Drug Catapult Found At US-Mexico Border

suraj.sun writes "According to a Fox News report: 'Drug smugglers trying to get marijuana across the Arizona-Mexico border apparently are trying a new approach — a medieval catapult, capable of launching 4.4 pounds of marijuana at a time. National Guard troops operating a remote video surveillance system at the Naco Border Patrol Station say they observed several people preparing a catapult and launching packages over the International Border fence last Friday evening. The 3-yard tall catapult was found about 20 yards from the US border on a flatbed towed by a sports utility vehicle, according to a Mexican army officer with the 45th military zone in the border state of Sonora.'"

Comments

Angry Drugs

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an iPhone game waiting to happen.

Re:Angry Drugs

[Skuld-Chan]

That's more of an android game ;).

Re:Angry Drugs

[camperslo]

One of these days someone, in the quest to trim federal spending, fight drugs, and patrol borders, is going to go a few steps beyond remotely controlled web cams.

Imagine if you will a parallel universe, where handling crime is a game. There the government sells "hunting" licenses to website operators that provide cameras and weapons remotely operated over the web by paying players. The war on whatever turns profitable?
Not sure what happens to any captured drugs, maybe the government could auction those off or give them away either to raise money or drive prices down.

The may or may not become an official part of the Game and Party party-platform.

Next you will see

[Krojack]

people being launched using this.. Just wait.

Re:Next you will see

[muindaur]

Ok Pablo, just hold this large bag tight; then, once you're over the border hold onto the handles tight.

GOOD LUCK SON!

*pulls lever*

AIEEEE!!!!

Re:Next you will see

[sglewis100]

people being launched using this.. Just wait.

MythBusters already covered that.

Re:Next you will see

[swilly]

That would be the Mexican Army that you see. The uniforms are slightly different.

Re:Next you will see

[alexborges]

Okay... protecting your border would actually be very easy, you know?

You need to LEGALIZE DRUGS in the US NOW. The groups that "import" mexicans and latinamericans to the US are the very same that have caused oh just about 30,000 dead here in México, and they manage their logistics precisely by coke trafficking in the US.

If you guys were to legalize drugs Mexico would too and we would have a legal export that would be enough to feed everyone here.

Understand the following:

1) Mexico COMPLIES with whatever policy the US sets on drug control.
2) We pay for it in OUR blood and you guys give us about a couple billion dollars to "help", in about 3 years.
3) Now the market of drugs for import in the US is close, by conservative estimates, to 11 billion dollars....

How the FUCK do you expect us to mess the cartels up, if you pay them 11 billion, but help out only by 20% of that?

Like it or not, geography is not going to change: we are neighbors. Believe me, id like it if we were argentina, where Cannabis is legal in Buenos Aires, and not your neighbor that, being a sensible "thing" in the list of shit about your national security, is doomed to bend to your HUGE pressure to do irrational things like the war on drugs.

Remember this: MEXICANS ARE FOR LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS. We dont do it, because it makes no sense to legalize here (we have 5% incidence on first-or-only-time drug consumption as opposed to your 50%), if you shitfucks dont do it up there.

We are getting very, very much fucked up by cartels that get their money from you,.

Re:Next you will see

[russotto]

I have no problem with immigrants who come over through legal channels. Like Dennis Miller once said....I don't care if you want to come over, just sign the fucking guest book on the way in.

The waiting list for a relative of a legal US resident from Mexico to immigrate to the US is ten years long. For many other categories of immigrant it's essentially impossible. Forgive me if I find claims like yours to be more than a little disingenuous.

Trebuchet

[Sonny Yatsen]

If the video for the story is correct, then that's not a catapult, it's a trebuchet! (Albeit it replaced the counterweight with some sort of elastic cabling.)

Re:Trebuchet

[lgw]

While definitions have varied over time, in modern usage the distinction is: a catapult uses tension, while a trebuchet uses a counterweight. Catapults have used quite a few forms of elastic tension to store energy over the centuries: twisting rope was just the most common.

Re:Trebuchet

[msauve]

Your attempt at being pedantic fails. A trebuchet is just a specific type of catapult. The device is in fact a catapult.

Re:Trebuchet

[Nefarious Wheel]

Your attempt at being pedantic fails. A trebuchet is just a specific type of catapult. The device is in fact a catapult.

You are being insufficiently discriminating, sorry. They weren't classed as such, and medieval distinctions between catapults and trebuchets were quite distinct. You had catapults (also called "Onagers", or "rocking donkeys"), ballistae (God's very own crossbow, generally with two distinct arms, from which we derive the term "ballistics") and the various forms of trebuchets, the largest of which could throw a boulder the size of a small cottage. You would no more call them all "catapults" then you would say a strip-miner's Terex load carrier "just a form of car".

So there! (insert Bronx cheer>

Anyone else have this idea?

