WaPo's article on Mexicartel guns: noisy report, but inaccurate--Part II

In this post I began picking apart the Washington Post's misstatements and inaccuracies in their Oct. 29th article by Manuel Roig-Franzia on how the Mexican cartels get their guns. Those were penny-ante mistakes; typical MSM hyperbole when writing about semi-automatic rifles. The big blunder, the one that really grabbed me, I've saved for this post.

Remember, this article is titled "U.S. Guns Behind Cartel Killings in Mexico".

And they open the article with a particularly vivid anecdote: TIJUANA, Mexico -- Assassins blasted Ricardo Rosas Alvarado, a member of an elite state police force, with a blizzard of bullets pumped out of AK-47 assault rifles.

Alvarado crumpled at the wheel of his sedan, yet another victim of the weapons known here as "goat's horns" because of their curved ammunition clips, and which can fire at a rate of 600 rounds per minute. The killing, Mexican authorities said, was a panorama of blood, shattered glass and torn metal that brutally showcased the firepower of Mexico's drug cartels. But that was just the warm-up.

Two hours later, a small army of cartel hit men descended on a federal police office and bunkhouse in this crowded city at one of the world's busiest border crossings. None of the officers, who had recently been sent here to crush the drug gangs terrorizing the city, were killed in the hail of more than 1,200 bullets, authorities said. But police veterans understood the message delivered to the newcomers: "Welcome to Tijuana. Our guns are bigger than your guns."

The high-powered guns used in both incidents on the evening of Sept. 24 undoubtedly came from the United States, say police here, who estimate that 100 percent of drug-related killings are committed with smuggled U.S. weapons.

So note that these weapons are fully automatic AK-47's, which the Mexican Police say came in from the United States.

That struck me as extremely unlikely. America is not exactly awash in full-auto AK's. We have plenty of sporterized semi-automatic models, which are legal to own, but a full-auto communist-bloc AK is rare, probably illegal (or at least requiring a great deal of paperwork for a Class III license and consequent federal snooping and involvement) and also extremely expensive here.

What's more, the WaPo goes on to blame the proliferation of American weapons--presumably including these full-auto "goat's horns" used in Tijuana--to the "personal collection" exception which enables someone to sell his own guns at a gun show without being licensed by the ATF. They also blame the lapse of the assault weapons ban in 2004:

But law enforcement officers on both sides of the border have never seen anything like the flood of guns now surging into Mexico. The increase has been stoked by the cartel war and by the ease of buying high-powered weapons since the U.S. assault weapons ban was not renewed in 2004, William Newell, a special agent in charge of the ATF's Phoenix office, said in an interview.

Arizona and Texas have become a "gunrunner's paradise," according to Garen Wintemute, a professor at the University of California at Davis who published a study on gun buying in the Southwest. Licensed dealers must conduct background checks, but unlicensed sellers can sell "personal collections" at weekend gun shows without background checks.

Laws on personal collections were established to allow people such as the widows of avid gun collectors to make sales without having to go through an elaborate licensing procedure. But unscrupulous sellers and buyers have taken advantage of the system, Newell said, setting up phony personal collections booths and making quick sales that are difficult to trace.

"It can take less than a minute," said Wintemute, who has watched unlicensed dealers wearing sandwich boards at gun shows and piling weapons for sale into baby carriages.

Authorities have tracked smugglers who bought dozens of weapons at various shows in a single weekend. The guns are often purchased by middlemen, or straw purchasers, who sometimes get on-the-spot instructions by cellphone from Mexican drug traffickers. The straw purchasers often live in the United States, either legally or illegally.

A smuggler, or ant -- often the same person who bought the guns -- then slips the weapons into car trunks or false vehicle floors. Among the new weapons of choice for Mexican drug dealers are so-called variants of AK-47s and AR-15 assault rifles, which are shorter than standard models and can even be concealed in baggy pant legs, Newell said.

So the WaPo would have us believe that vast stockpiles of full-auto Communist bloc rifles are owned illegally here in the United States (how did they get here?) and are being sold (illegally) to straw purchasers at gun shows? It seems far more likely that these weapons are instead being imported from a country that actually uses full auto AK-47s in its military. Or, perhaps, an arms dealer who outfits drug-dealing militias in Latin America. Those people exist.

