Thread: N4T Investigators: Border Patrol stripping agents of their rifles

by Lupita Murillo and Michel Marizco
KVOA
N4T Investigators: Border Patrol stripping agents of their rifles

The News 4 Tucson Investigators have uncovered that some U.S. Border Patrol agents have lost a key part of their arsenal. And that has agents who patrol along the border here, extremely worried.
We learned that U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Offices of Border Patrol and Training and Development are inspecting the quality of agents' M4 carbines throughout Border Patrol sectors nationwide. But agents tell us, some of those M4s have not been replaced. And, we've learned, agents are required to share rifles amongst each other.
"There's a lot of agents that are pretty upset over it," said Art del Cueto, president of the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector union. "We know it's a dangerous job. We know what we signed on for but we want to have as much of the equipment as we need to perform the job."
The M4 carbine is used by the U.S. military and by Border Patrol agents. It's even used by the Border Patrol's tactical unit, BORTAC. Agent Brian Terry was carrying the M4 when he was shot and killed in December 2010.
Del Cueto tells us that because some of those M4s have not been replaced, agents are pooling their weapons, which makes it difficult to personalize the settings on a rifle, such as the sights.
"The problem is they are now pool guns so what happens is instead of having their individual ones they have sighted in they're having to use a pool weapon that you don't know who used it before you," del Cueto said.
Customs and Border Protection released a statement to the News 4 Tucson Investigators last week, stating: "CBP's Offices of Border Patrol and Training and Development are jointly inspecting the serviceability of M4 carbines throughout Border Patrol Sectors nationwide. Some of (the) inspected M4 carbines were deemed unserviceable and removed from inventory to alleviate safety concerns. Inspections will continue to ensure the unserviceable M4 carbines are repaired or replaced for reintroduction into the field. No further information is available at this time."
Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada grew worried when told of the delay in redistributing rifles to agents.
"This is a concern for the officers and for the community as well," he said. "We want to make sure that they have all the equipment that they need to be able to provide the safest environment we possibly can."
Jeff Prather is a former drug enforcement agent who now runs the Warrior School in Tucson. He says agents have reached out to him about the rifle shortage.
He said agents stand the risk of being over-powered on the border.
"Cartels have always been better equipped, the paramilitary forces, the corrupt Mexican soldiers and federales at times," Prather said.
He says agents have contacted him and told him about their concerns about sharing the weapons.
"And now they're seriously concerned. Because if they're concerned enough to reach out and contact me and reach out so we get this message out, they are not only frustrated but they are in fear for their lives."
Prather believes removing some of the rifles maybe politically motivated. He says he was told that many of these guns are being removed for issues that are easily repaired like the firing pin and bolt.
He broke down a M4 as he spoke.
"This weapon is designed to be able to be in a battle situation, changed out rather quickly even so fast that modern weapons have areas to hold spare bolts," he said.
That makes him suspicious that the agency could be disarming its agents.
For now, union president Del Cueto says agents just want their rifles back.
"I hope they replace these weapons as soon as possible or give us some kind of answer as to how they plan on replacing them," he said.

http://www.kvoa.com/news/n4t-investi...agents-rifles/

Disarming the Border Patrol.... First it was beanbags, now this.

Can only guess how poor the morale must be for those agents. If this country wants an open border why don't they just admit it and not endanger our agents just trying to do their jobs the best they can with their hands apparently often tied behind their backs.

Obama NOW DISARMING Border Patrol Agents!! Border Patrol “Fear for Their Lives” (Video)




Video at the page link:


http://threepercenternation.com/2014...NCE=1bd2f934de

Obama and Holder's Gun Running 2,000+ Assault Rifles / Sniper Rifles to the Mexican Narco Cartels "That's Enough to Fully Arm a Combat Heavy Infantry Brigade"

Vs.

Border Patrol Agents with guns that can be off target by 5' at 100 yards

One could easily assume that the nations security has been breached by high level government employees that are on the take with Narco Cartel bribes

By Perry Chiaramonte
Published November 12, 2014
FoxNews.com

Border Patrol officials have pulled thousands of rifles from field agents in a large-scale effort to refurbish the weaponry, prompting the rank-and-file to complain that they've been left with the dangerous options of sharing guns or being disarmed altogether.

