http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20056210-10391695.htmlI am quite confused by many things in this.
I noticed a few things in the article. Namely that the contract was signed on November 2, 2010 by a representative of Mexico's Attorney General, at their Washington embassy. Notice the date... This date is about six weeks before the murder of a U.S. border control agent, and two months before the “Project Gunrunner” controversy erupted. Could the recent scandal play a part in the lawsuit?
3 days later on Nov 5th, Mexico President Filipe Calderon released a statement where he said "We seized more than 90,000 weapons...I am talking like 50,000 assault weapons, AR-15 machine guns, more than 8,000 grenades and almost 10 million bullets. Amazing figures and according to all those cases, the ones we are able to track, most of these are American weapons." I will contend greatly with that statement.
1. We are up to 90,000 now? I find that one hard to believe. The Mexican Prosecutor General’s office had reported that between Dec. 1, 2005, and Jan. 22, 2009, Mexican authorities seized 31,512 weapons from the cartels. So, in a year and 4 months the Mexican authorities have seized 60,000 weapons?
2. Everything with the exception of bullets that the Mexican President mentioned cannot come the US civilian market. These are government to government sales.
3. Most of these did not come from the US... It is actually closer to 12 percent. How many of those 12 percent were government to government sales?
I noticed a few things absent from the article. The law firm retained by Mexico - New York based Reid Collins & Tsai. Here is a partner for that law firm.
http://www.rctlegal.com/mmarmolejo.html Guess who is also a current federal judicial nominee for the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas? I'm not sure if the case(if it ever makes it into a courtroom) would go to a district court first. But, it would be especially interesting to see the venue that the law firm chooses.
In asking my Magic-8-Ball how this lawsuit will go for Mexico. It replied "Outlook no so good"...
Some good articles on the drug and gun trade...
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090708_mexico_economics_and_arms_tradehttp://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110209-mexicos-gun-supply-and-90-percent-mythA US campaign supported by the NSSF and the ATF.
http://www.dontlie.orgI do however applaud the Mexican President for actually getting off his ass and doing something other than paying lip service as his predecessors did. However I feel he is misguided and his efforts with this lawsuit will have no impact on Mexico's problems with drug cartels and will not stem the flow of guns into his country at all.