apocryph.org Notes to my future self

Letter sent to Del. Rust regarding override of Kaine’s veto of restaurant ban repeal

Well, as expected, Timmy Kaine vetoed SB 1035, which would have finally lifted Virginia’s stupid ban on concealed carry in restaurants serving alcohol, even if the permit holder does not drink.  I found out from VCDL that my delegate, Thomas Rust, voted against this bill, while at the same time voting for SB 877, which would’ve lifted the restriction, but only for retired law enforcement.  It’s the usual elitist bullshit.

I sent Rust an email to let him know how I feel.  The House is only one vote shy of an override of this veto; hopefully Rust turns.

Delegate Rust:
I’ve just learned that Governor Kaine has vetoed SB 1035, which would allow law-abiding holders of a Virginia concealed handgun permit to carry concealed weapons in a restaurant licensed to serve alcohol, provided they do not drink.  Though the Governor’s actions are disappointing, they are not surprising given his consistent opposition to gun rights for common citizens.

More disappointing, though, is that you voted against this bill when it came to the House, while at the same time voting for SB 877, which has the same effect as SB 1035, but limited to retired police officers.  I can’t begin to understand why you think retired law enforcement should be above law-abiding citizens in the exercise of this fundamental right, but I urge you to reconsider.

I hold a Virginia concealed handgun permit, and carry a concealed handgun every day for self defense in the unlikely but possible event that I must use it to defend my life.  I am hampered in this by the absurd ban on concealed carry in restaurants that serve alcohol.

Perhaps you agree with Governor Kaine that alcohol and guns do not mix.  I couldn’t agree more, which is yet another reason to support this legislation.  You see, the current law does not prevent me from carrying my gun when I go to a restaurant; it merely forces me to carry it in the open for all to see.  Hard as it may be for you to believe, I do this at restaurants all over the Herndon/Reston/Mclean area, along with countless other permit holders.  Though I never drink while armed, under the current law I could do so, provided I do not drink to the point of intoxication.

Under the law as proposed in SB 1035, I would be permitted to conceal my firearm, and I would be forbidden from consuming any alcohol while armed.  I think this is a perfectly reasonable compromise, and one that promotes public safety rather than reduces it.

I hope your lack of support for this bill was due to a misunderstanding of the relevant facts, and not the sort of elitism and ignorant anti-gun bias I’ve come to expect from our Governor.  Your actions on the vote to override Kaine’s veto of SB 1035 will make it clear which it is.

Please let me know what you intend to do.

Sincerely,

Adam J Nelson
Herndon, VA

“Invalid URI: The URI is empty” error with WPF under Windows PE

At work I’ve been working on a tool written in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), part of the .NET 3.5 framework.  We need to run this tool under Windows PE 2.1, which doesn’t come with .NET, so I’ve been using Xenocode Postbuild to embed the framework in the executable.

Everything works great except in response to certain actions in my app, and only under Windows PE, I get an exception like:

Cannot convert string ‘Icons\Hard_Drive_Small.png’ in attribute ‘Source’ to objject of type ‘System.Windows.Media.ImageSource’.  Invalid URI: The URI is empty.  Error at object ‘System.Windows.Controls.ControlTemplate’ in markup file ‘RrcImage;component/imageprogressdialog.xaml’.

I played around with the problem and determined that it only happens when certain PNG files are displayed in a modal dialog box.  Some of my PNGs have this problem, while most don’t.  I opened them up in GIMP and compared their properties, and one really stood out: the PNGs that did not work had a color profile of “sRGB IEC61966-2.1″, while the PNGs that worked fine used the built-in sRGB working profile.

I don’t know enough about color profiles to know the difference, but I know enough about coincidences to see this wasn’t one.  So I used GIMP to convert all the broken PNGs to the built-in sRGB profile, saved then, and voila!  Problem solved.

I can only assume that full-on Windows has support for this other color profile, but Windows PE does not.  Since it’s hard to get a read from MS on what exactly does and does not work under PE, all I can do is guess.  I just know the old color profile didn’t work, and the one I changed it to did.  YMMV.

