20 arrested for illeagally buy hundreds of AK-47's

[cassandrasdaddy]

im guessing CANNOT be made into full auto or burst/selective very easily.

you are guessing incorrectly

 

[brickeyee]

How are the cartels exploiting US gun laws? Straw purchases are unlawful. Bias, uninformed. I felt like sending him an e-mail, and trying to educate him, but I doubt it would take.

The problem is ignorance can be cured, but stupid goes clear to the bone.

 

[DragonFire]

if something isn't done about things like this, we will lose some/all of our rights. What about a limit on purchases within a given time?

Isn't a limit a loss of one of our rights?

Giving in "a little" just leads to having less the next time you have to give in.

Making a law to make something illegal more illegal is stupid. Do you really think a criminal will commit a crime if he's only facing 2 life sentences but not 3? Really?

 

[ants]

In one case, officials said, seven individuals spent $104,251 in cash at various Phoenix-area firearms dealers to acquire 140 firearms.

$104,251 divided by 140 rifles is $750 apiece.
I certainly hope they got AR rifles for that money.
I hope they didn't buy AK's at $750 each.

These idiots are going to start another price hike scare.

 

[Madcap_Magician]

I think that sounds like a pretty rotten dealer, if you ask me. If some Hispanic dude comes up to the counter and asks how many AK-47s you have, then wants to buy all of them with cash, should that not set off at least ONE alarm bell for a store clerk?

 

[Birdmang]

Would it matter if it was a white guy asking how many AKs and wants them in cash?

 

[merlinfire]

Just because a sear can be filed down to make a gun "run away" doesn't mean its select fire or full auto in the conventional, or at least useful, sense. So as another member has mentioned, why would you buy a semi-auto at inflated American prices, and spend the time and money to convert them to proper select fire weapons, when you could buy them by the frigging crateload from other countries with laws much more lax, for half the price?

It almost seems like people want the US's gun industry to be relevant to the problems in Mexico. But its just not.

 

[230therapy]

It just seems very, very odd to me that a cartel would send men into the US to buy semi-automatic guns at retail price. Why would they do that when they can order a ship full of military grade weapons from China and pay significantly less per item? Furthermore, why deal with US Customs when the professional smuggling organization can just have the weapons dropped off in a Mexican port?

 

[Mozart 2]

I had to laugh when the article repeatedly used the phrase "exploiting gun laws." Isn't that what criminals do? Did I miss something? So we're to conclude that U.S. laws are responsible for Mexican violence?

If someone breaks a law, clearly that means we should change the law...or add more laws...

How 'bout this: if someone breaks the law you catch them and punish them and then continue to enforce the law...

 

[Geckgo]

I'm guessing that these were for the cartel organizations stateside rather than for transport to Mexico, either that or the Mexican government has some clever way of keeping crates of automatic weapons into the country. Either way, people have their reasons. Personally, I think the FFLs that were selling these guns need to be investigated and possibly closed down and the sales reps tried for treason.

 

[JohnBiltz]

I don't doubt there is smuggling of guns into Mexico. If you have something banned on one side of a border that is legal on the other there is going to be smuggling. You can log that into rules like death and taxes. I don't think its going on in the kind of numbers that are being tossed around by the media. Seems like there would be a lot more arrests than we are seeing. This arrest is being treated like some one finally caught a big foot. Nor do we know they were going to the cartels. A lot of people in Mexico right now are worried about defending themselves not that I think the guy probably cares who he sells stuff to.

 

[NJ Accountant]

Guy walks into an auto dealer and asks how many white vans they have on the lot. Dealer says 20, Guy says he'll take em all, fill out the paperwork and pay in cash.

Sounds like an intelligent way to get vans for illegal activity in Mexico. You know buying brthis new overpriced vans with a paper trail that have all kinds of unessary crap that limit their usefulness and speed.

This sounds like the way most drug cartels get their vehicles rights?

We should probably make a law about this.

 

[GambJoe]

Guy walks into an auto dealer and asks how many white vans they have on the lot. Dealer says 20, Guy says he'll take em all, fill out the paperwork and pay in cash.

Sounds like an intelligent way to get vans for illegal activity in Mexico. You know buying brthis new overpriced vans with a paper trail that have all kinds of unessary crap that limit their usefulness and speed.

This sounds like the way most drug cartels get their vehicles rights?

We should probably make a law about this.

You can take logic only so far. Apples and oranges. I'm sure many fleet owners buy 20 cars at a clip but they get to register them for commercial or personal use.

