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Friday, March 04, 2011

This We'll Pretend

One of our border agents was killed in a firefight against illegal border crossers. Our border agents are under orders to first use bean bag rounds. Homeland Security first denied this and then admitted it is true (tip to Instapundit):

On the night of the deadly encounter, agents were trying to apprehend at least five suspected illegal immigrants. One agent, using thermal binoculars, spotted two men carrying rifles. When the group came close, at least one agent identified himself as police and ordered the men to drop their weapons.

Here’s how the rest of the events are described in the FBI document:

“When the suspected aliens did not drop their weapons, two Border Patrol agents deployed ‘less than lethal’ beanbags at the suspected aliens. At this time, at least one of the suspected aliens fired at the Border Patrol agents. Two Border Patrol agents returned fire, one with his long gun and one with his pistol.

“Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was shot with one bullet and died shortly after. One of the suspected illegal aliens, later identified as Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, was also shot.”

Obviously, nobody in our government wants any of the precious darlings trying to enter our land of opportunity without documents (but with rifles) to be hurt or killed as we try to stop them. Far better to risk agent deaths. The government can handle the publicity from that kind of tragedy, right? Why do we bother to pretend to guard our border? What level of border force casualties are acceptable to maintain this fiction?

Look, I'm not saying the border should be a free-fire zone. But when you see men armed with AKs, the armed men should have about a second after a border agent yells, "police! drop your weapon!" before being shot with actual bullets. Bean bags just train the illegals to shoot fast before real rounds come at them.