The Texas Department of Public Safety now runs 34′ gunboats equipped with 30 caliber fully automatic machine guns (900 rounds per minute). To herald the fresh water fleet, the DPS gave the mainstream media a ride-along. In its coverage, NBC forgets to mention that each boat costs $580k plus running costs and amortization. Times six. Or that the only reason Texas is patrolling the Rio Grande is that the feds aren’t getting it done—even though the Department of Homeland Security is kicking in an unspecified amount of your tax money to equip the Texas navy. Just sayin’.
Had to laugh, before the video started I had to watch a toyota commercial in spanish. Maybe we do need these boats.
So Texas was out done by Louisiana/Red Jacket with their grenade machine gun gun boat?
I wonder how it holds up when hit by the standard Chicom B40 rocket? Now I suppose the cartels will be fielding armored sampans.
How about a Kevlar airboat with .30 mini guns, then it could pursue right up on the shore and follow em inland.
CLEAN! CLEAN! GET ON THAT 50!!!!!!
+1
I want one of those for my next fishing trips on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Them sturgeon get big!
Looks like a ton of fun.
I can understand the “need” for this maybe, but shouldn’t the Coast Guard be doing this?
The Coast Guard has the hardware and training to get it done but has no authority there… State waters not federal. Although the USCG has some of the broadest law enforcement authority of any LE agency in the US their jurisdiction is somewhat limited in internal waters.
DHS provides funding for a huge number of state and local agencie snot just there but across the US.
After the incident on Falcon lake were a Texas citizen was murdered by Mexican Pirates/drug runners/thugs, the coast guard admitted that they have failed to do their job on the Rio Grande River.
You’re right. Just read up on it. I had thought the USCGs authority didn’t extend that far up the Rio, but it’s considered navigable all the way to New Mexico or somewhere aound there.
They really don’t have any presence there… not enough to be useful anyway.
The Rio, at least by the time you make your way up the river to Santa Fe, isn’t much more than small pools of water and mud. It can be a river again when there’s enough rain though.
If the feds would do their job, which they won’t, the people of Texas wouldn’t have to fund these things. Meanwhile, I’d Love to have one for fishin’!
don’t pass state laws against illegal immigrents that can be challenged by a corrupt federal government. use their own money programs to build your own equipment for the same purpose. job gets done and the feds have less options for their hissy fits.
I’m as concerned by militarization as anyone, but I can’t say I have a problem with this. It’s a national border with a failing state, and the Feds aren’t handling it. Can’t blame Texas for giving it a shot.
Texsas had better be carefull how they approach illigal immigration/drug and human trafficing. The Feds will cut there balls off like thay did in Arizona.
As we told the mexicans when they came for our cannon at Gonzales, Come and take it.
+1
Am I missing something in the article or did everyone else. You’re all on the blame the Feds bandwagon about they’re not doing their job so Texas has to or boy they’re going to get in trouble with the Feds now that they’re doing their job. But didn’t the article state, that the DHS was kicking in federal monies to help Texas with this program! Sounds like the Feds wanted and needed help in securing the border, and knew that Texas could do a better job with help. Just saying!
Some people like to overlook the fact that our southern border has never been secure at any time in history, that billions were spent on a high tech wall that doesn’t work , and that the size of the Border Patrol has doubled in the last three or four years, slowing but nowhere near eliminating the flow of drugs and people. I think that we tend to underestimate the difficulty in patrolling an unrelenting desert full of heat, poisonous snakes, mountains, and and and. Every time I think about Border Patrol agents patrolling out there, alone, with no backup for miles, I think they must be some of the bravest cops in this country.
That “high-tech” fence was designed by John McAmnesty and his cohorts to fail. The Israelis figured out how to build a low-tech fence that is extremely effective. Backing it up with armed, shoot-to-kill patrols doesn’t hurt either.
That said, without internal enforcement (hello Gov Brewer) even the best wall won’t help, since not all illegals enter illicitly
More huge $$ down the rathole that is the failed ‘Drug War’.
Prohibition doesn’t work, not for alcohol, not for guns and not for drugs.
Its like hitting your thumb with a hammer, when something doesn’t work, you don’t do more of it, you do something different.
Damn right.
Feds are pussies, and Texas ain’t.
They are just new toys, that we bought.
Damn , I better be careful while I’m out duck hunting with my boys on these Texas lakes
Ok I have boat envy now! I have to admit, Arizona, Texas have all been asking for help or trying to enforce federal laws. California doesn’t give a rats ass. They dropped the whole finger print check thing as soon as Obama told the public about the back door amnesty. The bill was ready to go to defund the program within hours. Texas and Arizona are the only ones that consider the influx of illegal immigrants an issue. California just gives them Food Stamps and Cash Aid. The even have a special program for immigrants!
I feel for boarder patrol and customs agents. They basically got the shaft from Obama, and now the local LEO agencies will have to deal with it. Home Land Security wants nothing to do with them easier, and I don’t know if local departments can load up buses to return them back over the border.
So despite the expensive price tag I support it. If they use it to secure our borders then it is worth it. I just hope they send Obama the bill for it later.
Hmm. Looks like the Texas DPS will have a second chance for all the white shirts who enlist because of Act of Valor and end up chipping paint on the USS Neversail.
Various takes – when I was in the navy (late 70s) I was in a bar in New London with a Coast Guard guy and mentioned that I was from Missouri. He told me he had spent a tour in a small boat changing light bulbs on bouys in the Missouri river upstream between St. Louis and Kansas City, so I guess river banks count as coasts. What really cracked me up was when he told me that Glasgow MO was “a great liberty port.” Now I’ve driven thru Glasgow and that was not the description that came to my mind. Farming town of 3000 or so on a bluff over the river, tallest building by 20 stories or so is the grain elevator.
OF COURSE the DPS jumped at the chance to get cool boats. Cops always love to get cool stuff, whether there is any need for it or not. Look at the billions in pork that went to rural LEAs with very little threat of terrorism under the “Patriot” Act – nobody said “Hey, we don’t need encrypted radios or helicopters or silenced MP-5s” but if Possum Trot County went 80% for the incumbent last election you know Senator Foghorn earmarked a few mil to the sherriff. My favorite was the county in the Upper Plains whose “waterways” consisted of a couple of mid-sized bass fishing lakes and they got a 10-man Zodiac with side-scan sonar. Haven’t caught any terrorists yet but I bet they have a hell of a fish fry.
When it comes to pork and votes though, you just can’t beat a combination of drugs and illegal aliens. The only topics that spur more reader comments in my local daily from elderly, grumpy “trolls” is Obama, who is going to take away our guns so he can make our kids marry gay illegal aliens while singing the Star-Spangled Banner in Muslim. The War on Drugs (and the border war causing such havoc across the Rio Grande) is the result of a totally failed drug policy, if we have one. Near as I can tell, low-income kids (from the projects or the trailer parks) should go to jail forever for thinking about smoking weed, white folks in the suburbans at worst face deferred adjudication if they happen to get caught with their nose in the sugar jar, and the Stones’ “Mother’s Little Helper” is going to be the anthem of the upbringing of all future generations. Based on experience, I’ll take a junkie or a crackhead over a female college graduate with a perscription problem. And as far as illegals go – much more hysteria (mostly from trolls who are scared to death they might wind up with Spanish-speaking grandkids) than a real problem. Been in Texas most of my life, get along great with my neighbors and love their food, and frankly I’ve got a long list of Anglos I’d like to deport to make room for more Pablos and Marias. At least Maria knows how to cook and Pablo shows up for work every morning.
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