Nearly one-third of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's 16,300 M4 carbine rifles were tested by the agency's office of training and development, which determined that more than 2,000 had the potential for malfunction. The rate of nearly 40 percent was "more than we are comfortable with,” said CBP Deputy Chief Ron Vitiello.

"Our top priority is to make sure our agents are safe,” said Vitiello, adding that the agency intends to eventually cycle through all of the rifles to ensure that those in need of repair are fixed. “They will be like new when they are refurbished.”

But in the meantime, Border Patrol agents are dubious about the department's claims, given that the guns' manufacturer, Colt, has not issued a recall. And they are vehemently opposed to "pool guns" -- weapons shared by two or more agents.

"They are basically disarmed.”

- Jeff Prather, operator of the Warrior School

“We’d like to know why the rifles were recalled and when they will be returned,” Shawn Moran, spokesman for National Border Patrol Council, the union which represents agents, told FoxNews.com. “Our agency is trying to figure out why they were pulled."

The M4 carbine is one of several rifles derived from the M16. It is shorter and lighter than the M16, is powered by a gas impingement system and can fire 5.56×45mm ammunition in three-round bursts. Already heavily used by the U.S. military, the M4 will eventually replace the M16. Although Colt was the original manufacturer, versions are now made by such gunmakers as Bushmaster and Remington.

Moran said there is potential danger for agents relying on rifles shared with others, noting the importance of personalizing settings and having a general familiarity with a personal weapon.

“You don’t want a weapon that is zeroed in to someone else,” he said. “You don’t share guns and you don’t share needles because both could end with people dying.

“We work in areas and situations where having these rifles could be a matter of life or death,” he added.

Customs and Border Protection officials said the scrutiny of the M4 carbines throughout the nation's Border Patrol sectors will continue until all have been inspected and, if necessary, repaired or replaced. He defended the use of pool guns to ensure each sector's armory was stocked.

But the agents' concerns are valid, one law enforcement expert told FoxNews.com.

“They are losing 40 to 50 percent of their M4s," said Jeff Prather, a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent who now runs the Warrior School, an independent law-enforcement training facility in Tucson. "They are basically disarmed.”


Border Patrol agents say sharing guns is a bad idea along the Mexican border. (AP) (Reuters)

Agents already risk being outgunned on the border, where powerful cartels are entrenched and armed to the teeth, said Prather, adding that agents have privately expressed their concerns to him.

“If they are less prepared, they are going to be less inclined to engage,” Prather said. “It’s a real concern, especially if they are telling me about it.”

Prather, who used the M4 throughout his law-enforcement career, said the weapon is “very robust” and that any issues found in the Border Patrol inspections are likely simple fixes.

“All you need to do is pull out the old firing pin and put in the new one and the rifle is ready to go,” he said.

Vitiello said that may be the case, but the work must be done by a specialist.

“It may be easy to replace a firing pin, but these are things that should be done by a professional,” he said.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/11/12...hem-in-danger/

Comes as president prepares to issue 'amnesty' order

Published: 3 hours ago
Jerome R. Corsi

NEW YORK – The U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s removal of about half of the Border Patrol’s supply of M4 carbine weapons underscores worries the Obama administration is disarming agents ahead of the president’s planned executive order granting amnesty to illegal aliens, a congressman warns.

Customs officials claim a large number of M4s were being taken from Border Patrol agents because the weapons were found to be unserviceable and posed safety concerns.

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, doesn’t buy that claim.

“There’s no more reliable weapon in the world,” he laughed.

“Any agency like the Department of Homeland Security that has bought millions of rounds of ammunition over the past few years could certainly afford to replace with new serviceable M4s all the weapons they are [taking] for testing,” King said.

“This sounds to me like a ruse to start to take the weapons out of the hands of the Border Patrol.”

The congressman said that if there were legitimate concerns about the safety and serviceability of the M4s, “I would know about it by now.”

“As far as I know, there’s nothing out there about the operability of the M4,” he said.

King explained that the M4, the M16 and the AR15 have identical action, and the parts are interchangeable.”

Further, he argued, the M4 is the most popular high-powered rifle in the country among professional shooters and target shooters.

