General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWe're sending guns, crime to Mexico
Although Mexico has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, Mexican criminal organizations have no trouble buying firearms, which they use to control territory, extort business owners, and threaten citizens as well as members of the security forces. The consequences are lethal. In 2002, there were more than 2,600 murder investigations involving firearms. By 2016, that number had increased to nearly 13,000
Most of the weapons used by criminal groups in Mexico originate in the United States. Each year, an average of 253,000 firearms cross the border, the overwhelming majority of which come from the Southwest states of California, Texas and Arizona. From 2009 to 2014, more than 70% of firearms nearly 74,000 seized by Mexican authorities and then submitted for tracing by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms came from the United States. Many of these guns were semi-automatic rifles such as the AR-15 and AK-47, cartel favorites that Mexican citizens cannot buy legally.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-kinosian-weigend-guns-mexico-20170302-story.html
I think Mexico could make a case for shutting down the border too.
allgood33
(1,584 posts)be passed? The guns we sell to Mexico directly or through third parties are helping to foment the situations that drive central Americans to our borders. This is an approach to gun law revision that needs to be attempted.
Chuuku Davis
(565 posts)Actually several
ITAR