Doesn’t Add Up

ATF made a major bust, and like most bureaucrats looking for a larger budget, makes a nice display of some of the guns they supposedly captured. Is it just me or are there cans on some of those rifles? Where’d they come from? And is it just me, or does one of those look like it’s clicked into the full auto position on the receiver? And what’s with the Ma Deuce in the background? Did they buy that at a gun show or dealer too?

More pictures here. Definitely suppressors on those AKs. Another angle here. We really need to give news photographers lessons in how to take pictures of guns so experts can evaluate the evidence floated. Video here. Pretty clearly there’s equipment in this spread that’s not ordinary, and not available at your average gun dealer.

UPDATE: Tam points out in the comments that they are likely kinks with fake suppressors welded to the barrel to meet the overall length and barrel length requirement of the National Firearms Act. So fake suppressors are the rage among drug cartels these days?

UPDATE: More from Tam:

They’re not paying retail for these things; they’re probably trading dope to somebody here in the states. I don’t think they get too wound up over whether something’s full auto or not. These guns aren’t for firefights; they’re for ambushing opponents, intimidating locals, and shooting witnesses. Cyclic rate isn’t all that important.

Also, not every foot soldier of the cartels gets an autorifle from el patron. In those pictures from that border shootout there were clearly a few thumbhole stocks.

The majority of the guns down there (at least once you get far enough from the border) are probably walking off army bases or coming up from South and Central America. But for us to claim that No Guns No How are coming from the US civilian market makes us look a bit naive.

UPDATE: I think Tam wins the internets on this thread. If you look at this picture, I’m pretty sure I recognize the Century Arms tags that come with the firearm, that they attach to the trigger guard.

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14 thoughts on “Doesn’t Add Up”

  1. I believe those are faux “Krink” pistols with shoulder stocks and dummy cans to bring the barrel to the required 16″ length, kinda like you see on the GSG-5 .22’s.

  2. That’s kind of funny. So faux cans are all the rage among the mexican drug cartels… because they can’t get real ones? Or don’t want to be caught with an illegal SBR?

    I’ve been wondering if maybe they have chop shops in Mexico that basically strip down the receiver, and weld up and redrill the holes to drop in a full auto trigger group. In other words, that they are using these guns as parts kits to repair unserviceable full auto firearms they are bringing up from central america. Makes sense. It’s wet down there. Guns rust. And the Soviet-backed insurgencies during the 80s was a long time ago.

  3. Sebastian,

    “That’s kind of funny. So faux cans are all the rage among the mexican drug cartels… because they can’t get real ones? Or don’t want to be caught with an illegal SBR?”

    Those cans are awfully long and narrow for real 7.62 cans, and are suspiciosly similar in dimensions to the ones used to bring “Krinks” out to 16″.

    They’re not paying retail for these things; they’re probably trading dope to somebody here in the states. I don’t think they get too wound up over whether something’s full auto or not. These guns aren’t for firefights; they’re for ambushing opponents, intimidating locals, and shooting witnesses. Cyclic rate isn’t all that important.

    Also, not every foot soldier of the cartels gets an autorifle from el patron. In those pictures from that border shootout there were clearly a few thumbhole stocks.

    The majority of the guns down there (at least once you get far enough from the border) are probably walking off army bases or coming up from South and Central America. But for us to claim that No Guns No How are coming from the US civilian market makes us look a bit naive.

  4. I wouldn’t claim no guns, but I’m curious about the extent that the problem is being exaggerated. The players in this don’t have good incentives to be honest.

  5. Isn’t this more reason to seal the border and/or end the drug war? Even if 100% of the guns the cartels are using came from the US, they’re still the ones murdering and pillaging, we aren’t. As many have said, this requires Mexico’s attention more than it does us.

  6. “Isn’t this more reason to seal the border and/or end the drug war?”

    One or the other needs to happen.

  7. Sebastian,

    As a further point, note all the AK pistols. Those are an almost unique artifact of the US civilian market; elsewhere they’d have side- or under-folding stocks.

  12. One hand taketh, the other hand giveth away.

    On http://www.cleanupATF.org ta whistleblower is reporting that the ATF itself has “walked” as many as 500 guns to Mexico. Sipsey Street Irregulars has been following this as well.

  14. And there is a bunch of those US replicas of the late East German AK experiment — as far as I know, those are all done out of North Carolina, and InterOrdnance (or whatever they are calling themselves these days).

    The ones with the “NATO-esque” front ends.

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