WSJ Still Repeating Gun Banner’s Talking Points

Not two weeks ago I laid into the WSJ for its shoddy “reporting” of the US guns in Mexican drug war meme, clearly being proffered as the impetus for a renewed assault weapons ban.  Now, not two weeks later, they’re at it again. (link valid for WSJ subscribers only)

This time fortune smiles on the VPC and Brady Bunch, in the form of the honest to God mass shooting in Alabama.  To most people in the country I imagine events like this seem tragic, senseless, and wasteful, but I have to wonder about the gun ban lobby, since they seem to trot out a press release before the bodies are cold.  No sooner does the presser come out than can the MSM be found parroting the talking points.

Journalists Alex Roth, Paulo Prada, and Corey Dade started out strong.  In their piece “New Calls for Assault-Gun Ban” (I won’t hold the headline against them, as I understand the copy editor picks the headline text), they break with one of the proudest tradition of MSM fuckups: they actually show pictures of the two types of rifles used by the Alabama shooter.  Usually they don’t bother, dig up some stock photo of an unrelated weapon, or in one particularly amusing instance show a picture of what is clearly an AR-15 and call it an “AK-47″.  So, good on whoever picked out that photo (probably not the authors, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt).

They even manage an opening paragraph that’s pretty even-handed:

Gun-control activists have renewed calls for the federal government to reinstate a ban on so-called assault weapons in the wake of Tuesday’s deadly shooting rampage in Alabama.

What I like to see here is “so-called assault weapons”.  The term “assault weapons” was invented back in the 90s for the first ban.  It’s not a gun industry term of art, but is intended to convey an impression of enhanced lethality where one does not exist.  So, good for them.

I actually made it half way through the article, through most of the back story and legislative discussion, before finding something to object to.  Then I ran into this:

Gun-control advocates say Tuesday’s bloody spree, in which 28-year-old Michael McLendon killed 10 people in southeastern Alabama before committing suicide, offers strong evidence of the need for an assault-weapons ban. Mr. McLendon used two assault rifles—an SKS and a Bushmaster—along with a shotgun and a .38-caliber handgun to fell his victims, according to the Alabama Department of Public Safety. He appeared to overwhelm police in an area where many citizens also own guns, for hunting or self-defense.

Journalists really should do at least the bare minimum of research into gun terminology before covering guns.  Neither the SKS nor the Bushmaster meet the technical definition of an “assault rifle”.  In gun industry terminology, an assault rifle is a rifle which fires an intermediate-caliber cartridge and is capable of semi-auto as well as full-auto “machine gun” fire.  “Machine guns” have been regulated tightly since 1934, and are very hard for civilians to obtain legally.  Both the SKS and the Bushmaster AR-15 are “assault weapons” under the ’94 ban, but that ban defined “assault weapon” in terms of cosmetic features like a bayonette lug, a flash hider, and a collapsing stock.

In the very next paragraph comes the gun ban lobby quote, straight from their latest presser:

The weapons used in the Alabama shootings “are military-bred firearms developed for the specific purpose of killing human beings quickly and efficiently,” wrote a coalition of groups, including the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, in a joint release on Wednesday. “Today we call on the U.S. Congress to pass a federal assault weapons ban.”

If there’s a contrast quote from a gun industry source, I didn’t see it.  There’s usually too much lunacy in these Brady bunch quotes to bother with, but I have to address the ‘military-bred’ thing.  When the first matchlock muskets were invented, they were ‘military-bred’ and developed for the specific purpose of ‘killing human beings quickly and efficiently’.  Every military small arm since then has had the same purpose.  My 1899 bolt-action Mosin-Nagant rifle is a military-bred firearm developed for the specific purpose of killing human beings quickly and efficiently.  I suppose we should ban that too?  Oh, wait, nevermind.

On Thursday, the office of U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of Long Island, whose husband was killed by a deranged gunman on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993, said she intends to introduce a bill that would reinstitute a version of the 1994 assault-weapons ban.

Don’t forget to ban the shoulder thing that goes up.

Under current federal law, anyone over 18 years old can buy a semiautomatic assault rifle from a licensed gun dealer as long as the buyer passes a background check verifying that he or she isn’t a convicted felon or mentally ill, among other things. Unlicensed dealers, such as those at gun shows, may sell semiautomatic assault rifles to anyone of any age without conducting a background check.

