The situation in Mexico has serious consequences for our Rights, and even our lives here in AZ and all along the Mexican border. We cannot emphasize enough how much it is in our interest to have a free, safe and prosperous Mexico as our neighbor. Many of us have family, friends there and they are our neighbor.

We strongly support the Human Rights of the Mexican people to be able to defend themselves. That means the Mexican people should once again have the rights and resources to possess, bear and use modern and effective firearms. As over 70 years of corrupt federal government and it's attending gun control have shown, the bumper sticker is so true. "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns". Mexico is a textbook example of the failures of gun control. While some very limited firearms are permitted on paper, and in practice, the real effect has been to disarm the good people of Mexico.
That was done by the very corrupt political party that ran a country rich in natural resources and people, into the ground to prevent a revolution, not to "control crime" as was the pretense.

As the archived reports will show, the defenseless people of Mexico have suffered way too much. They deserve much better. We need to help.

Given the gravity of the ongoing drug war in Mexico our neighbor to the south, ASR&PA has been working to monitor the border situation and it's many effects on our state and our members:

Including drug and human trafficking, with related issues of murders, kidnappings, home invasions, extortion, destruction of wildlife habitat, illegal immigration, white slavery, money laundering, expenses of incarceration and medical treatments, the list goes on and on. Also de facto cession of areas of the state to the DTO's; fugitives, cash, firearms and ammunition running south. Most of these issues could be significantly reduced by simply securing the border.

To get it out of the way, ASR&PA does support legal immigration, trade, and travel between our countries. Especially so that we and our Mexican neighbors can once again freely and safely travel to our neighboring countries for competition, training, hunting and just enjoy good company.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

AZMEX UPDATE 20-6-08

AZMEX UPDATE 20 JUN 2008


Ariz., Sonora to join forces against crime
by Sean Holstege - Jun. 20, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

A pact to be inked Saturday between Gov. Janet Napolitano and Sonora
Gov. Eduardo Bours Castelo will make Arizona's southern neighbor the
first Mexican state to trace illegal weapons.

Arizona and Sonora officials said the states will team up to combat
gunrunning and share databases of fugitive felons on both sides of
the U.S.-Mexico border.

The states also will promise to work on improving border entry points
and share more information to combat drug smuggling.

Other terms call for bolstering responses to border-spanning
disasters and the development of digital maps to improve responses to
emergencies.

The governors meet twice a year at the Arizona-Mexico Commission, and
past meetings have often yielded vaguely worded resolutions.

But this weekend's pact will lead to specific plans with immediate
enforcement actions, training and investigations, federal agents and
the Governor's Office said.

The office and Arizona's top agent with the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said they hope the agreements will
be a model for other border states to follow when their governors
assemble in August.

"Kudos to Arizona and Sonora for being the first along the border to
do this," ATF Special-Agent-in-Charge Bill Newell said. "They are
trying to show the other states the benefits."

Ariz. guns end up in Mexico

The bust last month of a Phoenix gun store, X-Caliber Guns, previewed
the kind of investigation that the states' officials expect to become
more common.

When Mexican authorities recovered the pistol of a cartel boss in one
raid, an ATF weapons trace found it had been sold at X-Caliber. Other
weapons found in Mexico led back to Phoenix.

Ultimately, investigators raided the store, arrested the owners and
accused them of selling hundreds of semi-automatic rifles to Mexican
cartels.

Until now, only Mexican federal agents have had access to the trace
data. Under the new agreement, Sonora state police will have the same
access, just as police throughout the United States.

ATF agents will train Sonora state police on the trace system and how
to identify unique weapons and recover tampered serial numbers.

Arizona will form a task force involving the state Department of
Public Safety, U.S. customs agents and police from border towns and
regions.

The team will start immediately, said Napolitano's law enforcement
advisor Suzie Barr.

Using existing resources, officers will pull over more cars suspected
of running guns to Mexico and will launch more investigations like
the X-Caliber case.

"This enhances Project Gunrunner, and Project Gunrunner has been very
successful," Barr said, referring to an ATF pro- gram which during
the last fed- eral fiscal year traced nearly 1,500 guns in Mexico
back to sales in Arizona.

Newell said that since Jan. 1, Mexico has dramatically increased its
requests for trace data. Last year, 8,000 guns were seized in Mexico,
a country with very strict gun laws.

Countries jointly fight crime

The agreement comes amid increased scrutiny of gun smuggling.

This spring, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents launched
"Armas Cruzadas," a program to stop guns from getting into the hands
of Mexican drug cartels.

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a
$1.6 billion, three-year aid package to Mexico to help that country
fight its increasingly bloody drug war.

The money will pay for training and equipment, including improvements
in tracking weapons.

The aid package of the Merida Initiative which was negotiated between
President Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon and announced in
October 2007.

Shared fugitive databases

Arizona and Sonora will also swap databases to track thousands of
fugitives.

Arizona is seeking 60,000 felons, with an unknown number hiding in
Mexico.

Mexican prosecutors have asked their U.S. counterparts to help arrest
fugitives hiding in Arizona.

Under the new pact, each state law-enforcement agency will have a
full-time officer assigned to sending and receiving updated lists and
to ease extraditions of caught fugitives who.

The agreements, obtained by The Arizona Republic, will be signed at a
ceremony in Phoenix on Saturday.
"We absolutely hope that this becomes an inspiration for other border
states to follow," Napolitano spokeswoman Jeanine L'Ecuyer said.

end

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