*sigh* Nuts….computers. I have Media edition .. is there even anything special about it? AH, or is it just the name, .. I never use any of "the programs" with it. Hopefully it doesn’t do anything crazy tomorrow. I’ll cross my … umm mouses.
I haven’t played with it enough to know. It is supposed to stream video or integrate with a TV card a bit better. I figured between a tablet edition and the media edition, the media edition was better for the desktop. At least it is validated.
You mean yours is worse? I’m gonna have to work on it then! LOL
After I got that problem fixed I was a lot better. I just so hate it when everything is running smoothly and then boom, things turn horribly wrong.
It will work out eventually. Even if that requires blowing the thing up. LOL
Hee hee, yeah, I dread sending Kathy down to get something off my desk. She just doesn’t understand my filing system! LOL
Thanks!
Not quite geek heaven, but it is getting there. The two new HD enclosures for two of my spare HD’s will help, and there are a bunch of "geek toys" that I want to get that will really help polish it off!
i totally forgot FUTAB this week…but not because of any issues like the ones you’re having….yikes! great pic…sorry it’s at the expense of your nerves (and head!)
It all better now (knock on wood). Had a minor issue with the printer Sunday morning, but that was more due to me not thinking than the printer itself. Loading software at the same time you are trying to print a High Res picture isn’t a good idea.
Still have some issues to work out and some software to track down, but at least it is working.
Until we get a new homeland security director, expect murders and violence along the arizona border. For whatever reason, homeland security turns a blind eye to the border and the us citizens living along the border live in fear as the drug gangs scoot across the border intimidating us citizens. Enough is enough….
Terrible Fear:
Comprehensive Amnesty Reform with Chain Migration
= 100 million new residents = 400 million for Health Care Reform – a lot of Doctors leave practice + 16000 IRS enforcers = KAOS = Wefare EMPIRE = Obama elected PRESIDENT 4 LIFE!
Instead of the big picture I like to look at the small picture. 911 happened because of knife cutters, the Oklahoma City bombing becaues of an American citizen.The whole idea of security anywhere blows my mind.
Small picture? 911 happened because of a mad man and his international fanatical warrior cult army declared war on the USA.
Knife cutters? That’s like saying WWI happened because of just one lone gunman….and a small hunk of flying led.
OBTW OKC happened because of two American citizens.
Is it true that there is an environmentally protected sector along the border where border patrol units cannot patrol because officials of the environmental protection agency or some group believe that border patrol ruins the environment?
If anyone knows for sure, please comment.
I have heard that it is this particular area where drug deals are being transacted and where drugs are being moved into the usa without any interference.
If this is true, something must be done. What can be done?
I don’t know Robert the border is very porous in many places would not be a bit surprised if in fact this is true.
Columbus, N.M. is and always has been a troubled place since before the days of Pancho Villa….I believe it was Ike who almost got himself wasted over south of there, or was it Patton ?
He was the 1st to lead a mechanized assault on official business for The U.S.Army using model T’s.
There are numerous places where the border is defined by shoddy sometimes a single strand of barbed wire…..yet in El PASO there is a concrete mote with 10,000 volt electric fence on both sides of the mote…….yet going West and East along the Rio Grande the elaborate dwindles into chain link with gaping holes….
In travels along the U.S.A. Mexican border it has been my pleasure to encounter some of the individuals who are BP agents even the one who crashed into my shiny new 379 Peterbilt in 2006 was courteous, and admitted he was @ fault tried to beat the train i.e. me and my truck.
I admire these people for the job they do which little is known the mexican crime cartells have a running bounty on the heads of any and all US Border Patrol Agents it’s not alot of money……
I can show you where they are constantly shot @ right in El PASO, TX. from the barrio just across the river over in Jaurez, Mexico
FROM THE LOS ANGELES TIMES…THIS WILL NOT BE PLEASANT READING FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN THE SECOND AMENDMENT…I BELIEVE IN THE SECOND AMENDMENT, BUT AFTER READING THIS ARTICLE, IT IS OBVIOUS THAT MORE SECURITY MUST BE USED BY ARIZONA GUN DEALERS AND GUN BUYERS TO INSURE THE PURCHASED WEAPONS DO NOT GET INTO THE HANDS OF UNAUTHORIZED INDIVIDUALS. I DO NOT BELIEVE MORE FEDERAL REGULATION IS REQUIRED BY ANY MEANS, JUST LOCAL ENFORCEMENT OF REGULATIONS CONCERNING THE PURCHASE OF ARMS AND WEAPONS TO INSURE THEY DO NOT CROSS THE BORDER…
From the Los Angeles Times
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
U.S. guns arm Mexican drug cartels
Licensed weapons dealers are abundant near the border. ‘Straw buyers’ assist the traffickers.
