Mexico: U.S. Vows Tougher Controls on Guns

Source: Ney York Times

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, in his first official trip outside the United States, announced a crackdown on the illegal flow of firearms from the United States to Mexico. He said that more special agents and investigators would be deployed along the Southwest border and that new tracing technology would be set up in American consulates throughout Mexico in an attempt to quell the drug-related gun violence in Mexico. He referred to Mexico’s narcotics dealers as “drug terrorists” because of a rash of police shootings.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/world/americas/17fbriefs-USVOWSTOUGHE_BRF.html?ref=us

---

I guess the second amendment won't cover Mexico

Here we are, whining about Iranian arms flowing into Iraq, but the US is doing the same thing to Mexico.

supposedly flowing out of the US into Mexico. If they are talking about automatic rifles they would almost certainly come into Mexico by sea or from the south. Are they talking about handguns? Are these new or used weapons? Where are these weapons originating (dealers, thieves, ??)?

I guess I wouldn't doubt some hand guns and maybe semi auto rifles go south but it seems more probable that large quantity shipments and certainly automatic weapons must be coming in by sea or from the south. I haven't heard any stories of large busts by ATF in the US of arms headed south. I just am having a hard time believing these tales I have been hearing of US guns flooding Mexico.

Illegal Guns Flood Mexico as Drugs Flow North to U.S.
Day to Day, May 26, 2005 · Arms smuggling from the United States into Mexico has become a big factor in an increased level of violence south of the border. Mexico's gun laws are stricter than those in the United States, so as illegal drugs flow north into America, illegal weapons go south into Mexico.

Listen
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4667960

U.S. Guns Behind Cartel Killings in Mexico


By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 29, 2007; Page A01

TIJUANA, Mexico -- Assassins blasted Ricardo Rosas Alvarado, a member of an elite state police force, with a blizzard of bullets pumped out of AK-47 assault rifles.
.....

The high-powered guns used in both incidents on the evening of Sept. 24 undoubtedly came from the United States, say police here, who estimate that 100 percent of drug-related killings are committed with smuggled U.S. weapons.

The guns pass into Mexico through the "ant trail," the nickname for the steady stream of people who each slip two or three weapons across the border every day. The "ants" -- along with larger smuggling operations -- are feeding a rapidly expanding arms race between Mexican drug cartels.

The U.S. weapons -- as many as 2,000 enter Mexico each day, according to a Mexican government study -- are crucial tools in an astoundingly barbaric war between rival cartels that has cost 4,000 lives in the past 18 months and sent law enforcement agencies in Washington and Mexico City into crisis mode.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/28/AR2007102801654.html

US guns arm Mexico's drug wars

"There is a contradiction," says a Mexican senior official speaking on condition of anonymity. "The US says they are so worried about drug trafficking, but the US is the one arming the drug traffickers."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0719/p01s01-woam.html

Guns: The bloody US-Mexico market

With over 2,100 deaths between January and October 2007 related to drug trafficking and the use of weapons purchased in the US, Mexico pins its hopes on the future success of the Merida Initiative to combat drug and gun trafficking.

By Sam Logan for ISN Security Watch (31/10/2007)

As news and rumors swirl around the current status and future success of the Merida Initiative, a plan to combat narco-trafficking in Mexico, those who argue the plan's merits can agree on at least one point: The front line of the so-called war on drugs has moved north from Colombia to the US-Mexican border, but the focus on drugs has overshadowed an element of the regional black market that is just as important.

Mexican authorities now estimate that during the administration of former Mexican president Vicente Fox (2000 to 2006), some 2,000 guns per day entered Mexico. That works out to about 1.4 guns per minute. During that same period, the Fox administration seized 8,088 guns of the estimated 4,380,000 that entered the country, representing 0.18 percent of all the arms illegally smuggled into Mexico over six years, according to Mexican daily La Reforma.

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=18300

AK-47 assault rifles which would by definition be select fire arms (fully automatic). Those arms are extremely rare in the US, you simply do not hear of many arrests or incidents with fully automatic weapons in the US. Now South America and other parts of the world they are common. The penalty for possession of an unregistered fully auto in the US is 10 years in federal prison per gun..it isn't logical to import these guns into the US to send south when it would be much easier to import directly into Mexico.

The other thing I am seeing are that these claims and estimates are coming from Mexican officials who, frankly, don't exactly have a stellar history of exemplary honesty.

I guess the biggest red flag for me is the lack of arrests or seized weapons in the US headed for Mexico. If the numbers are as high as are claimed I find it impossible to believe none of these shipments none have been intercepted.

Where are the serial numbers backing up to. There are not huge numbers of arms in the US being picked up which can't be at least backed up to the retailer.

