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Mexico’s Military Seizes Alabama Mining Company’s Facility, Sparking Outrage

March 20, 2023 by Jennifer Oliver OConnell Leave a Comment

Last week, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador went off on the United States about its so-called democracy, and let our country know that fentanyl is our problem and not his country’s. To add more insult to injury, on Tuesday the government decided to stomp on property rights by seizing and occupying leased facilities of an American corporation.

From Fox News:

The seizure of an American company’s quarry facility in Mexico by the Mexican military and local state police has sparked outrage among former and current government officials, as well as appeals for the Biden administration and the Mexico’s U.S. ambassador to intervene.
According to Vulcan Materials, a Birmingham, Alabama-based company and the largest producer of construction aggregates in the U.S., members of the Mexican navy, local state police, along with federal investigators, entered the quarry just south of Playa del Carmen in Mexico’s Quintana Roo state in the early morning hours of March 14. They then forced the company to allow CEMEX, a Mexican-owned materials company, to unload a shipment of cement from a ship in the port.
Vulcan previously leased land to and provided offloading and handling services for CEMEX at the site, but the agreement expired last December and talks for a renegotiated contract broke down. The company said CEMEX completed unloading the forced shipment on Friday. However, the military and police have remained in control of the property and have given no indication they plan to leave, the company said.
“I am writing to request that your government immediately order its forces and officials to leave our private property,” Vulcan Chairman and CEO J. Thomas Hill wrote in a letter to Mexican Ambassador Esteban Moctezuma Barragán on Thursday, two days following the initial seizure.

CEO Hill further states in the letter to Ambassador Barragán:

“The government’s participation in this gross violation of our property rights is yet another example of the government’s arbitrary and illegal treatment of Vulcan and its investments in Mexico. This occupation must cease immediately.”

Apparently, tensions have existed between Vulcan Materials and the Mexican government for quite some time, and have only appeared to escalate.

Vulcan has been in tension with Mexico for months after Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador forced a shutdown of the quarry’s operations in May 2022. Lopez Obrador accused the company of trying to extract minerals from Mexico without the required permits and ship them to the U.S.
The government suspended Vulcan’s customs permits on May 13, just days after shutting down the quarry, which the company says has put a strain on its ability to provide the stone construction aggregates to construct roads, bridges and other infrastructure in the U.S., and it has prompted lawmakers to request the Biden administration take swift action.
The quarry has remained closed amid legal proceedings in the Mexican courts, although Biden administration officials have been working with the Mexican government to find a solution, the company said.

According to Reuters, those legal proceedings include a settlement of a $1.1 billion dollar lawsuit brought by Vulcan over the shuttering of their limestone mine. Vulcan issued a statement to local AL.com saying they had been in NAFTA arbitration with Mexico regarding their investments in the country since 2018.

Vulcan Chairman and CEO J. Thomas Hill also expressed concern for the American employees who work at the facility and their families:

“Our first and foremost concern is the health and safety of our employees,” the Vulcan statement continued. “We have confirmed our Vulcan family members are physically unharmed and are focused on ensuring that this remains the case.”
Vulcan is “shocked” Mexico and the cement giant Cemex “supported this reckless and reprehensible armed seizure of our private property.

Freshman Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) had much to say about this violation of rights:

U.S. Senator Katie Britt denounced what her office is describing as Mexico’s militarized seizure of Birmingham-based Vulcan Materials port facility at Punta Venado in Quintana Roo.
“President Biden must raise this directly with President López Obrador and assure the American people that this will not be tolerated,” Britt said in a statement released Sunday night.
[…]
“This forcible seizure of private property is unlawful and unacceptable. It is shameful that this Mexican presidential administration would rather confiscate American assets than the fentanyl killing hundreds of Americans per day,” Britt added.
Britt said that when she traveled to Mexico City in February, she discussed the issue of “increasing, illegal aggression by the Mexican government towards Vulcan” with Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs Marcelo Ebrard and discussed the matter with senior U.S. Embassy personnel in Mexico City.
“Mexico should be more focused on going after the cartels than law-abiding businesses and hardworking people,” Britt added.
“The ramifications of this illicit seizure extend into the United States, significantly hamstringing important American infrastructure, energy, and other construction projects that currently rely on Vulcan’s operations in Mexico for materials.”

Yeah, good luck with that. We have an American administration that is weak on supporting its own citizens over foreign interests. Between an adversarial Mexican government, and an encroaching Chinese government, U.S. companies with commercial interests in foreign lands are getting firsthand experience on what results when a breakdown in these relations occurs. Even more critical is the disruption caused to production and commerce when no U.S.-based contingency is in place. In this particular case, the development and maintenance of our nation’s critical infrastructure. This is where an “American First” policy would work. If Vulcan has not already done so, it should be looking into how its needs can be better met within the boundaries of the continental United States.

The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.

Is anyone happy with Alabama’s permitess carry law?

February 2, 2023 by Cam Edwards Leave a Comment

While I’m sure there are plenty of Alabama gun owners who are thrilled with the changes, there is some opposition to the new permitless carry law that took effect on January 1st, and not all of it is coming from those who’ve been objecting from the get-go. As we discuss on today’s Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co, even some Second Amendment supporters are taking issue with the way the new law is being implemented and would like to see some modifications made.

