American guns and the war next door
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– Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. –
Last year, around 2,500 Mexicans died in the twin wars drug cartels are waging against each other and against the Mexican state, using weapons smuggled in from the United States. In the first 11 months of this year, the death toll was 5,367, according to the Mexican attorney general. Next year?
There is no end in sight. At least two of the lethal ingredients in the toxic brew that fuels Mexico’s ever-widening violence are unlikely to change: lax American gun laws and a Mexican border that barely controls north-south traffic. On many of the crossing points along the 2,000-mile frontier, travelers coming in from the United States, by car or on foot, are routinely waved through without even having to show identity papers.
Weak Mexican border controls rarely feature in official or academic reports on a problem that has prompted some experts and U.S. publications to wonder whether Mexico is a “failing state”. That’s the headline over a cover story on Mexico in the latest edition of the business magazine Forbes. Mexican officials reject the label.
But privately, they concede that Mexican authorities are doing a less-than-thorough job in searching and monitoring north-south traffic. They tend to point in the other direction, to the easy availability of guns in the United States, the armory of Mexico’s criminal mafias.
According to statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), the agency charged with regulating the firearms industries, there are 9,161 licensed arms dealers in the four states bordering Mexico — California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Buyers from licensed establishments need to go through a background check and the serial numbers of their purchases can be traced.
No background checks and no paperwork is necessary for weapons traded between private citizens on the “secondary” market — gun shows, over the Internet, through classified advertisements. Around 40 percent of all gun sales in the United States, where private citizens own at least 200 million guns, are on the informal market, estimates the Violence Policy Center, a Washington-based group in favor of tougher gun controls.
How many guns are smuggled across the porous border? Nobody knows, and a frequently used figure of 2,000 every day appears to be more of an urban legend than an estimate based on evidence. It would amount to 730,000 smuggled guns a year.
Whatever the number, it is enough for the U.S. State Department, on its website, to advise citizens contemplating a visit to Mexico that “recent Mexican army and police confrontations with drug cartels have taken on the characteristics of small-unit combat, with cartels employing automatic weapons and, on occasion, grenades”.
AMONG WEAPONS OF CHOICE: COP KILLERS
Almost all the weapons seized inside Mexico or left at the scene of shootouts have been traced back to the United States through eTrace, an electronic system the ATF set up to trace illicit firearms. The cartel killers’ weapons of choice: AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles. Favorite pistols: Colt .38 Super, Glock 9 millimeter, and the FN 5-7, nicknamed “cop killer” because it can pierce a flak jacket at a range of 300 meters.
All these can be legally (and easily) acquired in the United States by citizens and legal residents without a criminal record, after a background check with the Federal Bureau of Investigations that often takes less than 15 minutes. The ease with which Americans can get arms flares into public controversy at regular intervals, usually after a gun owner with a grudge commits a massacre in a school or other public place.
Attempts to introduce more restrictions have failed regularly, and this year the Supreme Court ended decades of legal argument by ruling that the second amendment of the U.S. constitution, written 219 years ago, does guarantee an individual’s right “to keep and bear arms”.
Even Eduardo Medina Mora, the outspoken Mexican attorney general who makes no secret of his frustration with the flow of weapons from the north, seems resigned to the prospect that the United States will not change its gun laws to keep Mexico from sliding into deeper trouble.
“Although … it may seem absurd to us that a (U.S.) citizen can buy an AK-47, an AR-15, or a Barrett .50, it’s the law of the land,” he told the Spanish newspaper El Pais in November. The last item on his list is a sniper rifle that costs $8,650, weighs 30 pounds and can punch through an armored vehicle from a mile away.
On the U.S. side of the border, the ATF has just launched an advertising campaign in Arizona to remind citizens that buying guns on behalf of others — so called-straw purchases — carries penalties of up to 10 years in jail. Using straw buyers has been one of the cartels’ methods to evade background checks. Gun shows are another.
Just before entering Mexico, large signs at crossing points read: “Warning: Firearms and Ammunition Illegal in Mexico.” Chances that you are stopped and searched by Mexican officials are slim.
Reuters correspondent Tim Gaynor, author of a forthcoming book on the frontier (Midnight on the Line: The Secret Life of the U.S.-Mexico Border) reports: “In scores of crossings I have made to Mexico over several years, I have been stopped on just two or three occasions. Never once have I had my car searched. The odds are heavily in favor of the smugglers.”
