Where Are All Those Guns Coming From?

by Larry Pratt at Gun Owners of America

The government of Colombia has been fighting the Marxist-oriented drug traffickers known by their Spanish acronym FARC for decades. They have been trying to trace guns and other weapons coming from some twenty-seven different countries.

The guns turned up in various FARC encampments that have been busted by an increasingly successful counterattack by the Colombian military.

In an August 2 article in the Panamanian newspaper, Panamá América, it was reported that Columbia has made numerous inquiries to Interpol to find out where all the weapons are coming from.

In view of the Obama administration’s claims that privately owned guns in our country are migrating into Mexico and fueling violence down there, one might think that American gun owners are the cause of all foreign violence. However, the truth is quite the opposite, it turns out.

The article summarizes the Colombian queries to Interpol as follows: rifles from Russia, Bulgaria, Communist China and Korea; pistols and revolvers from Central Europe and Brazil; explosives from Ecuador; munitions (a term that includes machine guns and other weapons such as grenades, mortars, cannons, rockets, etc.) from Brazil, Russia and Venezuela and anti-tank rockets from Russia, Rumania, Communist China, Sweden and the U.S.

Did you just hear the dog that did not bark? In the above list, did you see any weapons that could be obtained at a U.S. gun store or show? The only mention of the U.S. in the list is as a supplier of anti-tank rockets. If anybody can tell me where us average citizens can buy rockets at a store or show, please let me know right away.

Where would anti-tank rockets enter the world market? How about theft from domestic or foreign military arsenals? By the way, the article reports that some of the weaponry mentioned above has been traced to Colombia’s own military industry.

The article also pointed out that the FARC are known to fly guns into Colombia on return flights that take drugs out.

You don’t suppose those same planes could sneak into Mexico, too, do you?