– 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.
Sure. Why not? Watching borders definitely better than finger pointing.
Let's assume Mexico does as adequate a job watching the border as the US would do. . . what would happen? Drug Cartels quit the business for lack of fire power? If there were no high powered sophisticated guns there would be no cartels, right? Mobsters in America during the thirties had it so rough. No glocks, AK-47s or Barrett .50s. It's a wonder the mafia survived in America.
Perhaps a combination of the analyses behind *The Case for Piracy* *America's decades old failed drug war* and this column are in order. If we combined all three would we still be talking about the border?
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Our government does provide for peaceful change; it just might not be the change that you want. What then? To arms? Hasn’t happened even in Zimbabwe where there is clearly an illegitimate government in place. If you want an example of a recent time when we allowed peaceful change regardless of the will of the majority I call your attention to the 2000 election where the loser obtained some half million more votes than the winner, yet the only civil unrest was that by the Brooks Brothers GOP congressional staffers who tried to intimidate (terrorize?) the Florida vote counters as they went about their work. I wonder what would have happened if they were armed? The majority of people don’t believe in evolution or plate tectonics or any number of other things that exist or occur, but facts are not determined by majority vote. Which is the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill depends on how you measure it, so this argument is pointless without some definitions we can agree on.
No one is going to take MY guns, or tell me what type I amy or may not own, because of what anyone else thinks or does. End of story.
Jimbo, I just don’t think the majority of those posting here agree with your message.
As for your take on the Constitution…If a government does not provide for peaceful change…I think you know the quote.
As for your concerns over my spouting conspiracy theory…no, just a simple matter of funding. And, if you think the NRA is the most powerful lobbyist on capital hill, man are you deluding yourself. They don’t have the money or power to be a leading lobbyist. Compared to big oil and the pharmaceuticals they are a gnat buzzing around being an annoyance at best.
And, I am aware of how the Constitution defines treason. And, I will restate, the winners try those charged with treason. Also it is not treason to call upon Congress to vote for a constitutional congress. Call upon…demand…you decide. It would take a popular movement, no doubt. But politicians usually want to keep their job and if enough “demand” was voiced I am sure such action would be taken. And if they didn’t, well, you already stated secession could never happen again and I am sure everyone agrees with you.
James, you state the simple facts. And, if all that illicit money were to dry up???
America has two borders in North America. Why don’t we have the same problem with Canada? Maybe Canada is not corrupt. If America magical got rid of their guns tomorrow, the drug cartels would buy guns from China or Russia.
Why do the Yanks feel it necessary to HAVE to own more guns than some national armies?
Reliance on a 219 y/o law is twaddle - if I acted on a statute from the Middle Ages and I could (I have a book with complete English statutes from Magna Carta to 1681) I would be looked at askance. Yet 300 million yanks do exactly that - why? Look at all the kids who spray their fellow pupils with semi-auto fire - that was the meaning behind your Constitution??
The US needs to wake up!
In this phenomenon tearing at the Mexican social fabric and functionality of Government of Mexico (GOM) the firearms are an accoutrement, an incidental, rather than a driving influence. The cause is incredible illicit wealth, and it is aggravated by the chief influence of inherent corruption in the elite class ruling Mexico and running GOM. The corrupt conduct is systemic and generations long in its influence. I worked as a US Justice Department criminal investigator and official from 1971 until 2004. I met and mingled with GOM officials up to the immediate subcabinet level. A nation does not descend into lawless gang warfare because of weapons, but because the leadership and institutions have sold out, failed. The pretense that smuggled guns from the USA are a cause rather than affect seems silly when the full automatic AK 47 and AK 74 are principle shoulder arms in the gang wars, yet are not even present in the USA to be available to smuggle to Mexico.
Hoss, we apparently agree on the need to decriminalize possession of narcotics and hallucinogens or whatever, treat it more as a public health matter than a criminal matter, but if you insist on claiming a right to overthrow the US government by violence you’re risking spending the rest of your life in Guantanamo if that’s still open or a federal supermax prison otherwise. In the US we vote our way into power, not shoot our way in.
