Firepower at IHOP

The Mexican government has an American soldier in prison down in Juarez on weapons charges. Juarez is across the border from El Paso.

The soldier is Army Spc. Richard Raymond Medina Torres, currently at Fort Hood Texas. He is a helicopter mechanic and did a tour in Iraq.

On his way to visit is mother in Fresno he took a wrong turn and ended up on the Mexican side. Reports say he made a U-turn but was stopped by Mexican border patrol. When they searched his trunk they found an AR-15 and a pistol.

Believe it or not, Mexico has some very strict gun control laws.

Off to jail he went.

His story is that he was going to park his car and walk across to the Mexican side for a nice breakfast, then walk back to his car and head for Fresno.

I’m OK with the story to a point, but it’s a bit hard to believe that the guy didn’t know he was entering Mexico.

I haven’t crossed the border since 9/11 so this process may be out of date. It used to be that you would pass into Mexico, then they would signal certain cars to pull over for inspection. It was sort of a random thing. Daily border crossers would take bets as to whether or not they would be stopped. It was SOP to pop the trunk.

The second problem I have with the story is the AR-15. He says he had owned it for years and had the papers for it, which leads me to believe it is the civilian model, probably semi-automatic. But if he’s had it for a long time or has modified it, it could be quite a weapon.

Either way, what is he doing carrying it around in his trunk? He was going to California to boot. (Mexico is a bad place to be caught with a weapon like that. California is almost as bad.) Why is this guy driving around with hardware like that?

This prison is pretty bad they say. His family is trying to get him out. I say we offer them a case of 12 BlackBerries as an even trade.

One thing’s for sure…I bet Medina is wishing he had taken I-40!