By Richard A. Serrano
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 10, 2008
SIERRA VISTA, ARIZ. — High-powered automatic weapons and ammunition are flowing virtually unchecked from border states into Mexico, fueling a war among drug traffickers, the army and police that has left thousands dead, according to U.S. and Mexican officials.
The munitions are hidden under trucks and stashed in the trunks of cars, or concealed under the clothing of people who brazenly walk across the international bridges. They are showing up in seizures and in the aftermath of shootouts between the cartels and police in Mexico.
More than 90% of guns seized at the border or after raids and shootings in Mexico have been traced to the United States, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Last year, 2,455 weapons traces requested by Mexico showed that guns had been purchased in the United States, according to the ATF. Texas, Arizona and California accounted for 1,805 of those traced weapons.
No one is sure how many U.S.-purchased guns have made their way into Mexico, but U.S. authorities estimate the number in the thousands.
The body count, meanwhile, is rising. Since a military-led crackdown on narcotics traffickers began 18 months ago, more than 4,000 people in Mexico have died in drug-related violence, including 450 police officers, soldiers and prosecutors, as well as innocent bystanders, cartel members and corrupt officials, according to Mexican authorities.
Tom Mangan, a senior ATF special agent in Arizona, compared the flow to reverse osmosis. "Just like the drugs that head north," firearms move south, he said. "The cartels are outfitting an army."
More than 6,700 licensed gun dealers have set up shop within a short drive of the 2,000-mile border, from the Gulf Coast of Texas to San Diego — which amounts to more than three dealers for every mile of border territory. Law enforcement has come to call the region an "iron river of guns."
And while U.S. political leaders and presidential candidates have focused rhetoric, money and time on stemming the northward flow of drugs and illegal immigrants, far less has been said and done about arms flowing south, largely from states with liberal gun laws, into a nation where only police and the military can legally own a firearm.
Mexican authorities have been pressing the United States to do more to help a border force they describe as overwhelmed and often intimidated.
"Just guarantee me that arms won’t enter Mexico," Mexico’s public-safety chief, Genaro Garcia Luna, told a radio interviewer recently. Stop the flow of guns from the United States, he said, "and the gasoline for the crimes that we have will run out."
‘Straw buyers’
Both sides blame "straw buyers" who purchase weapons for traffickers at small gun shops and large gun shows.
Adan Rodriguez, 35, a struggling carpet-layer from the Dallas area, told gun dealers he was a private security officer and bought more than 100 assault rifles, 9-mm handguns and other high-powered weapons at multiple shops over several months, according to court records.
But authorities say drug traffickers were giving him stacks of cash to buy the guns, with marijuana laced in between the bills. He earned $30 to $40 a gun, according to court records.
"The temptation got over me," Rodriguez told a federal judge in Dallas, who sentenced him in 2006 to 5 1/2 years in prison.
Last August, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents in Roma, Texas, came upon a 1999 Freightliner tractor-trailer with a hidden stash of weapons, including a rifle, four shotguns, a handgun and 8,024 rounds of live ammunition with 10 magazines. The driver was questioned, and that investigation continues.
In February, five men, including a father and his two sons, were arrested just outside Roma and charged with selling as many as 60 guns, silencers and other weapons. The serial numbers on some of the weapons were shaved off, government evidence shows — a sign to agents that the firearms were destined for Mexican gangs.
More recently, the ATF seized 13 AK-47 rifles Aug. 1 from an alleged straw purchaser in Phoenix, according to Mangan. The guns were to be delivered to the Tijuana cartel via Southern California, Mangan said.
Despite the arrests, smugglers appear to have the upper hand, U.S. and Mexican law enforcement sources say. Just 100 U.S. firearms agents and 35 inspectors patrol the vast border region for gun smugglers, compared with 16,000 Border Patrol agents, most of them working the Southwest border.
Elias Bazan, a supervisory agent with the ATF in Laredo, Texas, has a staff of just six agents at one of the grittiest stretches along the Rio Grande.
"I don’t have an analyst," he said. "I don’t have an administrative assistant. I don’t have an inspector. One major case can soak up my entire office. And we have major cases all the time."
Gun dealers also far outnumber agents. Here in tiny Sierra Vista, on a rise high enough to afford a view into Mexico, half a dozen dealers operate in stores along the town’s main thoroughfare, and they also sell and trade arms out of their homes.
Arizona is a wide-open state for gun lovers: A license lets you carry a gun openly on the street or concealed.
