Category: Cops

EXCLUSIVE: Why the ATF Targeted the Q Honey Badger (and Other Stuff) by Dr Will Dabbs

Post author By Grumpy
Post date October 13, 2024
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The ongoing saga between the ATF and Q’s Honey Badger leaves a lot of people asking, “Why the Honey Badger?” For that question, we turned to Rick Vasquez, the former Acting Chief of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Firearms Technology Branch (FTB).

ATF Vet’s Take on Hunting the Honey Badger

Vasquez is uniquely positioned to comment on some of the most incendiary issues affecting American gun owners today. He currently serves as a consultant through RickVasquezfirearms.com. He provides testimony in accordance with statutes and regulations overseeing firearms as well as professional expertise in National Firearms Act/Gun Control Act issues, firearms importation, weapons training, and advanced gunsmith and evaluation services. When gun problems require serious horsepower, Vasquez is the man.

Rick’s Resume

During his 21 years in the Marine Corps, Vasquez served as Chief Instructor at the precision weapons shop at Quantico, Virginia. He fielded the M16A2 service rifle for the 6th Marine Regiment and coordinated the Marines’ development and implementation of the Barrett M82 .50-caliber anti-materiel rifle. He also served as a Marine Security Guard Detachment Commander in three different embassies including Moscow. Vasquez later worked for the State Department Diplomatic Security Service.

Vasquez subsequently transferred to the ATF Firearms Technology Branch, reviewing guns and gear to adjudicate compliance with firearms law. He eventually headed the FTB, crafting determinations of profound importance to the firearms industry. His insights into the inner workings of the ATF are literally unparalleled.

Vasquez is the archetypal warrior curmudgeon, a self-described “crotchety old guy,” and ever the Marine. He is the cumulative product of countless hard places and countless hard things. He is also a patriot. Vasquez’s devoted his entire adult life to service.

Vasquez isn’t overly burdened about hurting people’s feelings either. He prefers the right thing over political correctness. His observations on politics, guns, and freedom are mesmerizing.

Why the Q Honey Badger?

There are around four million Pistol Stabilizing Braces in circulation today. However, the ATF recently declared that the Q Honey Badger, with its 7-inch barrel and sliding PSB, was actually a Short-Barreled Rifle (SBR). Not only does an SBR require fingerprints, a $200 transfer tax, and a six- to nine-month wait, possession of an unregistered SBR is a felony good for up to 10 years in federal prison.

The current legal morass surrounding PSBs is a ghastly mess. We’ll explore that later. There are no published criteria discriminating PSB-equipped pistols from SBRs. Absent codified definitions the industry cannot determine if they are in compliance. My question to Vasquez was why Q, and why now? Why did the ATF single out the Honey Badger?

“When the first arm braces were approved there was not a great deal of thought put into their approval,” he said. “The letters are on the internet and can be reviewed. The original letter says in essence that they were approved as an arm brace but without specific criteria for features. There was no features test applied. The restrictive features being applied today are evolutionary in an effort at restricting the arm brace.”

No Rhyme or Reason

The FTB analyzes each product via some ethereal “looks like a stock to me”-sort of assessment. The width of the brace, the length of pull, and the orientation of the brace relative to the sights all fold in. This is actually the third time the ATF has administratively reclassified a brace-equipped gun as an NFA item. One case involved Fostech, while another concerned Kalashnikov.

“This opinion letter written on Q’s arm brace is a curious anomaly,” Vasquez said. “ATF opinion letters are typically lengthy, wordy, and spell out the features that are good and, if installed, bad. Now ATF’s response for a standard criterion on an arm brace is that they are not authorized by DOJ to provide criteria. Yet we have at least three seizures of arm braces described as stocks via ‘unwritten criteria.’”

Bully Tactics

There has been one prosecution of someone accused of redesigning a PSB-equipped pistol into an SBR. Vasquez says that the ATF singles out smaller companies because of their relative lack of resources.