Jimbo, your point #4 is my main point. I don’t even own a gun, though I was in the Marines. As far as advocating armed rebellion against an oppressive govt. - definitely. That’s what the fireworks are all about on the 4th of July.
B. Free, it is clear your grasp of the US Constitution is tenuous. And those words you quote are not in it; they are in the Declaration of Independence, which is not the supreme law of the land and in fact has no continuing legal effect. The US Constitution is (US Constitution, Art. VI, para. 2), no matter how stirring is the oratory, propaganda, and hyperbole of the Declaration. The manner of amending the Constitution is set forth in Art. V, which does not mention people demanding a constitutional convention; only two thirds majorities of all state legislatures or two thirds majorities of both houses of Congress can call for a convention proposing amendments. The people are limited to what they can get their legislators to do, and even there Art. IV, sect. 4 guarantees to each state a republican form of government, meaning representatives, not direct voting. I believe the issue of secession of states from the union was settled in 1865, but if you still have doubts I refer you to US Constitution, Art. I, sect. 10, first and third paragraphs. Treason is defined in Art. III, sect. 3, first paragraph. And considering who now owns the Wall Street Journal I don’t know that I’d believe everything it prints.
You prefer to limit the damage by retaliation; I prefer to limit it by preemption. In which case are fewer people left dead? Are only insane people unpredictable, or are you using unpredictability as an indicator for insanity? I’d say people have free will, which makes everyone unpredictable. And if you could melt down every firearm in the world (swords into plowshares, I believe the Bible calls it), you’d cut down a lot of that killing that occurs because those with intent to kill would have to find a much less easy method than simply pulling a trigger. That’s one of the reasons why police and military are issued weapons; it’s an easy way to kill and hence to gain obedience (although it doesn’t necessarily cause the other to actually change his/her mind). What would the Christmas eve lion have been able to do without his guns? Much less than he did do.
Claiming that the CIA, FBI, DIA (did I leave anyone out?) are the true forces behind preventing decriminalization borders on being a conspiracy theory. The two most powerful lobbies on Capitol Hill are the NRA and AIPAC; this is why at least the liberals in Congress prefer to keep themselves uninvolved in gun legislation (it stirs up the single-issue voters who don’t care that the economy is collapsing around them as long as they have their guns so they can steal someone else’s food), while the conservatives always embrace it, and why both always kowtow to the absolute security of Israel (as unattainable as that actually is despite their overwhelming superiority in just about every class of weaponry the two sides possess).
Perhaps they will escalate their killing of each other and eliminate the problem themselves.
All in all an irresponsible piece of journalism designed to bolster the anti-firearms faction in the U.S.
These criminals are not purchasing fully automatic weapons and grenades in the U.S.and I am guessing the ones they are “importing: have been stolen from law abiding U.S citizens.
Until we close our Southern borders and deport the illegal immigrant criminals violent Mexican drug gangs will continue to be a problem.
Mexican officials are making way too much money to ever mount an effective campaign against them.
Mexico and South America also regularly blame us for their gang violence due to our deportation of illegal alien gang members.
Bernd if you choose not to be armed that is your choice.Don’t mess with my choice to be armed.
These narco gangs are getting fully automatic weapons, grenades, and explosives and those are most definitely not coming from america.
There own military and police are so corrupt as to supply weapons and the killers to pull the triggers. There have been cases of Mexican military hit squads coming to the US to invade houses and kill people.
To blame this problem on the US and the citizens already restricted access to firearms is so laughable as to be a joke.
Sure, they are buying fully auto AK’s and grenades at US gunshows. Yah!
Try venezuela. The biggest supplyer of such weaponry to narco terrorists in the western hemisphere. Jose
[...] a comment » Bernd Debusmann, writing in his column for Reuters, argues that the problems currently plaguing Mexico as regards warrring factions of authorities and [...]