Time for Mexico to start watching its border rather than pointing a finger at the United States?
You can contact the author at Debusmann@reuters.com. For previous columns by Bernd Debusmann, click here.
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While many of the commenters have tied themselves into knots about perceived threats to their Second Amendment rights, Michael McCullough hit the nail on the head:
“Both governments lack both the resolve and domestic political muscle to bring even a modicum of order to the border lands now or in the future. If you find the reality of low intensity warfare in southern Texas and northern Mexico disturbing get used to it. It will be with us for a long, long time.”
Exactly. As to the debate over fully vs semi-automatic AK-47s, most of those harping on the point know that converting semi to full is not rocket science. There are pretty precise step-by-step instructions on the Internet.
Criminals, by definition, do not obey gun laws.
So it’s the law-abiding citizen that is handcuffed by restrictive gun laws.
“LAX American gun laws ? ” are to blame for the drug cartel blood-bath?
PLEASE !, Bernd, at least do your research- thanks to the NRA, the NICS is in place to minimize the chance of an unqualified person buying a firearm.
And, sorry, but a pistol (even the FN 5-7) does not have a 300 meter reach — Geez, do your homework!
I live just a few miles from the Mexican border on the Texas side.And i can tell you for a fact the so-called law enforcement on the Mexico side is almost nonexistent.
In fact,,some have said they have observed Mexican military or police type personal and vehicles assisting some of these people,(drug runners) moving drugs across the borders.
Bernd, if the Mexicans can’t enforce their own laws is that OUR problem? The drug cartels have and will use anything they can touch to kill innocents. Knives, dogs, cars, lead pipe, even rocks. You infer they kill because of our “lax” gun laws. A simplistic and foolish inference. Actually we have some very restrictive laws. And yes the instant check is a good thing, not a bad thing. Ask a woman whose boyfriend has beat her to a pulp to wait a week or some indeterminant time before she is able to arm yourself. And please don’t say “The cops will protect us”. Can you say Katrina? Look up Kitty Genovese and read her sad story. Arm yourself and protect yourself – you can NOT depend on the government.
Perhaps if Mexico would help control the entry of their citizens into our country it would be easier for us to control the flow of guns into their country.
To me the two work together. When it is easy for folks to come across our border without papers, it makes it easy for them to return to mexico with weapons.
By controlling the flow of people we can control the flow the guns.
Fighting the drug cartels requires strong leadership – in the government, in the judiciary, in the police, in the media, in society in general. Draconian laws need to be passed to deter anyone from assisting those who traffic drugs or guns in the slightest way. Laws to confiscate property and wealth from anyone who has profited from persons illegally involved are also needed.
The brave souls to fight these crimes are plentiful in Mexico and in the USA. What is sadly lacking at the present time is the political will to do all that is necessary to initiate the required policies.
Legalize some drugs (like marijuana) and ban assault weapons. The cartels would evaporate. You would take away their power, resources and the multi-billion dollar black market funding the failed war on drugs is promoting.
A few years back, Mexico had the awesome idea that it would legalize personal quantities of drugs. Of all kinds, everything. The Bush administration was up in arms about that, and via pressure caused the idea to be dropped.
Casual observation shows that illegality breeds illicit trade. Nothing appears to have been learned on this side of the border, at least not until recently, of what the results are of a “Prohibition” on something people want.
This is not about technological firepower. Back in the day, gangsters in the US had top of the line automatic weapons such as the Thompson sub-machine gun. The federal government eventually overcame via a determined application of force and resources. The nation-state of Mexico doesn’t appear to have made that application yet, 45,000 soldiers to the contrary.
Maybe the recent decapitation of Mexican soldiers will change that. Who else in the world commits that kind of atrocity? That it has happened indicates the level of commitment and force that needs to be applied by the state of Mexico to the problem, IMHO.
That’s right. It’s America’s fault. Whatever the world’s problems are, it’s America’s fault.
The problem is corruption in the human heart.
Mexico has some the the strictest gun laws out there. I think every weapon you mention is illegal in Mexico. You go to jail in Mexico for possession of a single 9mm round.
I’m not sure what liberals find so difficult to understand about the fact that CRIMINALS DO NOT OBEY LAWS. No matter how many times you say “pretty please with sugar on top”.
