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Narco-Blogger Beats Mexico Drug War News Blackout
An anonymous reader writes "An anonymous, twentysomething blogger is giving Mexicans what they can't get elsewhere — an inside view of their country's raging drug war. Operating from behind a thick curtain of computer security, Blog del Narco in less than six months has become Mexico's go-to Internet site at a time when mainstream media are feeling pressure and threats to stay away from the story. Many postings, including warnings and a beheading, appear to come directly from drug traffickers. Others depict crime scenes accessible only to military or police."
http://www.blogdelnarco.com/
And the money to pay for them comes from drug sales.
And mexican drug dealer's best customers lie on the US side of the border.
But not good guns. If it was that easy to make reliable, accurate, durable guns then no one would ever buy them at American prices.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
I debated on whether to use my mod points to mod this comment down as a troll, or to forgo the ego trip and answer the question.
The answer, as it turns out, is "not from the U.S."
Although the Mexican gov't has repeatedly asserted that U.S. is to blame for the flow of guns into Mexico, some forget that the U.S. has sent millions of firearms to various Central and South American factions, firearms that are readily available in Mexico (and not as a result of any 2nd Amendment rights bestowed on U.S. citizens). Or for your consideration: The blatant distortion of facts by which Mexican officials who, while claiming that 80-90% of the arms in Mexico come from the U.S. fail to mention that the number is extrapolated from a small sample of guns sent to the U.S. that could be traced. This fallacy is substantiated by numbers reported by the ATF in which Mexican authorities confiscated 29,000 firearms in 2008, of which only 5,000 were traceable to the U.S.
Can't buy M16's or other full auto/select fire weapons off the shelf in the US.
Here ya go. Hopefully, the current administration agrees.
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
The former Mexican president agrees.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/08/09/mexico.fox.drug.legalization/index.html
It's just a Matter of googling for Milton friedman Americas drug forum.... You will see one of the best economists of all time making a he'll of a case.
I totally agree with you.
NO SIG
That's why Hitler and every other "successful" dictator made it a top priority to first disarm the citizens.
Bullshit. Citation or it didn't happen. For your info: Hitler REARMED Germans after the western world thought it wise to limit what kind of weapons Germans could produce.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
The California legislature has estimated that taxing the previously untaxed domestically grown $14 billion marijuana market would produce $1.4 billion a year,[4] Taxing marijuana, supporters say, could be a smart way to help alleviate pressure on the state budget.[5]
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
GP falls prey to the usual trap of those "not acquainted with real history", projecting what they think a dictator would do onto real people and events. P is correct: and if I recall correctly the German Army was practicing maneuvers with shovels instead of guns, and their Air Force was a few unpowered gliders after WWI. Let's take a look at...
The Germans rearmed after Hitler and crew took power, and put idle and failing factories back to work after the Depression. There were more guns than had ever been in Germany before.
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If there's a war in Mexico, then we should be giving shelter and asylum to refugees trying to escape it.
I don't think you did a good job of self-censoring. Furthermore, I don't really know how you'd "close the border" without harming a lot of people who aren't a threat to your home, self or country. Mexico -- or at least parts of it -- looks like a hell hole to me at the moment, so it seems pretty reasonable and rational to flee to the United States. I think only the most unreasonable of people would object to a individual or nation acting in genuine self-defense, but to the ethical risking the lives of non-threatening people is still reckless endangerment and killing them is, minimally, manslaughter
Could you back up your murder and kidnapping statement? Just looking at the FBI murder figures for 2009 for cities over 100,000 population, Phoenix has a murder rate of about 8 murders per 100,000 capita per year. DC's murder rate is 3 times that.
Wikipedia has a page for the 2008 data. New Orleans tops the list (as it does in the 2009 data at 52 -- there seems to have been a significant drop in murder rate in 2009). Phoenix looks to about 28th on that list with a about 11 murders per 100,000 in 2008 -- less than a sixth of New Orleans's rate and about a third DC's.
Kidnapping seems like it's a lot harder to quantify because cases of missing persons are not necessarily kidnapping. This is the best discussion on kidnapping I could find in about 15 minutes of searching. It gives further support to the idea that Mexico is a hell hole at the moment, as well
.--sabre86
There's a war in Mexico, and the soldiers routinely cross-over to US territory, kidnap citizens, and drag them back to Mexico. Or just outright kill them. Washington DC used to be the murder capitol of the nation, but now it's been eclipsed by Phoenix Arizona. (Phoenix is also the #1 city for kidnapping.)
It is important to place such claims in context with actual statistics from the Dept of Justice.
1) From 2000 to 2009 the violent crime rate in Phoenix proper is down 30% and property crimes declined 46%. The most recently available statistics - for the 1st quarter of 2010 - indicate violent crime rate in Phoenix has plunged over the last year -- down another 17% homicide specifically is down another 38% and robberies down another 27%.
2) The violent crime rate across the entire state of Arizona is at the lowest its been since 1983. Property crime rates are at similarly low levels too.
3) Essentially all kidnappings in Phoenix are of criminals themselves. The Phoenix Police Department has made an official statement that, "Unless you're involved in the dope trade, there's a very very slim chance [that you'll be kidnapped.]"
