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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Decades ago when the U.S. Government wanted help from Mexico concerning drug smuggling, the Mexican Government said it was an American problem and not a Mexican problem.
Well, now that the drug traffickers are buying weapons in the U.S. and using them in Mexico, the shoe is on the other foot, huh?
This is a Mexican problem.
The key to the problem is not American guns in Mexico – it’s SMUGGLED guns in Mexico. The drug cartels will get guns from somewhere – smuggling is what they do for a living.
If the US-Mexican border could be sanitized and the flow of guns south from the US were cut off completely, that leaves millions of weapons left over from the Sandinista-Contra violence in Nicaragua, as well as various civil wars elsewhere in Central America and the thriving arms trade in the tri-border area between Colombia, Venezuela and Paraguay.
All of these areas are logical places for importation of cheap fully-automatic weapons from China, North Korea and other firearm proliferator states. Most of the guns used in drug violence in Mexico aren’t even FROM the United States – they’re imported from China through various other countries. Ever since Hutchison Whampoa and other Chinese port management companies assumed control over the ports of entry around the Panama Canal, this has left Central America wide open for importation of illegal firearms, brand-new from the factories of north China.
The population of the USA is about 5 times that of the UK, yet annual gun crime figures are 50 times those of the UK (10,000 compared to approx. 500,000).
Tolerance versus intolerance: the statistics speak for themselves.
In Mexico, officially, guns are not allowed to be easily available. Unofficially, the laws are not strictly being enforced. Mexico and the USA have the same problem with respect to large numbers of guns being available out on the streets. In the UK this is not the case and gun crime in the UK by proportion is more than 10 times less. Mexico has to raise its efforts against drugs and the ownership of guns. Drugs are behind much of the crime – guns are the preferred weapon for crime. The ease of availability must be radically reduced.
Reference:
In 2005, 477,040 victims of violent crimes in the USA stated that they faced an offender with a firearm (National Crime Victimization Survey).
In 2004, 10,650 murders were committed with a firearm (FBI figures).
As to the view of many of those who commented that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens do no harm, what do you think of the Christmas Day killing of eight people by a man dressed in a Santa suit. All the reports I have seen indicate that he was a law-abiding, church-going, garden-tending citizen before he took his hand guns to a Christmas celebration. Would he have been able to kill as many people as quickly with a knife, a baseball bat, an axe?
Aren’t most, if not all, mass shootings carried out by Americans who were law-abiding until the moment they weren’t?
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me- santa-shooting26-2008dec26,0,6505439.sto ry
With regard to the article, I would like to point out that it is neither guns nor the fact that the guns are from the U.S. that is the real problem here (although I am an advocate of tighter gun control). The guns and where they get them is just a means to accomplish the crimes, which are the symptoms of the real problems: 1) Poverty; 2) A weak Mexican government; 3) Lack of adequate education; 3) The prevalent use of drugs in those countries where the drugs are trafficked (the U.S. being a major user); 4) Lack of adequate systems and support in the U.S. to decrease illegal drug use and trafficking. I could go on, but the point is that until the U.S. and Mexico begin addressing the root causes behind the murders by guns trafficked from the U.S., this problem will not go away.
Does anyone reading Debusmanns article actually believe that he is in any way pro 2nd amendment? Pro self defense? Logical in any way shape or form regarding the god given right of all people to defend themselves against anyone, anytime, anywhwere? I doubt it. In reading his story, it is blatantly obvious he hates guns and the people who own them. Take it a step further and it’s blatantly obvious he also hates individual freedom. Unless he of course it affects him personnally. Then all of a sudden you’ll hear him complain. What a phony fraud!