1. I agree that legalizing or at least decriminalizing most drugs would take away the money and violence associated with their smuggling into the US, but answer me this: just which political party is going to be the first in the US to advocate legalizing cocaine? To me this sounds like another “third rail” of politics, regardless of how much economic and legal sense it makes. It will always be an issue demagogued by the opposite side, especially if the ones proposing it are the Democrats since the GOP will just pull another version of their “Southern strategy” by yelling about “law and order”.
2. Regardless of the illegality of fully-auto firearms in the US (and actually they are legal, it’s just difficult to get a license to own them), the narcos only need to get their hands on semiauto versions of AK-47s and AR-15s since it is ridiculously easy to convert them into their fully auto versions; all it takes is a decent machine shop and often not even that. So the argument that fully auto firearms already are illegal is a red herring.
3. As to who is breaking the law here, there are plenty of otherwise law-abiding gun shops and licensed gun dealers here in the US who look the other way on straw purchases or multiple purchases by one person at one time. Shouldn’t that set off some alarm bells in a law-abiding gun dealer? And when someone tries to come down on them, e.g. NYC on the NC, VA, SC, and GA gun dealers who sell the bulk of guns used in NYC crimes, there’s the NRA defending the “rights” of these dealers and buyers to engage in everything up until the time the guns are used in the crimes, even though anyone with sense would recognize the purpose of straw and multiple purchases. So don’t tell me the NRA is only for legal gun ownership; it just doesn’t wash.
4. And don’t tell me that if narcos don’t have guns they’ll just use something else to kill with. You can’t outrun a bullet the way you can a knife or club.
5. If you’re for fully enforcing the existing gun laws of the US, then you must therefore be for funding the law enforcement agencies, e.g. ATFE, FBI, local police, which requires you to be for increasing government income, i.e. taxes. You must also therefore be for fully enforcing the bans on private sales at gun shows, unless of course these laws on the books are only for show and not for actual enforcment. It’s more difficult to transfer ownership of a car than a gun in the US.
6. Individuals within Mexico’s government are corrupt, not the entire government, and they are because they can be corrupted combined with the vast amount of money the narcos have compared with the government. Yet another argument for either higher taxes in Mexico or decriminalization in the US which raises again the two things people like less, taxes and looking soft on drug addicts.
7. While we’re on the subject of supply and demand, why is it the GOP is always big on the supply side of economic issues but never takes limiting the demand side, whether it be for drugs or oil or anything else for that matter? Within the US the only things we truly can control are what happens within our borders, in this case the demand for drugs; saying other countries should limit their supplies is unrealistic, patronizing and chauvinistic as well.
8. Given the hundreds of thousands of crossings of the US-Mexico border each day, just how would you go about inspecting each and every vehicle for weapons smuggling (I mean without breaking the US treasury)? Now’s the time for some actual clever thinking instead of mere knee-jerk Rushian bloviating. Come on, speak up.
9. Every armed US citizen is a law-abiding citizen up until that moment he (and it’s almost always a he) finally snaps and pulls his handy piece and begins shooting up a freeway in Dallas (as was done today by an otherwise law-abiding citizen). Again, they’d be a lot less lethal without a gun, and there’s very little that separates them from any other gun owner.
Frankly, I am tired of Mexico being our neighbor. They are doing all they can to undermine our country. I have no sympathy at all for the country. They have a lousy , corrupt government that keeps their people in poverty. If I had my way there would be a 50 foot high impenetrable fence keeping anyone from crossing either direction. The illegal aliens here would be deported and the people helping them stay in the US by giving them jobs would also be deported. It is time for america to take care of americans and let Mexico do the same
A good number of arguments over gun laws simply ignore facts. Some of them are summarized in today’s New York Times: “For years, the gun lobby has defeated new control laws partly by arguing that stronger laws do not deter crime. A study prepared by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a bipartisan group headed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York and Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston should finally put that myth to rest. The study analyzed trace data for guns used in connection with crimes during 2007. The data reveal a strong correlation between weak state gun laws and higher rates of in-state murders, police slayings and sales of guns used in crimes in other states.
See rest at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/opinio n/23tue2.html
“7. While we’re on the subject of supply and demand, why is it the GOP is always big on the supply side of economic issues but never takes limiting the demand side, whether it be for drugs or oil or anything else for that matter? Within the US the only things we truly can control are what happens within our borders, in this case the demand for drugs; saying other countries should limit their supplies is unrealistic, patronizing and chauvinistic as well.”
