While many citizens on the U. S. side of our southern border complain bitterly about the influx of illegal drugs through the Mexican corridor, most show little more than complacency when confronted with the arms trafficking in the opposite direction. The blood on the streets of Mexican cities is brought about almost entirely with the use of weapons from the United States.
Mexico has some of the toughest gun control laws in the world. But, thanks to its neighbor to the north, those laws have little impact on criminal access to weapons. Mexico has exactly one gun store, located in Mexico City. It sell fewer than 6500 legal weapons a year.
In the past four years Mexican authorities have seized 93,000 weapons. They estimate that 90% of those weapons were smuggled in from the United States. More than 60,000 of those weapons have been positively traced to the U. S. The Mexican drug wars, both among competing drug cartels and between drug cartels and Mexican authorities, have resulted in 30,000 gun deaths in the last three years. That violence is now spilling over into southwestern U. S. cities.
On our side of the border are 6600 federally licensed firearms dealers. Based on the background check system, more than 14 million handguns were sold in the U. S. last year. That number does not include private sales and public sales not subject to background check laws. Nor does it include rifle and shotgun sales. It is the smuggling of semi-automatic rifles and shotguns that accounts for much of death and violence on the Mexican side of the border.
For years, Mexican leaders have pleaded with our government to stop the illegal flow of arms to their country just as we have pleaded with them to do more to curtail the flow of illegal drugs to our country. The result has been one sided. While Mexico has taken serious steps in drug enforcement policy, the U. S. has done little to put a halt to arms trafficking.
The latest plan of the Justice Department will do little to change that. And even that plan, probably illegal under U. S. law, will be subject to court challenge and is likely to be discontinued. Department of Justice will be sending “demand letters” to licensed U. S. firearms dealers requiring them to report selling two or more semi-automatic rifles to the same person within any five day period.
There are two problems with the plan. First, reporting of sales will stop nothing. Second and more importantly is the legal issue pointed out by the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Justice has no authority to demand data on rifle and shotgun sales. When congress passed the act permitting the collection of data on handguns, it specifically rejected extending the law to include rifles and shotguns. Meanwhile the gun-fueled violence will continue across our southern border.
Contributor, aka tidbits. Retired attorney in complex litigation, death penalty defense and constitutional law. Former Nat’l Board Chair: Alzheimer’s Association. Served on multiple political campaigns, including two for U.S. Senator Mark O. Hatfield (R-OR). Contributing author to three legal books and multiple legal publications.