Guns from U.S. flood into Mexico

[Judi Lynn]

Source: McClatchy

Guns from U.S. flood into Mexico
McClatchy Newspapers
Published 10:32 pm, Monday, March 18, 2013

Mexico City --

An estimated 2.2 percent of all U.S. gun sales are made to smuggling rings that take firearms to Mexico, a scale of illegal trafficking that's "much higher than widely assumed," an academic study released Monday found.

An average of 253,000 weapons purchased in the United States head south of the border each year, according to the study by four scholars at the University of San Diego's Trans-Border Institute and the Igarape Institute, a research center in Rio de Janeiro.

Profit margins at many gun stores are razor thin, and thousands of U.S. gun vendors would go out of business without the illicit traffic to Mexico, said Topher McDougal, an economist educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is one of the study's authors.

The study's conclusions probably will add to controversy over what role U.S. weapons smugglers play in Mexico's drug violence. Mexican officials have long blamed lax gun laws in the United States for the availability of weapons in Mexico, which has only one gun store and considers gun ownership a privilege, not a right.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Guns-from-U-S-flood-into-Mexico-4365271.php#ixzz2Ny2JgpAS

[alp227]

1. Oh great..."Fast and Furious" all over again???

(Oddly the article doesn't name F&F.)

[onehandle]

4. Doesn't exist any more. ACORN doesn't either. nt

[winstars]

2. Thanks to that scumbag Issa!!!

The ATF or whatever Federal agency you pick probably won't even think about trying to stop this shit.
After all the BS from the Fast and Furious non issue I wouldn't blame them.

So dig this, if the NRA works for the gun manufacturers then it stands to reason that Issa, Faux News and all the rest of the 'pug traitors that made such a huge deal out of nothing did so after they received their orders from the NRA. "Today we have the grieving mother of the Border Patrol agent killed by..." What a load of crap!!! And it worked perfectly.

So now, its completely wide open, thousands and thousands (tens of thousands?) of Mexicans are being killed with guns made here and the NRA and the gun manufacturers are laughing all the way to the bank.

Nice...

[happyslug]

10. Total Firearms Homicides was only 11,309 in 2010

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/mexico

2010 seems to have been the peak year, the Homicide rate in Mexico has been dropping by over 11% since 2010.:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/12/mexico-drug-war-deaths-2010_n_808277.html

Only 9,616 Homicides in 2009.,

Please note, the criminal activity tied in with the drug trade, while using a lot of pistols from the US, they also use a lot of Automatic Weapons from the various wars in Central America. The exact number of each in known only to the Mexican authorities (who are NOT releasing the numbers). Furthermore it is legal to own firearms in Mexico, and the Statistics I can find do NOT indicate if the murder weapon was a legal import into Mexico, made in Mexico, legal in Mexico, or illegal in Mexico.

Thus you have to many variable to claim thousands and thousands (tens of thousands?) of victim, it may be true as to the thousands (but clearly not the tens of thousands on an annual basis), or may not be true, we do NOT know for it appears the Mexican Authorities are NOT keeping records EXCEPT it they find what could be an America Gun and tracing it back to the seller in the US (and then that is ANY firearm, not just firearms actually fired, i.e. the firearm traced may be a firearm picked up in a drug bust where no shots were fired by anyone.

[onehandle]

3. A win for the NRA and its gun industry owners. nt

[docgee]

5. I saw this on Sons of Anarchy...

[Crepuscular]

6. An unintended consequence

of having an unsecured border.

[slackmaster]

7. This silly canard keeps coming back about every 6-8 weeks

Mexican criminals have plenty of sources for illegal weapons other than the US civilian sporting arms market.

[jpak]

9. The denial is strong in this one.

yup

[bobclark86]

11. Oh, they get a shit-ton of guns from us...

Anybody who denies that is a moron. And I love how everyone happens to forget the gunwalking started in 2006. You know, right as President Obama took offi— oh, wait. 2006? Nevermind...

I just wonder where those fully-auto guns they get come from... you know, the ones they don't sell in stores without a federal tax stamp and a sale price of $10,000 to $30,000.

That said (and I'm done on that topic, as guns are just the tip of the iceberg of problems in Mexico), this problem would have a better chance of going away by decriminalizing pot. Too bad the U.N. (and backers Merkel, Pfizer et. all) will throw a hissy fit if that happens.

[Igel]

13. "Lots"? Sure.

But the question is, Is the number more or less what the report says.

Notice it's not a peer-reviewed publication. It's a policy-paper--read that as "it's a paper intended to advocate for a set polical, i.e., political, outcome." It might be accurate. it might not be. That's up for the critical-thinking readership to evaluate.

They use federal firearm licenses as a proxy. The big improvement in this policy paper is that it's assumed that every FFL is a gun dealer engaged in a viable firearm trade. That's the key insight that allows them to extrapolate all kinds of information. It's not the only insight. Hence the adjective "key".

I know over a dozen FFL owners within the distance of the border that the authors focus on. Not one has a gun store. They're members of a gun club, got their licenses years ago, and dutifully have kept up with the paperwork. My brother's one. He's been involved in perhaps half a dozen transactions in the last 3-4 years. All of them were guns he wanted to buy or guns he no longer had an interest in. How do I know them? They were at my nephew's high school graduation BBQ. Most were retired from some other line of work. Not all.

The club in Tucson is bigger. And has the same kind of FFL-holder to novice ratio in the gun club. Who knew that they all had, as their primary source of income, a hobby that consists in buying and selling guns that they actually want to own and use (or no longer want to own and use).

They acknowledge weaknesses. One possible weakness is that local demand may be disproportionately high--after all, there are the bogeymen the "Minutemen". (My brother and his fellow clubbers aren't.) There are other "facts" that involve "possibilities." But these are outweighed by the non-fact that every FFL represents a viable, profit-making business.

Conclusions might be true. Might not be true. Can't tell from what the authors have written. Pity, because that's precisely the evidence and argument the authors offer us and want us to rely on.

[jpak]

8. but...but...but... The Gungeon has told us this cannot be!!1111

There is no Iron River of guns to Mexico!!1111

They will hoot and holler "Fast and Furious" and insist that AG Holder be held in contempt!!!111

yup

[apocalypsehow]

15. +1. n/t.

[Paul E Ester]

12. I believe the number of gun dealers on the border is skewed by the fact

Of the 51,300 retail gun shops in the United States that hold federal licenses, about 6,700 of them are concentrated in the four U.S. states that border Mexico

Texas and California are GIANT states with HUGE populations. It might be more interesting to know if there is a concentration of gun dealers in San Diego county, or within 100 miles of the border, etc. I think the sample is probably flawed.

[lbrtbell]

14. And all that would end, if people would stop being dopers

Drug-runners are violent because selling drugs is a profitable and intensely competitive business.

Do you see these gangs fighting over selling VHS tapes? No, because there's no market for them.

Medical marijuana is one thing, but "recreational" drug use is for boring people who can't get "high" on life. It's ridiculous that our society can't get this through their heads, instead of supporting thugs wielding machetes, chain saws, and guns.

And no, I'm not suggesting prohibition. I'm suggesting that people get a life.