Riverine warfare with cartels on the Rio Grande

Houston Chronicle:
The Texas Department of Public Safety is deploying a ferocious new boat to patrol the Rio Grande.
The 34-foot long shallow “interceptor” craft will be outfitted with six machine guns mounted on its deck, according to DPS.
The agency confirmed that the guns will capable of firing in a fully automatic mode, giving it an overwhelming edge on just about anything it would find along the river.
According to a DPS news release:
The Tactical Marine Unit and the patrol vessels represent a significant enhancement of the state’s efforts in combating Mexican drug cartels and other criminal organizations that transport illegal drugs into Texas and varieties of weapons, explosives and munitions out of our state into Mexico. They will be used to impact so-called splashdowns, where drug smugglers crash their vehicles into the Rio Grande River and transport contraband back into Mexico.
It is the second of three boats the agency expects to deploy on the river in the South Texas region.
It is to be commissioned Thursday in Austin and named in honor of a DPS trooper David Rucker, killed in 1981 while making a traffic stop in Cameron County, which hugs the Texas-Mexico border.
... 
Texas officers have had some firefights with cartel gunmen on and across the river and they do not intend to be out gunned.  It is too bad the Obama has not been willing to step up to the fight.

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