Sometimes, those that promote a specific agenda do not realize that they are doing so, but most times, in my experience it is done willingly. The reason for this preface is Todd Bensman, the author of the article I just posted about here and some motivation is also this.
Apparently, Mr. Bensman was checking on his name via this search and came across my blog as can be seen in the image directly below.
I decided to visit a bit of the blogs he found in his search and came across this posting from Michael Yon.
American Guns and Mexicans
06 April 2009
It would appear that the Mexico situation carries enough emotional potential – in North America – to dwarf anything we saw on Iraq. Afghanistan is more like a martial metronome, or a software program that’s running in the background; we only notice when it crashes.
Mexico, however...
It looks like anyone who steps into the Mexico fray might as well jump onto the back of an angry bull. I published a few documents/articles lately, mostly without comment, which caused a small uproar. In fact, it appears that FOX responded to the uproar with its own story. Many people, who reflexively expurgated words that did not suit their trained palettes, immediately embraced, uncritically, the FOX report which apparently tasted better. Some people even demanded apologies from me for – I’m not exactly sure for what. I am very good at apologizing when I do something wrong, but there has been zero cause for apology lately. When it comes to the issue of guns to Mexico, the jury has not convened, and so it can hardly be out. I will treat Mexico the same way I treated Iraq: Listen to everyone; trust nothing; draw independent conclusions.
In any case, I re-published this story from FOX, which many people swallowed without chewing. Two journalists contacted me from the San Antonio Express-News; Sig Christenson and Todd Bensman. I’ve known Sig since 2006, and know him to be a respected and experienced war correspondent. Sig introduced Mr. Bensman, saying Mr. Bensman had conducted research on the guns to Mexico issue. Mr. Bensman took sharp issue with the FOX rebuttal.
You can continue to read Michael Yon's article here and Todd Bensman's work here.Mr. Todd Bensman’s rebuttal to the FOX rebuttal:The notion that 90 percent of the guns recovered from Mexican cartels can be traced to US retailers derives from hard ATF trace statistics. The majority of the recovered guns that are traced - not all are - have been traced to American retailers, unless the ATF is just making it all up, and no one has even alleged such a thing.
Those stats, combined with interviews with top law enforcement officials and field agents, and backed by court records and interviews with former cartel gunmen who knew how procurement worked, provide what seems to be a very strong, if not insurmountable, indication of where most of all the other UNtraced guns also come from. There are lots of good reasons why not all seized guns in Mexico are traced. I won't get into that here. But what this Fox news reporter did was to definitively conclude, with no good indicators at the ready, that the untraced guns were NOT from the U.S. He reached this conclusion by doing some simple math, not extensive interviewing of every conceivable human resource involved in the trade, as we at the Express-News did for many months.
Do I think he writes with an agenda, everybody does, the question is he doing it intentionally- and yes, he and his fellow "reporters" are. Here are a few quotes:
PART IThis report starts right out trying to cloud the reader with emotion, tug at your heartstrings and make you weepy. Further one of these "reporters", who diligently studied this situation, brings up "assault rifles"- that old lying canard. So we can read the rest of this report, just remember, THEY LIE.
"I dream that he is planning my birthday parties once again, and that we are all together talking again," Angélica, one of his three children, said through an interpreter. "In that dream, my father is making my mother laugh. He told me to watch over her. And then he said, 'It doesn’t matter, it was my turn.'."
Angélica's father had worn a police badge for 23 years in this Central Mexico state capital, rising to subcommandante and, at 40, was nearing retirement. The hail of bullets came so fast neither he nor his fellow officers had time to fire a shot."
"Some of the assault-style rifles preferred by the narcos are so pernicious that, if modified to fully automatic as they often are, they can fire 10 rounds a second with a force that can rip through most standard armored police vests."
PART IIHere we have quotes in part two, and there are many more, from an ATF agent and we know, ATF NEVER LIES, DO THEY?
The former cartel foot soldier, for example, told the Express-News he got what he needed in Texas. He simply stated to the head of his 40-member cartel security unit — a feared paramilitary group known as the Zetas — what guns he wanted. The orders were passed to fellow cartel workers in charge of finding straw buyers who would be paid in cash or drugs.
"The people who was working here in the U.S. selling the drugs, they were the same that got the weapons," said the former Zeta enforcer who is cooperating with U.S. authorities and asked that his name not be revealed. "They get some people to buy the weapons, every kind of them, and then pay them for it. ... Most times, we were better armed than the local police."
In Houston, ATF agents uncovered one network of more than 30 straw buyers who spent more than $400,000 on guns, said J. Dewey Webb, agent in charge of the office there, which oversees San Antonio and much of south Texas.