I would say that the GOP is doing a very good job of “trying” to curb demand. The US has the largest Prison population per capita is the world and growing. It is creating the largest sub culture this country has ever witnessed by releasing over a million well indoctrinated and disenfranchised ex-cons each year. Sorry but, this argument is false. We need to Not dismiss the fact that legalization of Marijuana and Cocaine will deprive these cartels of their financing and shut them down. As long as the US maintains these black markets Mexico and many, many other countries south of the boarder will suffer this fate and we will suffer as law enforcement destroys lives and families and a gang culture proliferates our society.
As for the Gun arguments…I believe that a Free society has inherent risks. As those risks diminish so does individual freedom. In our society the police cannot protect the citizenry nor is it their responsibility. This has been established by the courts in various decisions. It is up to the individual to protect themselves. Given this, I want the best protection I can afford. I carry a Safari Arms Enforcer in .45 ACP. I would feel safer if more people did the same. It’s called Backup. I hope I never have a need for it. However, I would feel worse if the need arose and I didn’t have it. You too can live in a free society. You just have to understand a free society is not utopia.
As for P R’s statment: The illegal aliens here would be deported and the people helping them stay in the US by giving them jobs would also be deported. It is time for america to take care of americans and let Mexico do the same.
Ok, let’s do this:
Anyone whose ancestor snuck into the USA within the last 150 years, illegally, heads back to Europe, Asia etc.
Pack you bags!
To B. Free: You are right on the money. Years ago at 2:00 AM our house alarm sounded. I grabbed a pistol that I had in a closet, while my wife phoned police. As I descended our stairs, pistol at ready, I felt that at least I had a chance of saving our lives if an intruder attacked us. It turned out that one of the sensors fell from a door, tripping the alarm. But from that point on, I have had a pistol by our bed. If it’s my or my wife’s lives at risk, vs. a person who entered our house- it’s HIS life that goes.
So,
Out of the 2500 who died, how many were involved in the drug trade? Im not feeling to sympathetic towards the criminal element, If they want to kill each other off who am I to care or try to prevent it?
The Mexican government is crying foul because of the weapons being brought over from the US?.. this coming from a government who openly supports the invasion of the continued illegal migration north by it’s citizens, undermining our laws and our sovereignty? I’m not feeling all warm and fuzzy, nor am I going to support stricter gun laws for US citizens, Because mexico is unwilling or unable to curb their corrupt police force.
And Jimbo you are an idiot, cars are more lethal then guns, should we take your license to drive away because you might snap and go on a road rage spree? you would be much less lethal without a driver license wouldn’t you?
So…. outlaw guns and they will use Molotov cocktails instead. And you solved what problem again?
Violence, gang warfare, all that jazz – was around long before the advent of the gun and will continue on; guns or no guns.
Sometimes, it can be even more dangerous if you force them to innovate.
“Poor Mexico–so far from God and so close to the United States”.
(”!Pobre Mexico–tan lejos de Dios, y tan cercita a Los Estados Unidos!”).
Truer words were never spoken.
Yep g Anton, that’s why poor Mexicanos are risking life and limb to come to the evil US- brilliant analogy!
SRK,
The Europeans you allude to immigrated legally. Nice try though.
what does our gun rights have to do with criminal actions in mexico?
The logical solution to this would be to take away the source of the money that buys the guns, in this case it is the very same thing that they are used for.
oh wait, drug law and logic, sorry got crazy for a second.
our drug policy, which we insist on imposing on the world, has caused an epidemic of crime that has lasted decades, just like prohibition and gangland, but on a global scale. millions have died for our pseudo-morality.
nothing new under the sun i suppose.
“Frankly, I am tired of Mexico being our neighbor. They are doing all they can to undermine our country. I have no sympathy at all for the country. They have a lousy , corrupt government that keeps their people in poverty.”
-P.R.-
thats us, and we do it to ourselves too.
Are you serious ?
American guns are not the issue here. Lack of non-corrupt authority
within Mexico is probably a better culprit. Start looking at the folks
wielding those weapons and you’ll have a better understanding of the
problem.
As an example, I personally own a pair of AR-15′s AND a .50 caliber
rifle. None of them have ever killed anything other than the ten ring
of a paper target. . . .
Gun control activists crack me up. They think that simply banning the
firearm will simply make the problem go away. Mexico already HAS firearm
bans in place. Sure solved their gun problem didn’t it ?
Expecting the US to implement stricter laws because Mexico can’t
enforce the ones they have is laughable.
While Mr. Mora might think it absurd that Americans can purchase
a wide range of firearms, I regard his line of thought to be equally
flawed as any who blame guns, instead of people, for their problems.
