“It is obvious that these weapons are being used to kill people. I think that is plain as the day is long. That is what these weapons and munitions are used for.” – US District Judge Dana Sabraw in Disabled man smuggled guns to cartel in specialized van [at utsandiego.com]
We-el, wouldn’t smuggling guns to bad people be primarily a violation of some firearms law? And if all firearms laws are bad…
Unless you’re the ATF. Then it’s not just ok, it’s justification for MOAR gun laws.
I see no anti-gun bias in his statement, just the truth. They aren’t smuggling guns to the cartel for 3 gun, or high power matches.
Yup. I’d say he’s right.
I like going to the range. I like clay shooting. But all of my guns are for killing at the end of the line.
There’s a tasteless joke involving a lesser-known off shoot of Fast and Furious that uses the handi-capable as mules in there somewhere but I havent had enough coffee yet to piece it together.
They were selling these firearms for money to rig the handicap Olympics.
I wonder how many get smuggled to the Autodefensas for their righteous and moral self defense? Or the defense of other college students after the 43 Mexican students executed for their political views?
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2014/12/we-have-opening-up-in-history-john-m.html
Simple; arm law abiding Americans and you’re a hero. Arm law breaking foreigners and you’re a villain. I see no 2a conflict here, centuries of law have been upheld and our values remain intact. Certainly in our national interest to not arm narco terrorists.
So basically, you’re anti-business?
He’s talking about cars, right? Or is it drugs? What about step ladders?
I see no anti-gun statement here. These guns were going to the cartel. They WERE going to be used to kill people.
“They were going to be used to kill people” Please be careful agreeing with the statist prosecutor using this statement as justification for longer sentencing. Imagine an overly ambitious progressive prosecutor blinded by selfish interests throwing the book at a self-defense victim, and justifying seeking any penalties at all because the armed citizen showed deadly intent just by being armed. Remember weapons are only to be owned by the state sanctioned authorities who are properly trained, is how the conditioned sheep believe. Just because this man willingly broke laws is not a further excuse to allow our rights to be tampered with.
Nice to see a foreign invader get 11 months for illegal weapons possession, and an American in D.C. gets railroaded for a spent shotgun shell.
Man made law, and Sam Colt allows the law to be enforced equally.
I believe he said “these”, not “all” weapons. And he is correct, “those” weapons, and munitions being smuggled into Mexico, were going to be used to kill people by the cartels.
11 months is a f**kton better than what most illegals get at the federal level.
The drug cartels exist only because of drug prohibition. End prohibition… totally and without strings. The cartels will either vanish or find some other “illegal” thing to deal in. But probably not anything as destructive.
The problem is not the guns….
ML, I’ll go you one better than simply ending the useless war on drugs. Take some of these recently closed military bases and set them up as free drug dispenseries and clean safe habitats for the druggies that truly want to drop out of society.
I’ll bet we’ll save billions from reduced crime and homeless druggies running the streets. Billions over the wasted money spent on the drug war.
Kind of FEMA camps for stoners, eh?
No thanks. That would require that someone be robbed to pay for all that. If you could collect enough people to pay for it voluntarily, of course, that would be a different thing… but the real problem is the theft, and the bogus “authority” of the primary thieves… politicians.
If people want to take drugs, drink, swim in the swamp or walk down a dark alley at midnight… they should do so at their own risk, and deal with the consequences at their own expense.
[edit: sorry, I saw too late that I hit “reply” to the wrong person. This is addressed to jwm. Thanks.]
Or open a corporate headquarters downtown and continue being a cartel. Do you think organized crime got out of the liquor business when prohibition ended? They controlled the wholesale trade for the next 50 years and in some places where the mob still has any sort of power, still does.
The more prohibition laws that exist, the more you empower criminals.
The war on drugs must end. The DEA should have all of its assets sold off and all of its employee should be let go.
When Budweiser and Coors do battle, it doesn’t involve drive-by shootings.
When Budweiser and Coors do battle, it doesn’t involve drive-by shootings.
That’s because both beers are weak and lame.
The brewers and distillers never sold directly to the public. The sell to wholesale distributors. Until about 1980 the mob had a monopoly. They also had a monopoly on the drug trade until then to. Guess what? No drive bys. The drug wars started when the feds took out the mob and opened the drug trade to new players. Now that somebody won the war the murder rate has returned to the 1950s level. Either that or the drug war is a success.
Of course… but “prohibition” never really ended. Government continued in complete control. They just changed the rules a little bit. The “cartels” and corporations and so forth would have very little control without the force of the government behind them, whether openly or otherwise.
Do you REALLY think any government wants to end the use and sale of drugs? Do you think that any sort of “legalization” of drugs would truly solve the problems? Not as long as governments can merely change the rules at their whim, then go on confiscating and taxing as much as they think they can get away with.
