Posted on 12/24/2010 4:03:01 AM PST by marktwain
“Reports that Texas sends more guns to Mexico than any other state is not startling; more so, it's logical. We're the largest state on the southern U.S. border,” the El Paso Times Editorial Board declares.
The likely culprits, we are told, are Houston gun shops. Let’s examine their “logic.” Here’s how the editors evidently think the scheme works:
Just in Houston alone, a person can buy guns from a different dealer at least 300 times a year. No dealer is going to remember one person, who one time, for example, purchased two automatic weapons from his store.
Multiply that times 300 days, and that would be one person purchasing 600 automatic weapons a year and having large paydays by selling those guns through whatever network is devised.
Which, of course, is patently ridiculous, and shows either the editors are deceiving their readers, or else they are so ignorant on the matter that this attempt to sway public opinion amounts to journalistic malpractice. Liars or incompetents. There’s no third way here. Unless you want to include “lazy.”
Far be it from me to suggest professional, highly-paid “Authorized Journalists” know what it is they presume to write about and instruct others on—or to suggest that five minutes of Internet research is all it takes to put to rest their absurd misconceptions.
Let’s look at what it takes to buy just one “automatic weapon.” It requires an ATF Form 4. And following these rules. And many thousands of dollars per gun (click here for representative price charts), thanks to a federal law prohibiting “civilian” ownership and transfer of any full-auto firearm not registered as of May 19, 1986. And the transfer tax (we’re still multiplying all this by 600, right?) And we’re expected to believe the dealers will have no way of remembering a person doing this. And…but let firearms designer Len Savage give us a summary:
A machinegun transfer to a civilian requires an ATF form 4 to be completed in duplicate. The transferee has to have his Chief Law Enforcement officer sign off on the application. FBI fingerprint cards to be completed in duplicate, a check or money order in the amount of $200 and last but not least an ATF from 5330.20 [citizenship certification form] to be completed...Then all of the above is sent to ATF and 4-6 months later the ATF will approve the transfer...it sometimes takes longer. The buyer can NOT take possession until the approved form is returned.
Savage assumes, as do I, that the editors who presume to instruct us either don’t know the difference between machine guns and semiautomatic firearms—or they do and they don’t care because that advances their agenda.
Which is an old tactic the antis are counting on:
[G]un control advocate Josh Sugarmann candidly observed: "The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons-anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun-can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.
So let’s assume what the pundits at the El Paso Times meant to say was “semiautomatic. Let’s do some basic math here. Again from Savage:
The author also does not mention that the secondary sale of firearms in this economy has made a buyers’ market meaning that those sales are for LESS than the retail price. To do what the author suggests would be to intentionally lose money...not make money. Walk in to any pawn shop and look at the deals. If you speak with the owners (I have last week with several in Texas) they are turning away guns, to quote one "They are only a good deal if you can move them".
Also it is fairly well established that the market on stolen guns the prices are far less than retail...ever hear the phrase "Hotter than a two dollar pistol"...The only real incentive to purchase stolen firearms is that they are VERY cheap.
Yeah, the cartels are in business to lose money.
That rational analysis is not the hallmark of the gun ban crowd and its useful idiots is hardly a surprise. The same could be said for the truth—this is not the first time we’ve seen desperate lies advanced in the name of curbing Mexican cartel violence. It would appear to be all the antis have.
The immediate goal of all this is to reenact the federal “assault weapons” ban, end private sales and create universal registration. And the same boobs who don’t know the first thing about guns and the existing infringements on our right to keep and bear them—or care that they’re relying on deception if they do—will gin up prohibitionist fervor among the ignorant and fearful using phrases like “common sense gun laws” and “a good first step.”
Here’s the bottom line: Anyone who would infringe on your right to keep and bear arms—even if they sincerely believe in their cause—is not your friend. Anyone who would lie to do it is your enemy.
And the people running the El Paso Times ought to be ashamed of themselves, and their lack of journalistic integrity and standards. They owe not just gun owners, but all their readers, a profound apology.
* Journalists continue spreading VPC's 'machine gun' confusion * American gun owners should say 'Gracias, Presidente Calderón!'
There's an old saying that fits these 'newspapers' on guns. It goes something like this:
Once, is accidence
Twice, is happenstance
The third time, is on purpose
I've also noted that 99.9% of all articles that has a firearm involved, it is assigned to some ditz female reporterette - who wouldn't doesn't know an AK-47 from a Side-by-side Shotgun.
Oh, and every rifle is 'high powered'. And every handgun has a 'high capacity', "clip" (groan).
Of course, the Gun Control Fascists do not want to do the one thing that would actually limit automatic weapons sales to the Mexican Drug Cartels.....Seal the border.
The Gun Control Fascists here are also the same ones who want Open Borders and Illegal Alien Amnesty.
Yep.
And there's prolly Cargo ship after Cargo ship lined up at Mexican ports with Containers full of Automatic Weapons (like real 'Machine Guns'), Rocket Launchers and Grenades. Not to mention from the 'all so honest'(/s) Mexican Military, who WE, as in US Gubmint, gave the weapons to in the first place in order to fight the 'drug war'.
The Cartels sure as heck ain't getting that stuff by straw purchases at Arizona Guns Shows or a Wally World in Waco.
Unfortunately, though somewhat funny it's all too painfully true.
If this is such a problem, why doesn’t Mexico just pass strict gun control laws so the criminals can’t have guns?
Yep. That’s spot on, unfortunately.
They already have strict gun control laws. Think NYC, Detroit, Chicago. Prohibit private ownership .....
“strict gun control laws so the criminals can’t have guns”
That’s sarcasm.
Actually, there are some other *likely culprits.*
I'd hazard the guess that one of them is named Hugo.
Nope. Actually, his name is John Shipley. As in FBI Special Agent John Shipley, at least until after his conviction.
And now it's also beginning to appear that even that was an attempt by the BATF agents to embarass the FBI, so that they could grab a bigger piece of the opie at budget time, get some headlines, and appear to prove that Mexican drug gangs get all their hardware from the US.
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