Monday, December 20, 2010

AZ Republic finally reports on burgeoning "Arizona guns in Mexico" scandal

From the Arizona Republic -
The glass entrance to Lone Wolf Trading Co. in an unassuming strip mall near 51st and Peoria avenues, bears target practice posters and a sign: "No loaded weapons in our store."

Multiple model airplanes hang from the ceiling inside. It looked like business as usual as a couple of customers last week glanced at a wall with rifles on display and a shelf with handguns.

Owner Andre Howard did not return calls and was not present when the Republic visited the store for a comment about a recent year-long Washington Post investigation. Lone Wolf ranked eighth among dealers nationwide for selling the most number of firearms (1,515) recovered by police in the last four years. The store also topsdealers with the most traces in the last two years for guns recovered in crime scenes in Mexico. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives traces weapons recovered by law enforcement agencies to where they were sold originally.
The AZ Rep article is a fairly long and detailed on, so why pick on them for it?

The Phoenix New Times covered it a week ago when the Washington Post originally published the results of their investigation.

Maybe their hesitance to cover this particular story has its roots in Arizona's politics, where the majority in the legislature is so crazy about guns that not only are they trying to turn the state's college campuses into armed encampments, they want to force cities and towns to take firearms confiscated from criminals in the U.S. and transfer them to gun dealers for resale.

Something tells me that Russell Pearce, Jack Harper, Jan Brewer, and the rest won't appreciate the irony of a weapon used to kill someone in the U.S. in turn being used to kill someone in Mexico.

Actually, on second thought, they may thoroughly *enjoy* that idea.

1 comment:

Thane Eichenauer said...

Government prohibition of drugs causes violence in Mexico (and the US). That hasn't prevented drug production in Mexico.

Even if no guns from Arizona (or the US) ever were sent to Mexico that wouldn't prevent criminal syndicates from buying weapons from Brazil or China.