I'm okay...

[recon228]

Hey guys,

I'm not sure how many of you are keeping up with the increasing violence in Northern Mexico, but I got an email from an old friend and KP fanfiction author in response to the Deputy US Marshal who was found executed in Juarez, Mexico yesterday. http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/26/mar...led/index.html

Just wanted to let everyone here know it wasn't me, or any of the guys on my team. This has been a very rough week for me though... first I lost a good friend and mentor this past Saturday in the Oakland shootings (http://www.odmp.org/officer/19878-sergeant-mark-dunakin), and then yesterday word started to spread that one of our own had been found in a Mexican border town with a gunshot wound to the back of the head. Now, we've come to learn that our fallen Deputy was a fugitive himself, and might have been involved with the criminals who murdered him.

It's a real confliction: on the one hand, Deputy Bustamante was one of us... he was a family man with a wife and two kids. But at the same time, if what the Service says is true and Bustamante was stealing government equipment and weapons, then how am I supposed to feel about his death?

This Mexico situation is gonna get much worse before it gets better... I've been down to the border now a few times to help with interdiction missions... this mainstream media hype that the cartels are getting their guns from the US is bull****! Last I checked, local gun shops weren't carrying select-fire AK-47s, M-16s, RPGs, and crew mounted machine guns... not even in Arizona!!!

So, yeah... I started this thread to reassure everyone that I was okay and not personally affiliated with Deputy Bustamante... I guess it kinda turned into a slight rant there.

Sorry, carry on...

- recon228

[lunchmeat]

Glad to hear that you're OK, it's always tough to discover that one of your own was bent. I had wondered how many of the guys involved in the Oakland battle you knew, since you had worked in the area.

Fully agree on the weapons. For the M-16s/M-4s, all you'd need is the serial numbers to figure out where they came from, since both Colt and the military sales directorate would have them and records of the destinations. I've noticed that Mexico has been stonewalling on the serials. The bit about all the guns coming from US guns shops and shows strikes me as a tactic to stampede the public into supporting needless gun control measures through fear of violence in Mexico ebing caused by private US sales. This would have been true when Pancho Villa was running around, but is clearly invalid now.

[Fireand'chutes77]

...First I lost a good friend and mentor this past Saturday in the Oakland shootings

I'd been reading about that in the news; that's horrible. Though it's a bit weird how the 6-degrees thing works. Oakland is on the other side of the country from me, but now I have a connection to it, of sorts, because of you and this forum.

....Word started to spread that one of our own had been found in a Mexican border town with a gunshot wound to the back of the head. Now, we've come to learn that our fallen Deputy was a fugitive himself, and might have been involved with the criminals who murdered him.

*Winces* Sounds almost like a Hollywood movie, but, horribly..... it's not.

Fully agree on the weapons. For the M-16s/M-4s, all you'd need is the serial numbers to figure out where they came from....

I'm ignorant about this since I've never actually handled a pistol or battle rifle (Scouts can't use pistols, only Venture Crews ), but couldn't the serial number just be filed off?

This would have been true when Pancho Villa was running around...

Who was he? Before my time, I guess.

[Cloud23465]

Good to see ya recon228 and glad your still safe in a pretty hostile area.

[recon228]

Fully agree on the weapons. For the M-16s/M-4s, all you'd need is the serial numbers to figure out where they came from....

I'm ignorant about this since I've never actually handled a pistol or battle rifle (Scouts can't use pistols, only Venture Crews ), but couldn't the serial number just be filed off?

The tracking situation is a mess...

From what I've seen, the AKs, CETMEs, and various 3rd world ComBloc weaponry is coming from who knows where... Some of the M-16s I saw in DEA custody were Vietnam era A1s with the old triangular handguards. A few others looked like Canadian C7s. Border Patrol even found some Israeli Tavors a few weeks back!

Tracking the serial number is really only effective for weapons that stay in the US. Colt might have record of manufacturing a specific M4, then exporting it to Colombia... from there, who knows?

There's also the black-market gun trade, which is frighteningly wide-reaching... last year I found an M4 in a fugitive's closet... FN manufactured and complete with PEQ-2, ACOG, and other US military hardware. Forwarded it to BATFE to run a trace, and they finally tracked it down: last seen in the hands of a US Army soldier whose Humvee was ambushed in Afghanistan in 2004. That specific rifle was captured by enemy forces, and slowly made its way back into this guy’s closet in Torrance, CA.

Plus there are the swaths of US weaponry that "disappear" for one reason or another... the occasional National Guard or police armory that gets knocked over... and the fact that Mexican officials are happy to blame us for supplying cartels their weapons, yet no so happy to share serial numbers or evidence.

[lunchmeat]

Mexico has been using the US as a scapegoat for it's problems since around 1912. It works well for the politicians down there, they don't have to actually do anything about corruption or inept policy since they can blame it on things north of the border. Pretty much the same deal that governments in the middle east do with Israel.

One of the stranger experiences I had in Mexico was when a Rurale of my acquantance asked me to bring him 9mm Parabelum ammunition for his issue Lugar sidearm. The government wouldn't provide him with ammunition to maintain profficiency with the weapon and he was understandably concerned with the potential outcome should he ever have to use it. Given the bandit/guerilla (they were the same people, the local bandits discovered they got more international sympathy if the proclaimed themselves revolutionaries) activity in the area.

The international blackmarket in things like M-16s (the M-4 example is pretty telling) pretty much dismisses the impact of gun shows and domestic sales on this particular problem. I would like to find out where the weapons were originally destined for. You have to figure that it would be pretty easy to haul something besides drugs in the semi-submersibles that are becoming more common.

[jeriddian]

This would have been true when Pancho Villa was running around...

Who was he? Before my time, I guess.

Check the WIKI on Pancho, 'chutes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancho_Villa

Good to see you're okay, recon. Our thoughts and prayers go with you in your endeavors.

[lunchmeat]

Dang, 'Chutes, given your interests I'm a bit shocked (one of my grandfathers participated in the Punative Expedition, BTW). It would take pages to cover the intricacies of the Mexican Revolution, so I'll just reiterate Jerridian's Wikipedia reference (granted this is the Cliff's Notes version of the Reader's Digest condensed version, but it's a good start).

[Fireand'chutes77]

Dang, 'Chutes, given your interests I'm a bit shocked...

Well, none of my history classes have ever covered Mexian history in depth, unless it involved an official war with the US or something, and in Spanish III the only thing we focused on from that time period were Mexican painters.

Nice mustache. I guess Pancho is where the stereotypical image of a Mexican wearing a sombraro and bandoliers comes from.

Pancho..... Fun name to say.

[lunchmeat]

Yup, poor ol' Pancho, he ended up being used as a characature of himself later on.