Mexicans, Texans, Arizonans and Californians who live in communities along our shared border," Bingaman said. "We must recognize that the guns smuggled into Mexico from the United States are fueling this violence and take immediate action to keep these weapons out of the hands of violent drug gangs."
"Narcotic trafficking organizations aren't confined by borders," Hutchison said. "The increasing violence in Mexico is now a U.S. national security issue. The powerful Mexican drug cartels are a threat to the safety and security of U.S. communities and the U.S. law enforcement officials who seek to protect us."
The Senators' bill authorizes $30 million over the next two years to expand the U.S. Department of Justice's "Project Gunrunner Initiative" – a successful initiative that targets gun trafficking networks. The funding would enable ATF to hire, train and deploy additional special agents to the U.S. border states as part of Project Gunrunner.
The bill also authorizes $19 million over the next two years to enhance cooperation between the United States and Mexico. This funding would allow ATF to assign additional agents to U.S. consulates in Mexico to support Mexico's efforts to trace seized weapons and to train Mexican law enforcement officials in anti-trafficking investigative techniques.
"Drug violence in Mexico is taking a terrible human toll. But it's also having an impact on the economies of border communities in terms of reduced trade, bilateral business ventures, and tourism. The sooner we enact our common-sense legislation to reduce the violence, the better," Bingaman said.
"We must commit to providing the necessary resources to end the destructive violence of the Mexican drug cartels, on both sides of the border," said Hutchison. "This legislation takes an important step toward protecting our citizens from the terrorism that drug cartels seek to spread."
Sponsors: Bingaman (D-NM), McCain (R-AZ), Kyl (R-AZ), Durbin (D-IL), Feinstein (D-CA), Hutchison (R-TX)
Every time McQueeg hangs out with that many Democrats...you know something nasty is going to happen.
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Ping!
Hint: Build a decent damn fence already, and man it appropriately! That should work wonders for reducing all kinds of problems with the Mexican border.
You got that right. Let's see...CFR trashed the 1st Amendment, perhaps this POS legislation will impinge on the 2nd.
Somehow I suspect that the 2nd Amendment has something to do with gun trafficking. Our gun laws enable Mexican criminals, so they will try to reduce the American right.
And the criminals will still have guns.
Control the border, and we fix their problem and ours.
I cannot stand Jeff Bingaman, he beat a friend of mine of mine when he was elected to the Senate. His uncle John was a local King Maker in the Demo machine in NM.
He is one of the most left leaning members of the senate.
Jeff’s wife, Ann, worked under Janet Reno in the Clinton administration and as that administration was expiring she got a gig working for Global Crossing doing their FCC filings that netted her 2.6 mil which she and some of her friends used with a minority loan to buy the remnants of GTE. The funds came from this political payoff for services rendered by Jeff as senator.
Less than a year later Global Crossing went out of business.
Really Bad Folks.
—
My friend is “Jack” Schmitt, an astronaut not a politico.
see wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Schmitt
I suppose that(in bold above) is one way of putting it. Actually all they are doing is slurping for an annual expediture of 9.5 million taxpayer dollars to be thrown at the problem. They claim the BATF can train (known to be corrupt) Mexican police to recover erased serial numbers from weapons so they can be traced back to the "Americans" who smuggled them.
Bangin head on keyboard.
s drjpoir geijpogi ojoiha goijhf
The purpose of this proposed legislation is to make KBH look tough to give her a boost in the 2010 Texas Governor’s race. KBH has done nothing in all her years in the Senate.
Who would be the better of two evils between Perry and KBH? Hope those won’t be our choices in 2010.
That may be true. But I bet most of the fully automatic weapons, the hand grenades and other military hardware they catch these cartels with is coming from somewhere other than the U.S. I have no doubt though that plenty of hunting rifles and shotguns and handguns are being purchased in the U.S. and brought back down to Mexico. Most of the people doing this aren't violent criminal types though. They're just regular people that want firearms and can't get them in Mexico. That's one of those statistics that could be very misleading.
The new plan is to NOT finish the fence.
STOP HARRY REID’S AMNESTY BILL TODAY!!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2165759/posts
Mexico has never been a friend of our United States.
Based on old pesos!
The looters of Mexico want to have the freedom to loot
America.
After spending several years starting oil exploration
crews for Pemex, I think I have The reason Mexico has
become so bad.
I like the Mexican people in the fly over parts of Mexico.
The mid level and workers of Pemex are good.
It is the government and the high up in Pemex that are
the vultures and looters.
The peso was about 8 cents (12.5 to a dollar).
When Pemex found the sito grande, a very large oil pool
that covers parts of the states of Chiapas and Tabasco
also a long ways into the Gulf of Mexico.
Pemex borrowed billions to produce this great oil find.
The looters (government) stole most of the money and
what they did buy was junk oil rigs and drill pipe, etc.
1,000 pesos which was worth about $80 now will not buy
a coke (old pesos).
This was due to the looters stealing billions from the
Mexican people.
Instead of overthrowing the looters the Mexican people
had an out, they had no weapons and they could cross
into America and have a much safer life.
This hurts both Mexico and America as Mexico lost some
of it’s hardest workers.
The gangbangers and welfare frauds also came over from
Mexico as they could rape and pillage at will.
The government of Mexico is propped up by the billions
sent back by the illegals and by our government having
borders that are too open.
The only chance I see to help America and Mexico is to
seal the border, deport the people who are not here
legally.
We also need to arm the Mexican people so they can have
a chance against the looters with their armies.
If they can't get weapons from the US, they'll buy them from Russia, China’ Venezuela, etc. Give me a break with your stupid *please re-elect me* bill!
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