Thread: Mexico focused on guns, guns, (NOT DRUGS ?)

Mexico focused on guns, guns, guns

Updated 3m ago

By Chris Hawley, USA TODAY
When President Obama lands in Mexico City Thursday, there will be one main subject on Mexican officials' minds.

"For Mexico, the No. 1 priority is guns. The No. 2 priority is guns. The No. 3 priority is guns," Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora told USA TODAY in a recent interview.

The Mexican government wants Obama to take more steps to stop arms sold in the USA from flowing across the border, where they are frequently used by cartels in Mexico's drug war. That issue and a number of other contentious subjects, including a brewing trade dispute, will be on the agenda as Obama makes his first official trip south.


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Ties between the United States and Mexico are generally friendly, and the countries have pledged to work together to combat drug-related violence, some of which has spilled onto U.S. soil. But Mexican President Felipe Calderón and other officials have expressed frustration over several topics including:

•The slow pace of promised U.S. anti-drug aid. Medina Mora has called for the United States to speed up disbursement of a $1.4 billion anti-drug aid package first discussed by Calderón and President George W. Bush at a summit in March 2007.

Congress cut the first installment of aid to Mexico from $450 million to $300 million, and about $7 million of that has been spent. The package also includes aid for Central American countries.

Obama is aware of Mexican concerns and is pushing to get the aid to Mexico as soon as possible, Denis McDonough, one of Obama's national security advisers, said Monday.

•Concerns over protectionism. In March, Obama signed a budget bill that cuts funding for a pilot program allowing Mexican long-haul trucks to operate on U.S. highways. Mexico says that violates the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, and it retaliated by imposing tariffs of 20%-45% on about $2.4 billion worth of U.S. exports.

"We are convinced that always, and particularly in difficult times, protectionism is not the right response," Caldero´n told American businessmen last month.

McDonough said Obama was working on a trucking program "that lives up to our obligations under the (NAFTA) agreement."

•American gun sales. Cartel members buy hundreds of assault-style rifles, handguns and even .50-caliber sniper rifles — some capable of downing helicopters from a mile away — at U.S. stores and gun shows, Medina Mora says.

Mexico's murder rate has soared as the cartels fight each other and the army for control of smuggling corridors. About 1,960 people died this year in drug violence as of Sunday, said Monte Alejandro Rubido, an analyst with Mexico's National Security Council.

Some of the turf wars have spilled over to U.S. cities, including Phoenix, Atlanta and Houston, the U.S. Justice Department says. Alan Bersin, a former federal prosecutor, was named the Obama administration's "border czar" Wednesday.

Medina Mora has called for the United States to reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban, which prohibited sales of semiautomatic weapons with certain combinations of military features such as folding stocks, flash suppressors and large magazines. The ban expired in 2004.

During a visit to Mexico last month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said reviving the ban would face "a very big hurdle in our Congress."

Obama will depart Friday for the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago. There he will meet with 33 other heads of state, including U.S. antagonists Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia.

Hawley is Latin America correspondent for USA TODAY and The Arizona Republic

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009 ... bama_N.htm

If Mexico had been focused on illegal drugs for the last 25 years the Mexican drug gangs wouldn't have any money to by guns with.

Maybe if Mexico would enforce their borders, weapons would not be able to enter.

Maybe if the US would enforce our borders illegals and drugs would not be able to enter.

Maybe if politicians really cared they would do the right thing...

I'm sorry, but there is more behind this fixation on guns by Mexico than just keeping them out of the hands of the cartels because they know....and we know......that the majority of arms provided the cartels are NOT originating in this country.

Mexico wants US citizens.....especially those in the SW.......disarmed, period.

This is a country which has been fuming over an ass whipping for well over 100 years and has been planning to retake "their" land ever since. To that end, they have geared up their population for a fight, spent decades building a military, arms and weapons cache using what WE have given them in terms of equipment and money, sending millions of their nationals across the border to occupy vast areas of our country, Calderon went out of his way to recruit and enlist Cuba and other Latin countries in what he has described as an "anti-American" and "anti-US" Alliance, we've seen increased incursions by the Mexican military, Hugo Chavez is wetting himself in anticipation of an attack on the US and Mexico is demanding that we not even THINK about placing troops on our border and discontinue defoliation along the Rio Grande.

And nothing short of a total gun ban on US citizens is going to shut Calderon up......why?

From where I'm sitting, this has all the appearances of a country which is ramping up to DO something and it is being blatantly ignored just like it was ignored when Sadaam Hussein appeared to be preparing to go rolling into Kuwait.

I agree with you azwreath, our Gov't wants us to have no means of self-defense. The question is why?

How can the American people maintain their right to bear arms in an enviornment that is losing her Democracy to a Democratic aka Communist government?

It is either called the North American Union which will eventually lead to global governance, where whatever Congress or Supreme Court decide will be subjected to some international organization for final decision.
I am sure Chinese are already advising and supplying the Mexican drug cartels, and since the Russian warships have conducted joint exercises with Venezuela, invited by Chavez. Chinese are probably producing knock-offs of guns sold in this country, and the Russian are PO'd that the US wants to put a missile base in Poland--don't hang around our backyard while we continually hang around yours?
Thank you, GWB gang, for trying to prove to the world that nothing will defeat the US, while undermining our sovereignty and nationalism for the benefit of the new world order. We have become the most-hated nation in the world, especially for pre-emptively attacking anywhere we please.

Does this mean that they don't care about the drugs going north ?

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Does this mean that they don't care about the drugs going north ?

Apparantly they only care if its being traded for a US semi auto weapon that is inferior to the full auto weapons drug gangs are sourcing from other countries, not the US.