I apologize for not having read all the comments, but I’ve read some, and wow there’s a lot there.
I’ll try to keep my comments short.
First, as a human being I want other human beings to stop trying to take away my legal rights to own various firearms. Police officers are by the laws of physics incapable of protecting me from a criminal intent on hurting me, unless by coincidence there’s a police officer already there, and even then it’s iffy. The responsibility is mine though. I don’t want to rely on anyone else anyway. If someone tries to hurt me, I might fail at protecting myself… but that’s how life works. And it is certain that I would at least try to protect myself. A gun is a tool that might help me… and when out-spoken-anti-gun folks write things about making more guns illegal or taking more guns away from citizens like me, I get insulted and dissappointed. Guns are not the problem. People are the problem. Why not turn that energy toward dealing with bad people instead of trying to take away one of the available tools we have to protect ourselves from the people who are actually the problem.
As for how this affects mexico… I’m not sure I can say it better than the people who have already posted that it’s up to Mexico to deal with it.
Jimbo said: “5. The gun proponents always insist that concealed and open carry keep the bad guys at bay. But they never consider the case of the bad guy who shoots first, like in California Christmas eve. Do you really believe that an armed person with malicious intent wouldn’t shoot first the first person he saw trying to pull a weapon to shoot back, even before the bad actor confirmed his intentions by shooting since until then he’s just another open carrier? It’s who shoots first who has the edge, just like in the DC sniper killings. The gun folks seem to be pushing a vision of America where everyone is always armed and always on edge for the first hint of trouble. Sounds more like Mogadishu to me than Mobile.”
Just for the record, insane people are unpredictable.
Jimbo, your thought process is liner. If you have one armed man (let’s say with a Beretta 92) and 10 people unarmed people who has the advantage? The armed man has the advantage in this case because his weapon holds more rounds than there are people facing him. Now let’s say 3 of those people each have a firearm (a S&W 38 special) and let’s say the insane guy opens fire on the ten. We can even say that no one spotted him drawing the weapon. How many shots do you think he will get off before he encounters return fire? Let’s be real, Jimbo. If handguns were of no use in self protection the police would not be carrying them and the military would not be issuing them. Handguns are not assault weapons. They are close range protection. Can you stop insane people from initiating their crazy plans? No! Never! Even if you could melt down every gun in the world, you could not stop the insane intent on killing. But, you can limit the damage. You can also deter the not-so-insane criminal who normally looks for the easiest targets and you can protect yourself with a hand gun you carry with you. What you had on Christmas Eve was a lion in the middle of a heard of sheep with no shepherd to be found.
Jimbo said: “4. As to all those other potential sources of firearms for Mexico, not one is on this continent. In fact, they’re all oceans away from Mexico. Thus it is still far easier for Mexican narcos to obtain their weapons and ammo from US sources. No US Customs and Border Patrol agents are looking in vehicles going into Mexico for guns; they’re looking for drugs and people coming back from Mexico. And the Mexican police are in fact outgunned and outfunded by their narcos (McClatchy story on that subject today). It’s not that they don’t want to do their jobs, it’s that doing their jobs can get them and their families killed. All because the US can’t curb its demand for drugs and insists on making them illegal. We had that in the US once; it was called Prohibition and it gave rise to organized crime in the US just like it does in Mexico today. So demand side economics, not supply side.”
Damn Jimbo…”All because the US can’t curb its demand for drugs and insists on making them illegal.” I do not think the majority of people in this country would say they are insisting. State after state is decriminalizing pot but, the Feds are screaming. Why? Because, the peoples voice is not heard in DC. The most powerful lobbyist on Capital his is the CIA. And they along with the DEA and FBI do not want drugs to be legal. This would cut way to deep into their funding. So let’s be clear that it is the Government Bureaucracy protecting itself that is keeping certain drugs illegal through fear mongering and payola. You are correct in that the Narcos south of the boader have been armament than the Police. To say that it comes from the US may be true but it does not matter because, they would still have their arms no matter where they come from. US, China, Russia, EU it does not matter. They will get their weapons because, they have the money. Write your Representative and tell him you do not want US money going to Criminals any more and you want the Unconstitutional War on Drugs stopped. If enough people did this, they would be forced to listen or face the consequences of being voted out of office. No this will not solve all our problems but, it would put those problems legalization doesn’t solve and those it creates in the hands of responsible people.