“They used an arm brace that lacked the FTISB seal of approval,” Vasquez explained. “What is that seal of approval? Even though they are made as an arm brace and meet the known criteria of an arm brace, there is no regulation requiring ATF approval.”

Companies like SIG, HK, and Springfield Armory have deep pockets and armies of lawyers. Q, Fostech, and Kalashnikov, however, lack the assets to support a protracted and expensive legal fight.

The decision-makers at the ATF know this. These small companies represent low-hanging fruit. A victory against Fostech or Q better positions the ATF to move against larger stuff later. Vasquez believes these latest efforts reflect deliberate attempts to break these smaller companies and build precedents.

“Given the lack of standards if ATF can win a case on the arm brace then they can cite that court case in follow-on cases,” Vasquez said.

Political Motivations

Everything turns on the upcoming election. Entrenched ATF policy-makers with a hardline agenda are positioned to enter a Biden Presidency launching a new regulatory offensive. The White House is pushing back, but Trump is in a political fight for his life. An outgoing President’s power is profoundly diminished.

In fact, the curious case against the Q Honey Badger took yet another turn recently. After an uproar from the firearm industry, the ATF curiously sent another letter to Q’s representative. It informs the ATF backed off the Cease & Desist, taking 60 days to look into the matter further. That 60-day mark would conveniently push a decision to after the election … convenient indeed.

Q announced it would not resume manufacturer of the Honey Badger Pistol at this time. There remains a high level of distrust toward ATF’s motives.

“We believe this 60-day suspension is an effort to put manufacturers, distributors, and consumers at ease, and to postpone the issue pas the presidential election in hopes that a new administration will take a different view,” Q wrote in a response. “Using licensees as political pawns is unbecoming of a regulatory agency and ignoring the underlying evaluation in this letter is simply irresponsible.

Q will not succumb to this level of irresponsibility. Therefore, without further clarification from ATF on their evaluation, we will not continue manufacturing the Honey Badger Pistol.”

ATF Radio Silence

Inquiries from companies like Q and SB Tactical have thus far not been addressed. The ATF meets requests for technical guidance with deafening silence. Vasquez feels that this intransigence reflects intentional stalling.”

“How difficult is it to provide criteria? The ATF interprets the regulations and statutes driven by political leanings,” Vasquez said. “If those making firearm decisions are anti-gun then opinions are written accordingly. This isn’t supposed to be ATF’s method of operation yet here we are.”

The ATF currently appears to be hedging its bets. By dragging its feet until after the election the agency can adapt to changing tides. For American gun owners, however, these tides might very well be portents of a coming hurricane.

“Instruction and direction from this DOJ will simply disappear if the administration loses the election,” Vasquez said. “At that point the antigun agenda espoused by many in the ATF leadership will take off like a rocket.”

————————————————————————————– Yeah I know that this is really old but I thought it very interesting none the less. It just confirms my cynical view of the Government and the right to have a gun. Grumpy

Cops

STUPID LIFE CHOICES WHITE HOUSE “GUN SAFETY” PLAN WON’T PREVENT CRIME BY DAVE WORKMAN

Post author By Grumpy
Post date October 13, 2024
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Two guys were allegedly involved in robbing this credit union, while the White House was pushing a gun control measure that didn’t discuss crime prevention or holding criminals accountable.

Every story has a beginning, and this one involves the place where my family does its banking, the Sno Falls Credit Union in beautiful downtown scenic North Bend, Washington, where — on the afternoon of Jan. 26 —a pair of goofballs decided to rob the place.

This credit union was founded by my late mother-in-law and her long-deceased husband about 67 years ago, so there’s something of a personal angle to this story.

The two suspects were evidently determined, according to a statement by police on their Facebook page. The perp who actually went inside passed a note to a teller “stating he was armed with a gun and would kill everyone in the credit union and himself before police arrived,” the police statement said. That’s not just an “implied threat” of violence, which is normally associated with any kind of robbery note, but a real right-down-to-it promise of massive lethal violence. You betcha the tellers complied while hitting the silent alarm, and by the time police arrived within a couple of minutes, this guy was running to the getaway car, hopping in and fleeing the scene with his wheelman.