Saguaro Firearms is a small, crowded shop on East Fry Boulevard, a strip of fast-food restaurants and mini-malls. Across the street is Guns & Gear. Anyone with proper ID and a brief background check can leave with a firearm under his or her belt and reach Mexico in minutes.
The manager at Saguaro Firearms, who gave his name only as Greg, carries a "comfortable to shoot" silver Kahr P40 in a black holster on his right hip.
"I don’t believe all the hype" about all the guns getting into Mexico, he said, knifing open new boxes of ammunition.
He said that toll bridges, a fence and more border cops would not stop immigrants from flowing north or guns from flowing south. "Build a tower with an armed guard every 100 yards," he suggested. "Maybe then."
Washington and Mexico City are pledging cooperation to halt the weapons flow, but each capital wants more from the other. Washington is urging Mexican officials to be more vigilant at the border, and to thoroughly inspect and arrest crossers who carry weapons from the United States. Warning signs have been posted at the border, but few people pay heed.
William Hoover, the ATF’s assistant director for field operations, told Congress that his agency is working with Mexican law enforcement officials on an "eTrace" system to track guns found in Mexico. The process allows the United States to start criminal investigations against anyone in the country who has sent a weapon to Mexico.
Mexico wants the United States to tighten gun laws in border states. They also want more checks on "straw man" purchasers like Rodriguez.
Key arrests
Since weapons began heading south in bulk three to five years ago, U.S. agents have made some key arrests. Unfortunately, many of them came after the weapons had been used in cartel warfare in Mexico.
This spring the ATF arrested a dealer and two others from the X-Caliber Guns store in Phoenix, which allegedly dispatched hundreds of AK-47s and other long guns and pistols to Mexico. The shop has since shut down; the three have pleaded not guilty.
ATF intelligence has shown that some of the firearms sold from X-Caliber were used by cartel gunmen against Mexican police and the Mexican army.
Six guns were traced to alleged members of the Sinaloa Cartel, who were rounded up shortly after Mexican police captured alleged drug lord Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman in May. An assault rifle traced to X-Caliber also turned up in a cache found after eight federal policemen were killed and three others wounded in a gun battle in Culiacan, according to the ATF.
Gun shows have become particularly troublesome. There, traffickers have their pick of weapons: AK-47s, AR-15s and the FN 5.57-caliber pistol known as "asesino de policia," or "cop killer."
"You see the Sinaloan cowboys come in," said Mangan, who browses the shows. "You see them with their ammunition belts and their ammunition boots. You can see the dollies being rolled outside to their cars.
"Why do they need the high-powered guns? Because the Mexican military is armed too, and they need to pierce that armor."
Sometimes it’s the ammunition that tips agents off. In November 2006, an agent in street clothes was talking to a dealer at Kirkpatrick’s Guns & Ammo, less than a mile from the border in Laredo, Texas. He spotted two men repackaging more than 12,000 rounds of ammunition they had just purchased.
An investigation later led to the arrest of Carlos Alberto Osorio-Castrejon and Ramon Uresti-Careaga, both Mexican citizens in the United States illegally.
Osorio pleaded guilty to being an illegal immigrant in possession of ammunition and was given 10 months in prison. Uresti was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to 15 months in prison.
The ammunition, the judge told Uresti and the court, "was going to somebody in Mexico involved in some illegal activity — drug trafficking, alien smuggling perhaps. Or something else."
Just up the road from Kirkpatrick’s, past the taquerias and the Mexican insurance offices, there is yet another gun shop.
"Call me Rocky," said the man who runs Border Sporting Goods. He advertises "What We Don’t Have, We Can Get." He sells guns and ammunition and reloading and hunting equipment. He personally owns more than 100 firearms.
He blamed Mexico for the gun trafficking. "It is not doing enough to stop it," he said. "They are a crooked country." He said U.S. gun laws were too easily broken. "A crook could care less how many laws you have."
He maintained that most gun dealers were honest and vigilant and report suspicious activity. And he called it unfair to make gun stores responsible for what their customers do: "That’s like holding a car manufacturer liable for traffic accidents."
The dealers here in Sierra Vista said they reported any customer they did not feel comfortable about.
Mike Benton runs Guns & Gear, which is easy to find on East Fry Boulevard; a U.S. flag out front marks the spot. He said two men claiming to be American citizens recently purchased four or five long guns.
"They had the necessary documents, and an instant FBI check was approved," Benton said. Still, he thought it unusual and notified authorities. "I never heard back," he said.
Shop owners heard back when they called about Adan Rodriguez. At 335 pounds, Rodriguez was easy to remember after he started showing up at shops in Mesquite, Texas, outside Dallas.
