From the Center for Public Integrity, which if you check their funding, receives money from the Joyce Foundation, who the article notes paid a grant to fund the article.
12 thoughts on “Hit Piece on WASR-10”
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The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
From the Center for Public Integrity, which if you check their funding, receives money from the Joyce Foundation, who the article notes paid a grant to fund the article.
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The grabbers are going to lean on that “sporting purposes” support pretty hard. Going to be a fall when it evaporates
The damn thing only exists because of the ludicrous AWB that they were so proud of.
Willful dishonesty like that should hurt.
And I was going to sell mine.
Not any more. This was the motivation I needed to break her out again.
Hey, this article prompted me to go buy another one. Can’t say its not good for business!
I sold mine, and was happy to be rid of it. Used the money to buy an FAL.
Quote from the article linked above:
“A study by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars last summer found that many of the rifles recovered in Mexico had been converted to select-fire machine guns.”
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars study mentioned in the quote above has a direct link to it, so I took some time to review it. Nowhere does it mention any specifics on how exactly these select-fire conversions are being done. On a WASR-10, such a conversion requires not only different parts like the bolt carrier, sear, disconnector, and hammer, but also some precision drilling on the receiver. On an AR-15, such a conversion requires just some different parts.
Do the Mexican drug cartels have their own gunsmiths on hand with all the necessary tools and parts for all of these select-fire conversions?
This Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars study also mentions that the hand grenades being used by the Mexican drug cartels were made in the United States, but coming from Central America. If the hand grenades can come to Mexico from Central America, then why not military-issue rifles which don’t need any gunsmith work for conversions to select-fire also?
I like how they keep talking about “military features”, but never say what they mean. Though at one point they do say a detachable magazine is a military feature. WTF?
I wonder if they realize how dangerously close they are to somebody invoking Miller to defeat this sporting purposes crap.
Weer’d I would have sold mine earlier – but its sort of famous on the internet.
Now, knowing how much it bothers them, I’d never sell it. . . . well, unless i did so at a gun show. That would really get under their skin.
“Do the Mexican drug cartels have their own gunsmiths on hand with all the necessary tools and parts for all of these select-fire conversions?”
It’s possible that they do have such gunsmiths, or at least machinists. I’d like to set up a machine shop for hobby machining; it’s surprising just how cheaply you could set up a CNC machining shop!
Admittedly, It’s not exactly a trivial sum–at least $3000, for a smallish Sherline mill and lathe; but also easily within $20,000. But when you consider what kinds of bling drug lords like to put on their pistols, it’s certainly within their price range!
@ Alpheus: Look at at this way – These left winger eggheads and liberal Democrats have an agenda to get another “assault weapon” passed into federal law. That’s why they are trying to advance the notion that the Mexican drug cartels are getting the majority of their firepower from the US civilian firearms market.
Since the left winger eggheads know that the US civilian firearms market cannot be feasibly linked to hand grenades and RPG’s, they will write things like this in the aforementioned Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars study:
“Many of the U.S. manufactured hand grenades [Seized from Mexican drug cartels] were reportedly sent by the United States to El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua more than 20 years ago.”
I can’t speak for anyone else, but this makes me wonder why the Mexican drug cartels would limit themselves to just getting just hand grenades from black market arms dealers in Central American nations, when they could likely also get all the AK-47’s and M-16’s they ever would need there too, all of which would be select-fire already, thereby not even needing any gunsmith work to be converted like a WASR-10 or AR-15 purchased in the United States from a FFL dealer would. Like the above quote alludes to, more than 20 years ago, there was quite a lot of warfare going in Central America, and hand grenades were not the only armaments being stockpiled there back in those days.
Ronnie, I would have to agree with you on your points: if, given the choice between a supply of AR-15s and machinists, or a supply of M-16s, I’m sure that drug lords would chose the latter; and given what we know about the types of guns drug lords use–and where they get them (defecting soldiers, cough cough)–it’s probably safe to say that machinists aren’t converting guns from Texas or Arizona gun shows. :-)
With regards to my first comment, I should have said “given the bling on their guns, it’s certainly within their price range! At least, it was, before they spent all their money on gun bling. ;-)”
WHat’s hillarious is that honest-to-God military-grade selective fire assault rifles (like REAL AKMs) are available on the “no questions asked” part of the international arms market for about what the crappy Century modifed WASR-10s with crooked sights are selling at gunshows — less in many cases.
Prices have gone up, but I ISTR that in the early 1990’s, the going rate for an AKM in some parts of South America was under $200. . . I’d be willing to bet that, if paying cash in American dollars (or maybe Euros, if the seller thinks the US dollar is collapsing), you could score AKs for $300 and under by the truckload in parts of Africa. Smuggling them OUT of Africa is no problem, and smuggling them INTO Mexico should be no problem for Mexican narco-lords.
I understand SOME of the guns certainly are being smuggled out of the US, because there’s no point in sending an empty truck back to Mexico (it isn’t ALL one way trips by mules). But to think that the US civilian gun market is a PRIMARY source for large numbers of military style hardware billionaire criminals is a joke.