Not that it matters much, but a fair number of local residents have guns. I know this because a lot of them belong to the same gun club where I once served as president. While it is highly unlikely there might ever be a confrontation between any of them and an outlaw, anytime a holdup occurs in such a community, I’m reminded of the events of Oct. 5, 1892 in Coffeyville, Kansas, involving the infamous Dalton Gang, or the much earlier fireworks in Northfield, Minnesota on Sept. 7, 1876, in which the starring cast included Frank and Jesse James, the Younger brothers, plus Clell Miller, Charlie Pitts and Bill Chadwell.

Besides, the community has a fairly strong presence of state troopers who patrol Interstate 90, the city is served by the Snoqualmie Police Department and at any given moment, there may be two or three King County sheriff’s deputies in the neighborhood. There are only three ways out: east or west on I-90 or northwest on Highway 202. If I wanted to pull a holdup, this place would not be my first, second or even third choice.

The White House Plan

Coincidentally, one day before this caper unfolded, the Biden White House announced “new executive actions to help promote safe storage of firearms … to reduce gun violence and make our communities safer.” Right up front, the White House statement asserted, “Gun violence is the leading cause of death of children in America.” The irony of that comment will become clear as you finish reading.

This 1,254-word announcement offered details such as “76% of school shootings are committed with guns from the home.” (It overlooks the fact that 100% of school shootings occur in so-called “gun-free zones.”)

The White House notes how the federal “Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) reported that from 2017 to 2021, local law enforcement reported 770,642 private theft incidents involving 1,026,538 firearms. A rising trend has been firearms stolen from unattended motor vehicles.” It doesn’t mention that law-abiding citizens are often compelled to leave their guns in their vehicles because of “sensitive places” laws which prevent them from entering certain places with lawfully-concealed defensive firearms. There is also no acknowledgment that smash-and-grab after-hours gun store thefts account for quite a few stolen guns.

Buried about halfway through the Biden announcement is this revealing observation: “Local leaders, like school officials, community and faith leaders, and law enforcement can be trusted, credible messengers when it comes to providing guidance on gun violence prevention and safe firearm storage options.” Translation: The administration wants to use these local officials and leaders to spread Joe Biden’s gun control agenda, apparently because they are trusted in their local communities.

The Biden administration is apparently keener on so-called
“safe storage” than in going after criminals who misuse guns.

Biden’s Bullet Points

Here is more of the administration’s plan, which a lot of readers may not have heard about from the establishment media, with bullet points to emphasize their apparent importance to the White House scheme:

• The U.S. Department of Education will take new action on safe firearm storage by sending a letter to school principals across the country explaining the importance of safe storage and encouraging them to communicate with parents, families, caregivers, and the broader community about how safe storage can protect students in school and in their communities.

• The U.S. Department of Education will also issue a new communications template that principals and school leaders can use to engage with parents and families about the importance of safe firearm storage, and encourage more people to take preventive action by safely storing firearms.

• The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) will release a guide to safe storage of firearms in order to provide subject matter expertise on different types of storage devices and best practices for safely storing firearms. This is the most comprehensive guide on safe storage ever released by the federal government.

There is more, and some of it is actually laudable, such as efforts to prevent veteran suicide, and at least make some attempt to stem substance abuse, and address the mental health crisis. Even Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, has championed a pilot project in Washington State aimed at suicide prevention, for which he has received very little media recognition.

What Isn’t There

The administration has “urged states to enact and implement strong laws requiring firearms owners to safely store their firearms in their homes and vehicles. The laws should impose a clear standard to penalize those who do not safely store their weapons and whose weapons end up being used for violence.” However, there isn’t any mention of prosecuting and locking up criminals who actually misuse those guns.

You won’t find any reference to jailing and sentencing recidivist offenders to long stretches in the Gray Bar Hotel. There is nothing about deterring criminal activity. Apparently, the administration thinks it will be more effective to criminalize being the victim of a residential burglary or car prowl rather than jailing the miscreants who steal all of those firearms.