Over a series of months, Rodriguez purchased 112 assault-class rifles, 9-mm Beretta pistols, revolvers and high- caliber rifles, court records show.
The dealers alerted the ATF’s Dallas office, and Tom Crowley, a special agent there, said that an undercover officer and hidden video camera were planted.
Seduced by money
Arrested, Rodriguez complained that he was making just $1,400 a month laying carpet and had lost his job. He said that his mother was disabled and that he had hoped to marry soon.
Then a friend of a friend introduced him to "Kati" and "Cesar," and they convinced him to do a little side work for some Mexican clients.
Kati and Cesar provided Rodriguez with cash amounts of up to $12,000, often in thousand-dollar stacks. Sometimes they sent an older Latino man, "Jefe," ("Boss") to deliver the money for guns.
When he bought the weapons, he took them to safe houses in Dallas.
At the time of his arrest, Rodriguez told the agents, he was being pushed to buy hand grenades and a rocket launcher too.
One of the Berettas was used in a shootout in Reynosa, Mexico, that left a cartel member dead and injured two Mexican federal agents.
In a handwritten letter to The Times from his prison cell in Seagoville, Texas, Rodriguez described how he got in deeper and deeper with the cartels.
"It started out by selling one of my personal guns, and things went on [from] there," he said. "It was an easy way to make some money."
Rodriguez hesitated to write more: "I worry about my safety and my family’s safety."
After listening to President Obama’s remarks about the new law in Arizona, I was left with the impression that he is more concerned about political correctness than the safety of the residents of the citizens who live along the border. Humanitarian qualities in a President are commendable and admirable, but the OATH he took was to protect the CITIZENS of this country, not the one across the border.
Sometimes, I get the strong feeling that the left-wing radicals will never be happy in this nation until there is a UNITED NATIONS FLAG flying over our capitol building in Washington. Recent actions have made me increase my belief in this personal theory.
JANET NAPOLITANO, HOMELAND SECURITY TALKS ABOUT BORDER SECURITY AND SAYS IT IS UNFAIR QUESTION…perhaps she should take a trip and spend a few nights on the border
Not to worry. Once we get another Republican president in office, resume Republican economic policies and the continuation of their wealth redistribution upwards, we should see Americans flowing south for a job and a better life. Bush and his return to the 1920s did in fact slow down immigration. Once we´re a third world nation with an even greater wealth disparity than Mexico, no one will want to immigrate to the U.S., but being a drug dealer would still be one of the few sources of income, still.
Holder’s ‘Haven’t Read It’ Arizona Immigration Law Admission Gets Little Establishment Media Coverage
By Tom Blumer | Sat, 05/15/2010 – 23:58
This is one of those "you know the ending, but someone has to take note anyway" media bias posts.
On Thursday, NewsBusters colleague Noel Sheppard revealed that Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder had told an oversight hearing of the House Judiciary Committee the following about his knowledge of Arizona’s recently pass immigration law-enforcement measure:
I have not had a chance to, I’ve glanced at it. I have not read it.
… I have not really, I have not been briefed yet.
… I’ve only made, made the comments that I’ve made on the basis of things that I’ve been able to glean by reading newspaper accounts, obviously, looking at television, talking to people who are on the review panel, on the review team that are looking at the law.
It will surprise almost no one who visits this site that Holder’s admitted ignorance about a routinely misrepresented law — misrepresentations that have led to calls for boycotts of Arizona, a PC-obsessed cancellation of a girls high school basketball team’s hoop dreams, and hysterical hyperventilation at Holder’s Justice Department as well as by the President of the United States himself — has received very little establishment media attention.
this is a sad chapter in America’s history. Which news broadcasting company compared the President of Mexico’s speech before congress as equal to "tear down this wall" speech by President RR?
At the desk of Bart weekend it is.
"This is how we’d go about it to make our heads explode all night
This is how we’d go about it to make our heads explode"
-Monster Magnet
Almost as messy as my desk
–
Seen in my contacts’ photos. (?)
*sigh* Nuts….computers. I have Media edition .. is there even anything special about it? AH, or is it just the name, .. I never use any of "the programs" with it. Hopefully it doesn’t do anything crazy tomorrow. I’ll cross my … umm mouses.
–
Seen on your photo stream. (?)
great expression of your frustration! I can totally relate to your anger!
–
Seen in my contacts’ photos. (?)
Now that’s more like it. lol.
Hopefully you get everything worked out.
–
Seen in my contacts’ photos. (?)
love this and love the work space, looks like mine at the office. Nobody can find anything but me….
Excellent!