"A lot of straw purchasers say, 'Hey I'm not hurting anybody. I'm just making a few dollars,." Webb said. "But that AK killed someone in Mexico. It's all connected and it's all relevant."
There is no proof the 32 guns he bought through a straw purchaser ended up in cartel hands. But prosecutors say that can be assumed because many of them — 23 were handguns that can fire armor-piercing ammo — are favorites of the drug gangs.
The group bought several FN pistols and semi-automatic assault rifles. One was found in Mexico.
But according to the ex-Zeta enforcer who is now an informant, the cartels are usually behind the straw purchases and have little problem getting their hands on the weapons through layers of associates driven by greed. Their purpose is no secret: To kidnap, kill, "all kinds of stuff like that."
Then, we have a "former" Zeta who is NOW an informant. Do we really want to think he had a change of heart or is he saying what his handlers want him to?
PART IIIAcademy sells thousands of rounds of ammunition- SHOCK! This "report" was written shortly after that "discovery" of the guns in Reynosa and the point trying to be made is that ALL ammunition being purchased in bulk is going to Mexico. Are there some purchases heading South to the Failed State? More than probably some ammunition is. Is the bulk of those purchases going there? I seriously doubt it.
"I had a guy come in the other day and clear me out of .223s," Rodriguez said of ammunition that fits assault-type rifles as well as classic hunting rifles. "He paid $5,000 cash, and then he went to one of our other stores and cleaned that out, too. I didn't ask what he was going to do with it. It isn't my business to ask. They're probably taking it over to Mexico."
There is nothing illegal about such transactions.
Buying bullets is almost the same as buying a loaf of bread. There's no limit on the amount an adult can buy for civilian use, nor are buyers disqualified by criminal histories, which makes ammunition easier to acquire than guns. Unlike some states, Texas requires no recordkeeping by sellers. One law that does apply isn't much help to law enforcement. It requires buyers be U.S. citizens, but retailers don’t have to check.
"The main thing is for us to stop the illegal flow of guns going to Mexico, but if they don't have bullets, they can't use them," said J. Dewey Webb, the Houston-based head of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "It's just as important and it's just as illegal. If we could reduce the traffickers to throwing rocks at each other, I think we’ve achieved our goal."
Kirkpatrick said those to whom he will sell usually are wealthy local firearms enthusiasts who like target practicing with assault-style guns. One hobbyist, he said, recently cleared out his .50-caliber bullets for some fun at the range with an $8,000 sniper rifle he'd bought from Kirkpatrick.
A higher social good
That retailers would voluntarily turn down profits for a higher social good is not without precedent. In the early 2000s, Walgreens and Target began setting voluntary limits on the sale of common cold medicines used to make illegal methamphetamine to dampen the contagion. Texas and other states eventually passed laws restricting volume sales.
When I purchase, it is in bulk one to five thousand rounds at a time and I am not the only one. In fact, I know many gun ranges and small dealers who do EXACTLY what that purchaser who spent $5000.00 did and you want to know why? The ran out of stock AND quite often shipping fees. WHY did they run out? The number one salesman for the firearms industry to date.
These "reporters" then go on to attack Texas, guns, and we Texans because we can purchase ammunition like loaves of bread! Guess what, this is a good thing. Generally it keeps prices down, makes inventory generally plentiful, and moreover, this is our RIGHT and HERITAGE!
Then again, these "reporters" go to the oh so trustworthy ATF (who we will never forget hung their flag after murdering 80+ men women and chidlren) agent who publicly states that the goal is to have the traffickers throw rocks, and if you think they want it to be just across the river, you are wrong as I am sure that they want we simple Texans and American citizens reduced to such as well. But then, we get to the crux of these "reporters" goal- "A higher social good".
In my opinion, these "authorized journalists" goal is disarmament- yours and mine because our World we just be so much better if we just did not have these Ugly Guns, these Evil Black Rifles, these Pee Yourself As Soon As You See Them guns! We live in a Democracy and the majority is scared!
BLECK! Let me pause a moment to wash my mouth out and cleanse this drivel from me!
These seemingly lazy, one-sided reporting propagandist foot soldiers have an agenda and it is not our heritage, our birthright, what our Founding Fathers bequeathed to us that they wish to see continue and this report, in my opinion, makes it clear they do not. Go and read all three parts, make up your own mind after doing some research of your own- I have made up mine.
I cannot help but to often wonder if this is what those, whose lies we refuse to accept, actually wish for.
Oh, and Todd, come back any time you wish and tell your "co-propagandists" they are welcome as well- perhaps all of you will learn something.
WP
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment