Posted on 02/28/2009 8:02:23 PM PST by holymoly
(CBS/AP) Mexico blames the U.S. for arming the world's most powerful drug cartels, a complaint supported on Friday by a U.S. government report that found nearly all of Mexico's escalating drug killings involved weapons from north of the border.
President Felipe Calderon and his top prosecutor told The Associated Press on Thursday that Mexican police and soldiers are dangerously outgunned because U.S. authorities are failing to stop the smuggling of high-powered weapons into Mexico.
Calderon has complained for two years that the U.S. isn't carrying its weight in the cross-border drug war, despite the fact that American drug users fuel the problem.
"We need to stop the flow of guns and weapons towards Mexico," President Calderon told AP. "Let me express to you that we've seized in this two years more than 25,000 weapons and guns, and more than 90 percent of them came from United States, and I'm talking from missiles launchers to machine guns and grenades."
President Barack Obama's administration is beginning to respond.
On Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder promised to enforce a long-ignored ban on importing assault weapons, many of which are re-sold illegally and smuggled into Mexico to resupply the cartels.
Calderon applauded Holder's announcement saying it was the first time in many years that the American government was starting to show more commitment.
When the U.S. enforced the assault weapons ban, only 21 percent of the weapons Mexico seized from traffickers were assault rifles, Eduardo Medina Mora, Mexico's Attorney General said.
Today, it is more than half, and law enforcement officials are paying with their lives - some 800 have been killed in the past two years.
Both Medina Mora and Calderon said the U.S. should aggressively enforce its gun laws and pressure sellers to keep weapons in the hands of law-abiding citizens.
The U.S. State Department said on Friday that U.S.-purchased or stolen weapons account for 95 percent of Mexico's drug related killings, and that Mexican cartels are increasingly carrying out contract killings in the U.S.
Drug-related killings claimed 6,290 lives last year in Mexico - more than double the 2007 toll. And more than 1,000 have been killed so far this year.
The violence is also spilling into the United States, with a sharp rise in kidnappings in Phoenix and cartels linked to gruesome murders all over the U.S.
Holder announced on Wednesday the Drug Enforcement Administration had rounded up 755 suspected Sinaloa cartel members and seized more than $59 million in drug money in the past 21 months.
Congress is also paying attention.
Lawmakers included $10 million in the economic stimulus package for Project Gunrunner, a federal crackdown on U.S. gun-trafficking networks.
Mexican cartels often pay U.S. citizens to purchase assault rifles or other guns at gun shops, then sell them to a cartel representative at a U.S. gun show, where registration rules are much less stringent and the gun sale can't be easily traced.
The Brookings Institution has estimated that 2,000 guns enter Mexico from the United States every day.
The ATF says more than 7,700 guns sold in America were traced to Mexico last year, up from 3,300 the year before and about 2,100 in 2006.
Cartels turn to the U.S. because Mexico's gun laws are relatively restrictive.
Mexicans must get approval for a gun purchase from the Mexican defense department and are limited to guns with a calibre no higher than the standard .38-calibre.
Larger calibres are considered military weapons and are off-limits to civilians.
I don't know what's worse.
This bold-faced lie, or the unmitigated gall of the vile, despicable, reprehensible, loathsome leftwing propagandists at CBS, who publish this outrageous, preposterous claim as fact.
Uh, Mexico must enforce its northern border.
I second the motion. Mexico, you are responsible for what enters your country.
So are they saying “Build the wall, darn it!!!”?
It is kind of odd isn’t it. They want us to stop guns from flowing into their country, while they simultaneously help illegals flow into ours.
I'll take a .375 H&H magnum, please.
Seriously. What kind of inbound inspection process do they have that enables all these weapons to get past them?
Seems to me it’s there fault for having lax enforcement.
Mexico should enforce its’ northern border from drugs, immigrants and terrorists.
Maybe President Calderon could build a wall.
Please let me know where one can buy machine guns, missile launchers, etc in the USA without special licensing.
How come Mexico isn't responsible for stopping the smuggling INTO Mexico?
Outrageous nonsense. It’s far easier to get guns in the US, and use them here, than to transport them back to Mexico. So why don’t we have the same problems here? And drugs are just as prohibited here as they are there. So the problem is undeniably and unarguably specific to Mexico, beyond any possibility of doubt.
Yep, because doing it in a back alley or the middle of the desert is much harder. F'n morons.
I know! Let’s do the opposite of what Mexico says.
This is already against the law. What we need is border control and more enforcement. What we'll get instead, will be more laws infringing on American's RKBA.
Ping!
Obviously a special Mexican program that we're not entitled to participate in.
Maybe we can trade them 100 illegals for each evil, black rifle?
My only experience was going into Mexico on foot south of Yuma in the 70's. No pedestrian was going through the car inspection gate, so we didn't either. No problem, though we did stop in with the US INS on the way back (one of the people in our group was a legalized immigrant from Palestine.)
Actually, the US does bear some of the blame. Drug prohibition motivates organized crime, the same as alcohold prohibition did. If drugs weren’t prohitited in the US, the business case for the Mexican gangs would be essentially eliminated. But the Mexican authorities won’t talk about that, since they make their living from it (e.g., bribes.)
[Please let me know where one can buy machine guns, missile launchers, etc in the USA without special licensing.]
The Wal-Mart in ElPaso has a special on RPG’s this weekend... I swear to God they do!
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