Interesting article on the open air gun markets, and manufacturing of said guns in Pakistan.

 

Of course it's the NRA's fault.

 

Think I'm joking? Read the article.

 

http://motherboard.tv/2011/5/3/inside-the-pakistani-street-market-where-the-taliban-buys-homemade-machine-guns-video-slideshow

As if the NRA has anything to do with small arms manufacture in Pakistan or has any impact over the Iranian and Chinese arms trade.

 

Even if the UN could ban all guns, it wouldn't make the slightest difference. Blaming the NRA in the USA is extremely disingenuous.

 

Thanks, National Rifle Association

 

The underground small arms trade continues unabated throughout the region and the rest of the world’s apocalyptic hotspots. Efforts to curtail the ilicit trade of weapons on an international level have mostly run aground thanks to the United States, which, with the strong support of the American gun lobby, has helped to deadlock United Nations discussions; the State Department says the matter is not “controversial.”

 

In the $30 billion arms market amongst developing countries, the U.S. is the leading retailer of arms. Pakistan is the biggest buyer, at around $5 billion in munitions purchases a year.

 

For their part, American officials say that the arms used by Taliban forces in Afghanistan come from Iran and China. Iran is also accused of exporting arms to terrorist organizations and insurgents in Iraq, while Beijing is widely reputed to have provided most of the weapons and ammunition for the epidemic killing in Sudan. At a UN conference in 2008, Chinese officials drew eye-rolls for their claim that they do not export arms to regions suffering from instability. Pakistan offered its own exaggerations, calling its small-arms-control efforts “watertight.”

 

The U.S. said little. Its delegates showed up only for a day of the week long conference

Remember, whatever it takes to get what they want. They believe the NRA is evil and they'll say and do anything to prove their point. Even if it's obviously absoulutely ridiculous.

When Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979, sometime after that the American Rifleman did an article of "home grown" gun making and where arms were coming from in that region. They profiled the Afridi tribe and their skills at weapon making with their bare hands. The Afridi tribe is one that has notoriously been dabbling in this sort of business for decades. Some interesting links for reading for anyone interested:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5066860.stm - My favorite quote from this story -

"There is nothing we cannot copy," grins Haji Munawar Afridi, an arms trader at Darra Adam Khel near Pakistan's northern city of Peshawar. "You bring us a Stinger missile and we will make you an imitation that would be difficult to tell apart from the original."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khyber_Pass_Copy

 

http://www.jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=4721&tx_ttnews[backPid]=246&no_cache=1

 

http://www.afridi.pk/about_afridis.html

 

http://www.khyber.org/pashtotribes/a/afridi-2.shtml