America exports guns across the world. The civil wars and drug wars in the furthest corners of the world are fueled by guns made by American companies. And it is considered legitimate. There are legitimate gun lobbies. There are right to lifestyle people who manage to connect the dots between deer hunting with a rifle and automatic weapons designed to mow down people in great numbers. You take one guy away, you take all guns away. I am all for fierce, rugged individualism. That is one big reason I like America so much. But gun culture is downright primitive.
America exports guns. America imports drugs. And we end up with a culture of violence globally. The permeation and easy availability of guns take crimes to whole new levels. They help further institutionalize sex slavery. They fuel civil wars. There is mayhem.
Just like the pro life, pro choice debate is a global debate, the gun debate is a global debate. The drug debate is a global debate.
I think there is also an underlying message that we as humanity are in the very early stages of recognizing and taking care of mental illnesses. We don't accord the same respect to minor depressions that we do now to minor colds, minor cuts, minor bruises. And that might be the primary fuel to substance abuse problems across the world.
But then guns and big money enter the equation, and that is a whole different ballgame. You end up with countries where drug cartels spread through the structure of the state like cancer and eat it up from inside.
America needs to get responsible with guns if it is sincere in its war on drugs and violence. There is a need for total regulation.
The war on drugs needs a twin war: a war on guns.
Guns Of Brooklyn: Peaceout
Washington Times: Brutal Mexican Drug Gang Crosses Into U.S.: The signature crimes of the most violent drug cartel in Mexico are its beheading and dismemberment of rival gang members, military personnel, law enforcement officers and public officials, and the random kidnappings and killings of civilians who get caught in its butchery and bloodletting. ..... Los Zetas is no longer just a concern in Mexico. It has expanded its deadly operations across the southwestern border, establishing footholds and alliances in states from New York to California. ...... Trained as an elite band of Mexican anti-drug commandos, the Zetas evolved into mercenaries for the infamous Gulf Cartel, bringing a new wave of brutality to Mexico’s escalating drug wars. Bolstered by an influx of assassins, bandits, thieves, thugs and corrupt federal, state and local police officers, the Zetas have since evolved into a well-financed and heavily armed drug smuggling force of their own. ...... Known for mounting the severed heads of their rivals on poles or hanging their dismembered bodies from bridges in cities throughout Mexico, the Zetas have easily become the most feared criminal gang in Mexico — where 35,000 people have been killed in a continuing drug war. Everyone is a potential victim: men, women and children. ..... “The Zetas are determined to gain the reputation of being the most sadistic, cruel and beastly organization that ever existed” ...... While the beheadings and dismemberments are used to punish those who oppose or betray them, to establish turf, to terrorize the citizenry against testifying against them, and to press political leaders to collaborate, random killings also have become the gang’s trademark — used by the Zetas, Mr. Grayson said, to demonstrate that no one is beyond their reach, that they can kidnap, torture and kill anyone they choose. ...... extorting funds from street vendors, business owners, political officials and others ...... U.S. authorities on the border are outgunned and outmanned by drug smugglers armed with automatic weapons, grenades and state-of-the-art communications and tracking systems. He said drug profits have allowed the cartels, particularly the Zetas, to develop “experts” in explosives, wiretapping, countersurveillance, lock-picking and Global Positioning System technology. ...... “Their violence has emboldened them and they are expanding to cities all across the United States” ...... Middle Eastern terrorists brought the practice of beheading their enemies to Central America and later Mexico. He said it also has become a tactic of U.S. street gangs, including Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, which, according to the FBI, has now spread across 42 states, with active operations in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., as well as California, Texas and New York. ..... With an estimated 10,000 members and an active recruitment drive under way, MS-13 is involved in crimes including drug distribution and homicide. ..... Mexican drug cartels, including the Zetas, have infiltrated 276 U.S. cities and represent the nation’s most serious organized-crime threat. ...... operate coast to coast. ..... the boldness of the attacks and the savagery of the Zetas has shocked many veteran law enforcement authorities ..... the gang stockpiled weapons in safe houses in the U.S. ...... gang members were armed with “assault rifles, bullet proof vests and grenades.” ..... Americans were fair game for Mexican gangs seeking control of U.S. smuggling routes. ...... Mexican drug gangs “literally do control parts of Arizona,” noting that gang members are armed with radios, optics and night-vision goggles “as good as anything law enforcement has. ...... “This is going on here in Arizona — 30 miles from the fifth-largest city in the United States” ..... the Zetas also have reached across the Mexican border into Central America for new recruits, including former members of Los Kaibiles, an elite special operations force of the Guatemalan military trained in jungle warfare and counterinsurgency tactics. ...... Guatemalan officials said the Zetas have established bases in several jungle areas and formed alliances with Central American gangs to take control of cocaine shipments from Guatemala to Mexico. Other links have been forged between the Zetas and the Ndrangheta, one of Italy’s most powerful crime syndicates that specializes in cocaine distribution and arms trafficking. ....... they use their massive supply of weapons and high-tech equipment to instill fear to take over numerous businesses. ..... The reputed leader of the Zetas is Heriberto “The Executioner” Lazcano-Lazcano, an original member of the Grupo Aeromovil de Fuerzas Especiales, or the Air Mobile Special Forces Group, the elite special forces operation within the Mexican army initially assigned to fight the drug cartels. ..... Lazcano-Lazcano has a vast arsenal at his disposal, including helicopters, armored vehicles, AK-47 assault rifles, AR-15 semi-automatic rifles, MP-5 submachine guns, 50-mm sniper rifles, shoulder-fired missiles, grenade launchers, bazookas, armor-piercing ammunition, plastic explosives, dynamite and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Gang members wear body armor and ballistic helmets, and launch attacks in military uniforms and military-style vehicles. .......... The Zetas, seeking to grab a larger portion of the $25 billion cocaine, heroin and marijuana market in the United States, are estimated to have between 1,000 and 3,000 hard-core members and 10,000 loyalists across Mexico, Central America and the United States. Authorities said the gang has organized a sophisticated supply and distribution network operating through established territories. ... “The Zetas are quite diversified and they are good bookkeepers,” Mr. Grayson said. “They will go where they can make money and will do what they have to do to make it happen.”
The Wire: 100 Greatest Quotes
