The ‘America Is Arming Mexico’s Drug Gangs’ Lie

by Dan Gifford

“There is an iron river of guns that flows South into Mexico [from the United States] to supply criminal organizations on the border,” says Tom Mangan, senior special agent with Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) in Phoenix. “They are in the market for machine guns, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles,” he continues. That’s right. The drug gangs can’t buy that and other military stuff like the 40MM grenades (the silver things in the upper left) and the rifles with launchers shown in the photo below in Mexico, so they drive to the United States and purchase them from American gun dealers at retail. Isn’t that the story you’ve been told?  Well, congratulations. America’s First Amendment protected propaganda ministry has punked you on another important issue — this time on behalf of dissembling officials and gun confiscation advocates.

For the benefit of those who may not know, machine guns (not the same thing as the demonized “semi-automatic”), hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and other such military items are illegal to possess by US civilians, which means they are not for sale in gun stores. OK, in the interest of extreme accuracy for anyone in need, there are some civilian owned machine-guns in America, but they all have to have been registered with the ATF by 1986 as evidence that a special Treasury tax has been paid and the owner’s residence state has to approve the possession. What’s more, none of these arms has ever been involved in a crime, to my knowledge, and all are considered very pricey collectors items. That means they are not for sale to or in the hands of Mexican drug goons. (more…)

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Posted Mar 31st 2009 at 1:41 pm in Media Criticism, Politics | 111 Comments