One has to wince at the thought of probably several hundred K-38's "being destroyed" by SEDENA's unwashed drones. Well, I would have really secretly suspected something like that.

I think it was like in 1998 or so I got sucked into going to that big State Fair they up there in Aguascalientes. It was one of those "all expenses paid" deals by some Mexican Trucking Company that thought that having an American as a "friend" would help them out. You should have seen their faces when -- after I let them wine and dine me -- I told them I was Canadian. Anyway, walking around up there, there were lots of Police around, and I remember thinking. "Damn! They ALL have K-38's!" A lot of them had those really cheap synthetic nylon yaqui slide type holsters, so you could see the bottom part of the 6-inch barrel sticking out with it's unshrouded extractor rod partly visible as well, so there was just NO DOUBT as to what you were looking at.

I was on this Mexican Army base once having just done some very elementary and basic training courses for the Police Force that was supposed to go down to Chiapas during the little uprising they had there in 1994 or so. This Mexican Army Lieutenant took me to show off some big bales of MJ they had confiscated out of some cement truck. They were real proud of that. They were going to burn it.

"Can I stand upwind?" I asked whimsically.

He just sort of stared at me and I could see myself reflected in his shiney-mirror sunglasses.

"I'll show you something you'll find interesting." He took me over about 50 yards or so, and there was this big pile of junky guns. I mean, real ****. Like the MJ bales, there were guys in PFP uniforms (Police uniforms with Military guys in them to get around the law prohibiting the Military from doing traffic stops or something like that) with MP-5s. They had this table set up, and there was a guy there with a hacksaw and a big bench vice bending, cutting, and just wrecking the stuff from one pile and throwing it over onto another pile.

"All the guns we have confiscated!" delared buddy proudly.

"This is all junk." I told him. "Where's the good stuff?"

He looked indignant. "You DON'T honestly think we'd destroy THAT do you? The good stuff goes to our officers! The almost good stuff goes to the enlisted men."

"Oh." Man, I was happy to get out of there. Back in those days, I was always troubled by the fact that sooner or later, someone might start to think that I was seeing too much. I keep to myself, these days.

So when you tell me the "K-38's were destroyed", I flashback to standing there watching that guy wreck junk guns while his partner checked them off on a list as they got flung into the DONE pile. Oh, it just makes me shake my head.