by Mike Honig, 10/19/2010
Okay, Rick Perry didn’t exactly ask for a bullet-proof shield along Mexico’s border with El Paso, but he might as well have. Here’s his quote as reported by CNN :
“By the grace of God, the stray bullets from these incidents have yet to injure or kill a Texan,” he said. “It is unconscionable that the Obama administration is gambling with American lives, betting that escalating violence from these cartels won’t eventually shed the blood of innocent people on U.S. soil.” …We must ensure El Paso and other border communities remain a safe place for people to live, work and raise a family,” Perry said. “It’s time for Washington to stop the rhetoric and immediately deploy a [significant] force of personnel and resources to the border to protect our homeland.”
The report states that the stray bullet crossed the border and hit a UT school on the U..S. side of the border (the second occurrence of this sort in two months) during a gun battle between drug traffickers and Mexican authorities which took place about 30 yards from the U.S. border on the Mexican side in the city of Juarez.
Certainly Perry is justified in his anger, How inconsiderate of the Mexican gangsters and police! Not to make sure that they were shooting east/west instead of north/south! Can’t they discuss this stuff before they start shooting??
Maybe he would prefer that the Mexican government NOT try to destroy the drug cartels on the Mexican side of the border because, you know, that would be much more in the interests of Texas and the United States.(Oh, did we discuss the fact that the Mexican gangsters probably got most of their guns through Texas because gun laws are so lax? I didn’t think so.)
I suppose that Perry might prefer if Mexico and the drug gangsters agree to set up a “no-shooting buffer zone” for 1-2 miles on the Mexican side of the border to avoid future incidents of this type. You know, out of consideration
That way, even if Mexican drug lords use the buffer zone to set up drug strongholds that can’t be touched by the Mexican authorities or the U.S. and become nexuses for drug export to Texas, the U.S and the world, at least we won’t have the odd stray bullet crossing the border.
Or of course, Rick “Deep Thinker” Perry could demand that the U.S. government, by order of Obama, erect a giant 1500-mile long bullet-proof Plexiglas wall along the Mexican border. You know, to stop stray bullets. (BTW, how tall would it have to be to stop bullets flying over the wall?)
Would it be allowed to have doors? Because a stray bullet could always sneak in while people or vehicles are going in or out.
Or maybe Perry thinks that Obama should order the U.S. military to set up a 1 mile “bullet trajectory” buffer zone INSIDE Mexico. Because, you know, sending the army to the border and occupying foreign territory along the second longest demilitarized border in the world (the longest is our northern border with Canada!) sounds like such a good strategic idea.
I’m curious … Do you think that a stray bullet has ever crossed into Mexico from the U.S. side? From the Texas side? Ever?
I’m kind of betting.
But I guess that the Governors of the Mexican border states of Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas aren’t quite as stupid as ours.
