South of the Border

13 Oct 09

Rifles south of the border, from a friend familiar with the area:

"In the 1960s, when Mexico decided to replace its inventory of 7X57 Mauser bolt-guns (along with their domestically-manufactured equivalent), those in charge at the time shared your disdain for the 5.56X45 (223), preferring the 7.62x51 (308). As a result, they settled on the HK/G3, with the condition that HK license Mexico to produce its own. The G3 was still the standard, military rifle when I last visited Mexico in 1986.

It came as a surprise to me, a few years later, to see news photos of Mexican troops, involved in the suppression of uprise in the state of Chiapas, now all carrying American-made M16s! I suspect, given their continuing contempt for the 223 round, the decision was far more influenced by M16s being furnished, complements of American taxpayers, than by pragmatic tactics.

In a similar vein, I noticed news photos of Israeli troops, also carrying American-made M16s, again complements of the American taxpayer, while Israeli-made Galils, in the same 223 chambering, were being happily sold in the US retail market (prior to the Bush ban), to gain Israel badly-needed hard cash!

Strange bedfellows?"

Comment: In the interim, violent Mexican drug-gangs have also been lavishly furnished with these same American-made, American taxpayer-financed M16s, from corrupt Mexican Army sources, not from legitimate American gun retailers, the blatant lie propagated by the current Administration in an effort to falsely "justify" a new, paranoid gun-ban.

We no longer live under a Constitution, nor the Rule of Law. We are governed, indeed ruled, by charlatans and poseurs who rush to the head of every mob, ever-eager to lead it in any direction its mindless members wish to race.

"Moral decision" has become a preposterous, and laughable, contradiction of terms!

/John