The White House says this project will save lives. It sounds like one more social experiment which puts more blame on honest gun owners than on criminals who ignore safe storage laws like they disregard any other gun control law.

And this brings us back around to the two guys who robbed the credit union

Snoqualmie Police quickly responded to the robbery and chased the perps down Interstate 90 toward Seattle. When they caught the suspects, they discovered both were 15-year-olds, and one had a criminal record.

End of the Road

Once the two suspects headed west on I-90 toward Seattle, with police and sheriff’s deputies in hot pursuit, their getaway didn’t get far. As the saying goes, “You can’t outrun Motorola.”

They hit another car when they tried to use an off-ramp as they passed through Bellevue and quickly got back on the freeway only to be stopped cold about two miles later by the Washington State Patrol, which pulled a PIT (Pursuit Intervention Technique) maneuver to bring their flight to an end. Fortunately, nobody was injured.

The wrap to this story is something out of a bad movie script. The perps in this case were both 15-year-olds, meaning they weren’t old enough to legally drive.

One of the two already had a criminal record, having been convicted of second-degree robbery. They were in a stolen car, taken earlier in the day, from a community several miles to the south.

Their entire grab came to a pitiful $10. They just swapped the rest of their lives for five bucks apiece because no matter where they go or what they do from now on, the events of Jan. 26 will be with them forever.

Had the stars been poorly aligned, one or both of these teens could have been hurt or killed, either by gunshot or in a crash.

Perhaps some bright bulb at the White House can explain how another gun control scheme, ostensibly about safe gun storage, will prevent minors like these kids, who should have been in school and planning a weekend instead of making stupid life choices.

Cops

Laughing Matter Written By Commander Gilmore

Post author By Grumpy
Post date October 11, 2024
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Two stocking-masked, gun-toting idiots burst into the lobby of the Town House Motel in Belleville, Ill., and loudly demanded everybody’s money. Several employees and guests burst out laughing and wouldn’t stop. As their audience cracked up, the crooks tried reminding them that, hey, this is a robbery, and it’s like, you know, serious.

It didn’t work. The laughter continued. The crooks finally fled, penniless and humiliated. Later, the would-be victims explained that the crooks just kinda looked, well, stupid. And besides, who ever heard of pulling a robbery in a motel lobby?

.Life Imitates Art

Being a fugitive wanted for robbery didn’t keep 33-year-old Mary Annette Cole from going to the movies and catching a good flick. But considering the movie she was watching, she might have anticipated a police dragnet was tightening around her. Sure enough, those guys with flashlights who suddenly appeared and dragged her out of the theater weren’t ushers — they were Tulsa, Okla., cops.

Mary was watching “The Fugitive.” Maybe she should have opted for “Breaking Away.”

Devil’s In The Details

In cop-work and crook-work, you just gotta plan for all the little details. And if your operation depends on having a working motor vehicle at your disposal, you might want to pay attention to where your ignition keys are.

Our hero, an unnamed youthful dirtbag, scurried nervously into a convenience store in Portland, Ore., pulled a knife, and demanded the contents of the till. Following company policy, the cashier dutifully filled a paper bag with cash, handed it over, then reached for the phone as rag-man gleefully exited the front door.

The clerk started to punch 911, then observed — what’s this?— the suspect’s car keys on the counter! He flipped ’em into a bin, then made his call to the police.

A few seconds later, a very distraught rag-man re-entered the store, wondering if, uh, anybody seen my car keys? Could I have ’em back, maybe?

The clerk refused. Rag-man then offered to trade the bag of cash for the keys. Nope, that’s not how we play the game, the cashier patiently explained, and reminded rag-man the cops were on the way.

He left, dejected, and still not very bright. When officers arrived they found him outside on the pay phone, trying to report his van stolen.

Speak Of The Devil

Okay, so this one doesn’t have anything to do with guns or shooting, but, oh boy, does it remind you what kind of people — in what sort of condition — are out there on the road with you.

