Just noticed...

Hobbes

watching skynews about the hostages. The clip where the US hostage is, the weapon is a US weapon?

Not the close up picture, but pans back and looks like an M16? Anyone know their weapons want to comment?

MrPudding

Do you have a picture? The Chinese make an unlicensed version of the M16, the armalite. I think the M16/Aramlite i squite widely used, so even if it was one in the footage it might not mean much.

MrP

PH01

how dare those darn islamic terrorists use our good'ol USofA weapons?! Those weapons should only be used by our terrorists!
:rolleyes:

Hobbes

Here is the one I saw..

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/20040921/mdf702251.jpg

Here is a better picture I think..

http://www.diario.com.mx/imagesnotas/2004/09/NEW120041AN.jpg

gandalf

Err Hobbes considering the amount of US Soldiers in Iraq getting injured I am sure they are leaving weapons behind them.

Did you have too much coffee this morning?

bonkey

MrPudding wrote:

The Chinese make an unlicensed version of the M16, the armalite.

???

They picked the name of a legal (American?) weapons manufacturer to be the model of the gun they ripped off another manufacturer from the US?

Wow, those Chinese are sneaky

jc

Sparks

Plus, if memory serves, the chinese use a version of the AK47, don't they?

mycroft

Leftover from US arms shipments during the Iran Iraq war?

Maybe the US slipped them some convential weapons as a deal sweetener when they were shipping all those chemcial weapons in the 80s.....

Crazy Donald's arms giveaway!!!!!!

sovtek

Hobbes wrote:

watching skynews about the hostages. The clip where the US hostage is, the weapon is a US weapon?

Not the close up picture, but pans back and looks like an M16? Anyone know their weapons want to comment?

Reminds me of this for some reason.

Hairy Homer

If it wasn't for the free-market no-restrictions weapons-manufacturing industry in the good Ol' USA then loads of guerilla/terrorist movements around the globe would never have got off the ground, not least our own compatriots up north.

America has such bureaucratic restrictions on whom legitimate exporters can do business with that, for example, it won't sell military equipment to the Irish Army because we're not in NATO. We're a 'most friendly nation' but that's a step down from an 'ally' which you need to be to get on the approved customer list.

However, the private arms market is so huge that it's impossible to police all black or grey market deals so it's really quite easy for a budding criminal gang/guerilla band/terrorist movement to hook up with a 'no questions asked' dealer in the US and have a few weapons shipped over.

This leads to the farcical state of affairs of the IRA having more American made weaponry than the legitimate army of the Irish state.

So no surprises that the 'bad guys' are getting their hands on American made gear. That's the free market boys. It's what you're fighting for.

bonkey

Hairy Homer wrote:

That's the free market boys. It's what you're fighting for.

Describing a market which has state-imposed limits on who you can and cannot sell to as "free" is stretching the notion a bit, don't you think?

jc

sovtek

Hairy Homer wrote:

If it wasn't for the free-market no-restrictions weapons-manufacturing industry in the good Ol' USA

If we are going to highlight a problem then I suggest acknowledging our friends in Britian and France as well.

ChipZilla

bonkey wrote:

???

They picked the name of a legal (American?) weapons manufacturer to be the model of the gun they ripped off another manufacturer from the US?

Wow, those Chinese are sneaky

jc

Guns? Meh, that's nothing. The Chinese are counterfeiting whole cars:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4131724/

Hairy Homer

bonkey wrote:

Describing a market which has state-imposed limits on who you can and cannot sell to as "free" is stretching the notion a bit, don't you think?

jc

Not at all. All markets, apart from the jungle, are restricted in some way.

A market is merely a mechanism which operates freely under pre-imposed initial conditions. The effectiveness of those initial conditions is determined by the extent to which they are policed.

And where you try to restrict a market in one area, a free-er market breaks out in another. For example, the way our taxi system was organised before deregulation was that a limited number of licenses were issued. In that sense it was restricted. But a free market broke out for second hand plates, which because of the initial condition which choked off supply, meant that plates changed hands for ridiculous prices.

In the case in point, I am merely pointing out that a very free or liberal market exists inside the United States for firearms, including automatic weapons once again as Bush has let an order banning their sale to the general public lapse without renewal.

And so, despite the fact that large sales from reputable (sic) American arms dealers to sovereign governments are well policed so that the Irish army gets most of its gear from Switzerland and Sweden, the free internal market for firearms inside the US itself is so huge that it is impossible effectively to police the deals involving smaller batches of weaponry that are sufficient to arm recalcitrants all over the globe.

So it is entirely plausible that anti-American forces could have got their hands on American weaponry from American business contacts operating in what they would regard as a completely appropriate commercial manner selling their products to the highest bidder.

Sparks

Hairy Homer wrote:

In the case in point, I am merely pointing out that a very free or liberal market exists inside the United States for firearms, including automatic weapons once again as Bush has let an order banning their sale to the general public lapse without renewal.

At the risk of going off-topic, that's not true. Automatic weapons have always been legal (though you need a specific licence) in the US. What were banned were semi-automatic weaponse with more than two of the following features: flash suppressors, bayonet lugs, pistol grips, collapsable stocks, high-capacity detatchable magazines.
(I think that's the full list, I may have missed one or two).

This meant you couldn't buy an AR-15 with a collapsable stock, but you could buy one with a solid stock. That was about the extent of it, to be honest.

MrPudding

bonkey wrote:

???

They picked the name of a legal (American?) weapons manufacturer to be the model of the gun they ripped off another manufacturer from the US?

Wow, those Chinese are sneaky

jc

My bad. Very bad grammer. There are clones of both the M16 and the armalite.

Sorry about this site: http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.asp?ID=42705&D=9/8/2004

Here is a picture of a clone (not Chinese, can't find one):

http://world.guns.ru/assault/as55-e.htm

MrP

Hairy Homer

Sparks wrote:

At the risk of going off-topic, that's not true. Automatic weapons have always been legal (though you need a specific licence) in the US. What were banned were semi-automatic weaponse with more than two of the following features: flash suppressors, bayonet lugs, pistol grips, collapsable stocks, high-capacity detatchable magazines.
(I think that's the full list, I may have missed one or two).

This meant you couldn't buy an AR-15 with a collapsable stock, but you could buy one with a solid stock. That was about the extent of it, to be honest.

Well thanks for clarifying that for me.

Sparks

Hairy Homer wrote:

Well thanks for clarifying that for me.

You're welcome. The details are important, after all :cool: