While People and Drugs Head North, Guns Pour South Into Mexico Julian Aguilar - The Texas Tribune | |
go to original December 7, 2016 |
Why Walls Won't Secure The U.S.–Mexico Border (AJ+)
Walls, fences, boots on the ground and camera-equipped blimps — all have been pitched as ways to stop the illegal flow of people and drugs over the Mexico's border into Texas and beyond.
But overlooked in the rush to secure the border, score political points and stymie the threat of spillover violence is the river of handguns, rifles, assault weapons and bullets of all shapes and sizes that continues to flow southward from the United States to Mexico, arming some of the very people officials say present the greatest threat to Americans.
From 2009 to 2014, more than 73,600 guns seized in Mexico were from the United States, according to a 2016 report from the Government Accountability Office, the congressional watchdog over the federal government. More than 13,600 were confirmed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to have originated in Texas. But that figure could be higher — the report also states that because of factors like altered serial numbers on weapons and incomplete information on records, the states of origin could only be traced for about 45 percent of the U.S. total.
That continues a years-long trend of Texas as a major supplier of weapons used in crimes south of the Rio Grande, according to the ATF.
Some of the weapons are stolen and smuggled south, but most are bought at retail gun stores, pawn shops or gun shows that — at least in Texas — occur weekly in major cities like Houston, Dallas and San Antonio.
The weapons range from hand cannons to rifles to military-grade weapons, but the preferred guns are long rifles including the semi-automatic varieties such as the AR-15 and AK-47, according to a 2016 GAO report. They are easily converted to fully automatic machine guns, the report notes.
Mexico's gun laws partly fuel the demand. Although private gun ownership is allowed, buying a weapon legally is difficult. Mexicans must get a permit from the Mexican army and can buy guns only in the country’s lone gun store in Mexico City. And that seller, the Directorate of Arms and Munitions Sales, can’t advertise its goods, according to an August CBS report.
Read the rest at The Texas Tribune
Related: Two US Army National Guard Members Sentenced for Trying To Sell Weapons to Mexican Cartel (AmeriForce)
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