"Johnny B Jesus"  wrote in message
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> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/us/26borders.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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> U.S. Is a Vast Arms Bazaar for Mexican Cartels
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> By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
> Published: February 25, 2009
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> PHOENIX - The Mexican agents who moved in on a safe house full of drug dealers 
> last May were not prepared for the fire power that greeted them.
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> When the shooting was over, eight agents were dead. Among the guns the police 
> recovered was an assault rifle traced back across the border to a dingy gun 
> store here called X-Caliber Guns.
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> Now, the owner, George Iknadosian, will go on trial on charges he sold 
> hundreds of weapons, mostly AK-47 rifles, to smugglers, knowing they would 
> send them to a drug cartel in the western state of Sinaloa. The guns helped 
> fuel the gang warfare in which more than 6,000 Mexicans died last year.
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> Mexican authorities have long complained that American gun dealers are arming 
> the cartels. This case is the most prominent prosecution of an American gun 
> dealer since the United States promised Mexico two years ago it would clamp 
> down on the smuggling of weapons across the border. It also offers a rare 
> glimpse of how weapons delivered to American gun dealers are being moved into 
> Mexico and wielded in horrific crimes.
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> "We had a direct pipeline from Iknadosian to the Sinaloa cartel," said Thomas 
> G. Mangan, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms 
> and Explosives in Phoenix.
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> Drug gangs seek out guns in the United States because the gun-control laws are 
> far tougher in Mexico. Mexican civilians must get approval from the military 
> to buy guns and they cannot own large-caliber rifles or high-powered pistols, 
> which are considered military weapons.
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> The ease with which Mr. Iknadosian and two other men transported weapons to 
> Mexico over a two-year period illustrates just how difficult it is to stop the 
> illicit trade, law enforcement officials here say.
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> The gun laws in the United States allow the sale of multiple military-style 
> rifles to American citizens without reporting the sales to the government, and 
> the Mexicans search relatively few cars and trucks going south across their 
> border.
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