Mexico is 100% responsible for it’s drug/human smuggling problems and issues because the gov’t of Mexico is corrupt and has been long before the cartels existed. No gov’t can ever stop any profitable business. Anything desired by people will always be supplied by other people. Laws are nothing more than words on paper. Debussmann’s ability to be intellectually honest on this issue is non-existent. He is first, a fool. Second, a coward. Thirdly, a liar.
the article is pretty stupid-
I have actually been at the border over a dozen times- the drug gangs have machine guns- (AK, and M-16) which are severely regulated in the US. and typically start at about 18k and require months of waiting for ATF, and local Law Enforcement to sign off on….
when I see articles claiming the gangs are using Grenades and Machine Guns- such as this one from the uber-conservative LA Times, I have to conclude the auther to be a jackass.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/03/ world/fg-border3
Gee, I guess that eight-year old girl the law-abiding citizen in California shot in yesterday’s massacre had it coming since she wasn’t packing for self defense as the lead heads think should be the solution.
They may be made in other countries but their last stop before Mexico is usually a US gun shop or show. Freedom from fear was one of FDR’s Four Freedoms, and I fear whack jobs who just love their guns. Debusmann may be off on a number of details but on the overall concept I think he’s bang on: America has an unhealthy love affair with guns that causes more mayhem in the streets than it solves. If you want to own a gun, join the police or military where you’ll have the obligation to defend people and your country; stop using your personal insecurities as an excuse to be able to terrorize others at will.
For all the anti-gun people who seem to point to the UK as some sort of god-like state for banishing guns, you are missing the point.
Guns are not the problem. The criminals holding them are. You want statistics? Then stop padding things by saying gun crimes are so low in the UK. So what? Does that all of a sudden mean criminals have given up terrorizing people? Hardly. Two words for you:
Knife crimes.
Proof. http://www.insight-security.com/facts-kn ife-crime-stats.htm
At least 130,000 incidents last year alone. A knife will kill you just as surely as a gun will my friends. ANY weapon sufficiently and expertly used can kill. A gun might make it somewhat easier, but then again, it also makes it easier for someone to use to defend themselves. How do you really defend yourself against a bruiser of a guy with a combat-style knife if he is determined to kill you?
Workout much?
The focus shouldn’t be on an object (Guns) or even law abiding gun owners who have nothing to do with any of this whatsoever. It’s the criminals who are already breaking the laws by selling illicit drugs that are the problem. Guns aren’t free, they need to be purchased using money. That money comes from the sale of drugs and other illegal activities. Lets place the blame on the criminals and focus on why law enforcement is unable to enforce the laws already on the books (In both countries) than write even more laws that may only serve to criminalize millions of innocent, law abiding citizens and don’t do a thing to actually fix the root cause of the issue.
This strikes me as another pathetic attempt to disarm the law abiding population of the United States, or at least another attempt to put a nail in the coffin. I would always prefer to have gun crimes than to not have guns simply because the thought of the government confiscating our only means to resist is a true nightmare. I have been robbed at gunpoint, and the only thing running through my mind during the event was how badly I wished I was armed, not how much I regret that the perpetrator was able to easily acquire a gun.
Total ignorance is no substitute for research, even for a liberal. The stats presented in this article are fanciful at best and solely figments of the author’s limited imagination. Purchasing ANY firearm over the internet requires by STATE and FEDERAL law that it be transferred to a licensed FFL dealer who in turn runs the federal background check before the buyer is allowed to take possession of the weapon. Unfortunately, liberals never grow up. They’re opinions and views are lock step in line with what a second year college student believes. Too ignorant and smug to realize what they believe in is a lie.
The media can’t force the US government to take away our weapons so it again is trying to modify world opinion. I was really looking forward to reading this article by someone who appeared to have learned some common sense in the 50 plus years he has been alive…was I disappointed. No wonder the daily papers are broke. People won’t pay hard earned money to read this trash. I suggest the author head on across the border since it is so easy to cross. I also suggest that he take the illegal aliens with him. My taxes are killing me.
This guy is ill-informed or just another alarmist, anti-gun type. I challenge anyone to show me a crime in the USA in which a .50 Cal Barret sniper weapon was the gun used? Also it is VERY difficult and expensive to buy AK-47, M16, and other automatic weapons in the USA. Permits, background checks, waiting periods, and high prices. I’m sure the drug dealers and corrupt Mexican police go through less-than-legit sources for their full-auto needs.
Lastly does the author with the USA to become Mexico? Where only the corrupt police, violent drug-gangs, and sadistic murders have means to defend themselves? I hope not….
