Mexico says it will take legal action against US over El Paso shooting

[marble falls]

37. Actually they do ...

70% of guns seized from the drug cartels come from the US. Saturday night specials in Mexico come from Brazil.



We’re sending guns, crime to Mexico
Seized weapons
A cache of seized weapons displayed at a news conference in Phoenix.
(Matt York / Associated Press)
By Sarah Kinosian and Eugenio Weigend
March 2, 2017
4 AM

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-kinosian-weigend-guns-mexico-20170302-story.html

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Although Mexico has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, Mexican criminal organizations have no trouble buying firearms, which they use to control territory, extort business owners, and threaten citizens as well as members of the security forces. The consequences are lethal. In 2002, there were more than 2,600 murder investigations involving firearms. By 2016, that number had increased to nearly 13,000.

Most of the weapons used by criminal groups in Mexico originate in the United States. Each year, an average of 253,000 firearms cross the border, the overwhelming majority of which come from the Southwest states of California, Texas and Arizona. From 2009 to 2014, more than 70% of firearms — nearly 74,000 — seized by Mexican authorities and then submitted for tracing by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms came from the United States. Many of these guns were semi-automatic rifles such as the AR-15 and AK-47, cartel favorites that Mexican citizens cannot buy legally.

To stock their arsenals, Mexican criminal organizations exploit lax U.S. gun laws, relying in part on straw purchases.

A “straw purchase” is when a person who is prohibited by federal law from buying firearms contracts a third party to buy them on their behalf. Because there is no limit on firearm transactions in many states, anyone who can pass a background check may buy multiple military-grade firearms in a single visit — which they can then pass along to criminals.

Sometimes firearms traffickers do not even have to lie to purchase a weapon. Although licensed U.S. firearms dealers must conduct background checks and maintain records, among other measures, unlicensed dealers at gun shows, flea markets and other private venues may sell guns without conducting a background check, inspecting a buyer’s identification or documenting the sale in any way.

The business of violence can be highly profitable, and the American gun industry is cashing in, with U.S. sellers and manufacturers arming both sides of Mexico’s conflict. Research from the University of San Diego has shown that half of U.S. gun dealers benefit financially from the U.S.-Mexico illegal gun trade, to the tune of $127.2 million in 2012.

Meanwhile, manufacturers also sell weapons and ammunition to Mexican security forces as they fight well-armed criminal organizations. Between 2015 and 2016, U.S.-based gun manufacturers signed nearly $276 million in commercial firearms deals with Mexico. Other U.S. defense companies signed agreements worth more than $560 million during that period in planes, helicopters and other equipment to outfit Mexico’s military and police.

The U.S. government knows there’s a problem. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly and Mexican Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong reportedly discussed the flow of guns across the border on Feb. 7. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson highlighted the issue as an area of cooperation between the two countries during his visit to Mexico last week. And Trump even signed an executive order in February claiming he would “strengthen enforcement of Federal law” related to illegal gun trafficking.

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Sarah Kinosian is a program officer covering arms trafficking, U.S. defense policy and citizen security at the Washington Office on Latin America. Eugenio Weigend is a senior policy analyst for the guns and crime policy team at the Center for American Progress.