Hey take a carrot. Someone from a drug cartel could go out to any vegatable stand and buy 20 carrots. Now if these drug cartel members were highly trained marshal arts experts they could probably drive even the thinnest carrot thru some cops eye socket and into their skull. Killer carrots.

You going to make a law for carrots?

Vans are for driving, transporting and delivery. Guns are for shooting and killing and carrots are for eating.

 

[Mozart 2]

You can take logic only so far.

Vans are for driving, transporting and delivery. Guns are for shooting and killing...

I'll bet that fleet of 20 vans kills far more people than my 20 guns ever will...

 

[jbrown50]

In case you haven't read this before; it's an eye opener.

The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/02/myth-percent-small-fraction-guns-mexico-come/#

You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

 

[NJ Accountant]

I wasn't even talking about the lethality of the vans or purpose for having, I was make a comparison of business sense in buying van or guns in the US new to use in the drug trade. In comparison to other sources; ie stolen from the us, bought used, stolen from Mexican police and military. This is all documented as happening in Mexico with both vehicles and firearms.

Or they just assault a Mexican precinct and take all their weapons using fully automatic military machine guns, grenades and grenade launchers. None of which come from straw purchases in the USA.

 

[NJ Accountant]

The whole thing just stinks.

Why would gun runners be buying AK 's from the US at over 700 a semi rifle? When the highest a black market new Russian AK has sold for in the last 10 years was 300 and Chinese made could be found for less than a 100 a rifle and they are automatic to boot.

 

[bhk]

My guess is that these guns are being smuggled to Mexico by low-level criminals south of the border that don't have the formal 'connections' the big drug cartels do. Those with connections can get much more potent weapons at much cheaper prices from countries other that ours.

 

[JayBird]

Back in the day when the first large quantities of SKS rifles hit the market, I knew plenty of LAW ABIDING people that were picking them up in multiple quantities since they were plentiful and cheap.

While I can understand that this particular incident in the article should have raised some red flags, I wouldn't always say that "Any time someone buys multiple of the same firearm, the ATF needs to be notified"

If I have the money, and want to buy 10 Ruger Mark III 22's, should I get a knock on the door from ATF asking me if I am starting an army?

And what would be the number that required an automatic notification to ATF, 20, 10, 5....2???????

While I totally disagree with what these criminals did, it should not require any knee jerk reaction in the form of legislation. If an FFL thinks something is fishy, he\she should notify the authorities, however mandating it to be done is just asking for trouble, and giving the federal government one more way of infringing on law abiding citizens right to bear arms.

 

[robhof]

robhof

The part that they leave out about the guns from the US is that they are US Govt weapons given to the Mexican Anti-drug forces and either stolen or sold by their agents to the cartels. Mexican police make about $150 per month, sell a crate of free guns and make a year's wages, and maybe get a free; don't shoot me, pass from the cartel.

 

[2ndAmFan]

I had a pretty good little argument on the comment section of a Liberal online publication a few months ago when I mentioned that the Mexican Cartels do NOT need civilian US guns to continue the violence in Mexico. They can get plenty of those supplied to the Mexican government by the US government. Also, considering North Korea and Pakistan are both heavily involved in illegal arms and drug trafficking, and various South and Central American countries will sell guns to almost anyone with cash I don't know why Mexican drug gangs bother with overpriced American guns at all. It's all about scaring the sheeple into thinking that disarming law-abiding US citizens and legal residents will make the gangsters play nice.

 

[russ69]

I'm still having problems with this story (lack of a story). Federal agents legally bought guns, then they did something with them? Where's the story? Who broke what law? What are the charges? Who was charged? This is the reason I don't get my news from "news agencies". How hard is it to put this story together? Where are the facts? This story is an editorial absent of all facts. WTH.

 

[gym]

Din they forget that we gave Bin Ladin all of his weapons when he was at war with the Russians. It depends on what day it is in this Global climate.

 

[NoviceClays1989]

Just gotta say, Geno, love the prayer.

 

[danprkr]

So after all, while many gun nuts collect AKs ... and never do anything unlawful with them ... it does make sense for "society" to raise a flag on someone who buys more hi-cap guns that anyone without his own militia or gang could need?

And just who exactly sets the number that someone needs? I guarantee that no matter who sets that number some on this board who are law abiding, and honest exceeds it. In some cases I may be in that set of members. Who are you or the gov to set my 'need'?