There are so many sources of weapons in Central America. It is absurb to only point the finger only at the USA. The Sandinista communists in Nicaragua have tons of surplus weapons and they are known for thir greed. The former FMLN communits terrorists in El Salvador would be a good source of weapons and I would be greatly surprised if they are not working for the drug cartels. Then there are the thousands of Arab terrorists living and training? in Mexico. How do you think the beheading of people got started in Mexico? Of course many of the weapons of the FMLN and the Sandinistas came from the USA, many from stupid communist sympathizers. Ciao wwterry
People kill people….and there hundreds of weapons/methods to choose from. Cain killed Abel with a rock, so let’s ban rocks.
To stop killing takes the conversion of people’s hearts, let’s count the ways we can do that.
I have read many U.S. gun laws. They are plenty stiff. And there are plenty of them. But, as long as we have ultra liberal judges who are willing to let ultra liberal district attorneys plead criminals out to lesser charges and into diversion and probation, no one will ever get the message that we are serious about controlling gun-related crime. Simple as that. Use a gun, go to jail for a long time. Use a gun and someone dies, so do you. That would help more than a thousand new gun laws.
If the guns are the problem, and the guns are from the United States. Why don’t we see these kind of murder numbers in the US.
I think the problem is the fact that the Mexican society is corrupt from the top down and has been that way for about a 100 years. The corruption in law enforcement and politics enables these narco terrorists to terrorize the Mexican populace. Many of these Cartel members are former Mexican military. Do you honestly think these people need to buy their guns here? I’d be willing to bet that they are stealing these fully automatic weapons from the Mexican Army because they sure as heck are not easy to buy here.
I know it’s the easiest and most politically correct thing to blame the U.S.A. first but try knowing what you’re writing about first.
Excuse me, but did this esteemed columnist suggest that we as citizens of the US curb or give up our rights so that the Mexican border police could continue with their siesta? Why are such smart people so incapable of simple observation?
I find comparing small countries with large countries to be misleading. Especially when within the US there are areas with differing gun laws and differing gun crime stats. My only question to those that like stats is why, in states like Vermont that have almost no gun laws on the books and where there you do not need a license to carry a gun, do you find the lowest gun crime per capita in this nation.
Maybe when criminals know that they could be surrounded by armed citizens they are more hesitant to use there gun? Maybe if more citizens were armed at that Christmas Eve shooting the psycho would have been less effective in his shooting spree. It is hard to have a shooting spree when the spree is directed back at you by the armed citizenry around you. Maybe the psycho may have not even attempted such stupidity if he knew he would have been quickly cut down. Of course he may have thought of an even better way of committing mass murder like a bomb. I am surprised he didn’t think of it and opted for a gun. Oh, right. He was a psycho. You can’t predict what a psycho will do or when he will do it.
Also, as this economic situation grows here in the US more crime will occur. Cime and economice are linked. I hope those that believe guns are “bad” do not fall victim to gun crime. Remember the Boy Scout motto: Always be prepared! This is your best defense because, when seconds count the police are minitues away.
Norm,
Where are the statistics on how many of the victims of gun crime were armed? The shear number of victims makes the case for armed self-defense. Thank you.
Its interesting to me that no matter what the problem the US is at fault, too many illegals and the US should build up the Mexican economy so they will stay, now the drug gangs run wild down there and its the US gun laws at fault. maybe the real reasons are a failed, corrupt and poorly run Mexican govt. typical third world country with oil
I lived in Tucson Arizona for four years or so…ending four years ago. I thought I would share a little of my experience there with you.
The Immigration Debate is very much discussed on the American side of the border by average Americans on a near daily basis. Of course the war on drugs..crime by illegals..job loss to illegals…border habitat destruction by crossers…Mexico`s culture of corruption and a host of other topics are regular parts of these discussions.
One thing that really stuck in my mind more than some others was the fact that teenageers in the town of Sierra Vista were being paid 200 dollars cash on their lunch hour, while at high school, to deliver McDonalds sandwiches to illegals hiding in an Arroyo waiting on darkness to fall so they could continue their journey north. After nightfall…these same teenagers would then make 1000-1500 more dollars to drive a carload of illegals to Phoenix…a 7 hour round trip.