Perhaps if Mexico put more effort into border control instead of
expecting the rest of the world to cater to them they would
actually see some results. . . .
Just a thought.
Wow. Stupidity abounds from clueless people who think they could run the world better than everyone else.
“Gun control” is favored by people who won’t take responsibility for their actions and need somewhere to place blame.
Fact of the matter is this: outlaw guns and criminal will use…GUNS! They don’t obey laws…look how well outlawing drugs is stopping them from being used! And if you destroy all the guns? The criminals will turn to…GUNS! They are a thousand-year-old low tech machine that anyone can make.
And thank God criminals have guns, because the easier and more efficient choice over a gun would be a bomb, and I doubt the drug dealers care about collateral damage.
What a problem. Maybe its time we buy Mexico, you know as a bailout. That way our drugs won’t have to go through a middle man on the way up from central america.
Yet another left win, bed wetting liberal. Guns and gund….and poor mexicans….oh, my heart is bleeding. Those guns are going off on their own ! what a moron…and by the way, if they are using weapons they might as well be ours.
This would be an intriguing article if its point were to hold the USA responsible for contributing to the deaths and maimings of individuals and families on both sides of the border by its multi-billion dollar illict investments in addictive drugs. Instead, we have a pseudo-factoid article slamming guns instead of criminals.
Guns don’t shoot themselves. Global oligarchs find a myriad of ways to bump people off that get in their way. The Russians seem to prefer poison. WE need to cease enculturating and enabling the black market crime culture.
Sadly, the worse the mainstream economy gets, the more our addictive and exploitive drugs profiteering, human sex trade, and gambling and cyber crime will pick up the desperate people seeking to survive.
As that occurs the criminal culture will expand. I am a single 56 year old female human service professional who was mugged in my former New York City apartment , stabbed in the neck by a 6 ft 2 teenager high on crack and then when i wrestled the knife from him (with the help of my guardian angels) choked until i passed out. I cheerfully pack a pistol and ride out in the woods on my horse with a rifle and next year i’ll have shotgun. I live in a rural area where the sheriff is an hour or more away, and where there is a huge number of disenfranchised people lving on illicit sales of highly adictive prescription drugs like Oxycontin and methamphetamines.
Please stop your gated community out of touch ivory tower rants about our rights to self protection, because the problem is not the gun, but our violence drenched media , families and social culture.
I will help anyone i can to kick drugs and have a decent life. But their rights to harm me or my critters stop at my property line.
I have read more responses and wish to write agin. SOme of the reasoning that i see here is dubious.
Being a police officer (Armed) or City social worker (unarmed) are similarly stressful jobs. Child protective workers often arrive at practically the same time as officers to crime scenes and have to cope with the same upset people during dangerous domestic disturbances.
Yet the social workers are far more at risk BECAUSE they are unarmed and vulnerable.
ANd, despite the notion that anyone carrying a gun is likely to go postal and start shootinfg someone up, cops are a great barometer for that and they have a lower not a higher risk than unarmed people for committing gun crimes.
Violence is endemic to our csociety becasue we saturate our nation in it from daewn t dusk on tv news, crime shows, music boxes, and vile video games that desensitize people and dissacociate them from empathy/. Violence is ubuquitous because we have an epidemic of family violence in our midst both spousal and child assault.
Violence is epidemic in Mexico because we have enabled cultures there that spawn a feeding frenzy for desperate poor to escape their poverty by becoming oligarchs through sales of drugs.
What is remarkable, is that after our nation exported exploitive sex, addictive drugs, and other hedoistic habits to Mexico, that so many decent people maintain better standards than many in our country.
I remember CANCUN when Americans introduced cocaine and acting out sexual behaviors that victimized the young, and destroyed the virginal culture; we brought ion rampant decadence along with the hotels and then blame the victims.
What we as a nation have spawned in El Salvador is unconscionable.
It is not our precious second amendment rights that are creating the problem with violence. It is our society’s unbridled licentiousness, addictions as a social virus enabled by carpetbaggers who profit from crime, and the inability of the working class to live with human dignity in our culture that is causing rage, criminal complicity for a living wage, and attendent violence.
