Apr 16 2009
Mexican Gun Traffickers Buy American-made Weapons
Thirteen people died yesterday in a violent shoot-out between Mexican soldiers and suspected drug traffickers in Guerrero, as reported by the newspaper Reforma. The traffickers were heavily armed and also threw grenades at the soldiers, who stumbled upon them as they were reportedly transporting narcotics down from the mountains. Drug-related border violence has claimed more than 6000 lives over the past year. As President Obama stops in Mexico today to meet with President Felipe Calderon, his administration has placed three more Mexican drug gangs onto a list for special sanctions as part of his strategy to combat the violence. Meanwhile, the Obama administration yesterday announced that former federal prosecutor Alan Bersin was named to lead efforts to crack down on drug-related violence along the U.S.-Mexican border. Bersin served as “border czar” in the Justice Department under President Clinton, and also the former California Education Secretary and San Diego’s School Superintendent. Many experts have asserted that most of the weapons flow into Mexico from the United States, but a spokesperson for the National Rifle Association, the main pro-gun lobbying organization in the US, said recently that Mexican cartels do not “trifle with paperwork at U.S. gun stores.” Now, a new study refutes the NRA position by showing that Mexican gun traffickers were obtaining the majority of their weapons from the US. In fact, the Violence Policy Center showed that nearly two thirds of weapons obtained are military-style guns easily and legally available on the civilian US gun market.
GUEST: Kristen Rand, author of report “Indicted,” Legislative Director with the Violence Policy Center
Download the report, entitled “Indicted: Types of Firearms and Methods of Gun Trafficking from the United States to Mexico as Revealed in U.S. Court Documents,” here: http://www.vpc.org/studies/indicted.pdf
For more information, visit www.vpc.org.
One Response to “Mexican Gun Traffickers Buy American-made Weapons”
While nobody disputes that stolen, or illegally acquired weapons are making their way across the border, the number, and overall percent of these weapons is a small part of the total number of weapons confiscated by Mexican authorities. To put things in perspective, Mexican authorities reported confiscating approximately 29,000 weapons in Mexico in 2007 and 2008. Of those, approximately 17% could be traced to the US, some 5,100 weapons. While this is certainly a problem for Mexico, it is a relatively small one, and 5,100 illegal guns in Mexico is hardly a reason to place restrictions on 300 million US citizens. (Hey Mexico try inspecting cars coming into your country, last time I drove across the border all your border agents were interested in were fees and forms)
What should be of concern to Mexico are the other 24,000 weapons that could not be traced to the US. Where did these come from? According to the Mexican authorities they came from China, South Korea, Israel, and former Soviet block countries. These weapons included fully automatic weapons (machine guns), grenades, rocket propelled grenades, and in one recent case a crew served anti aircraft gun. Weapons that are not now, and have never been, available in US gun stores. Weapons that can be used to wage large scale combat and overthrow governments.
It also occurs to me that while Mexican drug dealers may appreciate the quality of US made arms. The purchase of large quantities of them, through individual transactions, paying all that sales tax and straw man fees, is an expensive and inefficient way to arm your enforcers. Let’s face it, if you’re running a billion dollar smuggling empire you can get wholesale pricing from international arms dealers, and you can get anything you want. As demonstrated by the vast quantity and type of weapons confiscated.