There is no such thing as a semiautomatic assault rifle.  An assault rifle is not an assault rifle if it’s not capable of fully-automatic fire.  Also, being an unlicensed firearms dealer is a federal felony.  There are private citizens who can sell a gun to other private citizens, but that’s not dealing.

Gun owners in Alabama are required to possess a license only for carrying a concealed handgun. Mr. McLendon had a concealed-weapons handgun permit, according to a spokeswoman for the Geneva, Ala., police department.

Crap.  I expect more media hay to be made of this little nugget.

Whether the expired federal law would have banned the particular semiautomatic assault rifles that Mr. McLendon is alleged to have used is unclear. The law banned certain specific types of weapons, including TEC-9s and Uzis, as well as “copy” or “duplicate” weapons.

No, it’s very clear.  The expired ban would not have changed anything.  My brother has a Bushmaster AR-15 legally sold during the ban, which is nearly identical to the pre-ban variants.  It fires the same round, looks almost the same, and would kill these people just as dead.  He wouldn’t have a bayonet lug, a flash hider, or a collapsing stock, but unless there was a bayonet charge in this killing spree that no one is mentioning, I doubt that would’ve made a difference.  The ban was a stupid, pointless, Do Something exercise that did nothing to reduce crime and a lot to reduce freedom.

Also, note the reference to the TEC-9 and Uzi, which to most readers ignorant of guns will conjour up images of gang-bangers doing a full-auto mag dump into a crowd of innocents.  Yet that’s not what the AWB banned.  Fully-automatic weapons of any kind were not regulated at all under the AWB, since they’ve been very strictly regulated since 1934.  The ban was referring to the semi-automatic civilian versions of the Uzi and TEC-9, which aren’t nearly so scary.

People seeking to stock up on the types of weapons that would likely be targeted by any ban—semiautomatic weapons, sometimes known as “black guns” or “black rifles”—have flocked to purchase them.

I’ve never heard them called “black guns” before, and “black rifles” is generally understood to refer to AR-15s specifically. Any ban will be broader than that.

Overall this piece isn’t as bad as the Mexican guns story, but it still indicates a profound ignorance at best, and a bias at worst.  And it’s not like this info is hard to come by.  There are many “gun facts for journalists” posts and videos on the ‘net covering these basic details.

Grandma’s Obituary

Grandma’s obituary is on legacy.com for 30 days here.  The full text follows.  It was better written and less crufty than my grandfathers, fortunately:

Born to Walter and Ruth Porter in Syracuse, New York on June 23, 1925, Lucille began drawing as a young child. As a young woman, she attended Syracuse University majoring in fine arts and later attended the Traphagen School of Design in New York City. After completing her education, she became a fashion illustrator in Syracuse. After marrying Major Robert H. Damico on April 30, 1949 she became an Air Force wife and mother of eight children, traveling within the United States and abroad for their 30 year military career. Lucille continued her interest in art, taking classes in both England and more extensively in Japan. The family moved to Colorado Springs in 1966 where Lucille continued creating art and participated in the development of the community’s growing fine arts awareness. Lucille was a skilled and gifted artist and a member of the Pikes Peak Watercolor Society, Arati Art Gallery and the “artistic renegade” group, the Chromatic Edge. Discovering the wonders of watercolor, what one can really create with brush, pigment, water and paper was a constant challenge and refinement for her. She said it takes years to overcome being afraid of watercolor but with persistence and a creative heart, it can become much like a dance, always moving, always changing. She loved abstract painting as it was the most free and fun for her. Her children were devoted to Lucille whose inner strength, gentle nature and calming influence greatly affected their lives. Lucille’s beautiful spirit provided warmth and healing to so many who knew her. You will see her beauty and color living on in the magnificent sunrises that paint Pikes Peak a rose color in the early morning hours as well as the fiery orange, crimson and magenta palate in the azure skies over the mountains to the west at sunset. Lucille died peacefully at home with her eight beloved children at her bedside on February 21, 2009. She was preceded in death on January 11th, 2009 by her husband, Col. Robert H. Damico and by her father and mother, Walter and Ruth Porter and her sister Noresta Bourne many years ago. She is survived by her brother, Don Porter and her children, Robert Damico, Jamie Damico, Michael D’Amico, Lucienne Nelson, Lauri Hoover, Catherine Kniffin, Steve D’Amico and Christina Person. Lucille is also survived by 20 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren, with 2 more due this year. A funeral mass will be held for Lucille on Thursday, February 26, at 11 a.m. at Holy Trinity Catholic Church located at 3122 Poinsetta Drive in Colorado Springs with a celebratory reception at 3 p.m. at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center at 30 W Dale Street. A burial service will take place at Ft. Logan Cemetery in Denver on Friday, February 27, 2009 at ……….. In lieu of flowers, it is gratefully requested that donations be sent to the Pikes Peak Watercolor Society at P.O. Box 62693, Colorado Springs, CO 80962.

