A huge weapons cache was recently discovered in Mexico, and authorities are tracing the guns to US gun stores along the Mexican border.
Sales of the automatic weapons that the drug cartels favored were forbidden under Clinton, but under Bush the automatic weapons sales were restored. Obama has not reinstated the ban because it would immediately have meant a huge political firefight (heh) with the NRA and all its trigger-happy members.
So the thing that is making it possible, nay, relatively easy, for the Mexican drug cartels to obtain weapons and fight effectively against the police is the NRA. Way to go, NRA! You and your members are protecting the rights of Mexican drug cartels to keep and bear arms and most especially, kill people. Because roughly 22,000 people have died in Mexican drug wars since the Mexican President Calderon took office.
Yet another reason to think the NRA is a comtemptible organization, and its members and supporters, just plain comtemptible people.
The assault weapon ban of 1994 outlawed certain types of semi-automatic rifles based on a few cosmetic features - pistol grips, flash hiders, and bayonet lugs. Other semi-automatic rifles of exactly the same lethality were completely unaffected by the ban. Many manufacturers responded by releasing versions of the rifles without bayonet lugs or flash hiders, to comply with the cosmetic requirements of the ban. Again, unless you were planning on bayoneting people, these were exactly as lethal as guns affected by the ban, and I am quite certain that any self-respecting drug cartel would have been just as happy to buy these models as the banned models.
The bill, as passed by a Democratic congress and signed by Clinton, included a clause that it would auotmatically sunset (expire) in 10 years. Congress did not renew the law in 2004, or since.
The ban had nothing whatsoever to do with automatic weapons, which have been illegal to manufacture for civilian purchase since 1986.
Well that certainly completely disproves my thesis that the NRA is an enabler for the Mexican drug cartels!
C’mon, it would be politically EASY to ban semi-full-whatever weapons sales if it werent for the NRA’s opposition to ANY restrictions on gun sales in the US. It’s the NRA that’s the stumbling block, and it’s the NRA that enable the cartels in buying high powered weaponry in the US. I’m sure they have other sources, but it doesn’t absolve the NRA and its supporters of their culpability for the US gun purchases.
I don’t have the patience to type out a long, detailed response with cites only to have you wave them away, so I’ll simply give it the response it deserves:
Thank god we’ll be spared details on grain counts and stopping power and the endless bitching because someone might use the term “machine gun” outside of the NRA mandated term usage rules.
Can you describe for us what you might consider a “machine gun”?
I mean, when I think of this weapon, I think of all the hollywood movie descriptions I have ever seen, from things large enough to need a tripod mount and belt-fed ammunition, to tommy guns and uzis and ak-47s. All of these weapons are currently illegal, you dipshit.
Please point to a weapon thatis currently legal to sell, that you think should not be legal, and tell us why. Otherwise shut the fuck up and go home.
I’m not interested in the NRA, and I don’t have a closet full of automatic weapons.
Still and all, I don’t see any reason for me, a US citizen with a clean record, to have my ability to buy a rifle, or shotgun, or any other sporting arms, curtailed because of Mexican gangsters. Ban every weapon here in the US - all of them - semiauto, double action, single action, pump, all of it - and these gangsters will still have their hardware, and yes, they will still have full auto weapons if they want them too. Want to blame someone? Blame the gangsters. Blame their own government. Blame simple greed.
First, you probably want to talk about the ability of drug cartels to get weapons, rather than their “rights.”
Second, is your real concern here Mexican drug war carnage, or is it American gun laws?
Because if you’re only talking about Mexico as a means to attack the NRA and gun-rights advocates, that’s a rather contemptible disservice to the real victims.
On the other hand, if you are genuinely concerned about Mexican drug war victims, you should probably be talking about removing the cartels’ funding. (See this thread for some discussion on this point.) If they’re making money, they can get weapons somewhere, even if not from the U.S. There are illegal arms dealers working in many countries and across many borders.