I often wondered how these teenagers would ever be satisfied making 150 dollars a week cooking hamburgers in a McDonalds resturaunt like their classmates did. I mean what kind of values are these teens going to have?
The Mexican border towns have basically survived and thrived for the last 4 decades on servicing the drug and people and gun smuggling industries that naturally belong there…and the new Mexican War on these people is really starting to pile up the bodies.
The worldwide criminalization of personal drug consumption and the vast sums of untaxed revenue is the root cause of a huge percentage of the social…personal…and local and national law-enforcement issues.
I mean really..If I want to get “High”…all I have to do is make an appointment with my physician…tell the right lies…and get a perscription to give me the desired “High”….or I can go to the “bad part of town”…and get similar or identical items from drug dealers and or addicts..No difference really…except the side effects and long term health issues of the perscriptions might be more dangerous to my overall health and well being….and the obvious risk of incarceration and public humiliation are worse when dealing with criminals dealing drugs.
This might be the biggest delimma facing the governments and peoples of the world..even bigger then the threat of Islamic Militants and Nuclear Bombs.
The seemingly real need for a certian percentage of the population of the world to self administer drugs or alcohol on a daily basis, and the seemingly real need for another percentage of the population to dictate certian religous belief systems upon the rest of the people left in the middle…
I guess these two groups of people…who might be considered as one group…will keep you journalist busy forever!!!
Dan
Oklahoma, U.S.A.
Ah yes, the usual biased platitudes and falsity.
The Fn5.7 “Cop Killer” for example. The armor-piercing version is not available to the public. What you get in the US, if you are not police or military, is a version of that cartridge that is nothing like the type intended for use in the FNP90 and the 5-7 Pistol.
Mexican drug cartels will get their guns any way they want. Not all guns on the shelf in the US are actually produced there. So there is no proof that the guns come direct from the north. The article even uses “not sure” on that statistic.
But certainly people are always sure about things when it comes to the disarmament agenda. Nobody is sure how many innocent Iraqis were killed since 2003, but the occupation continues. Nobody is sure how many Afgans outside of any relation to Al Queda were killed by US forces, yet that war continues. Nobody is sure how many lives are destroyed by the garbage that Hollywood pipes into peoples’ homes, but that continues. Nobody is sure how much all that “humanitarian” aid and nation-building money actually harms more than helps, but yet those things continue too.
Yet guns were around long before all those “modern norms” came about, long before 100 years of social engineering by the so-called “progressives”.
And that same old argument is alluded to: because there was no AR-15 219 years ago when the Second Amendment was written, then perhaps it’s wrong or should be re-written? Well then, there was no radio or television, or internet either, back when the First Amendment was written. I can hear the arguement “But….but…. *snivel* guns kill people!”
Yeah, and Hitler used radio and films to achieve his ends and his regime killed a lot of people too. Stalin had the same ends. Consider also these these were regimes that people thought were protecting them, that approx. 100 million people murdered by their own governments in the 20th century is still not enough to make people distrust any government that wants to disarm them.
But based on the logic, the TV, radio, and internet, not existing 219 years ago, needs to be regulated quick! Before another Hitler or Stalin gets hold of it!
And in the meantime, cars that are designed to break the speed limit should also be banned. Based on the logic that “guns are only for killing people”, a car with a lot of power is only for going beyond the posted limit. I bring this up because there are a lot of people who will not care a whit about liberty so long as their precious sports car is not touched. And certainly this could be the case because the car is a great toy for the adult-sized children who fall for the shallow logic of this article.
Just once I would like to see an article on criminal weapons that correctly identifies those guns and does not use the propaganda phrase “AK-47.” You can’t purchase a real AK-47 at gun shows or from a pricate individual or at a gun shop without paying a federal tax and getting registered with the ATF. What you can buy is a Chinese Type 56 semi-automatic rifle that looks pretty much like an AK-47. Is this what was meant? Are rifles really used all that much in crime? Are no other countries likely sources for criminal weapons than the US? Cuba was, at one time, pretty free with weapons shipments to anyone who could claim to be a revolutionary. Nicaragua and El Salvador have a surplus of guns.