That looks like total geek heaven… or hell! I love me a geekdom! Hope it continues to work like it’s s’posed to Bart!
RC Copter
Cube World
Missle defense system LOL
Old Skool defense system
Can’t forget Mr. Potato Head Geek
Plus, hopefully for Christmas and/or my birthday the drobo
Those will get me a lot closer to Geek Heaven. LOL
Had to come back with my pic Bart
Here is my bike plate, photo taken especially for you!
That Mr. Potato Head is AWESOME!
LOL
i totally forgot FUTAB this week…but not because of any issues like the ones you’re having….yikes! great pic…sorry it’s at the expense of your nerves (and head!)
Still have some issues to work out and some software to track down, but at least it is working.
Fantastic attention to detail with the reflection, great work
Until we get a new homeland security director, expect murders and violence along the arizona border. For whatever reason, homeland security turns a blind eye to the border and the us citizens living along the border live in fear as the drug gangs scoot across the border intimidating us citizens. Enough is enough….
IS HOMELAND SECURITY CHECKING ON YOU? ADDED JAN 2012
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/11/us-usa-homelandsecurit...
Terrible Fear:
Comprehensive Amnesty Reform with Chain Migration
= 100 million new residents = 400 million for Health Care Reform – a lot of Doctors leave practice + 16000 IRS enforcers = KAOS = Wefare EMPIRE = Obama elected PRESIDENT 4 LIFE!
Our golden years are not golden and are fewer.
Instead of the big picture I like to look at the small picture. 911 happened because of knife cutters, the Oklahoma City bombing becaues of an American citizen.The whole idea of security anywhere blows my mind.
kate
Small picture? 911 happened because of a mad man and his international fanatical warrior cult army declared war on the USA.
Knife cutters? That’s like saying WWI happened because of just one lone gunman….and a small hunk of flying led.
OBTW OKC happened because of two American citizens.
Is it true that there is an environmentally protected sector along the border where border patrol units cannot patrol because officials of the environmental protection agency or some group believe that border patrol ruins the environment?
If anyone knows for sure, please comment.
I have heard that it is this particular area where drug deals are being transacted and where drugs are being moved into the usa without any interference.
If this is true, something must be done. What can be done?
I don’t know Robert the border is very porous in many places would not be a bit surprised if in fact this is true.
Columbus, N.M. is and always has been a troubled place since before the days of Pancho Villa….I believe it was Ike who almost got himself wasted over south of there, or was it Patton ?
He was the 1st to lead a mechanized assault on official business for The U.S.Army using model T’s.
There are numerous places where the border is defined by shoddy sometimes a single strand of barbed wire…..yet in El PASO there is a concrete mote with 10,000 volt electric fence on both sides of the mote…….yet going West and East along the Rio Grande the elaborate dwindles into chain link with gaping holes….
In travels along the U.S.A. Mexican border it has been my pleasure to encounter some of the individuals who are BP agents even the one who crashed into my shiny new 379 Peterbilt in 2006 was courteous, and admitted he was @ fault tried to beat the train i.e. me and my truck.
I admire these people for the job they do which little is known the mexican crime cartells have a running bounty on the heads of any and all US Border Patrol Agents it’s not alot of money……
I can show you where they are constantly shot @ right in El PASO, TX. from the barrio just across the river over in Jaurez, Mexico
It was Patton. He was one against a bunch of Villiastas in a gun fight.
FROM THE LOS ANGELES TIMES…THIS WILL NOT BE PLEASANT READING FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN THE SECOND AMENDMENT…I BELIEVE IN THE SECOND AMENDMENT, BUT AFTER READING THIS ARTICLE, IT IS OBVIOUS THAT MORE SECURITY MUST BE USED BY ARIZONA GUN DEALERS AND GUN BUYERS TO INSURE THE PURCHASED WEAPONS DO NOT GET INTO THE HANDS OF UNAUTHORIZED INDIVIDUALS. I DO NOT BELIEVE MORE FEDERAL REGULATION IS REQUIRED BY ANY MEANS, JUST LOCAL ENFORCEMENT OF REGULATIONS CONCERNING THE PURCHASE OF ARMS AND WEAPONS TO INSURE THEY DO NOT CROSS THE BORDER…
From the Los Angeles Times
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
U.S. guns arm Mexican drug cartels
Licensed weapons dealers are abundant near the border. ‘Straw buyers’ assist the traffickers.
By Richard A. Serrano
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 10, 2008
SIERRA VISTA, ARIZ. — High-powered automatic weapons and ammunition are flowing virtually unchecked from border states into Mexico, fueling a war among drug traffickers, the army and police that has left thousands dead, according to U.S. and Mexican officials.
