US Border Patrol agents along certain sectors of the US-Mexico border are sharing rifles after malfunctions and quality concerns on their Colt brand M4s lead to many being pulled.

As a result, agents in sectors like Tucson, Arizona, are passing the same set of M4 carbines from one set of hands to another from shift to shift.

According to News 4 Tucson, the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector union president Art del Cueto said: “The problem is they are now using pool guns so what happens instead of having their individual ones they have sighted in they’re having to use a pool weapon…[and they] don’t know who used it [prior or how it is sighted in].”

Jeff Prather is a former DEA agent “who now runs the Warrior School in Tucson.” He said the rifle shortage exacerbates the difficulties of a situation where the cartel were already better armed than Border agents. He said: “Cartels have always been better equipped, the paramilitary forces, the corrupt Mexican soldiers and federales at times.”

Prather also expressed concern that the removal of the rifles might be “politically motivated.”

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