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If we banned guns the Mexican cartels would keep us well supplied with firearms just like the do now with illegal drugs.
Unlikely. The flow of guns is very much in the other direction. Mexico has no large quantity of firearms available. The standard guard weapon is a shotgun.
If we banned guns the Mexican cartels would keep us well supplied with firearms just like the do now with illegal drugs.
It would be way easier to get the good stuff then! FA Ak's, RPG's . I bet they would figure out a way to get all that stuff here...It might get so bad that the Libs would build a wall!!!
Unlikely. The flow of guns is very much in the other direction. Mexico has no large quantity of firearms available. The standard guard weapon is a shotgun.
Don't be naive.
Make guns illegal and the suddenly are a lot more expensive and a lot more lucrative to sell. There are countries all over the world that make firearms, Russia, Italy, Brazil, Turkey etc.
On top of that US firearms manufactures could just move south of the border. Law enforcement, the military etc will still need guns. Easy to supply Mexico from there.
You can't have a wide open border and expect that guns would not flow over like wine or Corona if you will.
You don't think that within ten minutes of the flow of guns down there from up here stopping, the cartels wouldn't be on the phone to arms suppliers around the world looking for a new source. Do you think they wouldn't find one. I'm sure there are plenty of Chinese and other arms companies (Norinco comes immediately to mind) who would be happy to sell them all the guns they want. And how long after they start receiving the first shipment will the flow reverse, with the guns heading back up north.
Also, they may just start making their own. There's a direct analogy from the current opioid situation that's directly applicable here. A lot of the heroin overdose deaths being seen are being attributed to fentanyl being cut into the heroin. For those that don't know, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is hundreds of time more potent than heroin. It's drug that has legal uses (pain killer and anesthetic, usually in hospital.) Pharmaceutical fentanyl has gotten into the wild before, with the same fatal results. But there seems to be a lot of it going around around now. I was wondering where they were sourcing a drug that I though had to be made commercially under highly controlled circumstances, that was not like meth that could be whipped up in a bucket in a bathroom. What's happened is that they've learned to manufacture fentanyl themselves. This requires a lot more chemistry skill and equipment than anything they've made previously (meth from commercial pseudoephedrine, processing agricultural opium and coca into heroin and cocaine, etc.) They really stepped up their game.
Why do I bring this up? Because if they can learn to make fentanyl, and set up plants to do it, they can learn to make guns. It's not that hard. The plans and equipment are out there and easily obtainable. A lot of military guns, especially eastern block, are designed to be made under the most primitive industrial conditions, using late 19th and early 20th century technology. If they get cut off, they WILL develop a new supply.
The cartels are nothing if not entrepreneurial.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lvmensch
Unlikely. The flow of guns is very much in the other direction. Mexico has no large quantity of firearms available. The standard guard weapon is a shotgun.
You don't think that within ten minutes of the flow of guns down there from up here stopping, the cartels wouldn't be on the phone to arms suppliers around the world looking for a new source. Do you think they wouldn't find one. I'm sure there are plenty of Chinese and other arms companies (Norinco comes immediately to mind) who would be happy to sell them all the guns they want. And how long after they start receiving the first shipment will the flow reverse, with the guns heading back up north.
Also, they may just start making their own. There's a direct analogy from the current opioid situation that's directly applicable here. A lot of the heroin overdose deaths being seen are being attributed to fentanyl being cut into the heroin. For those that don't know, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is hundreds of time more potent than heroin. It's drug that has legal uses (pain killer and anesthetic, usually in hospital.) Pharmaceutical fentanyl has gotten into the wild before, with the same fatal results. But there seems to be a lot of it going around around now. I was wondering where they were sourcing a drug that I though had to be made commercially under highly controlled circumstances, that was not like meth that could be whipped up in a bucket in a bathroom. What's happened is that they've learned to manufacture fentanyl themselves. This requires a lot more chemistry skill and equipment than anything they've made previously (meth from commercial pseudoephedrine, processing agricultural opium and coca into heroin and cocaine, etc.) They really stepped up their game.
Why do I bring this up? Because if they can learn to make fentanyl, and set up plants to do it, they can learn to make guns. It's not that hard. The plans and equipment are out there and easily obtainable. A lot of military guns, especially eastern block, are designed to be made under the most primitive industrial conditions, using late 19th and early 20th century technology. If they get cut off, they WILL develop a new supply.
The cartels are nothing if not entrepreneurial.
I think you will find the Mexicans better at controlling guns than you think. They have been at war with the cartels for a long time. I am sure the cartels could potentially buy weapons wholesale cheaper than retail in the US but instead they import from the US. Probably over half...with most of the rest stolen from the Mexican military. And manufacturing facilities are pretty easy to track down. Need raw materials and such. As soon as you acquire rifle quality steel tubing you got a problem.
Make guns illegal and the suddenly are a lot more expensive and a lot more lucrative to sell. There are countries all over the world that make firearms, Russia, Italy, Brazil, Turkey etc.
On top of that US firearms manufactures could just move south of the border. Law enforcement, the military etc will still need guns. Easy to supply Mexico from there.
You can't have a wide open border and expect that guns would not flow over like wine or Corona if you will.
Assuming guns become illegal: So you have two items of almost identical weight:
A 1911 at 1.1 kilos and a kilo brick of cocaine.
A kilo of cocaine retail value on the street is about $65,000. You can also divide and subdivide cocaine to make it easier to sell off. You can form the cocaine into various shapes to make it hard to detect. You can hide the powder almost anywhere. Hell you can even swallow bags of it.
Guns on the other hand would be very very difficult to smuggle in an any large quantities since its a bulky, heavy item and can't be formed to look like anything else. You couldn't sell it at anywhere near the same price as cocaine. And while the price may also be very high once illegal, lets just say for the sake of argument you could fetch $25,000 a piece. You still have the disadvantage where you can only have one buyer for each item. You can't chop the gun up and sell pieces of it to 100 people like you can with drugs. Then you have the strong market limitations of firearms. You don't need to continually buy new guns over and over. So you wouldn't have the continuous market demand like you have with drugs.
Why would any criminal outfit want to smuggle guns when they could make way more money smuggling drugs, there is always a willing market and its much easier to sell and dispose of.
Assuming guns become illegal: So you have two items of almost identical weight:
A 1911 at 1.1 kilos and a kilo brick of cocaine.
A kilo of cocaine retail value on the street is about $65,000. You can also divide and subdivide cocaine to make it easier to sell off. You can form the cocaine into various shapes to make it hard to detect. You can hide the powder almost anywhere. Hell you can even swallow bags of it.
Guns on the other hand would be very very difficult to smuggle in an any large quantities since its a bulky, heavy item and can't be formed to look like anything else. You couldn't sell it at anywhere near the same price as cocaine. And while the price may also be very high once illegal, lets just say for the sake of argument you could fetch $25,000 a piece. You still have the disadvantage where you can only have one buyer for each item. You can't chop the gun up and sell pieces of it to 100 people like you can with drugs. Then you have the strong market limitations of firearms. You don't need to continually buy new guns over and over. So you wouldn't have the continuous market demand like you have with drugs.
Why would any criminal outfit want to smuggle guns when they could make way more money smuggling drugs, there is always a willing market and its much easier to sell and dispose of.
The average person doesn't have the knowledge to refine coca plants into cocaine. There are machinists all over the US that can build one with these drawings - http://www.m1911.org/M1911-A1_REDUX.pdf
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