Overall Grandma’s funeral was much more coordinated, in no small part due to the fact that she thought through and communicated the details of the ceremony she wanted while she was still alive.  I only wish my grandfather had the same foresight.

There were a couple of dress code violations, of course, but overall I wasn’t as resentful this time around.  Perhaps I’m just becoming more practiced.

WSJ gets in on US guns in Mexico meme

It’s not news when the New York Times trots out the gun-ban lobby’s talking points, most recently the disturbing revelation that narcoterrorists buy grenades and “bazookas” over the counter at evil American gun stores, then smuggle them into Mexico to kill babies and little puppies.  I was disappointed to see the Wall Street Journal fall to this low.

In their fact-starved article (subscription required) we learn about an Arizona gun store on trial for federal firearms violations, including apparently the sale of firearms to straw buyers or prohibited persons.  I don’t know anything about X-Caliber Guns; it’s possible they are guilty, in which case those involved should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.  The fact that BATFE saw fit to go after then, and a US Attorney in Eric Holder’s DOJ was willing to proesecute, does not in any way indicate guilt.  Just ask Cavalry Arms.

Having met his fact quota for the day, author Joel Millman heads on over to the VPC web site to pick up some talking points.  Let’s review:

X-Caliber Guns LLC, is accused of knowingly selling hundreds of weapons, mostly AK-47s, to buyers who were posing as fronts for Mexican drug gangs

Ok, this is an easy enough mistake to make, but there’s no way X-Caliber was selling AK-47s by the hundreds.  AKs are select-fire assault rifles, subject to the onerous regulation of the National Firearms Act since 1934, and the Gun Control Act of 1968.  Presumably Joel meant AK-47 clones made for the civilian market, which don’t have the “happy switch” and thus cannot fire full-auto.

Mexican and U.S. officials estimate that more than 90% of the weapons used by Mexican drug cartels come from the U.S.

We’ve been hearing this number alot, and it’s both technical true and highly dishonest.  The article does nothing to disabuse you of the notion that 90% of Mexican drug cartel weapons are purchased from stores like X-Caliber guns and smuggled over the border.  I doubt that very much.

First,  many of the guns we hear about fully-automatic (and thus NOT going to be coming from a gun store) or actually explosive (grenades, RPGs (or, as the dumb-shit media calls them, “bazookas”)).

Second, the Mexican military and paramilitary police forces have massive desertion and corruption problems, much like the Iraqi forces did not long ago.  Why go to the US to buy a shitty semi-auto AK when you can elist in the army, get some training, and walk away with a nice new M-16 for your trouble?

Third, where else would these guns come from?  I’m sure the Mexican government doesn’t manufacture its own weapons, and the US is home to some of the best guns in the world.  Just because they were made in the US or sold to the Mexican government through a US distributor doesn’t mean there’s something nefarious going on north of the border.

None of this is mentioned; just the scary “90%” number.

The number of U.S. guns in Mexico is growing. The Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, says more than 7,700 guns sold in America were traced to Mexico in the fiscal year ending last September. That’s twice the 3,300 recorded the previous year and more than triple the 2,100 traced the year before that.

Scary.  Unfortunately it’s not disclosed the actual circumstances under which these guns were “sold in America” or how they made it to Mexico.  I’m sure some cartel guns were bought legally in American gun stores.  I’m even willing to believe a good bit of the 7700 were.  But we need to know more details of these figures.

