| | |  Editorials | June 2009 
Death and American Guns in Mexico
 New York Times
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Drug-related murders in Mexico doubled last year, to 6,200, as cartels fight for the American addict’s dollar while relying on American gun dealers for their weapons. A new report to Congress traces over 90 percent of guns recovered in Mexican drug crimes in the last three years back across the border, where legal and illegal American dealers flout federal laws rife with loopholes.
The findings contradict gun rights groups’ claims that foreign dealers are supplying the cartels’ arms. In fact, 70 percent of 20,000 weapons recovered were traced to legal gun shops and unregulated gun shows in Texas, California and Arizona, according to the Government Accountability Office report.
The report confirmed the arguments of Mexican officials who are pressing Washington for stricter gun controls. While the Obama administration has sketched a new strategy to combat gun trafficking, the report warns of considerable obstacles.
It found that the separate American agencies charged with controlling the sales of firearms and policing immigration are doing a poor job of sharing information and coordinating policy. Gun tracking software is yet to be translated into Spanish for full use by Mexican authorities. What is also clear is that the American gun dealers — 6,700 of them clustered along the border — are supplying increasingly powerful military style weapons as the cartel wars intensify.
America must finally act. Private home-based dealers and gun show armorers should finally be regulated as rampant threats to public safety. Congress must repeal restrictions that prevent a national gun registry and bar local enforcement agencies from sharing in federal tracing information.
The report underscores Washington’s political cowardice and the frightening cost, as the mayhem spreads south of the border and threatens to move northwards. |
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