Mexico should guard its borders, but this assumes that the Mexican police and military are not corrupt. The problem is not new. In 1916, the Mexican revolutionary General Pancho Villa attacked Columbus, New Mexico to retaliate for an unsatisfactory arms deal. The US sent military forces into Mexico in pursuit of Villa and his army. The US army never found Villa because he was protected by the Mexican people as a popular hero. The current generation of Mexican drug dealers are cultural descendants of a very old tradition of corruption and violence. It is absolutely crucial that Americans hold Mexico’s government responsible for violence in their own country.
Mexico should have better border controls and real leaders, americans should not use such a big amount of drugs, american government should control drug traficking and the world would be better, thats why the only solution to many of these problems is drug legalisation, just as weapons are legal, don’t you think??
Drug legalisation is the only way to avoid big mafias with lots of money to bribe mexican and american officials which allow drugs to travel thousands of miles between the border and say Bronx, where they are sold at 100 times its original price, don’t you think??
Why to oppose legalisation if all other control methods have failed?? Is this failure a coincidence or is there some economic interests on it??
The US is a bad, bad country! Mexico, after all has done wonders with the millions of dollars we have given them and continue to give them. Mexico has been the most responsible country on the planet, and in no way can be held accountable for the evil deeds in their country. What we really ought to do is make it illegal for US citizens to have guns, so no violence would occur. This will make the criminal Mexican element more passive so the killing of mexicans and US citizens will stop immediately.
The US is to Mexico as Georgia is to New York. The criminals in New York get their guns from places with lax gun laws, like Georgia. The criminals in Mexico get their guns from countries having states with lax gun laws, like Georgia in the US. And a majority of those 2500 Mexicans killed last year were not narcos, they were Mexican police, soldiers, and ordinary civilians terrorized by Mexican narcos carrying US source firearms.
Until the US legalizes drugs and makes the dangerous ones prescription drugs there will be no end to the corruption and killing. The government should cultivate coca and completely kill the price.
Keeping drugs illegal feeds the cartels and corrupts so many people, including officials in the US Government.
We could abolish the $20bill DEA and use the money on healthcare and rehabilitation.
No one will stop taking drugs just because the Government says they are illegal. Did prohibition work in the 30s?
Once everything is legal then the Government can actually see the problem and take steps to remedy it. Now it is all in the shadows and they don’t know the extent of the problem!
Talking about the pervasive influence of drugs, guns and money in Mexico, turns out even beauty queens get involved. “The career of an international beauty queen may have come to an abrupt end on Tuesday when the police announced that she had been arrested in suburban Guadalajara in a Toyota Cruiser stuffed with guns and cash…”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/world/ americas/24briefs-GUNSCASHANDA_BRF.html? scp=1&sq=MEXICO:%20Guns,%20cash%20and%20 a%20tiara&st=cse
Mom and Dad: jail your kid and help stop the demand for illegal drugs.
Oh, that’s right, your precious child never does any wrong, do they?
What we have here is pure & simple communism! Another member of the media misstating the facts and not doing their homework or intentionally lying to support their new liberal leftist leader God bless him. Gun Shows at least in Florida (where many brilliantly conceived concealed weapons laws originated)do require background checks, waiting periods & are staffed with plenty of law enforcement. Maybe Comrade Debusmann could take time off his busy schedule producing propaganda for the new United Socialist States of America and visit a gun show in Fla. & watch the thousands of its citizens lawfully arm themselves as our BRILLIANT Constitution permits & was miraculously reaffirmed recently. Imagine Mr. Debusmann if Mexico’s gun laws mirrored ours & the citizenry was well armed! How many thousands of cartel members would have been killed in self defense? Let the cartels try that in Florida where 50% of all drivers on the road this second right now today is armed & ready to defend their lives, their family, & their country!!!! KNOW our Founding Fathers included the right to bear arms not just to protect ourselves from criminal intent but mostly from our Government should it fail for example like Mexico’s or become something unintended like ours is trying to become not protecting our “guns & religious beliefs” & other “God given rights”. God bless you Mr. Debusmann, Merry Christmas & Happy Hanuka! God bless the United States of America!!!!
Gun control should be absolute. Implement a buy-back scheme. This does work. You may have to go through the process more than once, but it will eventually work. Once the government have obtained the guns, destroy them all.
Only allow military (in o/s combat, police, limited registered & licenced security guards(or give them tazers), and shooting clubs. All guns including police guns should be registered, and none should be kept by individuals other than the ones mentioned above. All hand gund and semi-automatics should be outlawed except for police and active military. Simultaneously a moratorium should be put in place, which progressively moves into stricter & tigher laws for possesion, with penalties for possesion increasing over time (Plenty of warning and advertising should be done promoting this alng the way. These laws should coincide with stricter and tighter laws for drug importation with death for any dealer or importer as the goal. Don’t waste time and money filling gaols. Zero tolerance is the only way.