But rather than just pontificate, I wrote off for more info from someone who actually deals in Class III weapons to see if this tripped his BS detector as well. The dealer asked that I not use his name or site but concurred in my suspicions. Here's his reply:

TOTAL BULLSHIT!

HERE IS A LINK TO OWNERSHIP:

[link redacted--seedub]

THIS IS THE ONLY LEGAL WAY FOR IT TO HAPPEN. NO MATTER IF IT COMES FROM COLLECTOR, DEALER, L.E. AGENCY OR ESTATE PROCESS IS THE SAME.

THERE IS NO STOCK PILE OF AK47 FULL AUTO IN THE USA OR ANY OTHER UNREGISTERED MACHINE GUN FOR THAT MATTER.

NOT POSSIBLE, THE OWNERS NAME AND INFO IS CLEAR AS WELL AS THE INFO ABOUT THE FIREARM i.e. SERIAL NUMBER AND TYPE ON THE OWNERSHIP PAPERWORK. NO PAPERWORK THEN A MAJOR FEDERAL OFFENSE. NOBODY IN OR OUT OF THERE RIGHT MIND WOULD SELL A MACHINE GUN WITHOUT DOING THE PAPERS AND WITHOUT THE PROPER STEPS VIA THE ATF.
ALSO A AK47 THAT IS AVAILABLE IN THE USA THAT IS TRANSFERABLE (ONE THAT YOU OR I CAN OWN PERSONALLY) IS SEVERAL THOUSAND DOLLARS, WHY WOULD A CARTEL MEMBER BUY SUCH A ITEM WHEN THEN CAN BUY FROM S.A. OR COM-BLOC(I KNOW NO LONGER COM-BLOC) FOR ABOUT 200.00 ea WITH NO RAMIFICATIONS.

Now, I'm not disagreeing with a couple of the basic tenets of the WaPo article: the gangs in Mexico are extremely well-armed, and a considerable portion of that armament comes from the United States--just not the sensationalistic full-auto stuff that Mr. Roig-Franzia uses to make his point. My correspondent, obviously a pro-gun type, confirmed that it is possible for someone who is not a U.S. citizen to buy a semiautomatic AK or AR rifle in this country and vanish south with it. What's more, I've covered another incidence of cartel gunrunning myself here at JYB, noting a writeup from the Northeast Intelligence Network about a semi with Texas plates stopped in Matamoros, Mexico in February that contained a huge freaking arsenal including some M16s and M4s (including one with the M203 grenade launcher). No AKs.

Still don't know where these weapons came from; the M16/ M4 designation suggests they are full-auto and military in origin. But whatever the backstory on that interception, I didn't immediately jump to the politicized conclusion that there was a gun show at the point of the shipment's origin.

My point here is that the WaPo article is right about the dangerous capabilities of the cartels. They're even right that some of their weaponry comes from America. But I have every reason to suspect their full-auto rifles originated elsewhere--a possibility the Post reporter doesn't consider,. It's not fair for the Post to impugn American gun laws over these AK's in Tijuana that probably did not originate here in the first place.

A followup from my correspondent:

ONE MORE POINT, THE AMMO FOR THESE GUNS ARE DRYING UP HERE IN THE USA AND COSTS ALLOT TO SHOOT YET EVERY THIRD WORLD CRAP HOLE SEND ROUNDS FLYING ALL OVER THE PLACE LIKE THEY WERE FREE, YOU TELLING ME IT IS AMERICANS DOING THIS TO MEXICO WHERE HERE THE AMMO IS 4 TIMES THE PRICE IT IS ELSEWHERE.

WHO THE HELL KNOWS, THEY NEVER TELL YOU THE ORIGIN OF THESE GUNS, THE MAKER, IF THEY ARE GUNS INDEED SOLD BY AMERICANS. ATF KNOWS WHERE ALL THE GUNS WE HAVE STATE SIDE COME FROM. REST ASSURED IF IT WAS A PROLIFERATION OF ARMS FROM THE USA IT WOULD HAVE ALREADY BEEN CRUSHED.

ANY THIRD WORLD PLACE AK TYPE CAN COME FROM, EASTERN BLOC, CHINA, CUBA (I DOUBT IT AS THEY ARE TO POOR TO BE GIVING AWAY GUNS) MOST OF AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST USE THIS JUNK SO I CAN COME FROM ANYWHERE.

RIGHT AWAY IT IS A GUN SHOW IN THE USA.