Mexico's Gun Dealers are Unfazed by Obama: 'We'll Just Open Another Channel' James Fredrick - GlobalPost
go to original March 2, 2016

Meet Javier. He wants to sell you an illegal firearm in Mexico City. (James Fredrick/GlobalPost)

Javier, who only gave his first name, operates his illicit little gun mart in Tepito market, a famed contraband hub in Mexico City. Pirated DVDs, drugs, a hit man ... just about anything can be bought with a tall enough stack of pesos. If you’re looking for a gun, don’t call it by the common Spanish name “arma” — here it’s a “cohete,” meaning “firecracker.”

This market is one of the cogs in the well-oiled machine of Mexican arms trafficking. Whether it’s an AR-15 rifle, a shotgun, or this Smith & Wesson pistol, chances are good it came from the United States. The few studies out there suggest 70 percent of firearms seized by the authorities in Mexico come from the US, usually purchased legally in the Southwest. Those guns become illegal when they cross the border secretly to Mexico, where the law says all firearms must be registered with the army, including sales, transfers, or imports.

How many thousands of guns come across the border is a mystery, but a study commissioned by Mexico’s congress suggests there are more than 15 million firearms in the country — about one for every eight Mexicans — and 85 percent of the guns are illegal.

And the consequences have been severe. Since 2006 — the year Mexico launched its war on drug cartels — guns have become the top murder weapon, according to the federal government. In 2001, 25 percent of murders were committed with a gun. Today, it’s 56 percent.

Since President Enrique Peña Nieto took over in 2013, more than 28,000 Mexicans have been killed with a firearm, on pace to surpass the brutal legacy of the previous administration. US and Mexican authorities jointly pour billions of dollars into stemming the flow of drugs north, but since Peña Nieto came to power, stopping guns headed south has stagnated.

Read the rest at LA Daily News

Related: Gun Control Is as Ignored in Mexico as It Is in the U.S. (El Daily Post)

Related: US-Mexico Cooperation Falters to Advantage of Gun Runners (Insight Crime)

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