U.S. officials acknowledge that U.S. gun laws are partly to blame. The 1994 ban on the sale of assault weapons like AK-47s in the U.S. led to a decrease of such weapons south of the border. But the ban expired in 2004, and the numbers in Mexico spiked.

Oh my, so much here.

First, the AWB did not ban AK-47s, because as above AK-47s are capable of fully-automatic fire and have been regulated since 1934.  The AWB banned the sale of guns that look like scary weapons like the AK-47 and M-16, but in fact are not.  I and others have written at length about the absurdity of the AWB.

Second, the article claims that the AWB lowered the number of “assault weapons” in Mexico, and after its expiration the number went up.  If by “assault weapons” they mean “scary-looking guns with bayonet lugs and collapsing stocks”, then I’ll buy that.  If it is being suggested that the AWB actually lowered the quantity of semi-automatic rifles entering Mexico, and the sunset of that ban raised it again, that’s the first evidence I’ve ever heard of the AWB actually having an impact on gun crime, and you can be sure the gun ban lobby would’ve been all over it by now, thus I’m inclined to believe the former.  Without a citation it’s impossible to say, which I suspect is the idea.

Meanwhile, Mexican drug gangs are stocking up on deadlier weapons. ATF officials say they have registered more purchases of high-powered FN Herstal rifles and pistols — the Belgian-made weapon called “matapolicias” in Mexico, or “cop killers,” for their ability to fire through body armor. Such items are sold in hundreds of Arizona gun shops, or by private owners advertising online.

First, I find it interesting that BATFE would report on the exact make and model of the guns they’ve “registered”.  I’m not sure what this would be in reference to, since BATFE is not permitted to maintain a registration database of gun owners, and the background check system gun purchases go through is run by the FBI.  Perhaps they are referring to the guns BATFE run traces on, for example when a gun is used in a crime or suspected of being stolen.  Or perhaps BATFE has a secret unauthorized database of gun purchases, and they slipped and revealed its existence to the Journal.  Whatever.

Second, this “cop killer” meme is the sort of propaganda Goebbels would be proud of.  I assume they’re calling out FNH specifically over the P90 submachine gun (not legal for civlian purchase), the PS90 (the semi-auto version of the P90 for us peons), and the FiveseveN pistol, all of which fire FN’s unique 5.7x28mm cartridge, which is an interesting combination of rifle and pistol ammo which gives it light weight like a pistol round and high velocity like a rifle round.

The cop-killer part is probably a reference to the fact that when FN has tried to sell the P90 and FiveseveN to military and police agencies around the world, they offer a version of the 5.7 cartridge with a steel core bullet, which enhances the ballistics of the round and makes it more likely to penetrate the kind of soft body armor that is only meant to stop pistol rounds.  This is useful for the obvious reason that enemies may wear body armor, and need to have their days ruined anyway.

Of course, thanks to BATFE, it’s not legal for civilians to own so-called “armor piercing” or “AP” rounds if they can be made to fire from a handgun, so you can’t walk down to Wal-Mart and get you some cop-killer ammo, but it makes for a great meme.

It’s probably true that these guns are sold “in the hundreds”.  The PS90 looks just like the submachine guns they use on the “Stargate” TV series, and the FiveseveN has a distinctive look, a high magazine capacity, and the 5.7 cartridge is a pretty neat innovation.  It does not follow that there are hundreds of gansters now armed with cop-killers.

The scheme, according to the prosecution, was simple: The buyers, usually 19- to 22-year-old U.S. citizens with no police record, declared that the firearm was for personal use, but instead passed it along to an associate of a Mexican cartel. The buyer filled out a standard form used by the ATF to track firearms. Lying on the form is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. But ATF agents here say buyers in the X-Caliber case were paid a fee to run that risk — up to $100 on each transaction.

This is definitely true.  Straw buyers will always be a problem until civilian gun ownership is banned completely, then criminals will find other ways to get their guns, vis a vis the UK.