‘Tolerance’ of anything and everything is America’s disease which has claimed morality along the way. ‘Tolerance’ of bad behaviour is what is costing lives to the drug trade. It’s quite simple really. If you don’t tolerate your family bringing drugs into your own home, they won’t right? Therefore if you don’t tolerate the community (Americas family) bringing drugs into your country (Americas home)then they won’t.
There are many countries in the world that have strict policies like this. They aren’t completely drug free, but they have a hell of a lot less to deal with.
The next generation will then have a moral guide for the one after that, but if you teach nothing they learn nothing. Guns are no different to drugs, they are both destructive and should not be allowed in your home.
If people argue that they need protection, well then just beef up your police & military. A combination of decrease of guns, and increase in policing will have an immediate positive impact.
I love how these reporters, like Debusmann here, show how amazingly stupid they are every time they pick up a pen or start typing. First he cries like a little girl about how horrible it is that we don’t have more gun laws in this country to prevent this mexican tragedy.
Then, he sites laws that would stop this problem in the first place if they were simply enforced. That’s the problem, moron. Only law-abiding citizens are worried about laws such as the “straw-man” purchase laws, and every other gun-law I might add. Criminals aren’t worried, because they know that we don’t have enough cops to enforce such laws, because law-enforcement isn’t a very attractive occupation, because left-wing moron reporters cry everytime a cop tries to enforce our laws.
Come to Kennesaw Georgia, where every third person owns a gun and our murder rate is close to nothing. Then bitch to me about gun laws.
BTW, you idiots have had your butts handed to you in this debate every time. You guys always decide to reignite this debate only after some time has passed and the general public has forgotten all of the facts that made you look stupid in the first place.
Brad, I’m assuming your screed was facetious in nature. Nice parody- it made me laugh. Seriously people, get real. The only way to cut down on this is to legalize drugs. You can restrict guns all you want but what’s truly fueling the violence is the tremendous amounts of money involved. If the money is still there, believe me, the narcos will get the guns anyway.
The war on drugs is failing, just as did prohibition, and needs to be abandoned. Substitute treatment and counseling for prison sentences. The hard core addicts will of course always find something, most likely provided “legally” by Big Pharma. Absent the huge profits to be made in illicit drugs, the cartels will fail. Guns simply make the present mess worse: they are not at the core of this problem.
All you have to do is consider the source of this article to know where this freedom-hater is coming from. Mr. Debusmann is a well established opponent of the U.S. Constitution and continues to get a platform from the extremely liberal leaning Reuters.
See http://waronguns.blogspot.com/2008/01/be rnd-again.html for more information on this German socialist.
A slightly different thread, but I doubt it’s possible to rid the US of guns. At least, not within the foreseeable future. A buy-back program, or an outright ban, would be unenforceable even if they could be passed, which is improbable given our history and present society. Comparisons between the US and those countries where guns are very closely controlled need to be very carefully laid out. Present indications are that the US would not at present accept such controls, whereas folk in other places might not even notice. Better to concentrate on the sources for violence in our ailing society, rather than messing with a symptom.
Bernd Debusmann has written some excellent, productive words regarding the war on drugs — but, alas, the armaments entering Mexico could just as easily enter from Mozambique, Angola, Brazil … whether of American or European or former East Bloc make. Secondly, Assault Rifles are already banned in the United States — all legal firearms must be registered with the Federal Government with the $200 Tas Stamp or they cannot be sold! (Only fully Automatic weapons are Assault Weapons, and semi-automatic weapons are not readily made into automatic ones, as any genuine arms expert will testify, including Chiefs of Police and experienced Gunsmiths.)
Somebody has been feeding wrong information here, or somebody is simply disregarding false information for the sake of disarming the lawful citizen of his right to self-defence — like Mexico, where only the criminals readily possess guns!