After a four-car pile-up on the Santa Ana Freeway in California, one of the nation’s busiest, the driver of the “at-fault” vehicle told officers, “I was just driving along when the car started to shake and glow, like it was possessed. It started going about a 100 mph when it just took over and crashed.”

The CHPs were a bit skeptical about this story — they don’t get too many verified incidents involving possessed cars — and asked the driver if he had any idea why the car might have undergone this supernatural phenomenon. Nope, he replied, he had just “… been testing cocaine all afternoon for Satan.” It took three officers to get the devil’s dope-tester into handcuffs.

Cops You have to be kidding, right!?!

LAPD raid goes from bad to farce after gun allegedly sucked onto MRI machine By Lester Black,

Post author By Grumpy
Post date October 6, 2024
No Comments on LAPD raid goes from bad to farce after gun allegedly sucked onto MRI machine By Lester Black,

FILE: An LAPD officer looks at a car at the unveiling of two new Ford Fusion hybrid pursuit-rated Police Responder cars at LAPD headquarters.

David McNew/Getty Images

An officer with the Los Angeles Police Department found out the hard way that you can’t take metal near an MRI machine after their rifle flew out of their hands and became attached to the machine during a pot raid gone bad, according to a federal lawsuit filed last week.

The incident’s details were described in a lawsuit filed by the owners of a Los Angeles medical imaging center, who allege that their business was wrongly targeted by LAPD during a raid in October 2023 The lawsuit was first reported on by Law360.com.

The owners of NoHo Diagnostic Center are suing the LAPD, the city of Los Angeles and multiple police officers, alleging they violated the business owners’ constitutional rights and demanding an unspecified amount in damages. Officers allegedly raided the diagnostic center, located in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles, thinking it was a front for an illegal cannabis cultivation facility, pointing to higher-than-usual energy use and the “distinct odor” of cannabis plants, according to the lawsuit.

Officers raided the facility on Oct. 18, 2023, and detained the lone female employee while they searched the business, the lawsuit said. However, they didn’t find a single cannabis plant and only saw a typical medical facility with rooms used for conducting x-rays, ultrasounds, CT scans and MRIs, the owners said.

The officers then released the employee and told her to call a manager, the lawsuit said, while they continued to wander around various rooms of the facility. The plaintiffs say the officers’ behavior was “nothing short of a disorganized circus, with no apparent rules, procedures, or even a hint of coordination.”

At one point, an officer walked into an MRI room, past a sign warning that metal was prohibited inside, with his rifle “dangling… in his right hand, with an unsecured strap,” the lawsuit said. The MRI machine’s magnetic force then allegedly sucked his rifle across the room, pinning it against the machine. MRI machines are tube-shaped scanners that use incredibly strong magnetic fields to create images of the brain, bones, joints and other internal organs.

An officer then allegedly pulled a sealed emergency release button that shut the MRI machine down, deactivating it, evaporating thousands of liters of helium gas and damaging the machine in the process. The officer then grabbed his rifle and left the room, leaving behind a magazine filled with bullets on the office floor, according to the lawsuit.

Los Angeles police and an attorney for the diagnostic center did not immediately return SFGATE’s requests for comment.

All About Guns Cops

The American Guns That Mexican Cartels Covet: A Visual Guide From the ‘Gucci bag’ to the ‘goat’s horn,’ U.S. weapons smuggling into Mexico is a booming business

By Steve Fisher and Roque Ruiz

Mexico is engulfed in a wave of criminal violence and disputes between rival drug gangs. U.S. weapons are fueling the bloodbath, Mexican authorities say.

Cartels are increasingly arming themselves with more powerful weapons, as they push to outgun rivals and Mexican police, according to U.S. military estimates and security experts. In the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, two factions of the Sinaloa Cartel are using heavy weapons in a turf war for control of the smuggling of fentanyl and other drugs to the U.S., Mexican authorities say. More than 100 people have been killed in the conflict sparked by the abduction of Sinaloa Cartel patriarch Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. He is now awaiting trial in the U.S. on drug-trafficking charges.