The munitions are hidden under trucks and stashed in the trunks of cars, or concealed under the clothing of people who brazenly walk across the international bridges. They are showing up in seizures and in the aftermath of shootouts between the cartels and police in Mexico.
More than 90% of guns seized at the border or after raids and shootings in Mexico have been traced to the United States, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Last year, 2,455 weapons traces requested by Mexico showed that guns had been purchased in the United States, according to the ATF. Texas, Arizona and California accounted for 1,805 of those traced weapons.
No one is sure how many U.S.-purchased guns have made their way into Mexico, but U.S. authorities estimate the number in the thousands.
The body count, meanwhile, is rising. Since a military-led crackdown on narcotics traffickers began 18 months ago, more than 4,000 people in Mexico have died in drug-related violence, including 450 police officers, soldiers and prosecutors, as well as innocent bystanders, cartel members and corrupt officials, according to Mexican authorities.
Tom Mangan, a senior ATF special agent in Arizona, compared the flow to reverse osmosis. "Just like the drugs that head north," firearms move south, he said. "The cartels are outfitting an army."
More than 6,700 licensed gun dealers have set up shop within a short drive of the 2,000-mile border, from the Gulf Coast of Texas to San Diego — which amounts to more than three dealers for every mile of border territory. Law enforcement has come to call the region an "iron river of guns."
And while U.S. political leaders and presidential candidates have focused rhetoric, money and time on stemming the northward flow of drugs and illegal immigrants, far less has been said and done about arms flowing south, largely from states with liberal gun laws, into a nation where only police and the military can legally own a firearm.
Mexican authorities have been pressing the United States to do more to help a border force they describe as overwhelmed and often intimidated.
"Just guarantee me that arms won’t enter Mexico," Mexico’s public-safety chief, Genaro Garcia Luna, told a radio interviewer recently. Stop the flow of guns from the United States, he said, "and the gasoline for the crimes that we have will run out."
‘Straw buyers’
Both sides blame "straw buyers" who purchase weapons for traffickers at small gun shops and large gun shows.
Adan Rodriguez, 35, a struggling carpet-layer from the Dallas area, told gun dealers he was a private security officer and bought more than 100 assault rifles, 9-mm handguns and other high-powered weapons at multiple shops over several months, according to court records.
But authorities say drug traffickers were giving him stacks of cash to buy the guns, with marijuana laced in between the bills. He earned $30 to $40 a gun, according to court records.
"The temptation got over me," Rodriguez told a federal judge in Dallas, who sentenced him in 2006 to 5 1/2 years in prison.
Last August, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents in Roma, Texas, came upon a 1999 Freightliner tractor-trailer with a hidden stash of weapons, including a rifle, four shotguns, a handgun and 8,024 rounds of live ammunition with 10 magazines. The driver was questioned, and that investigation continues.
In February, five men, including a father and his two sons, were arrested just outside Roma and charged with selling as many as 60 guns, silencers and other weapons. The serial numbers on some of the weapons were shaved off, government evidence shows — a sign to agents that the firearms were destined for Mexican gangs.
More recently, the ATF seized 13 AK-47 rifles Aug. 1 from an alleged straw purchaser in Phoenix, according to Mangan. The guns were to be delivered to the Tijuana cartel via Southern California, Mangan said.
Despite the arrests, smugglers appear to have the upper hand, U.S. and Mexican law enforcement sources say. Just 100 U.S. firearms agents and 35 inspectors patrol the vast border region for gun smugglers, compared with 16,000 Border Patrol agents, most of them working the Southwest border.
Elias Bazan, a supervisory agent with the ATF in Laredo, Texas, has a staff of just six agents at one of the grittiest stretches along the Rio Grande.
"I don’t have an analyst," he said. "I don’t have an administrative assistant. I don’t have an inspector. One major case can soak up my entire office. And we have major cases all the time."
Gun dealers also far outnumber agents. Here in tiny Sierra Vista, on a rise high enough to afford a view into Mexico, half a dozen dealers operate in stores along the town’s main thoroughfare, and they also sell and trade arms out of their homes.
Arizona is a wide-open state for gun lovers: A license lets you carry a gun openly on the street or concealed.
Saguaro Firearms is a small, crowded shop on East Fry Boulevard, a strip of fast-food restaurants and mini-malls. Across the street is Guns & Gear. Anyone with proper ID and a brief background check can leave with a firearm under his or her belt and reach Mexico in minutes.
The manager at Saguaro Firearms, who gave his name only as Greg, carries a "comfortable to shoot" silver Kahr P40 in a black holster on his right hip.