“If there were any problem with them as far as safety was concerned, it would be all over the Internet,” he said. “And it’s the exact opposite; the weapon is so reliable.”

King emphasized DHS needs to be held accountable for “a completely bogus and specious argument.”

“I don’t get it. How does DHS go from ‘Fast and Furious’ to disarming the Border Patrol?” he asked, referring to the scandalous Justice Department gun-tracing plan that sent thousands of weapons to Mexico that ended up in the hands of criminals.

“The Mexican drug cartels are shooting at the Border Patrol with 50-caliber across the Rio Grande,” he said. “I’m concerned the Border Patrol does not have enough protection going out with just M4s.”

King expressed a determination to find out exactly why DHS was taking the action now.

“If you disarm the Border Patrol in preparation for issuing an executive edict of unconstitutional amnesty, that starts a flood of illegal immigrants into the United States, and we can’t protect our borders,” he said.

King also said it makes no sense to pool the M4s among agents.

“Think of the Marine Corps if the troops had to share a weapon,” he said. “You sleep with your weapon, and you live with your weapon. You tear down your weapon, clean it and put it back together again until you can do it blindfolded. So what U.S. Customs and Border Protection is doing is like saying to a cowboy that you don’t get your own horse.”

King said it “would be very disturbing to me to know I had to go out and put my life on the line, but I had to check somebody else’s weapon out of the gun cabinet in the pool.”

‘They just showed up’

Art del Cueto, president of the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector union, told WND that in his 12 years as a Border Patrol agent, he has never experienced the federal government coming to the field and removing such a quantity of weapons at one time because of service issues.

He said the federal agents arrived to inspect the weapons without prior notice.

“They just showed up and it happened,” he said. “We didn’t even know.”

Cueto said Customs and Border Protection won’t tell the Border Patrol when the M4s will be replaced.

He said for the feds “to come in and take a look at all the weapons and say, ‘This many weapons have issues, so were removing them,’ that’s where we are sitting here, saying it makes absolutely no sense.”

He argued Border Patrol agents were capable of servicing their weapons.

“We have agents who are trained armorers, and it would be interesting to see if there were problems that the armorer at the Border Patrol station could have fixed without the federal agents removing the weapon,” he said. “We are hearing that some of the problems were firing pins. We could have removed firing pins without requiring federal agents to remove the weapon and send it off somewhere for repairs.”

Cueto said the military version of the M4 is designed so that soldiers in the field could make basic repairs, such as replacing a faulty firing pin. He said the Border Patrol typically follows the military model of assigning a particular weapon to a particular soldier to sight it and otherwise personalize it to their needs and preferences.

“In my experience, the feds took an unusually large number of weapons. I’ve never seen it happen before,” he said.

“If there was so much damage on such a large number of weapons, how is it that the Border Patrol were using them perfectly fine without reporting their weapons for repair?”

Cueto affirmed that because of the quantity of weapons removed, none of the Border Patrol agents has a personally issued M4.

“Nobody has a personally sighted weapon anymore,” he said. “All the Border Patrol agents are now using M4s that were used by someone else before them.”

http://www.wnd.com/2014/11/congressm...border-patrol/

by AWR Hawkins 18 Nov 2014, 12:04 PM PDT

US Border Patrol agents along certain sectors of the US-Mexico border are sharing rifles after malfunctions and quality concerns on their Colt brand M4s lead to many being pulled.

As a result, agents in sectors like Tucson, Arizona, are passing the same set of M4 carbines from one set of hands to another from shift to shift.

According to News 4 Tucson, the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector union president Art del Cueto said: "The problem is they are now using pool guns so what happens instead of having their individual ones they have sighted in they're having to use a pool weapon...[and they] don't know who used it [prior or how it is sighted in]."

Jeff Prather is a former DEA agent "who now runs the Warrior School in Tucson." He said the rifle shortage exacerbates the difficulties of a situation where the cartel were already better armed than Border agents. He said: "Cartels have always been better equipped, the paramilitary forces, the corrupt Mexican soldiers and federales at times."

Prather also expressed concern that the removal of the rifles might be "politically motivated."

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-T...d-M4-Shortages