Mexico has seized more than 186,000 weapons since 2006, according to the country’s defense ministry. But that is a fraction of the more than 200,000 weapons a year that transnational criminal organizations smuggle into Mexico just from the U.S., according to the Mexican government.

“It’s an arms race,” said Romain Le Cour, senior expert at Global Initiative, an organization focused on organized crime.

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a gun-industry bid to quash a lawsuit filed by the Mexican government alleging American firearms manufacturers have illegally flooded the country with weapons used by drug cartels. Mexico sued companies including Smith & Wesson Brands; Beretta U.S.A.; Glock; Sturm, Ruger & Co.; and Colt’s Manufacturing. The gun makers said the lawsuit is a stalking horse for gun-control advocates in the U.S.

The industry’s brief described the suit as “a foreign sovereign that is trying to bully the industry into adopting a host of gun-control measures that have been repeatedly rejected by American voters.”

Security experts say that many American weapons go to the drug cartel’s rank and file, but that there are also trophy items—gold-plated customized weapons that a kingpin collects to show status.

Here are some of the more coveted weapons getting smuggled into Mexico from the U.S.

Note: Price estimates of the following weapons and ammunition can fluctuate depending on brand, model and purchase location.

The Minigun

The Minigun, a six-barreled machine-fed weapon that can destroy a small car in minutes, is reserved for defense of high-profile drug leaders, said José Alberto Baena, a former security chief in the southwestern city of Morelia. That includes Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, the leader of the violent Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

“Not everyone has the ability to use these sophisticated weapons,” Baena said.

M134 MINIGUN

Fires up to 4,000 bullets per minute

Made in: U.S.

Producer: Various U.S. manufacturers

Effective range: 1,093 yards

$50,000

$1+

2.00 inches

Caliber: 7.62 x 51 mm

Sources: BuffBridge (price); American Special Ops (effective range); GunMag Warehouse (bullet price, caliber)

The Mexican military seized the first Minigun from a crime scene in 2018, according to military documents released by the nonprofit DDoSecrets.

The weapon is used primarily to repel Mexican special forces or when a gang needs to enter a battle zone to take a predetermined target and exit quickly by eliminating any possibility of return fire. “In an attack with a multibarreled machine gun, that’s thousands of bullets a minute,” Baena said. “So there’s no opportunity to react.”

The Barrett

The Barrett, designed to pierce armor plating and penetrate buildings, is popular among criminal groups who use the weapon to repel military gunships and armored vehicles. Barretts are only assigned to midlevel gang members, some trained in special combat. “They are the people who are actually fighting federal forces,” Baena said.

.50 CALIBER BARRETT

Recoil-operated, semi-automatic,

20 to 30 rounds per minute

Made in: U.S.

Producer: Barrett Firearms

Effective range: 1,968 yards

$5,000

$10

5.42 inches

Caliber: 12.7 x 99mm

Sources: Gunbroker.com (price, bullet price); OxRanch (effective range); Ammo.com (caliber)

The belt-fed M249 SAW

The belt-fed M249 SAW is a prized weapon for top drug lords in Mexico, said Timothy Sloan, a former Mexico City attaché for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It is a light weapon with devastating firepower, because of the number of rounds it holds. It can fire up to 850 bullets a minute and is used to keep the enemy pinned down while other fighters move in and flank the target.

The weapon also denotes status, with the security detail of Mexico’s biggest drug lords wielding the M249 SAW. It’s “like a Gucci bag. It’s more of a way to recognize who’s in charge of the cartel teams. Who’s the boss. Who’s the closest to leadership,” Sloan said.

Cartels are increasingly trying to mimic the look of elite law-enforcement teams, and the M249 SAW is part of that image, Le Cour said. “Drug cartels today want to look very professional,” he said. “They want to look much more like SWAT teams.”

M249 SAW

Semi-automatic light machine gun,

850 rounds per minute

Made in: U.S.