Articles like this one, full of ignorant comments about guns, don’t help us understand what is happening. The gun does not make the criminal. The criminal seeks the gun, not the other way around. Other weapons will work if one source of guns is closed down.
“lax American gun laws”
Puh-lease…!!! My family ranched in Mexico (Durango) for 25 years. It’s not lax American gun laws causing Mexico’s problems, IT’S MEXICANS!!!!
CORRUPTION is your problem, not American gun laws. Mexico has no real legal system, so the only recourse a person has in many instances is taking the law into their own hands…and the cr*p ball just starts rolling downhill from there! Mexican politicians and law enforcement officials are BOUGHT AND PAID-FOR by the cartels.
Mr. Debusmann appears to have no experience in the reality of Mexican society or he wouldn’t make such utterly inane statements.
Hahahhaa….Mexico blamming the US for it’s problems. That is rich. Oh okay. Aren’t MILLIONS of them here illegally?
Moreover, I’m pretty sure that Mexico – being the bastion of laws and regulations that it is – gets all of its drugs from the US too right? Oh wait, no it doesn’t.
If they didn’t get them from us, they’d get them from their other border on the south. There’s a reason it’s a third world crap hole, and why everyone there is trying to tunnel into the US.
I wonder if the uninformed author has a problem with the Mexican military engaging our Border Patrol people ON US soil? How about their acting on behalf of drug dealers smuggling their wares into our country?
“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.”
That is just flat out untrue. Such a basic and easily confirmable fact being wrong, indicates to me a profound ignorance of the subject.
Notice Debusmann’s dismissive tone toward the Second Amendment, implying that it’s an anachronistic relic : ”… 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”.
Of course he misses the irony that the Second Amendment was written simultaneously with the First Amendment. Liberals tend to worship the First Amendment while distaining the Second Amendment, as if the Constitution were a buffet, where you can pick out what you like and discard the rest. They have depended on activist judges to distort and re-write the Constitution to their liking for so long, that they were outraged that the Supreme Court’s recent interpretation of the Second Amendment actually relied on the original intent of the people who wrote it.
While U.S. guns and gun laws are not the root cause of the problem, the cause of ILLEGAL drug trade related violence in Mexico (as opposed to LEGAL and morally justified self defense by innocent citizens defending themselves against criminals, a distinction which Debusmann and 99% of other anti-gun “journalists conveniently gloss over when citing statistics about gun deaths) is certainly related to some very ill considered U.S. laws–those prohibiting the drugs whose illicit traffic provides the revenue that fuels the drug cartel’s market share and distribution territory centered violence. The violence surrounding the drug trade is a direct result of its illegality which prevents businesses from increasing their market share and marketing their product through other channels. Think about it–when was the last time you read about a shoot out between Pfizer and Merck executives?
To the extent someone wants to blame firearms they should look no further than corrupt mexican police and military sources. Debusmann’s silence regarding this other likely source of arms is a telling indicator that his goal is to vilify U.S. gun laws, not to thoughtfully delve into this issue.
Since a number of comments focussed on the legalization of drugs as the best way to end the violence and the traffic of drugs north, guns south, here is a column suggesting just that:
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/20 08/12/03/einstein-insanity-and-the-war-o n-drugs/
If the importation of guns into Mexico completely and perfectly stopped instantly, right now, the rate of murder by Mexican criminals would not slow at all, ever. Guns are durable, not consumable.
If you Mexican politicians want to stop crime, end your corruption and do the job you are paid to do. If you socialist reporters want to escape personal gun freedom, move to Mexico (or Europe, or Africa). NO JUSTICE / NO PEACE>
guns and borders? kidnapping and killings?
it all distills back to the problematic drug war
cant we just all chew some coca and get along.
it is America’s fault for promulgating such a knowingly un-winnable notion.
I much rather deal with a few more homeless drug addicts then infinite chicanery.
Every time I see a “news” video on this story, said American-puchased guns include machine guns, fragmentation grenades, and other items not legally sold in the U.S…. Hey Mexico, cry me a river.