Gun shops generally rely on ATF recordkeeping to check them before selling to the wrong buyer. Ken Logan, a manager at the Shooters World gun store in Phoenix says the ATF form, once approved after being checked against a national data base, relieves the store of responsibility. “The ATF says ‘yea’ or ‘nay,’ on who I can sell a gun to,” he says.

I’m kind of surprised the manager of a gun store would be this ignorant.  BATFE don’t run the NICS background check system; the FBI do.  It’s also not correct to say the result of the check relieves the store of responsibility.  For the sake of argument, if a gun store owner knew a particular customer was a straw-buyer for a prohibited person, but ran the paperwork and got a “yea” back from NICS, the gun store owner is still guilty of a felony, notwithstanding the result from NICS.

Gun stores run the risk of lawsuits if they’re deemed to be “profiling” — refusing to sell guns to young Latinos, for instance. Mr. Logan concedes he has seen men enter gun stores, point out to a girlfriend what weapon they should buy, and leave. The girlfriend fills out the form, attesting the firearm is for her personal use.

Yes, straw purchases are indeed a problem.  Most gun store operators would not sell the gun to the girlfriend in the case above, but there are certainly some that do.  It’s not clear to me that the law requires the gun store owner to decline the sale in this case, since there’s no direct evidence of a straw purchase, however the smart ones would decline it anyway, for reasons X-Caliber Guns are learning now.

Getting bullets is even easier. Gun dealers here must report anyone purchasing more than one handgun during a single five-day period, but there is no restriction on ammunition. Last Christmas Eve, salesmen at Cabela’s Sporting Goods store in Phoenix were surprised when two Hispanic men bought 24,000 rounds of 5.7 caliber bullets — the same caliber used in FN “cop killers.” They paid in cash — more than $10,000. When the buyers were seen loading their purchase into a car with Mexican license plates, store managers summoned police. Authorities found 12 FN rifles and three “cop killer” handguns.

For the love of God, “bullets” are the things that come out of the gun.  “Cartridges” are the whole ammo package, with primer, powder, casing, and bullet.

Again, if Cabela’s was selling the 5.7 ammo, it wasn’t steel core, and thus wasn’t “cop killer”.  It’s not the gun that can penetrade soft armor, it’s the ammo.

Also, at $10k for 24k of rounds, that’s $0.41/rd.  That’s pretty expensive for handgun ammo, which is why I don’t shoot 5.7mm myself.  It should also be noted that buying multiple thousands of rounds at a time is not that unusual.  When you can shoot hundreds of rounds in an hour of range time, suddenly those 1000 round cases don’t seem quite so ridiculous.

Anyway, kudos to the Cabela’s employee for spotting the odd behavior.

Police arrested the buyers, but only because they were foreign nationals, thus forbidden from possessing arms in the U.S.

I’m not sure what the “but only” is trying to say.  I guess anyone with 24k rounds of 5.7, 12 rifles, and three handguns should be subject to arrest, even law-abiding US citizens.  There should be a law…

The murder of Mr. Pavón last year illustrates how Arizona’s gun-friendly culture contributes to mayhem in Mexico. Last October, the men under Mr. Pavón’s command fought gangs of narco-pistoleros in gun battles across the state. On October 24, a caravan of heavily armed assassins descended on Nogales, only to be repelled, leaving 10 gunmen dead. A week later, they attacked a police substation about a mile from the U.S. border crossing.

I guess I don’t see it.  Let’s say tomorrow the Chosen One declares the Second Amendment null and void and bans scary-looking guns.  Let’s also say he sends JBTs house to house, confiscating all such guns in private hands.  Let’s also say there isn’t a civil war or mass unrest or whatever.  Will Mexico then unfuck itself?  Of course not.  With the Mexican Army and paramilitary police a revolving door for cartel members, the guns will continue to flow (US guns, I might add), people will continue to be massacred, Mexicans will still blame the US for their own internal problems, and we’ll still be locked in a bullshit Drug War to the tune of billions of dollars and countless ruined lives a year.  The only difference will be the law-abiding citizens of this country will be further disarmed.  For many in power, that’s an end unto itself.

At a farewell picnic at a federal shooting range in Tucson, the Mexican policeman was invited to test fire a powerful American weapon that has been surfacing lately in the narco-gangs’ arsenals: the 50 caliber Barrett rifle, powerful enough to pierce a tank’s armor.

