Thread: Mexico: Gun controls undermined by U.S.

Mexico: Gun controls undermined by U.S.

Posted 2m ago

By Chris Hawley, USA TODAY

MEXICO CITY — There is one gun store in Mexico. Only one. And not just anybody can shop here.

The "Directorate for Arms and Munitions Sales," as the store is called, is run by the Mexican army and occupies two rooms in an olive-green, heavily guarded building near the army's headquarters.

Prospective customers need a permit from the army that can take months to get. And once they buy a gun, there are reams of rules: how much ammunition they can buy each month; where they can take the gun; who they can sell it to.

To some shoppers, the irony is clear: Mexico has some of the toughest gun-control laws in the world, yet the country's drug cartels are armed to the teeth with illegal weapons that are smuggled over the border from the United States.

"If the United States had a system like ours, we wouldn't have so many problems here in Mexico," Agustin Villordo, 27, of Puebla said as he shopped for a hunting rifle.

On Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano visit Mexico to discuss ways to stop the smuggling of American weapons, which Mexico says account for 90% of confiscated arms here. The meeting is part of an urgent American effort to aid Mexico as it fights a bloody war against drug cartels.

More than 6,300 people have died in drug-related violence since 2006, and some crime has spilled into the USA.

Mexican President Felipe Calderón says little will change as long as the United States continues to make gun purchases so easy. His government is pressuring the Obama administration to tighten rules on sales, rather than just the cross-border transport of weapons.

"It is necessary to reduce the sale of weapons, particularly of high-powered weapons, in the United States," Calderón said Monday.

Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., chairman of a group of Democrats and Republicans who support gun rights, said last week that he "will fight any attempts that infringe on our Second Amendment rights." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said recently that she would like to see the U.S. reinstate the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, which expired in 2004.

Mexico's 1917 constitution gave citizens the right to bear arms "except those expressly prohibited by law." But after student protesters looted Mexico City gun stores during uprisings in the 1960s, the Mexican government began to clamp down on gun owners. By 1995, the government had closed the last gun stores and given the military a monopoly on gun sales.

All privately owned guns have to be registered with the Mexican military. Owners who want to transport their firearms outside their homes need a permit that must be renewed annually.

On Tuesday morning at the gun store, a few shoppers – all men – wandered among wooden cases filled with weapons imported by the army from all over the world. One case was filled with Colt handguns, another with Beretta rifles. Buyers waited in chairs, their papers and permits at the ready, as soldiers fetched their purchases from a storeroom.

The heaviest stuff — assault rifles, flash-bang grenades and bulletproof vests — filled the walls in a separate room marked "For police forces only."

The officers who run this system acknowledge they face an uphill battle in their efforts to control Mexico's guns.

"I would dare say that Mexico has some of the strictest regulations about gun ownership in all the world, and we're right next to a country ... that has some of the easiest ones," said Lt. Col. Raúl Manzano Vélez, director of the military's civilian gun sales. "That creates a huge vacuum between the countries and feeds weapons trafficking."

Last week, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would send dogs, X-ray machines and more agents to the border to search southbound cars for guns and cash headed to Mexico.

"This is a two-way street," President Obama said during CBS' Face the Nation news program Sunday. "We've got to do our part in reducing the flow of cash and guns south."

U.S. gun-ownership groups say they doubt that harsher rules would stem Mexico's violence. For them, Mexico is proof that gun control doesn't work.

"Mexico has very strict gun laws which clearly have done nothing to prevent criminals and drug cartels from obtaining firearms, and it's left many of the honest residents of Mexico defenseless," said Chris Cox, chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association.

Hawley is Latin America correspondent for USA TODAY and The Arizona Republic
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I would dare say that Mexico has some of the strictest regulations about gun ownership in all the world, and we're right next to a country ... that has some of the easiest ones," said Lt. Col. Raúl Manzano Vélez, director of the military's civilian gun sales. "That creates a huge vacuum between the countries and feeds weapons trafficking."



And I would dare say that Meixco has some of the strictest immigration laws in the world and are living right next to a country where it is easiest for Mexicans to walk across the border with impunity......which creates a huge vacuum and feeds human trafficking.

Boy......sure don't hear them bitching when those "vacuums" are benefitting Mexico in some way

I've got three guns in my home---none of them expensive, I don't consider myself a gun "nut"--and I certainly wouldn't give them up if ordered by the government. But I think there is a point to Mexicans objecting to US arms that end up in their country. I've heard some different points of view. But there definitely were a number of illegal sales from US gun dealers that went to Mexico. This should be stopped.

My buying a high powered rifle has nothing to do with the illegal arms that are sent to Mexico. I am not selling my gun to a Mexican.

Yeah right! Mexican drug cartels are coming up here and buying M-16's, grenade launchers and other assorted military weapons from the corner gun store owner.
They are getting the vast majority of their weapons and ammo from south of their border and from overseas.
This is all a scam to put pressure on legal American owned guns.
I don't believe any of this as I have read too many other reports!

RELATED

Nearly all illegal guns seized in Mexico come from the United States, the head of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Monday.
www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-0 ... guns_N.htm - 44k - Cached - Similar pages

Examining the US-Mexico Gun Trade - International Business News ...
Mexico has no gun-tracing system of its own, so it relies on the A.T.F., to whom it sends between 3000 and 7000 trace requests each year. ...
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These articles are all disinformation and lies! The MSM liberal idiots has put out so many reports on this to disquise the truth!
Are US guns going into Mexico? sure some are, but there is no way this is happening in the amount they are claiming, nor are the these type and quanity that are being used. All you need to do is go out and try to buy a full auto M-16 or AK-47, not to mention a grenade launcher and see where that gets you.
Anybody who believes all this hype probably believes in the tooth fairy as well!

Let me see... It's out fault our citizens are buying Mexican drugs and it's our fault Mexicans are buying our guns too?

Can't have it both ways Mexico. You know, if they had not been allowed to sell the drugs, they wouldn't have any money to buy the weapons.

Frankly, no sale is supply driven, it's always buyer driven. First and formost for a sale to take place there must be a willing buyer.

Dixie

All this propaganda is simply a ploy to have an excuse to take our second Amendment rights IMO. Another trick to see if they can hood wink us into believing everthing is our fault so we won't mind when they take our rights away.