Mexico: U.S. Supplies 90% Of Cartel's Guns

(CBS)
The key issue, Sarukhan reiterated on CBS News' on Face The Nation Sunday, is to stop the flow of U.S. firearms and cash, "which is providing drug cartels in Mexico with the wherewithal to corrupt, to bribe, to kill.
"Ninety percent of all weapons we are seizing in Mexico, Bob, are coming from across the United States," he said, citing the high number of Federal firearms licenses a few miles north of the border. "Just on the Arizona and Texas borders with Mexico alone there are approximately 7,000 FFLs, federal firearms licensees. And weapons bought by the drug syndicates, directly or proxy purchases, are coming from those gun shops."
Schieffer noted that the NRA has taken issue with the statistic, and asked the ambassador where the data originates – a question Sarukhan did not directly answer, although he used the example of a recent weapons seizure in a border town to explain how much ammunition U.S. sellers are directing to drug cartels.
"We seized more than 250 assault weapons and half-a-million rounds of ammo, these have just crossed over the border," he explained. "By tracing back these weapons, by looking at the type of weapons, we determined that most of these weapons are coming from the United States."
Pushed by Schieffer about how Mexican authorities can be so sure the majority of the weapons originated in the States, Sarukhan said through research with AFT they discovered that most the grenades are coming from Guatemala, while most of the assault weapons come from the United States.
Schieffer asked if the ambassador would support the U.S. reinstating the ban on assault weapons.
"The assault weapons ban ran out in 2004, Bob," he said, "and since then we have seen a rise of assault weapons being seized in Mexico.
"There is a direct correlation between the expiration of the assault weapons ban and our seizures of assault weapons," he argued.
Sarukhan admitted that the Mexican government cannot determine how Congress and the Obama administration would move on the ban, but he did say that reinstating the ban "is one of the instruments … that could have a profound impact on the number and the caliber of weapons doing down to Mexico."
More from Face The Nation (4.12.09):
To watch Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan discuss the violent drug war raging on the U.S.-Mexico border, click on the video player below.
To watch a roundtable discussion of America's international role with the Washington Post's Rajiv Chandrasekaran, David Sanger of The New York Times and Syndicated Columnist Kathleen Parker, click on the video player below.
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Although it is really convenient to blame it all on US FFL holders, the fact is that a minute percentage actually originates from them. This is because the sale of fully automatic weapons is monitored and regulated very well. As such, if a significant volume of weapons were going to unaccounted for recipients from a (or many) FFL holders, it would draw the ire of the BATF, FBI, NSA, INS, and an alphabet soup of other federal investigatory bodies. And before anyone goes jumping to conclusions concerning the sale of such weapons at Gun Shows, just remember that unlike drugs, the number of guns necessary to justify the risk of being caught VERY HARD TO CONCEAL!!! Given this fact alone, it would actually make more sense to suggest that our own government were supplying the guns than to assume individual dealers, or even groups of independent dealers were providing the vast numbers of US weapons showing up down there.
-E
Although it is really convenient to blame it all on US FFL holders, the fact is that a minute percentage actually originates from them. This is because the sale of fully automatic weapons is monitored and regulated very well. As such, if a significant volume of weapons were going to unaccounted for recipients from a (or many) FFL holders, it would draw the ire of the BATF, FBI, NSA, INS, and an alphabet soup of other federal investigatory bodies. And before anyone goes jumping to conclusions concerning the sale of such weapons at Gun Shows, just remember that unlike drugs, the number of guns necessary to justify the risk of being caught VERY HARD TO CONCEAL!!! Given this fact alone, it would actually make more sense to suggest that our own government were supplying the guns than to assume individual dealers, or even groups of independent dealers were providing the vast numbers of US weapons showing up down there.
-E
While straw purchases in U.S. is a SMALL source of guns it is not the main source of weapons for the Mexican narcos. There are extremely corrupt elements in the Mexican government that are able to legitimately purchase arms on the open market directly from arms manufactures across the globe. (see the links below for the related articles).
Another half-truth that is tossed around by Mexican politicians, journalists and the media is that ?the expiration of the 'assault weapons' ban in 2004 has caused an increase in the violence in the Mexican narco-war?. This is false since the AW ban went after 2 things; "military style features" like: a flash-hider (with a threaded muzzle crown), collapsible stock, bayonet lug and detachable magazines over 10 rounds. Many manufacturers offered 'featureless' ARs and AKs during the AW ban years that complied with the letter of the AW ban. Hence theses "dreaded weapons" were available from 1994-2004. Also, there were many 20 and 30 round magazines that were manufactured prior to the ban that were grandfathered in under the law.
The AWB expiration is an easy target for politicians on both sides of the border to point at as the "cause" vs. challenging Mexico's utterly corrupt system and the U.S. illicit drug consumption.
Despite the protests of Mexican journalists and politicians, Mexico has been a quasi-failed state for decades and the U.S. is a massive consumer of illicit drugs. When the Mexican government is willing and able to curb its culture of corruption and stop consuming the cartel money to stay in power only then will real change happen. The same is true for American consumption of drugs; the war on drugs and eradication efforts have largely failed, it?s time to take a hard look at alternatives, perhaps we need to go as far as legalizing drugs.
Changing U.S. gun laws in the U.S. is NOT the answer to addressing this complex issue.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-arms-race15-2009mar15,0,229992.story
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2009/04/private-sector-arms-sales-mexico-sparsely-monitored-state-department
The news media is completely losing its credibility and
simply propagating one sided viewpoints. I think we need to open a discussion on abridging First Amendment rights if speech is not based on facts and truth, then we'll discuss amendment the second, let's try that.
Fox News article of April 2, preceeds Bob Schieffer's show of April 12. Schieffer's credibility is going south.
See the Fox News article : The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2009/04/02/myth-percent-guns-mexico-fraction-number-claimed/
Why don't Mr.Commie Gun Grabber disarm the Mexicans?