What's wrong with this Article?

[Adaminak]

I posted this on the DTR site too, so we may have to jump back and forth to see what gets answered by who...

This is from the Houston Chronicle:

Guns don't kill people. Gangsters kill people. But Mexican narcotrafficers buy Texas guns, and thousands of people die as a result.

No turn of a phrase can hide the link between gun sales in Texas and the violence just over the border. If we want Mexico's cartels under control for our own security, we need to halt their incredibly easy access to military-grade weapons on this side of the border.

Last year alone, Mexican authorities confiscated 1,131 Texas guns from drug cartels or their killing fields.

While buying guns is close to impossible in Mexico, consumers in Texas can purchase unlimited quantities of cheap imported assault weapons, or .50-caliber sniper rifles strong enough to shoot down helicopters. The stores peddling these weapons rarely break the law. The problem is there are few laws for them to break...

President George W. Bush can restore the ban on imported assault weapons. Using his executive authority, he can instruct the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to halt the import of these arms as his father, President George H. W. Bush, did in 1989...In the end, only federal laws can choke off narcotraffickers' guns.

[Gunlovingvet]

Garbage they will get the guns anyway. I am sure the Colombians would be happy to sell them. Or they will knock down a few police stations and get theirs.

When Guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns!

[Shovelhead]

For starters, it was the Klinton 10 year Federal "Assault" Weapons ban passed in 1994 and expired in 2004
that banned sales of "scary-looking" EBRs.
The 1989 federal Bill only prevented the import of a few models of firearms.

KOMMIEFORNIA passed an assault weapons ban in 1989......not a federal bill passed by Bush Sr.

The Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) was a subtitle of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a federal law of the United States that included a prohibition on the sale to civilians of certain semi-automatic so called "assault weapons" including military-style semiautomatic rifles derived from assault rifles. There was no legal definition of "assault weapons" prior to its enactment. The ten-year ban was passed by Congress on September 13, 1994 and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton the same day. The ban only applied to weapons manufactured after the date of the ban's enactment. It expired on September 13, 2004, as part of the law's sunset provision.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_Weapons_Ban

Second as has already been stated, criminals have always found a source for whatever weapons they want.
As for the tired old ".50 BMG shooting down an airplane" BS.....just try holding a 12+ pound weight up and trying to track a moving target a mile or more away..............

[Fronty Owner]

I think the point being, Mexico cant enforce their gun laws, so we need pass similar laws that will be similarly unenforceable...

[Adaminak]

All true answers. What I find most chilling however, is that the editorial staff at the largest newspaper in Houston (Texas maybe?) believes it's okay for Americans to give up something because a foreign entity might illegally buy it and use it in a different country. Since when did it become acceptable to make ourselves subservient to anyone else simply because they might use our products illegally?

[Equalizer_2]

I don't know the author but,

"The job of an editor is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and then decide what chaff to print."

They want to talk about turning phrases, they need to clean up their own act. Also it is funny that only guns from Texas are part of this problem. Additionally, what qualifies as a military grade weapon? It even includes bayonets and bare hands as there is training given to make any and everything a weapon when needed.

[tightgroup]

Mexico has problems that no amount of gun control is going to fix.