This is pure propaganda. It is a meme that the anti-gun left has been trying for the last year or so.
Refuting the “facts” in this piece is easy as there are no facts, only carefully crafted talking points.
Mexico needs more guns! It has one of the most corrupt governments in the world. It desperately needs its own 2nd Amendment to insure that ALL of its people are protected.
This guy’s distains for our constitution show’s loud and clear with his statement that our constitution was written 219 years ago, ( Like because it’s that old it shouldn’t be taken seriously.) and does guarantee an individual’s right “to keep and bear arms” .
He’s just another liberal that thinks if there were no guns there would be peace and harmony and everyone would love one another and we would all hold hands and sing we are the world.
Liberals, they have the naivety of 4-year-olds.
What is the problem. Let them blow each other away.
It is a wake up call to the Mexican government (an oxymoron if there ever was one).
Just maybe mexican citizens will finally take action against the criminals who have been running (raping) the country for decades.
Nay!! That’s like expecting Illinois citizens to vote the Democratic criminals who have been bleeding Illinois taxpayers for decades, out of office. Never happen.
The US gov’t should get into the drug production business. We could produce a high quality, high purity product at a fraction of the current cost to the user.
We could contract with other countries to produce the raw material e.g. cocoa leaves or poppies, ship them to plants in the US for processing and distribution under highly regulated conditions.
Laws concerning there usage would stay about the same e.g. no driving, or in the workplace, and around equipment, etc but recreational use would be decriminalized. Sure there would be some abuse but compared to the current chaos it would be minimal.
The problem would be what do we do with all the people involved in the drug trade when they lose their jobs.
surprise surprise surprise we get an anti gun sociolist ready to take orfice an all the anti gun sociolist come out of the wood work an write why we need more laws against guns
maybe you sociolst need to look at history an see thats how hitler took office
maybe you need to spend more time looking at the ponzi scheme you call sociol secruity
do your job an write
Are you kidding? If the availability of American guns were the problem, then the massive spike in violence would be in America, not in Mexico.
This article suggests that we are somehow able to export massive death rates to a neighboring country, without having that same issue here. If these guns are being sold and distributed, by legal US citizens, to criminals, how do we guarantee that the bad guys will only use them in Mexico and not in America.
Perhaps the bad guys promise to do so and ‘crossies’ don’t count.
Remember, ‘Liberals is dumb’
Let’s get to the nut of the issue. Debusmann does not know what he is talking about. That is undeniably clear. But his editorials are published anyway.
Reuters pays him to express his opinions and distributes them. But hides behind a disclaimer “his opinions are his own”. Reuter’s completely absolve themselves of responsibility to do any fact checking and will therefore publish lies, half truths, misleading statistics, etc without the slightest twinge of ethical conscience.
No that isn’t it at all, Reuter’s knows this editorial is grossly inaccurate. The reality is that this IS THERE POSITION. No ethical, professional publication would print such error filled drivel unless it was completely in accord with the stated position. Folks, the problem isn’t the writer, jerks like him will always be around. It’s the publisher who disseminates the propaganda. The behind the scenes instigator of the myths and falsifications. I almost never read an editorial published in Reuter’s. This one is a good example supporting my decision. It will be a long time before I make the same mistake.
So Mexico can’t close it’s northern border. Sounds like the author feel that it maybe should be close by the U.S.?
Mr. Debusmann,
How much research did you do before writing your article? I read it 3 times and came to the conclusion each time that it wasn’t very much. Our “lax american gun laws” as you put it is anything but. I suggest you look up 22USC2778-ARMS EXPORT CONTROL ACT & 22CFR120-130 INTERNATIONAL TRAFFIC IN ARMS REGULATIONS via the website http://www.pmddtc.state.gov as it covers those very firearms you are talking about.
To permanently export a firearm (other than a sporting shotgun which falls under the jurisdiction of the Dept of Commerce-Bureau of Industry & Security) you first need to register with the Dept of State-Directorate of Defense Trade Controls as an exporter/manufacturer/etc. After that you must apply for a DSP05-Permanent Export License for those item(s) which you will have to show an import permit from the country it is going to.