4) Violent and property crime rates in other border states have also dropped significantly over the last decade.
(numbers from 1998 to 2008 which is most recently available data)
California: Violent crime down 28%, Property crime down 19%
New Mexico: Violent crime down 32%, Property crime down 32%
Texas: Violent crime down 10%, Property crime down 12%
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
"Can't buy M16's or other full auto/select fire weapons off the shelf in the US."
Excuse me? There's a fully-automatic Browning .380 machine gun, fully functional with ammunition box, for sale in a pawn shop in Memphis right next door to the Hickory Ridge Mall.
Only thing you need is a Federal Firearms Permit and you can pick it right up off the floor.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Drugs have only been forbidden for less than a hundred years... We were fine before prohibition, and now children are being mutilated in your backyard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars
That's what they pay teenagers to do in Juarez and Nuevo Laredo.
Shows how much you know: The Browning you're talking about is the Model 1919--probably chambered in .30-06. By all rights, they're antiques, and own-able examples are priced accordingly. And, you can't just go in, plunk down 25 grand and legally buy it off the shelf--even if you are a Federal Firearms Licensee, because even FFLs must APPLY with the BATF for Each and Every machine gun (and other title 2 firarms) they transfer to their inventories--which can take one to two months, depending on how busy the ATF is..
Sure, you can go reserve it and put down a deposit while they wait for the paperwork to go through, but you won't have it in your hands for some time after that. That has been the standard operating procedure for wanna-be machine gun owners for oh... For about 80 years now.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
``Mexico legalizing won't do a damn thing if that is what you mean. The narco traffickers profit from the US' prohibition.''
Exactly. And policymakers in the USA can, for now at least, pretend it's not a US problem. In fact, they can even say: Drugs are bad, we need to be tough on them! Just look at what they did to Mexico!
``there is something of a zero sum game in effect; easier access to hard drugs mean more will do it and we'll have to put up with more tweakers, cokeheads, and smackheads wrecking their lives and making everyone around them miserable.''
I am not so sure about that.
First of all, it is really hard for me to believe that it would be a zero sum game, given that you now are fighting drug producers, traffickers and users both locally and internationally. The current drug policy costs a lot of money, involves a fair bit of violence, and puts a lot of people in prison. Meanwhile, it makes the drug trade more profitable for those who can pull it off, so they become more organized and violent as necessary to beat you. By now, that has pretty much reached the point of full-blown war. I really think you can do better than that, in terms of cost to society.
Secondly, it's not just about hard drugs. In the Netherlands, we have different policies for hard drugs and soft drugs, where the idea is to let people have their pleasure/escape from reality/whatever they're doing drugs for, while steering them away from the really bad stuff. We encourage that by basically saying: listen, drugs are bad, but if you must use them, use this or this and not that or that. It looks a lot like people just want to get their occasional high or experiment a bit when they're teens or tweens, and will happily give up their drugs after they're done with that - unless the drug manages to get them addicted or ruins their lives before they quit. By throwing different drugs like marihuana, crack and heroin all on the same heap, you apparently increase the chance of people getting on the more addictive or harmful stuff.
Thirdly, look at alcohol. Look at tobacco. Look at coffee. How addictive and harmful are those? How much trouble are they causing? How does that compare to illegal drugs, for example, marihuana, cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, heroin, and amphetamines? What about prescription drugs throughout the times (some that used to be legal have later become "legal if you have a prescription" and are now pretty much only used illegally anymore)? I think you will find that, all factors considered, the legal status of a drug has a measurable impact on the drug's impact on society. I can almost picture a statistician coming out and saying "making a drug illegal increases its harm to society by X at p = 0.01".
Fourthly, some drug problems are always going to develop, regardless of whether the substance is legal or illegal. I don't know what the best way to deal with this is. In the Netherlands, we give people treatment, put them in clinics and keep them there until they are no longer dependent on the drug, give them substitute drugs as part of a programme to get off the dependency, or even, in some cases, give them the actual substance they are addicted to. This obviously costs society money, and doesn't really solve the problem. There is a lot of relapse, as well. On the other hand, it might be cheaper than not doing it. As far as I know, there is very little drug-related violence in the Netherlands, and these programmes might well be a large factor in there. However, I don't know how this system performs compared to the many alternatives; for example, locking people up as per normal (that is, we would do the same if it weren't drug-related) when they have shown to be a risk to society, where drug addiction is simply considered a factor that increases the risk.
Just my 0.02, with regards from Amsterdam.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Though it does occur to me that the ammunition may be harder. One would have to be skilled indeed to make brass casings but that isn't the super hard part. The really sticky bit are the primers and powder. Both involve chemistries that aren't tolerant of sloppiness or errors. You won't be firing black powder out of AK though the Mythbusters showed that mixing up your own black powder and getting it right isn't trivial either.
And how many of those boot leggers kill dozens of people a day in a war over territory in Pearl River County MS? Nearly every part of a dry county is something like a 30 minute to 1 hour drive from a wet county (excepting the middle of Utah). Most "bootleggers" do so for their own consumption.