On Wednesday afternoon, Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch and Mobile Police Chief Paul Prine held a press conference to pan the new law; not necessarily a surprise given that Sam Cochrane, the previous sheriff in the county, was one of the most vocal opponents of the carry bill during last year’s legislative efforts to get it approved. Burch, who served under Cochrane as a sheriff’s captain before winning election last November after Cochrane decided to retire, is picking up where his former boss left off.

“I’m a big supporter of the Second Amendment, but I believe there should be some common sense applied to it,” said Burch. “(Lawmakers) never endured so much pressure to ram a bill through (than they did last year).”
Burch said the Alabama Sheriff’s Association is seeking an opinion from Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office to clear up some of the questions the new law creates. A spokesman for Marshall’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
…
Sheriffs also came under criticism last year for emphasizing lost revenues by the removal of the permit requirement. Burch said the Mobile County Sheriff Department, during the second half of last year, lost an estimated $800,000.

That’s a legitimate concern for sheriffs’ departments, but frankly, they should never have been reliant on licensing the exercise of a fundamental right for funding in the first place. According to AL.com, the The Association of County Commissions of Alabama is working on draft legislation that would find a new way to fund the departments, and as long as legal gun owners aren’t being singled out to provide that money I don’t think you’ll see many objections from Second Amendment supporters, though BamaCarry head Eddie Fulmer doesn’t think permitless carry’s passage is the main reason for the drop in licensing fees.

Fulmer pointed to the relatively new five-year pistol permit as the reason. He also said most law-abiding gun owners will likely purchase a permit in Alabama.
“I got a five-year permit and most of the people I know still buy permits,” he said.

Which is not to say that Fulmer is satisfied with the permitless carry law in its current form, which he says empowers police to take hold of lawfully-possessed firearms during simple traffic stops.

“We don’t feel like when you are pulled over (for running) a stop sign, that an officer should take a weapon from you and run a (background check),” said Fulmer. “If you don’t tell them you have a weapon with you, then you are susceptible to a criminal offense. We are not happy with that at all. We didn’t write that in there. The Republicans wrote that in, and we tried to get it taken out before it was passed.”

Whether Alabama lawmakers have the appetite to revisit the new permitless carry law remains to be seen, but Fulmer’s concerns seem like they could be addressed with a minor tweak. Meanwhile, the Alabama Sheriffs Association, which formally opposed the permitless carry bill last year, is seeking an opinion from Attorney General Steve Marshall to “clarify” questions they have about the law and how its enforced. I’m of the opinion that the biggest beef from law enforcement has to do with the loss of revenue from carry permit applications, however, and I suspect that if lawmakers find a way to restore those funds a lot of the grumbling is going to fade away.

Alabama basketball player handed off gun used in fatal shooting

January 19, 2023 by Tom Knighton Leave a Comment

Getting a college scholarship to play sports is often seen as one way a kid can get out of a tough neighborhood and make it in this tough world. Even if they’re not going to make it to the NBA, getting a scholarship to a school like Alabama can still change their lives.

But not if they hand guns off to people who aren’t lawfully allowed to own them.

If you do that, well, it’s unlikely you’re going to stay in school all that long.

I don’t know if Alabama basketball player Darius Miles had this as his only way out, but if so, he kind of screwed himself over.

University of Alabama basketball player Darius Miles allegedly provided the handgun that was used in a shootout near campus that left one woman dead, a report said Tuesday.
Miles, 21, admitted to police that he gave 20-year-old Michael Lynn Davis the weapon that Davis used to open fire on a car in downtown Tuscaloosa — leaving Jamea Harris dead in the passenger seat, according to TMZ.
Citing court documents, the outlet said witnesses have identified Davis as the gunman and cops obtained Ring doorbell footage of the tragic slaying.
Miles, who was quickly sacked from the Crimson Tide basketball squad, has been charged with capital murder for the shooting.

Honestly, I have absolutely no sympathy.

Look, I think everyone has the right to keep and bear arms. That includes people who are traditionally prohibited from owning guns.

Yet the law is what it is. If you break the law, particularly if doing so results in the murder of someone else, I’m not going to shed a single tear for you.

Miles had a golden opportunity. While he wasn’t exactly burning up the court, based on his stats, he still had a chance to get an education from a major university at little to no cost to him or his family. That’s not going to happen if he ends up locked up for the rest of his life.

And over what? A minor argument that was allowed to escalate to murder? Because that’s what reportedly happened.

I can’t help but think about how so many in our country don’t understand how to deal with conflict. They take disagreement as some kind of a personal affront, like just having a difference of opinion is a grave insult.

That’s the world we’re in, and we’ve seen it pretty much everywhere from the streets to politics.

In this case, that inability to deal with conflict seems to have involved a college basketball player throwing his life away by giving a gun to someone too young to buy one themselves, who then used that gun to kill an innocent woman, allegedly.

Guns are wonderful things, but they’re not the way to solve disagreements. Somehow, we need to get that through people’s thick skulls so we don’t see more stories like this.

Too many lives appear to be destroyed as things currently stand. It shouldn’t happen. Not now. Not ever.