No gun-ban lobby press release masquerading as a mainstream media article would be complete without a reference to the dreaded Barrett .50 cal, the most powerful small arm ever devised.  It can shoot down helicopers, airliners, even the Space Shuttle, with a single shot.  Available anywhere guns are sold.  Come to a gun show near you to pick one up for cash, no questions asked.

First, the .50 cal cannot stop a tank, unless you’re referring to a World War II vintage.  It’s absurdly heavy, ridiculously expensive, ammo is rare and even more expensive, and there’s no reason to go to the US for one when you can join the Mexican special forces and get one for free:

I also posted a comment based on this posting to the WSJ article in question.  It reads:

I can get poorly-researched, ignorant, one-sided reporting for free from the major newspapers.  I pay for a WSJ subscription because it’s usually a higher caliber of journalism.  This article is not up to the standards of the Journal.

A few factual errors, as others have pointed out:

* AK-47s and all weapons capable of fully-automatic fire were not regulated under the Assault Weapons Ban of ’94, but have been regulated for over seventy years by the National Firearms Act of ’34 and the Gun Control Act of ’68.

* The US provides considerable Drug War aid to Mexico, including arms and funds for arms.  If I were outfitting a Mexican military unit, I’d definitely want US arms from the likes of Barrett, FN Herstal, DS Arms, Colt, etc.  Quoting the 90% number without context is extremely misleading.  Let’s dig into those trace numbers and see exactly what path these guns took into Mexico.  Was it by way of a Mexican military armory, perhaps?  We don’t know, but the article completely glosses over that detail.

* The claim that the ’94 AWB reduced the flow of “such weapons” to Mexico, and the bans subsequent sunset raised them again, lacks any citation whatsoever.  There is no evidence that the AWB reduced crime in this country, and it seems unlikely it had a stronger effect in another country, but without a citation we can’t dig into this claim.

* The misrepresentation of FN Herstal’s FiveseveN handgun and P90 SMG is simply absurd.  The author commits the usual gun ignorance gaffes like confusing 5.7 caliber (a projectile 5.7 inches across; in other words a large artillery piece) and 5.7mm (the actual diameter of the bullets in question), and claiming a particular gun can penetrate soft armor when in fact the ammunition is a much more significant factor.  The author also trots out the “cop killer” meme without any citation or evidence of any kind.

In truth, FN Herstal does offer steel-core 5.7mm ammo which has enhanced soft armor penetration, however armor-piercing handgun ammo is not legal for civilian purchase in the US, thus the 24,000 Cabela’s purchase mentioned in the article was almost certainly for 5.7mm ball ammo.  If the cartels want 5.7mm AP ammo, they’ll have to get it from the Mexican military (as I’m sure they do).

It’s also misleading to talk about cop-killers and armor penetration without acknowledging that soft body armor of the sort worn by most police is designed only to stop pistol fire.  If “cop killer” means “weapon and ammunition capable of penetrating soft level IIIA armor”, then an old single-shot .30-30 hunting rifle is a “cop killer”.

* Of course, no ignorant gun-related piece would be complete without a mention of the dreaded Barrett .50 cal.  There’s a photo circulating the Internet of a parade in which a unit of Mexican special forces are clearly seen marching with Barrett .50 cal rifles.  Perhaps someone should ask them how narco-terrorists got hold of the .50s.  Someone should also verify the claim that the .50 can penetrate tank armor before repeating it without question.  The AP made the same mistake, and ended up printing the following retraction:

“In a Nov. 25 story about Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc., The Associated Press reported erroneously that .50-caliber rifles were used to penetrate the armor of Iraqi tanks from a mile away during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Such rifles were used against Iraqi armored personnel carriers, but military experts say they could not penetrate tank armor from that distance.”

Finally, I would like to point out that all of this is fueled by our quixotic War on Drugs.  If we’re looking for policy prescriptions to solve this and related problems, rather than disarming law-abiding citizens and ignoring the actual causes of crime, how about a legalization and regulation scheme for now-illegal narcotics?

Here’s hoping this is the last amateurish, error-riddled propaganda piece I see in the Journal for a while.