Jimbo said “1. Hoss, are you really advocating the overthrow by force of arms of the US government? Because when I look in my pocket Constitution that is one of the only two acts considered to be treason against the US. So I’m guessing that all these folks who believe that the purpose of their firearms is to prevent tyranny have so little faith in the democratic process that they instead advocate, what, change of government by bloody coups like in the Third World? If you really want to live that way I suggest you go to Somalia where they really love their guns.”
Jimbo, do recall these words by any chance?
“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security…”
Yes the US government has the authority to protect itself. However, if the people feel it is not working or corrupt the People can demand a constitutional congress be called so changes can be made. Many Poly-sci Profs have been concerned that just such an event is near. If the Senate and Congress turn a deaf ear then you will have states secede and the possibility of civil war will loom. At which time those with arms will be called to service. Treason charges will be determined by who wins. If you read the Wall Street Journal you would have seen in yesterday’s edition that others believe the US is nearing such a crisis. I doubt it will actually occur but, stranger things have happened.
1. Hoss, are you really advocating the overthrow by force of arms of the US government? Because when I look in my pocket Constitution that is one of the only two acts considered to be treason against the US. So I’m guessing that all these folks who believe that the purpose of their firearms is to prevent tyranny have so little faith in the democratic process that they instead advocate, what, change of government by bloody coups like in the Third World? If you really want to live that way I suggest you go to Somalia where they really love their guns.
2. Bravo Bruno! At last some facts with some proper citations so we all can look them up and confirm them to our heart’s content instead of all this hand-waving. This is the way it should be done.
3. I know a little something about the DC sniper because I was living in the VA suburbs while that was occurring. They shot from a camouflaged location, i.e. the inside of a car’s trunk that had a loophole cut in it so they didn’t have to show any sign of their intent before acting, taking only one shot then immediately moving on. They did this mainly in MD and VA, not DC which is far too crowded and urban to escape detection easily the way they were doing it in the less dense burbs. And VA has concealed carry laws, I think MD too, yet they didn’t seem to help prevent any of those killings, now did they? And they killed someone down South on their cross-country jaunt, I believe in Alabama, another state with lax laws, but then that is really immaterial because they’d already obtained their primary weapon by then. So just exactly how would have an armed citizenry helped stop the DC sniper killings? I want to know, lay it all out for me in detail. As it was they were caught by an alert motorist who spotted their car (which didn’t look anything like the van some witnesses claimed to see) in a highway rest stop fairly far outside DC late at night who then reported it to the cops; no armed militia was involved at all other than MD state troopers.
4. As to all those other potential sources of firearms for Mexico, not one is on this continent. In fact, they’re all oceans away from Mexico. Thus it is still far easier for Mexican narcos to obtain their weapons and ammo from US sources. No US Customs and Border Patrol agents are looking in vehicles going into Mexico for guns; they’re looking for drugs and people coming back from Mexico. And the Mexican police are in fact outgunned and outfunded by their narcos (McClatchy story on that subject today). It’s not that they don’t want to do their jobs, it’s that doing their jobs can get them and their families killed. All because the US can’t curb its demand for drugs and insists on making them illegal. We had that in the US once; it was called Prohibition and it gave rise to organized crime in the US just like it does in Mexico today. So demand side economics, not supply side.
