They started with President Obama in Mexico, followed by a standard give and take between a PBS reporter and two "experts". The experts were talking about all sorts of facets of the drug problem and other issues of US-Mexico relations, then the reporter broaches the subject of "US guns" crossing the border into Mexico and exasperating the cartel war problems. First expert basically ignored the question and said there were more important issues. The second expert came right out and said that "we" needed to find a way to silence the "National Rifleman Association" and pass some "better" gun laws to prevent more violence in Mexico. The the other guy, who had ignored the question at first, spelled out some sort of bi-national "trade" in which the US could institute more gun laws against its citizens in exchange for Mexico opening up its oil business to investment from US corporations.
The next story segued right into the anniversary of Virginia Tech shootings, another rehash of the recent batch of mass killings, and then a discussion of "guns" in general between the lead anchor and some guy from Cato Institute (the obvious "conservative" voice) and some guy from some northeastern university-funded center for study of "gun policy" (the obvious liberal). Nothing new here, though I thought the Cato guy did a good job of making solid points and at the end the liberal guy tried to change the subject by saying something to the effect of "we're not trying to prevent people from defending themselves with guns, we just want more and better and smarter gun laws"
Anyway, I bring all this up with the lengthy play-by-play above to segue into my own point. Obama and other Dems continue to state publicly that they will not be trying to put new gun control in place; even on the Mexico subject Obama was quoted saying he would try to enforce existing laws first. I'm starting to see the writing in the liberal playbook now. They won't come out and overtly try to pass new gun control at all. Instead, after an acceptable period of "trying" to solve the Mexico cartel problem with existing laws (let's see how much they really try), they will throw up their hands and say "we tried, but it's not working." Then we'll get some bill through Congress with some big red herring name like the "Fight cross-border Mexican drug violence Act" or some such nonsense, but within this bill will be a more egregious attempt at gun control than even the Clinton Adminstration ... no "assault weapons", serial numbered and highly taxed ammo, no waiver of the 10-day waiting period for CHL holders, and likely an attempt to strictly regulate the sale of ALL semi-automatic weapons. The PBS anchor tonight, in describing one of the recent shootings in which the assailant fired 96 combined shots from a 9mm pistol & a .45 pistol in "less than a minute", actually asked "why would you need GUNS LIKE THAT that can fire that many bullets for self-defense?" The Cato guy had a great answer, stating that "fully automatic" weapons (and even explaining "which you can fire many bullets with only one pull of the trigger") have been heavily regulated since 1934 and all but banned since 1986, and that the semi-automatic pistols used in this particular shooting are precisely the types of weapons used by tens of millions of Americans every day for self defense.
If I'm plotting the national gun rights response to this growing "concern" by liberals about US guns "causing" Mexican drug violence, I would start by pointing out the sign in one of the stock images from the PBS report tonight - right at the border, clearly stating, "FIREARMS AND AMMUNITION ARE ILLEGAL IN MEXICO" (and then repeating same in Spanish) .... so we're worried that extreme gun violence from south of the border - where guns are absolutely illegal - is going to spill over into our country, and the liberal response is to also make guns more illegal here?
Honestly, no offense to anyone who is from south of the border, but northern Mexico is a stinking, lawless cess pool in which average people live in constant fear of marauding bands of criminals, crooked "policia", and corrupt military - all of whom are armed to the teeth while the average person is unarmed. THAT is why northern Mexico has the problems it has. I freely admit that the insatiable American appetite for illegal drugs fuels the Mexican cartels, but where these cartels buy their guns has next to nothing to do with the problem. If we somehow made every gun in America vanish overnight, the Mexi cartels would just buy AKs from the illicit world small arms market like every backwards African warlord does for his 12-year-old "soldiers".
Oh, and btw, here's the transcript of the "gun story" from tonight's PBS Newshour http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan- ... 04-16.html
and the two-part story on Mexico ... http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/north_am ... 04-16.html
Excellent analogy! 