Bernd Debusmann has written some excellent, productive words regarding the war on drugs — but, alas, the armaments entering Mexico could just as easily enter from Mozambique, Angola, Brazil … whether of American or European or former East Bloc make. Secondly, Assault Rifles are already banned in the United States — all legal [fully] automatic [machine gun] firearms must be registered with the Federal Government with the $200 Tax Stamp & finger-printed record cards or they cannot be sold! (Only fully Automatic weapons are Assault Weapons, and semi-automatic weapons are not readily made into automatic ones, as any genuine arms expert will testify, including Chiefs of Police and experienced Gunsmiths.) Mexican Police & Military possess fully automatic, machine-guns Assault Weapons — and these guns being legally bought in the USA are not machine [fully automatic Assault rifle] guns! Legal American guns sold are the one-bullet-at-a-time variety, whereas the Mexican authorities possess fully automatic Assault Guns, i.e. “Machine Guns”.
Somebody has been feeding wrong information here, or somebody is simply disregarding false information for the sake of disarming the lawful citizen of his right to self-defence — like Mexico, where only the criminals readily possess guns!
As usual, there are the bleeding hearts believing that guns kill people. 5,000 deaths in Mexico? How about the 40,000 deaths in the U.S. each year due to car accidents? Do you think cars kill people? Why not ban them? The root cause of the Mexico deaths is the U.S. war on drugs – the government outlawing certain personal freedoms. So you want to eliminate the war on drugs’ collateral damage of drug cartel murders by placing more limitations on personal freedoms in taking our guns away? Wrong. End the war on drugs, just as we ended prohibition. I’m not sure you bleeding hearts understand that your solutions lead down the path to collectivism, with no personal freedoms whatsoever. You’re unwitting tools of government oppression, not the saviors that you think you are.
Surely if US guns are a problem there must be some statistical data to prove this? Not some anti gun lefty anecdotes, but cold hard statistics.
Out of all guns ceased from gangs in Mexico how many came from.
1) US
2) Mexican police
3) Mexican army
4) Central America
The Mexican police is corrupt and penetrated by gangs, the mexican army is corrupt and infiltrated by gangs. Did it ever occur to the author that both the police and the army have access to firearms and grenades in quantities unseen in the US civilian market. And I bet they are more then willing to sell their small arms. That is the case in many other crime ridden failed sates. Like Russia and Argentina. The cops and the army are the primary source of arms for organized crime, in those countries. Why would it be different in Mexico. After all during a large scale anti drug operation in Tijuana, the mexican military had to disarm the local police, in order to prevent the flow of arms and ammo to the gangs they were trying to bust!!! And that is a documented fact!!! Unlike the BS that is in this article.
This article looks like a bogus piece of trash anti gun smear, with absolutely no real data in it.
Wow! You mean that pourous border with Mexico isn’t a one way street?
Here’s a thought from a California Deputy Sheriff:
Secure the border and we will keep our guns here and the Mexicans can keep the illegal aliens over there!
Sounds like a WIN/WIN for everybody…
I find it troubling that no one wants to talk about the porous border and the influx of illegal aliens going North, who bring crime, drugs and disease with them.
85% of the outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles County are for illegal aliens.
93% of the tuberculosis cases in the L.A. County jail are… you got it, illegal aliens..
Control BOTH sides of the border..
I find it even more disturbing that Reuters feels these statements need “moderating” and then don’t post them.
So much for reputable reporting of the facts.
Interesting. Notice that Mexico HAS the guns laws the author thinks the USA should have. And with what result? If the USA has the ‘bad, weak’ gun laws, and Mexico the ‘good, strong’ gun laws, why isn’t Mexico like the USA and vice versa? AK-47s are not made in the USA, and the only source of automatic AR-15s and AK-47s is the Mexican Army and Police.
The first time I went to South Texas, I was surprised that so much of the population is Hispanic, including the elected officials. So, the difference between Mexico and the USA is NOT ethnic. It’s our economic and political system. Mexico was founded by Spain, which was an absolute monarchy. The American colonies were founded by British, where the monarch ceased to be absolute in 1215, and the colonies established local democracies. Mexico has more natural wealth than the USA, but it’s people are poor and sneak into the USA to do manual labor, because their government and economy are failures.
Statistics for the UK (population 60 million) on gun crime:
There were 10,182 firearms offences in the year to the end of September, 2007, compared with 9,755 in the previous 12 months. The average figures for gun crime for the UK is about 10,000 per year.
The population of the USA is about 300 million. Do we find gun crime in the USA to be 5 times that of the UK?
The population of Mexico is about 109 million. Do we find gun related crime in Mexico to be about 1.8 to 2 times that of the UK – 18,000 – 20,000 crimes per year?
Perhaps someone can furnish us with the statistics on gun related crimes for the USA and Mexico – just so we can compare?