So you don’t think the government has a right to tax? I guess you don’t like the Constitution then since it gives the central government the right to do it. See the Whiskey Rebellion.
Nobody has a “right” to control our lives or property. There is no “right” to tax. The “consitution” was a fraud and a scam from the beginning. If you wish to contribute to the thugs and criminals in “government,” you are most welcome to do so. I consider it theft and slavery.
The “constitution” was a contract between the states. It was never valid as a ruling authority for anyone except those who actually agreed to it, signed it. That excludes most of the people living then, and most of those living since then. If you would sign it, go for it. I would not.
I think you have mislabeled yourself. You should choose MamaAnarchist instead. There are no private property rights under a condition of anarchy because there is no private property. What you think belongs to you really belongs to the person just a little bit stronger than you and then it belongs to a person who is a little bit stronger than the person who took it from you. There is no liberty in anarchy.
Now i suppose someone will quote how some primitive nomadic tribe handles things but generally there is no private property in the complex sense in such societies. Everything except a few personal items are held in common. Complex societies, i.e., any society besides hunter-gather or nomadic requires governing bodies to adjudicate property and contractual disputes. Certainly no complex society, i.e. those societies beginning in the Nile, Euphrates, Indus and Yangtze rivers 5000 years ago could possibly develop without some form of government.
As usual, I am way late to this discussion, but I will weigh in anyway. The constitution was NOT a compact between the states. The constitution was agreed to by the people in specially called conventions. It was openly and loudly debated for several months before the final ratification votes. The Virginia convention alone debated for a full month before voting. In all, the national debate was quite fierce and led to several of the state conventions asking for or demanding changes to the document. Those changes became the Bill of Rights, one of which is discussed in this space quite often. It has been said that more Americans knew and understood this political question (constitution, yes or no) better than any other in our history.
And then what? All the cartels transform themselves into legitimate businesses? Or perhaps give up the life altogether, maybe take up arts and crafts, possibly enroll in adult education courses at the local community college?
Look, bangers gotta bang. If it’s not narco trafficking, it’ll be something else. There may be, and probably are, several strong arguments to make in favor of ending the drug war. Expecting bloodthirsty gangsters to turn into gentle little lambs, however, is not one of them.
Disabled guy caught smuggling guns/ammo into Mexico for the cartel o.k. we get it. This is nothing more than an lone wolf “fast and furious” trafficking. I say send him to Mexico for the punishment.
No problem, smuggling guns (or anything pretty much) to criminals is illegal. It’s only a problem when they use these events to justify random searches.
“discovered thousands of rounds of ammunition hidden in his wheelchair”
I’m curious now. Just how big was this guy’s wheelchair?
Or was is a bunch of .9mm ammo…
Even one thousand rounds of 9mm fill a considerable space, and they are HEAVY. A thousand rounds of .22lr is not insignificant either. I wouldn’t want to share a chair with either one, let alone “thousands.”
MamaLiberty,
You missed the decimal point in front of the 9.
It’s kind of a running gag here due to news reporters constantly using .9mm or .45mm as an identifier for ammo or guns bad guys use.
I certainly DID miss that! LOL Makes a whole lot of difference.
Does that caliber come with tweezers? 🙂
“Does that caliber come with tweezers?”
Only the better brands. They also include a magnifying glass so you can more easily tell if you have a hollowpoint or soft point.
@Tom- 36″ platform that can support multiple 12v batteries so there is plenty of room for thousands of rounds, plus whatever electric trap compartments. As it was more than likely paid for by the tax payers of Commiefornia for $15,000 on four wheels at least, is the proper and state required cost for a foreign national to smuggle arms.
OK Your Honor. Now that you have caught a criminal what are you going to do with him? Are you going to put him on trial? Or offer him some sort of bargain of a lesser sentence in exchange for something else?
Bah! Just a man profiting, (and now being punished) from the arbitrary and useless attempt by government to regulate and control what should be left to private enterprise.
As someone else made the point. Maybe the guns were meant to arm the auto-defenses in their fight to protect themselves from the depredations of the unholy alliance of the government and the cartels.
Government( said with dripping contempt.)
So he’s running guns to Mexican drug dealers. Play stupid games win stupid prizes.
What I get out of this little quote here is that when you’ve made an valuable item, any item, illegal then you create a black market. And that any black market will be filled with both people who will seeking this contraband, selling these items, and people finding new and interesting ways to transport it. Are we surprised to be surprised or troubled by this?
I’nteresting that he was stopped on this side of the border. 5 years, losing house, and $ 11k is pretty light compared to what he’d have gotten in Mexican justice system.
Remember the US Marine who made a wrong turn at border near there?
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/05/04/sgt-andrew-tahmooressi-held-in-mexico-said-never-intended-to-leave-us/