Bottom line, I'm still not buying it and I don't trust the source of the claims for lack of any proof.

abandon the loosing plank supporting gun control and replace it with a statement supporting an individual's right to keep and bear arms or at very least state that gun legislation should be left to the states and/or municipalities, we may be able to handily win some national elections again. The gun control issue has cost the party more than any other single issue and has gained us absolutely nothing.

have you ever read any news that some one save the life of others because he has a gun in his packet?

And have posted their stories from time to time.

You're talking to one right now.

the Colorado church shootings when a CCW holder stopped the mass murderer. She almost definitely saved lives. The stats for firearms being used defensively are difficult as incidents often are never reported. There are some estimates done by several sources ranging from 700,000 to 2.5 million incidents annually of people using fire arms defensively. Here are some interesting stats:

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

* Americans use firearms to defend themselves from criminals at least 764,000 times a year. This figure is the lowest among a group of 9 nationwide surveys done by organizations including Gallup and the Los Angeles Times. (16b)

* Florida adopted a right-to-carry law in 1987. At the time the law was passed, critics predicted increases in violence. The founder of the National Organization of Women, Betty Friedan stated: "lethal violence, even in self defense, only engenders more violence." (13)

* When the law went into effect, the Dade County Police began a program to record all arrest and non arrest incidents involving concealed carry licensees. Between September of 1987 and August of 1992, Dade County recorded 4 crimes committed by licensees with firearms. None of these crimes resulted in an injury. The record keeping program was abandoned in 1992 because there were not enough incidents to justify tracking them. (13)(15)


The point of my comment though was that we lost the House in 1994 because of the "assault weapons ban" and other more restrictive gun control being discussed at the time by both legislators and President Clinton. Al Gore almost certainly would have won the Presidency in 2000 and Kerry in 2004 if they had carried even one of the southern states that they lost because of their stated position on gun control. It is time for the party to leave gun control to states and cities and make a platform statement that the party supports the individual right of law abiding, mentally sound adults to keep and bear arms and remove the language about reinstating the AWB that is currently in there...it is a looser. The gun control plank hasn't won any elections in the last 15 or 20 years and has lost us many.

Those are semiautomatic only, not true military-issue AK-47s they are talking about. You can get those at your local gun shop.

Because GOD FORBID we legalize the stuff and kill two very large birds with one stone...

not only are civilian-transferable AK-47's incredibly expensive in the U.S. ($15,000 and up USD compared to $100-$200 for the same gun in Columbia), but simple possession in the USA without explicit Federal authorization (BATFE Form 4) is a 10-year felony. Even if you have a Form 4, the BATFE gets to inspect your paperwork once a year. You can buy non-automatic civilian AK lookalikes in the States for $400 to $1000, but not real ones capable of automatic fire.

I don't doubt that there may be some handguns flowing south across the U.S. border, but the automatic weapons, rocket launchers, and whatnot being used in Mexico's drug wars are coming into Mexico from the south, not from the north.

Friday, 5 August, 2005

A safety official is the latest victim of a spate of killings in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo.
The US ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza, had just announced that the US consulate, shut down after a shoot-out a week ago, was to be reopened.

Leopoldo Ramos, who headed the city's Public Safety Commission, was ambushed and gunned down in broad daylight near the city hall where he worked.


The US ambassador acknowledged that the Mexican government had made efforts to restore law and order after bazookas, grenades and machine guns were used by battling drug gangs in a shoot-out last week

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4126142.stm

which likely came from Columbia, Honduras, etc. Lots of hardware left over from Cold War proxy battles there.

If arms were coming from South America, Mukasey wouldn't be talking about stemming the flow of arms from the US.

Shoulder-fired rocket launchers are not civilian-legal in the United States (mere possession outside police/military duty is a 10-year Federal felony, unless you obtain a BATFE Form 4, and always has been), but they are quite common in Central American guerrilla arsenals. Ditto for automatic weapons (selective-fire AK-47's in particular), which are as tightly controlled in the United States as missiles and howitzers but are ubiquitous in Central American arsenals.

I strongly suspect that "AK-47's and bazookas" entered this story as a means of sensationalizing it, since a cross-border trade in handguns is less titillating.

Its written in their consitution aswell, unfortunately its even more poorly worded than our own.

"Article 10. The inhabitants of the United Mexican States are entitled to have arms of any kind in their possession for their protection and legitimate defense, except such as are expressly forbidden by law, or which the nation may reserve for the exclusive use of the Army, Navy, or National Guard; but they may not carry arms within inhabited places without complying with police regulations."

Yeah you have the right to have a gun to protect yourself with, except when forbidden by law, and oh by the way its forbidden by law everywhere unless you are rich and/or have connections.

Obviously on the Mexican side its generally illegal to bring guns into Mexico, but on the American side is it illegal to leave with guns?