Anti-Aircraft Weapon?

The New York or LA Times I could almost forgive, but the Idaho Stateman should know a Browning .30 caliber machine gun from a .50 caliber anti-aircraft weapon.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has traced many guns seized at scenes of drug violence in Mexico to U.S. commercial sources. But determining the source of military-grade weapons such as grenades and fully automatic machine guns is more complicated.

The ATF says the grenades are mostly smuggled in through Central America, and have been traced back to the militaries of many countries, from South Korea to Spain and Israel. Some may be leftovers from the Central American civil wars.

Assailants have fired on government aircraft performing anti-drug missions in Mexico in the past, but apparently never with the caliber of weapon found Monday.

The Mexican government are lying about what they are finding, lying about where it’s coming from, and our media are buying it hook line, and sinker.

UPDATE: I realize the Idaho Statesman could use some help with terminology, as could some other journalists.  This is an anti-aircraft gun:

Anti-Aircraft Gun

Related posts (automatically generated):

  1. Officer.com Looks at Mexican Gun Canard
  2. An Outpost of Truth at the LA Times
  3. Media Gets it Right

12 thoughts on “Anti-Aircraft Weapon?”

  3. I don’t think that the media is buying anything … “hook line, and sinker,” they’re simply repeating a meme that they agree with.

    It’s nice to have a mouthpiece stating what you believe in you heart-of-hearts.

  4. I bet a significant portion of the weapons in Mexico ARE from America – supplied to them by the US government. What other explanation could there be for the presence of American-made grenade launchers and full-auto M16s?

    This means of course that civilian firearm possession in America must be further regulated!

  5. The Statesman is no different from any other clueless, liberal, “print whatever comes off the AP wire” city newspaper.

    No surpise to us.

  6. Ditto. Every once in a while, the Statesman does a positive piece about guns, and you won’t often find ferocious anti-gun sentiment in it (even Democrats here are generally strongly pro-gun), but it’s still a newspaper: not a high quality data source.

  7. Pictures 5 and 6 are of a .50 cal Ma-Duece, they copied the caption to the earlier photos of the .30 cal. While it looks like neither are set up for AA, it would be possible to use both in that role. It is impressive that the drug cartels have such heavy weaponry, but they most certainly didn’t source it from the USA.

  8. I am gratefuul to the media for informing me that I now own an anti-aircraft weapon! I reckon I can use it to bring down all those “black helicopters” that have been spying on me for the UN!

  9. You have a Browning .30 caliber machine gun? Pretty cool. It’s the only way to deal with the blue helmeted ones when they get the order from the Trilateral Commission and the Council for Foreign Relations to to swoop in and establish the New World Order.

  11. A .50 cal – or .30 – for an anti-aircraft task? OK, I suppose so, but what I remember seeing assigned that role [assigned, not just used for] start around 20mm – which is nearly what, 1.00 caliber?

Comments are closed.