Producer: FN Manufacturing

Effective range: 874 yards

$10,000

35¢

2.26 inches

Caliber: 5.56 x 45mm

Sources: FN Firearms (price); Army Facts (effective range); Southern Defense (bullet price); OE Data Integration Network (caliber)

Zapata, “El Jefe” and “El Grito” pistols

Some of the most sought-after collector items are the custom-engraved guns made by weapons manufacturer Colt. Mexico’s government says Colt has designed some of its pistols specifically for the Mexican market, according to the lawsuit the Mexican government has brought against Colt and other manufacturers. The weapons are seen as status symbols for cartel leaders.

Two models that convey cartel rank are the .38 caliber Super “El Jefe” pistol and the 38-caliber Super “El Grito” pistol.

“It’s like having a scepter, or a crown for a king,” said security consultant David Saucedo.

When Mexican authorities captured Gulf Cartel boss José Luis “El Wicho” Zúñiga in 2011, they seized from him a gold-plated, diamond-and-ruby-encrusted Colt .38 Super handgun. Zúñiga had paid $57,000 to have the gun customized, according to Mexico’s lawsuit.

One coveted Colt pistol has a portrait of Mexico’s revolutionary general Emiliano Zapata on one side and on the other a phrase attributed to him: “It is better to die standing than to live on your knees.”

Colt said it didn’t have any part in the design, engraving or marketing of the Emiliano Zapata pistol, without providing additional details. One Emiliano Zapata pistol was used in 2017 to assassinate Miroslava Breach, an investigative journalist, Mexico’s lawsuit said.

“America’s firearms industry isn’t a longstanding criminal accomplice to Mexico’s drug cartels,” the U.S. gun makers told the Supreme Court. Colt said it produces, markets and sells its products according to the relevant U.S. and country-specific legislation.

“El Jefe”

Single-action semi-automatic, removable magazine

Made in: U.S.

Producer: Colt

Effective range: 50 yards

$3,000

80¢

1.28 inches

Caliber: 9 x 23mmSR

Sources: Rock Island Auction, Lock, Stock & Barrel Auctions (price); Ammo.com (effective range); Mark Oliva, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (bullet price, caliber)

Rocket launchers

Gangs are also known to use rocket launchers in Mexico smuggled from the U.S. and other countries to take down targets. They include the M72 LAW antitank rocket, which has been used against the Mexican military, and makeshift bulletproof vehicles built by cartel engineers and mechanics, Baena said. The Mexican military seized 127 rocket launchers from 2008 to 2023, according to the Defense Ministry.

M72 LAW

Single-fire, disposable weapon

Made in: Norway

Producer: Nammo Defense Systems

Effective range: 218 yards

$750

20 inches

Sources: Special Ops Magazine (price); Museum of Radiation and Radioactivity (effective range)

The “goat’s horn”

The AK-47 is perhaps the most common assault-style weapon among drug cartels in Mexico, security experts said. The rifle is light, easy to use, easily accessible and relatively cheap, making it a weapon of choice for the rank and file.

“The street thugs know how to operate those,” said Sloan, the former ATF attaché in Mexico. “You can fire a lot of rounds and hopefully hit your target.”

AK-47

Fully automatic setting but only legal

in the U.S. as a semi-automatic weapon

Made in: Russia

Producer: Kalashnikov Concern

Effective range: 328 yards

$600

45¢

2.2 inches

Caliber: 7.62 x 39mm

Sources: Primary Arms (price); WeaponSystems.net (effective range); Southern Defense (bullet price); AK-47 Buyers Guide (caliber)

The Beretta

The Beretta .22 pistol is given to the lowest-ranking cartel members, including children recruited to fight for gangs, Saucedo said. The weapon, one of the market’s cheapest, is used for low-stakes assassinations and extortion threats. “They are used to kill a market merchant, a taxi driver,” Saucedo said.

In addition, new recruits are given cheap, 3-D printed weapons, or artisanal weapons that are often inaccurate and aren’t a great loss if the sicario, or assassin, dies in battle.