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[MotherF]

Have you heard about this?

Care to share any thoughts?

A couple of "friends" of mine from high school are all up in arms about this calling for the US to invade Mexico or inact strict economic sanctions, or at the very least not let any shoppers across the boarder this holiday season.

The summary is this guy and his friend by a beat up 80s era Winebago, looks just like the one from Breaking Bad, and load it up with their surf boards and someother stuff and set off to drive to Costa Rica to surf for an undefined period of time. One thing among the other stuff is an "hermloon" shotgun that belonged to Jon Hammar's grandfather. On the US side of the boarder the young Mr. Hammar aparently asks the US officials what he has to do to bring the gun into Mexico. The official says, "fill in these forms and see what happens" So they drive across the boarder, and having done that myself I know it's confusing what you do once you get to the other side. Well they just kept going until they got to the check point at the end of the boarder zone. There he is arrested for possession of a firearm restricted to the use of the military. This shotgun is 24 inches long, which turns out is an inch too short to be considered a hunting rifle in Mexico, since they don't want any rifles you could hide under your coat. So he's thrown into federal prison awaiting trial. Which is of course standard practice in Mexico where as in the US he'd be released on bond as it is a lesser non violent charge. But this federal prison happens to house a lot of cartel members who start threatening him and beating him so he's moved to solitary confinement for his own saftey. And of course the conditions of solitary confinement are not what they are in the US either.
You might be thinking, so what--a surfer arrested in Mexico? That's nothing new. Well this surfer is also a marine (or an ex-marine, that much is not clear.) So the people who are outraged about this grave injustice, are all up in arms about Mexico holding a MARINE in solitary confinement in a federal prison. In the US it's mostly only been reported on Faux News and the only UK outlet that had a story on it was the Daily Mail.
This poor man was clearly a victim of a mistake on the behalf of the US boarder official. But he also clearly must abide by Mexican law when in Mexico. In my opinion his being a marine has nothing to do with the case... a surfer in an old winnebago would probably not recieve any media attention and certainly not naive calls to invade Mexico or set a trade embargo on our neighbor and largest partner (the person who said that clearly knows little about how economically entangled the US and Mexico are.)
OF course now they think I'm an unpatriotic commie--actually I think they thought that since high school so I don't really care.

But I just wanted to see what the Mexico experts/expats had to say.

[Guy Courchesne]

I've been following this story some...

He's spent enough time in jail I'd say. 4 months is a long enough sentence for stupidity.

Two things one should remember from this case. 1. If in doubt, ask a Mexican official, consulate, or embassy as to what you can bring into Mexico - don't ask a foreign government. 2. Unwise to cross any border, fly through any airport, or land at any port with a gun.

[Ixchel]

Those of us who grew up near the border know that things get hazy at times. Like the Mexican army occasionally crossing the border to accompany drug runners. And Americans getting into mischief on their side. Stuff like that. Gray areas. People do idiotic and illegal things every single day on both sides. If you know anything about Mexico you know how strict they are ever since their own revolution about their citizens having access to guns and all. One huge problem is narcos buying guns in the US so the last thing I'd do is bring a firearm into Mexico. But I know all this. He apparently didn't and he did something stupid. Hang around the airport for a day and see the stuff confiscated that people dreamed they could fly with.
The guy made a dumb mistake, he's paid for it.

[litterascriptor]

Boggles my mind as to what the guy was thinking in the first place. Seems a given that you'd leave your heirloom shotgun at home.