[Umuri]

I mean surely i'm not the only engineer who's joked that all they really need to do is catapult and parachute to get over the border, with no need for a parachute if they're launching hard projectiles. I mean the range on old catapults and trebuchets was quite well, and could be scaled as a simple matter of physics.

So I suppose next we might find a tunnel that is one mile down and 40 miles under the border to breach the "castle walls" of the united states?

Re:Anyone else have this idea?

[i.r.id10t]

Tunnels have already been found... not a mile deep, but crossing the boarder, yes.

Re:Anyone else have this idea?

[intellitech]

There was actually a MythBusters episode on it, if anybody remembers.

Re:Anyone else have this idea?

[turing_m]

Perhaps the next technology they will adopt will be underground pneumatic tubes like they have at banks, hospitals etc. e.g. a massive underground length of PVC pipe, using compressed air to shoot drug packages to the other side.

Re:Anyone else have this idea?

[dkleinsc]

As Penn and Teller pointed out on their show Bullshit!, the border "wall" that conservatives keep on talking about building would be completely ineffective. A reasonably enterprising illegal immigrant could breach or bypass said wall in approximately 2 minutes (either climbing over, digging under, or busting a hole in the middle), and given that they've likely traveled for days just to get to the border, the extra 2 minutes aren't going to stop them. Heck, even the Berlin Wall didn't stop people trying to escape from East Berlin to West Berlin - people got past it with balloons, tunneling, and crashing border stations among other methods.

On the upside, I view those as proof that human ingenuity can beat oppression.

How they found it

[Fauxbo]

The national started looking for the device when they found a giant baseball glove mounted in the Arizona desert

Pro-Catipult

[redemtionboy]

Normally I'm pro-legalization, but I'm much more pro-catapult. So if anti-drug legislation can bring us the catapults of our dreams, then may it is the answer. Then again, we could legalize and then just require all distribution to be done via catapult. It's a win/win.

You say "catapult"

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I say "trebuchet"

Let's call the whole siege off...

Re:You say "catapult"

[g0bshiTe]

Honestly I prefer my illegal narcotics to enter the country via trebuchet as well.

Re:You say "catapult"

[MaskedSlacker]

This is the internet. We can say ass here. Asshole even, if necessary.

Re:You say "catapult"

[meerling]

I can't get the stupid video to run, but if they are using an elastic spring, to spin a launching arm, then yes, definitely catapult.
For those that don't know the difference, it's simple:
A Catapult uses torsion to impart momentum to a swinging launch arm which flings the projectile.
A Trebuchet uses a counterweight to do the same thing.

And just because there are stupid reporters that can really get things wrong, a ballista or arbalest is a direct fire siege engine sized freaking crossbow! (Ok, there's actually a lot more to it than that, but so many of the reporters are so ignorant they apparently think a siege engine might be the new ultra horsepower replacement for the hemi, that I'm not going into those details... )

Re:You say "catapult"

[meerling]

Incorrect, they can easily have the exact same firing characteristics. The difference is it's easier to build more powerful trebuchets than catapults, and they can often be readied faster as well if the designers planned for it.

The height of the "trajectory arc" is completely based on the release angle and force. The method used to impart moment to the swinging launch arm has no bearing on the trajectory. It could be a freaking hydraulic ram swinging that launch arm, so long as the release angle and force are the same, you get the exact same result.

Re:Why stop it?

[swanzilla]

Most likely, the catapult operators would notice a bunch of police downrange. Five hundred yards with a 40 - 50 foot trebuchet and 4 - 5 pound pumpkin earns you bragging rights.

Re:It's a trebuchet

[by (1706743)]

Not to mention that catapults are all but medieval.

I'd say that launching rotten tomatoes in a catapult would be mid-evil. Launching pillows would be low-evil, and launching nails and rocks hi-evil. But that's just me.

Must not have been any French in their group..

[CFBMoo1]

No broken giant wooden rabbits were found on the US side of the border.

Re:It's a trebuchet

[wings]

Not to mention that catapults are all but medieval.

I'd say that launching rotten tomatoes in a catapult would be mid-evil. Launching pillows would be low-evil, and launching nails and rocks hi-evil. But that's just me.

I guess then if you launch bad music it would be midi-evil?

Re:UAVs??

[cusco]

Cargo containers and semi trailers are much more efficient, that's how most drugs have entered the US ever since the Reagan bAdministration packed Customs with their cronies. There are several reasons why to this day only five percent of cargo containers entering the US are inspected, even though ports like Hong Kong and Dubai can inspect 100 percent, and the chance of accidentally uncovering someone's benefactor's shipment is one of them. Operations like this, the tunnels, the mules and the sailboats are all small-time operators hoping to get a toehold with a few kilos here and there, in the market dominated by the big boys who ship a ton or five at a time.

Yet another way ...

[PPH]

... to shoot up drugs.