My daughter has a friend whose father is undercover narcotics here in LA. I got into a brief debate with him about the source of cartel weapons. He takes the party line that they come from the US. I took the more obvious position that they buy in bulk from various arms dealers and military sources in Central and South America. His head was ready to explode lol.
The whole argument that the cartels wouldn’t be armed without guns from the U.S. is absurd. They’ll get them from arms dealers around the world just like the nuts in Asia and Africa you see waving their AK-47s for the cameras.