5. The gun proponents always insist that concealed and open carry keep the bad guys at bay. But they never consider the case of the bad guy who shoots first, like in California Christmas eve. Do you really believe that an armed person with malicious intent wouldn’t shoot first the first person he saw trying to pull a weapon to shoot back, even before the bad actor confirmed his intentions by shooting since until then he’s just another open carrier? It’s who shoots first who has the edge, just like in the DC sniper killings. The gun folks seem to be pushing a vision of America where everyone is always armed and always on edge for the first hint of trouble. Sounds more like Mogadishu to me than Mobile.
TEMPESTUOUS TIMES! (Gun issue comments at end)
These are very tempestuous times and it is good to look beyond what is happening at a given moment and to see if a broader plan is working in the background to the detriment of the the American People.
Under both the Clinton and Bush administration’s, policies were put in place which are designed to eventually dissolve the United States of America and to the forming of a new United Nations World Government as it’s ruling body.
People in bread lines, like during the great depression, are more open to a new form of government!
President Clinton signed into law, under his emergency Presidential powers, a decree stating that in time of extreme emergency, United Nation Commanders would be placed over the Mayors of our cities to rule OUR country. This law was nearly activated on 911 when the fourth plane was apparently headed for Congress but was thwarted by the heroic efforts of the passengers on the plane.
President Clinton, while also using these emergency Presidential powers signed into law a decree stating that all National Parks were to be turned over to United Nation’s control. All United States National Parks were turned over to United Nations control on January 1st of 2000. Three months later they started limiting our access to our own parks.
President Bush has met on multiple occasions with both the Presidents of Mexico and Canada to lay out a plan to combine the governments of the United States with the Governments of Mexico and Canada, starting with the meeting on March 23, 2005 at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. After this meeting, these three Presidents drove to Baylor University to announce their signing of an agreement to form the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. (The SPP).
This agreement is the foundation for the North American Union which will combine the governments of the United States of America, Mexico and Canada. The North American Union will effectively dissolve the United States of America!
The currency for this new country will be called the Amero.
Once this equivalent of the European Union is formed the next logical step is to combine it with the European Union to form the new United Nations World government.
The United Nations has already put forward a set of plans to levy taxes on American businesses, to form it’s own army and the new UN World Court System even now claims that it has power over United States Citizens. Note: our own court judges have even recently quoted foreign law in deciding American court cases!
President Bush recently made arrangements with both Mexico and Canada to provide troops in case of an uprising of US Citizens.
One thing though: There are over 70 million gun owners in the United States with over 120 million guns and at only 200 rounds of ammunition per gun, (many have thousands), that amounts to over 24,000,000,000, 24 Billion rounds of ammunition.
Around 30 million of these gun owners are trained killers, present and former military, hunters and police.
This is the largest armed force on Earth! INTERESTING isn’t it.
MAY GOD SAVE AMERICA! Wayne J. Behrle
You’re missing the point entirely! Instead of focusing on trying to regulate weapons. What do you suppose would happen if all of a sudden drugs were legalized? This nonsense would disappear overnight! It’s time to take a second look at this farce we call “The War on Drugs” and begin constructing a viable model for regulating drugs.
Drug lords have money and can get whatever weapons they want. Weapons are readily available in central and South America. We are simply a supplier of convenience.
Until Mexico gains some semblance of rational, uncorrupt government there is no hope for it. Take every gun from every household in America and it would have no effect other than to make US residents easier targets.
The anarchy and corruption that passes for a government in Mexico should not affect our laws one iota.
Why not? It seems that everyone doesn’t want to take responsibility for their own actions and shortcomings…they would rather have someone to blame. And Mexico is unwilling to watch their borders, because they don’t want to inconvenience the tourist with the dollars…but they also let in thousands of guns a year. Gun crimes in general also fall in to this finger pointing territory. Take Columbine for example, the weeks and months after the incident they were blaming Marilyn Manson and the video game DOOM. And not looking at the way they were treated by others, or the lack of proper gun safety, arms not under lock, and not unloaded when in the case. It’s all a shame really.
I just wish they would use the weapons to overthrow the corrupt mexican government. I mean - what are weapons for anyway?