"I don’t believe all the hype" about all the guns getting into Mexico, he said, knifing open new boxes of ammunition.
He said that toll bridges, a fence and more border cops would not stop immigrants from flowing north or guns from flowing south. "Build a tower with an armed guard every 100 yards," he suggested. "Maybe then."
Washington and Mexico City are pledging cooperation to halt the weapons flow, but each capital wants more from the other. Washington is urging Mexican officials to be more vigilant at the border, and to thoroughly inspect and arrest crossers who carry weapons from the United States. Warning signs have been posted at the border, but few people pay heed.
William Hoover, the ATF’s assistant director for field operations, told Congress that his agency is working with Mexican law enforcement officials on an "eTrace" system to track guns found in Mexico. The process allows the United States to start criminal investigations against anyone in the country who has sent a weapon to Mexico.
Mexico wants the United States to tighten gun laws in border states. They also want more checks on "straw man" purchasers like Rodriguez.
Key arrests
Since weapons began heading south in bulk three to five years ago, U.S. agents have made some key arrests. Unfortunately, many of them came after the weapons had been used in cartel warfare in Mexico.
This spring the ATF arrested a dealer and two others from the X-Caliber Guns store in Phoenix, which allegedly dispatched hundreds of AK-47s and other long guns and pistols to Mexico. The shop has since shut down; the three have pleaded not guilty.
ATF intelligence has shown that some of the firearms sold from X-Caliber were used by cartel gunmen against Mexican police and the Mexican army.
Six guns were traced to alleged members of the Sinaloa Cartel, who were rounded up shortly after Mexican police captured alleged drug lord Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman in May. An assault rifle traced to X-Caliber also turned up in a cache found after eight federal policemen were killed and three others wounded in a gun battle in Culiacan, according to the ATF.
Gun shows have become particularly troublesome. There, traffickers have their pick of weapons: AK-47s, AR-15s and the FN 5.57-caliber pistol known as "asesino de policia," or "cop killer."
"You see the Sinaloan cowboys come in," said Mangan, who browses the shows. "You see them with their ammunition belts and their ammunition boots. You can see the dollies being rolled outside to their cars.
"Why do they need the high-powered guns? Because the Mexican military is armed too, and they need to pierce that armor."
Sometimes it’s the ammunition that tips agents off. In November 2006, an agent in street clothes was talking to a dealer at Kirkpatrick’s Guns & Ammo, less than a mile from the border in Laredo, Texas. He spotted two men repackaging more than 12,000 rounds of ammunition they had just purchased.
An investigation later led to the arrest of Carlos Alberto Osorio-Castrejon and Ramon Uresti-Careaga, both Mexican citizens in the United States illegally.
Osorio pleaded guilty to being an illegal immigrant in possession of ammunition and was given 10 months in prison. Uresti was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to 15 months in prison.
The ammunition, the judge told Uresti and the court, "was going to somebody in Mexico involved in some illegal activity — drug trafficking, alien smuggling perhaps. Or something else."
Just up the road from Kirkpatrick’s, past the taquerias and the Mexican insurance offices, there is yet another gun shop.
"Call me Rocky," said the man who runs Border Sporting Goods. He advertises "What We Don’t Have, We Can Get." He sells guns and ammunition and reloading and hunting equipment. He personally owns more than 100 firearms.
He blamed Mexico for the gun trafficking. "It is not doing enough to stop it," he said. "They are a crooked country." He said U.S. gun laws were too easily broken. "A crook could care less how many laws you have."
He maintained that most gun dealers were honest and vigilant and report suspicious activity. And he called it unfair to make gun stores responsible for what their customers do: "That’s like holding a car manufacturer liable for traffic accidents."
The dealers here in Sierra Vista said they reported any customer they did not feel comfortable about.
Mike Benton runs Guns & Gear, which is easy to find on East Fry Boulevard; a U.S. flag out front marks the spot. He said two men claiming to be American citizens recently purchased four or five long guns.
"They had the necessary documents, and an instant FBI check was approved," Benton said. Still, he thought it unusual and notified authorities. "I never heard back," he said.
Shop owners heard back when they called about Adan Rodriguez. At 335 pounds, Rodriguez was easy to remember after he started showing up at shops in Mesquite, Texas, outside Dallas.
Over a series of months, Rodriguez purchased 112 assault-class rifles, 9-mm Beretta pistols, revolvers and high- caliber rifles, court records show.
The dealers alerted the ATF’s Dallas office, and Tom Crowley, a special agent there, said that an undercover officer and hidden video camera were planted.
