BS: Do we notice dead Mexicans?

Subject: RE: BS: Do we notice dead Mexicans?
From: GUEST,Slag
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 05:46 PM

Endlessly: Criminals, by definition, will always gain the means to perpetrate their crimes. It's what they do. It is insane to disarm the citizenry.

Anyone who buys, distribute, or uses illegal drugs is, in a very true sense, a traitor and an enemy to his country as that person perpetuates the violence and death and public disorder.

Legalizing dangerous drugs does not work, That little experiment in Holland fizzled, to that country's detriment. It doesn't bear repeating.

People of shared moral values who put family, neighbor and country ahead of self are the answer to anarchy, to drug-fueled anarchy! If you ARE an anarchist, sorry, I can't help you. You are ANTI-social.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we notice dead Mexicans?
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 05:40 PM

Sorry to interrupt -

I was in Oaxaca a few years back where I had a bizarre and enlightening time.

One of the many wierd things about my stay was my nightly visit to the Zocolo (the main square in the city centre).

This square was surrounded on three sides by restaurants and cafes and on the fourth side by the state executives offices.

A band of farmers from the surrounding hills had set up camp there opposite the government building, and had chickens, goats ad other basic means of sustenance tethered by their tents (canvas sheets, more like awnings, held up by poles).

They had arrived the same day I did and as I passed through their number on the way to my accomodation, as they reached the end of their march and began planting their banners where their camp was about to be pitched, I asked what they were demonstrating about.

The answer seemed reasonable - we have come to ask that something be done to stop the local corrupt police/militia from coming up into the hills and killing us.

It was obviously much safer living under a tarpaulin in the centre of a busy city.

A few days later, a massive demonstration swept like a river down a main road I was using, which stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions. The protestors were carrying placards bearing photos of political opponents of the local administration who had been murdered to make the job of corrupt government a little less complicated.

Later, in Puerto Escondido, further south, I met some Italian tourists who had had all their money and passports taken by armed cocaine dealers, who had first asked if they wanted to buy cocaine, then opted for a more convenient way of making money.

I was glad not to have suffered the fate of the Italians, but it seems that life is pretty cheap in Mexico if you are poor, regardless of which power you cross.

I never followed up on any of what I saw, but the images stay fixed in my mind.

Bruce, In my opinion, the solution in mexico requires serious anti corruption efforts. I suspect the dealers and the government have a working relationship of sorts.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we notice dead Mexicans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 05:31 PM

"A semi-automatic assault weapon "

No such thing. An Assault rifle is an automatic weapon, by definition.

I fail to see how a handgrip and a bayonet lug makes it so much more dangerous, yet THAT would qualify a gun to be banned under the proposed legislation.

You think that criminals can't duct-tape a knife onto the end of a stick?

Subject: RE: BS: Do we notice dead Mexicans?
From: Amos
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 05:23 PM

A semi-automatic assault weapon is hardly without fire-power, Bruce.

Unless my house was being assaulted by raving hordes of diappointed CEOs, I doubt I would need even a semi-automatic weapon. I have a shotgun, which is sufficient for any purposes I can realistically envision.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Do we notice dead Mexicans?
From: GUEST,Sorcha
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 05:15 PM

"If not, why do we not have an uprising by all Moslem's ... "

I suppose for the same reason we didn't have an uprising by all Christians in the US to expose Timothy McVeigh, or the Unabomber, or the Manson Family, or ...

Subject: RE: BS: Do we notice dead Mexicans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 04:29 PM

Amos,

Assult weapons ( as in fully automatic) are already banned- it is the semi-automatic "look-a-likes" (without the firepower) that the administration is trying to ban.

And how do additional laws help? Are not drugs ALREADY illegal?



Too many are being killed- either legalization OR enforcement (within the US, to destroy the market ) is required, yet we have neither.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we notice dead Mexicans?
From: Amos
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 04:23 PM

Obama's administration is proposing to reinstate the ban on assault weapons, which are finding their way into the hands of cartelistas south of the border. I am sure some of my respected friends who feel most strongly about the absolute interpretation of the Second Amendment will feel upset that such a thing should recur in America; personally, I am not excited about living in a country where I can imagine needing an assault weapon and would rather work to avoid the need than defend the extreme solution of privately owning one of these mayhem-wreakers.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Do we notice dead Mexicans?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 04:22 PM

The obvious answer is to legalize drugs, watch the values plummet, and the gangsters won't be able to buy ammo.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we notice dead Mexicans?
From: robomatic
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 04:09 PM

A lot of this is because a ready market can be found for drugs in this country, it has not been successfully diminished, and provides funds and motivation for extreme violence in a corrupt society.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we notice dead Mexicans?
From: kendall
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 03:47 PM

And they are getting the weapons from us.

Subject: BS: Do we notice dead Mexicans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 03:42 PM

Since some object to the implication of "Should we care..." threads, I will bring the stories of deaths that seem to go unnoticed in threads like this. I invite civil discussion of what can be done to lessen these deaths in the future.


"more than 1,000 people have been killed in the first eight weeks of this year, ....also said that 6,290 people were killed last year in drug violence"

....................................................................




AP Interview: Mexico's AG says violence peaking
         
Traci Carl, Associated Press Writer – 22 mins ago AP – Mexico's Federal Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora speaks during an interview with the Associated …

MEXICO CITY – Mexico's federal attorney general said Thursday that more than 1,000 people have been killed in the first eight weeks of this year, but he believes the drug violence is reaching its peak.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora also said that 6,290 people were killed last year in drug violence — the most specific accounting yet of killings that doubled the 2007 toll.

Medina Mora said the world's most powerful drug cartels are "melting down" as they engage in turf wars and fight off a nationwide government crackdown.

The government doesn't expect to stop drug trafficking, but hopes to make it so difficult that smugglers no longer use Mexico as their conduit to the United States, he said: "We want to raise the opportunity cost of our country as a route of choice."

He applauded cross-border efforts to arrest more than 700 Sinaloa cartel members in the United States, but called for more U.S. prosecutions of people who sell weapons illegally to the cartels.

He also would like more U.S. efforts to stop drug profits from flowing south to Mexico: Mexico has spent $6.5 billion over the last two years, on top of its normal public security budget, on the fight against drugs, but that falls short of the $10 billion Mexican drug gangs bring in annually, he said.

Mexico has no choice but to press ahead with its fight, he said, predicting that violence will ease.

"I believe we are reaching the peak," he said, but added that the government won't achieve its objective "until Mexican citizens feel they have achieved tranquility."

While violence in Tijuana is down sharply from last year, killings have spiked in the largest border city, Ciudad Juarez. The city of 1.3 million across from El Paso, Texas, is now the most worrisome of a number of hotspots, Medina Mora said.

"But this is not reflecting the power of these groups," he said "It is reflecting how they are melting down."