Texas state police deploying armed gunboats on Rio Grande

[PeaShooter]

Texas is deploying armored gunboats armed with 6 automatic M240 .30 cal machine guns to patrol the Rio Grande looking for drug smugglers.


Heavily-armed Texas gunboats now patrol Rio Grande - Yahoo!

Now if they would just quit looking for pot and start looking for illegal aliens....

 

[CSORuger]

Looks somewhat like the (PBRs and PBR UNITS [PATROL BOAT RIVER]
OF THE BROWNWATER NAVY we used in South Vietnam.

Photo of the Mark !! PBRs

 

[Principal Skinr]

Texas is deploying armored gunboats armed with 6 automatic M240 .30 cal machine guns to patrol the Rio Grande looking for drug smugglers.


Heavily-armed Texas gunboats now patrol Rio Grande - Yahoo!

Now if they would just quit looking for pot and start looking for illegal aliens....

Not to mention doing it because of some of the violence that has occurred on that border. Kudos to Texas for taking it into their own hands.

 

[Bill B]

I'm of two minds about this. One thought is that they are doing what the federal government refuses to do. The second is that it is really something you'd see in a third-world s-hole, that it would take very little for them to be used against our citizens.

 

[9mmfan]

I look at it this way-Texas is standing up and doing what the Feds should have done already. The Feds are failed miserably in stopping drug smuggling. If Texas has to rake the Mexican shore to return fire, so be it. It's quite obvious the Mexican government won't/can't do anything about it.

 

[indykid]

I am sure the government will mandate that these boats only be able to shoot blanks.

 

[Principal Skinr]

I look at it this way-Texas is standing up and doing what the Feds should have done already. The Feds are failed miserably in stopping drug smuggling. If Texas has to rake the Mexican shore to return fire, so be it. It's quite obvious the Mexican government won't/can't do anything about it.

That's how I'm looking at it, although I see the danger in it, too, as BillB pointed out. However, I'd see more danger if we saw an erosion of our 2A rights. Unfortunately, when you go up against the drug operations, heavier armament is required. I'm also actually more comfortable with a state doing this than the Feds, although I do think it is their failure to do their job that is behind this move.

 

[IndyDave1776]

Texas is deploying armored gunboats armed with 6 automatic M240 .30 cal machine guns to patrol the Rio Grande looking for drug smugglers.


Heavily-armed Texas gunboats now patrol Rio Grande - Yahoo!

Now if they would just quit looking for pot and start looking for illegal aliens....

I would suppose that they are approaching this in the understanding that the two are largely one in the same. The difference is that there is not bleeding-heart liberal sympathy for drug runners--at least not yet--so they will be left alone by the feds so long as they keep it packaged this way even though both objectives should be addressed properly without the need for subterfuge.

 

[IndyDave1776]

Looks somewhat like the (PBRs and PBR UNITS [PATROL BOAT RIVER]
OF THE BROWNWATER NAVY we used in South Vietnam.

Photo of the Mark !! PBRs

No surprise here. While technical advances are a given, the basic needs for the application of river patrol are the same (i.e., quick-responding .30 machine guns on a fast, stable platform capable of operating in shallow water) , and basic hydrodynamics are the same, so at least from the curb view (or bank view, in this case), there is very little room for change.

 

[strahd71]

I'm of two minds about this. One thought is that they are doing what the federal government refuses to do. The second is that it is really something you'd see in a third-world s-hole, that it would take very little for them to be used against our citizens.

i am as paranoid as the next guy but in this case i dont think we have much to fear from the texas state police up here........... for now at least

jake

 

[Blackhawk2001]

I'm of two minds about this. One thought is that they are doing what the federal government refuses to do. The second is that it is really something you'd see in a third-world s-hole, that it would take very little for them to be used against our citizens.

Yep. Texas is just RIDDLED with navigable rivers. Why, the Pecos river is as much as four feet wide in spots. And, of course, there's all those potential gun-totin' Texan terrorists hangin around the Houston Ship Canal, too.

 

[IndyDave1776]

i am as paranoid as the next guy but in this case i dont think we have much to fear from the texas state police up here........... for now at least

jake

I am with you on this! Although the mile-high ego problem common to Texans is common knowledge, I doubt that we are in danger of having them attempt to invade Indiana any time soon!

 

[strahd71]

I am with you on this! Although the mile-high ego problem common to Texans is common knowledge, I doubt that we are in danger of having them attempt to invade Indiana any time soon!

That ego is what will protects us in this case.....they dont care about the other 49.

Jake

 

[Blackhawk2001]

My feelings about Texas and Texans are thus: (paraphrased from H. Beam Piper's "Lone Star Planet")
"The people of Texas are certainly not uncouth barbarians. Their manners and customs, while lively and unconventional, are most charming. Their dress is graceful and practical, not grotesque; their soft speech is pleasing to the ear."

 

[rambone]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfxKOOYzvDI

 

[rugertoter]

They need to just start hosing down anything that moves on the boarder. All the BS would come to an immediate halt, post haste.

 

[Citizen711]

 

[canav844]

I would suppose that they are approaching this in the understanding that the two are largely one in the same. The difference is that there is not bleeding-heart liberal sympathy for drug runners--at least not yet--so they will be left alone by the feds so long as they keep it packaged this way even though both objectives should be addressed properly without the need for subterfuge.

Well there's all those people that are dying in the drug war that's the Regan plot to suppress the people's free love hippies. There is left wing support for drug runners as their just the means to the drugs that are making people happy, and their poor souls are just out to make a living and those cartels making billions per year, to the gang banger selling on the corner at age 12, too young for a work permit, are all just going to roll over and pay taxes and be upright citizens as soon as CA legalizes it. And to help get it legalized CA is going to put it into as many of their movies and TVs shows as possible as being a normal thing, so that it's not a fringe behavior, while only cops and criminals have guns. The support is often marginalized, but it is there. And with the flaming I'm about to get for making such a claim, you'll see it's not exactly just a liberal thing either.

But "going after drugs", also offers the drug seizures from these boats will surpass their value in estimate street value of drugs and money seized, and the federal funding was going to be spent anyways, it just so happened to be that TX DPS got it over someone else, so consider the proposals that got turned down for this. And really its a drop in the bucket compared to
How to blow $6 billion on a tech project | Ars Technica
or the Feds forcing the states to fund the bulk of this
Radio Resource Magazine: OnlyOnline
while paying $160M to Mexico so they can build their own system:
Details of $160 Million Request to Fund Police Radios in Mexico Are Vague in Bill
(which was that defense spending that we dare not cut)

If the state of Texas can make up some of the funding in seizures of cash or vehicles that are then sold, then it's citizen won't have to foot as much of the bill for protecting the nations boarders; they can handle the drugs and the aliens at the same time, point is to stop traffic across the boarder; and being DPS there may even be an occasional water rescue if they work up the river to where some of the lakes are.

 

[level.eleven]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVkk6fH2u0Y

This will certainly help win the war!

 

[churchmouse]

My feelings about Texas and Texans are thus: (paraphrased from H. Beam Piper's "Lone Star Planet")
"The people of Texas are certainly not uncouth barbarians. Their manners and customs, while lively and unconventional, are most charming. Their dress is graceful and practical, not grotesque; their soft speech is pleasing to the ear."

Been to Texas more than a few times. This is mostly true. If you get there go to the stockyards in Dallas Fort Worth for the best service and Steak you will ever have, Cowboy style.

Even the homely girls are pretty in the lone star. Tight jeans, cowgirl hats and big ole 4WD trucks. MMMmmmm good eye candy.....just saying