After this the exporter (or their designated agent) must lodge the DSP05 license with US Customs & Border Protection prior to filing AES (Automated Export System) http://www.aes.gov and must get a “green light” so to speak to export said firearms & related equipment/accessories.
US Customs & Border Protection (www.cbp.gov) under “Operation EXODUS” and Immigration & Customs Enforcement (www.ice.gov) under “Project SHIELD AMERICA” enforce both the AECA & the ITAR. BATFE does require that a ATF Form 9 be used if the exporter wishes to have the transfer tax waived.
As you can see I have taken the time to do a little research from internet based websites so I accept no excuses that you did not do the same. I highly suggest you do more research before showing your ignorance to the world on US gun laws and regulations, especially those that apply to the permanent export of same.
CT Smith’s response to the statistics I gave on page 6 comparing gun crime between the USA and the UK needs addressing. The figure for knife crime in the UK as recorded by police is about 22,000 (2008). The figure that was used to suggest knife crime is high in the UK was arrived at by a survey that ‘questioned’ only 47,000 people and multiplied the result by 1,200 to suggest a figure for the nation. (The likelihood of exaggeration by such a method is of course very high.) The statistics I gave are based upon officially recorded incidents.
Based upon official figures, gun crime is the US is 10 times that of the UK (that is ‘per capita’). In the UK, hospital treatment to victims of assault with a sharp object was recorded as 5,455 in 2006-07 (Home Office, UK figures). The ease of availability of guns is one of the chief problems that must be addressed. Yes, thieves may resort to using knives if they can’t get a gun – but the preferred criminal’s weapon is the gun!
Surely this must tell you something! Mexico must take all measures to disarm as far as possible all private citizens and must seriously declare war on the drug dealers and gun smugglers. If only the USA could have the will to do the same!
only 8000? shucks
So, let me get this straight:
According to the story “… Mexican authorities are doing a less-than-thorough job in searching and monitoring north-south traffic.” (i.e. Mexico has “weak” border controls) and U.S. gun control laws are the problem…??
Okaaaay…
Usually we think of the border problem as “drugs/illegals” coming north, not “Guns going south” My father spends a lot of time in West Texas near the border giving tours on historical cave painting sites, he has repeatedly commented to me on the massive build up of the US Border Patrol, and has talked to several agents who have told him about shootouts they have been in or cleaned up after (think No Country For Old Men)
Gun ownership is such a touchy issue for Americans,heck, I own a ww2 soviet sniper rifle, 2 shotguns, a .22, and a .45, but then again I live in TX. I still don’t think that the framers of the constitution had in mind the military grade fire arms that I can easily purchase (and potentially illicitly re-sell) when they added the bill of rights. They had no way of knowing the future development of firearms. Remember that in the late 1700s all long-arms were breach loading muskets, the only difference between military and civilian was (possibly) the size of the musket ball. So I take the 2nd amendment wackos at their word: “surprise surprise surprise we get an anti gun sociolist ready to take orfice an all the anti gun sociolist come out of the wood work -Walley” (posted as a comment on this column) and yet I own guns, not one, but several… it is a conundrum. Perhaps it has something to do with being raised in the outdoors, perhaps it is because I am a Texan, who knows.
Is there an “easy fix” to the problem on the border? Sure, ban and destroy all privately owned assault rifles. That would of course cause a new civil war so… Perhaps massively expand the border patrol and ATF’s authority? Hmm, you’d get right wingers bitching about invasive gov’t. Possibly give Mexico a bunch of logistical and material support? I just don’t know, interesting problem though.
The writer seems to be spouting the tired old anti-gun rhetoric that permeates the major media types. From all statistical indications, what would most improve the Mexican situation would be (1) the right for Mexicans to keep and bear arms to protect them from the drug cartels and their corrupt government and (2) the decriminalization of drugs in the US and Mexico to collapse the lucrative black market that spawns the illicit drug industry. Underlying these suggestions is an old concept that escapes the media elite but is validated by a simple review of history: individual freedom is good — government oppression is bad.
When does Mexico not point the finger north concerning its woes?