'Unprecedented' School Shooting in Monterrey Sparks Gun Control Debate Christian Paz - Foreign Policy Magazine
go to original January 21, 2017

The dramatic incident has restarted a public debate between lawmakers over the effectiveness of Mexico’s notoriously strict gun control laws. (The Sun)

Mexican law enforcement officials are investigating the origin of the .22 caliber pistol used in a school shooting that killed one person and left four injured in the northwestern city of Monterrey, in what the country’s media have deemed an “unprecedented” attack in scale.

Three people are still in critical condition, and the fifteen-year-old male shooter turned his gun on himself after opening fire at the school on Wednesday.

Aldo Fasci, the spokesperson for the state of Nuevo Leon’s secretariat of public safety, said the agency is questioning whether the pistol used in Wednesday’s shooting at the Colegio Americano del Noreste was obtained from the shooter’s home or through an illegal source. Over the last 10 years, the Mexican government led a tight clampdown on legal gun purchases in Mexico due to the ongoing drug war with local cartels, but many weapons are trafficked illegally across the U.S. border, including a spike in 2006 following the beginning of former President Felipe Calderon’s war with cartels.

Graphic footage of the school shooting leaked on social media shows the boy firing at seated classmates, some at point blank range, and at his teacher, before saying something to his remaining classmates and shooting himself in the head. State officials said the middle school teacher, Cecilia Cristina Solís, two 15-year-old students, and a 14-year-old were all injured, According to the Mexican daily Excelsior, they are still in critical condition.

In light of this dramatic incident, a public debate between lawmakers over the effectiveness of Mexico’s notoriously strict gun control laws has already begun playing out in the country’s media. Mexicans have long observed the phenomenon of school shootings in the United States with astonishment. Wednesday’s incident has reinvigorated this debate, with calls for still tighter security measures and greater mental health measures available for students at schools.

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