Seduced by money
Arrested, Rodriguez complained that he was making just $1,400 a month laying carpet and had lost his job. He said that his mother was disabled and that he had hoped to marry soon.
Then a friend of a friend introduced him to "Kati" and "Cesar," and they convinced him to do a little side work for some Mexican clients.
Kati and Cesar provided Rodriguez with cash amounts of up to $12,000, often in thousand-dollar stacks. Sometimes they sent an older Latino man, "Jefe," ("Boss") to deliver the money for guns.
When he bought the weapons, he took them to safe houses in Dallas.
At the time of his arrest, Rodriguez told the agents, he was being pushed to buy hand grenades and a rocket launcher too.
One of the Berettas was used in a shootout in Reynosa, Mexico, that left a cartel member dead and injured two Mexican federal agents.
In a handwritten letter to The Times from his prison cell in Seagoville, Texas, Rodriguez described how he got in deeper and deeper with the cartels.
"It started out by selling one of my personal guns, and things went on [from] there," he said. "It was an easy way to make some money."
Rodriguez hesitated to write more: "I worry about my safety and my family’s safety."
The cartels, as he knows, are well-armed.
richard.serrano@latimes.com
After listening to President Obama’s remarks about the new law in Arizona, I was left with the impression that he is more concerned about political correctness than the safety of the residents of the citizens who live along the border. Humanitarian qualities in a President are commendable and admirable, but the OATH he took was to protect the CITIZENS of this country, not the one across the border.
Sometimes, I get the strong feeling that the left-wing radicals will never be happy in this nation until there is a UNITED NATIONS FLAG flying over our capitol building in Washington. Recent actions have made me increase my belief in this personal theory.
Bet you were the one that stole the UN flag from the Truman Library.
Hi, I’m an admin for a group called sad world, and we’d love to have this added to the group!
Hi, I’m an admin for a group called a new world, and we’d love to have this added to the group!
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/04/27/napolitano_on_...
JANET NAPOLITANO, HOMELAND SECURITY TALKS ABOUT BORDER SECURITY AND SAYS IT IS UNFAIR QUESTION…perhaps she should take a trip and spend a few nights on the border
Yes have been listening to her dribble quite a bit as of late.
I believe she’s iether drinking on meds or mixing her meds with alcohol.
Not to worry. Once we get another Republican president in office, resume Republican economic policies and the continuation of their wealth redistribution upwards, we should see Americans flowing south for a job and a better life. Bush and his return to the 1920s did in fact slow down immigration. Once we´re a third world nation with an even greater wealth disparity than Mexico, no one will want to immigrate to the U.S., but being a drug dealer would still be one of the few sources of income, still.
Holder’s ‘Haven’t Read It’ Arizona Immigration Law Admission Gets Little Establishment Media Coverage
By Tom Blumer | Sat, 05/15/2010 – 23:58
This is one of those "you know the ending, but someone has to take note anyway" media bias posts.
On Thursday, NewsBusters colleague Noel Sheppard revealed that Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder had told an oversight hearing of the House Judiciary Committee the following about his knowledge of Arizona’s recently pass immigration law-enforcement measure:
I have not had a chance to, I’ve glanced at it. I have not read it.
… I have not really, I have not been briefed yet.
… I’ve only made, made the comments that I’ve made on the basis of things that I’ve been able to glean by reading newspaper accounts, obviously, looking at television, talking to people who are on the review panel, on the review team that are looking at the law.
It will surprise almost no one who visits this site that Holder’s admitted ignorance about a routinely misrepresented law — misrepresentations that have led to calls for boycotts of Arizona, a PC-obsessed cancellation of a girls high school basketball team’s hoop dreams, and hysterical hyperventilation at Holder’s Justice Department as well as by the President of the United States himself — has received very little establishment media attention.
Read more: newsbusters.org/#ixzz0o5Sqz1z3
observatory.designobserver.com/media/slideshows/Hiroshima…
LINK TO WMD AND HIROSHIMA SLIDES
this is a sad chapter in America’s history. Which news broadcasting company compared the President of Mexico’s speech before congress as equal to "tear down this wall" speech by President RR?
If the USA suffers a terrorist attack by terrorists
who are able to cross our southern borders, the LEADERS
who took the oath of office to protect the citizens of
the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA will be…Held responsible.
Terrorists are now learning SPANISH so they can
enter the USA through our unprotected southern
borders.
THE GOVERNOR OF ARIZONA WILL BE GOING TO WASHINGTON, BUT………….
PRESIDENT OBAMA SAID HE WOULD NOT HAVE TIME TO SEE HER. Hmmmmm, stranger things happen rarely