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Chaos, gunmen killing police, decapitating enemies...
50 heavily armed men abduct 7 police: four them of them found dead, three missing, gun battles leave 20 dead. About a thousand people so far this year shot or decapitated.
Iraq? No, northern Mexico, about a hundred miles south of here. Betting is that the gang was a drug lord's entourage.
[Update: yep, Mexico has quite strict gun laws. Americans often get in trouble under them. If a gun, or even a round of ammo is found in your car, and it's in a military caliber, you're charged with a variety of treason -- since presumably violators are planning to overthrow the government, and want to be able to use military arms -- which accordingly bears a prison sentence of many years. I had a friend who went down there on vacation and they found a box of 9mm in his trunk. He was lucky -- it was empty. Of course all these difficulties can be avoided by giving the border guard his $10 mordida.
· non-US
Comments
And this is in a country with very strict gun control. All that does is keep people from helping the police defend themselves.
I believe Mexico bans all military calibers to civilians. So what were these people shot with?
Posted by: Ron W at May 17, 2007 11:37 AM
Hmmmm... I hadn't thought about that particular side-effect of the US adoption of the nancy-nine, but if 9mm is now an official Mexican military caliber, what happened to all the 9mm clones of the COlt ACP that were, from what I heard, designed to get around the .45 ban? Did they turn them in? Mexico was a big market for Star and Astra - guns that looked like the old M1911, except that they chambered the 9 para round.
Posted by: bud at May 17, 2007 02:02 PM
"... except that they chambered the 9 para round."
IIRC, they were usually chambered in 38 Super, same diameter as 9mm but a different brass case.
Posted by: RKM at May 17, 2007 04:06 PM
Another example of the idiocy of people who write anti-gun legislation. There is nothing about the calibers of guns commonly used by armed forces which makes them particularly suitable for killing people, compared to many other types not used by any armed forces, but commonly used by police, for private defense, or for hunting of mid-sized game (such as deer).
BTW, the 9mm Parabellum (aka 9 x 19 NATO), which was introduced in 1902, has been a military round since inception (hence its name; bellum means war), and that's the reason Mexican guns have long been commonly found in the same-diameter but slightly more powerful 38 Super round.
Posted by: DWPittelli at May 18, 2007 05:55 AM
We, as Americans, must learn to accept these things and soon. Thanks to the "Immigration Reform" amnesty bill we're about to start importing it.
Posted by: Joel at May 18, 2007 08:06 AM
It's great that we are able to peek at our future... Just doing the decapitations, kidnappings, murders and crimes Americans won't do.
Posted by: roux at May 18, 2007 08:10 AM