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’ve heard that the great majority of the hardcore arms are coming from China , maybe via Venezuela . Why is no one mentioning this ? Look for them coming through Mexican ports
on ships from those countries , not out of gun shops in the USA . Full auto AK’s do not originate in the States .
Mexican incursions are symptoms of a growing anarchy along our border by Rep. Tom Tancredo February 3, 2006
The reaction of the Mexican government to the reports of the incident was predictable -- a mixture of denial, confusion and evasion. At first, they said that there are no Humvees in the arsenal of the Mexican military in that region and that the smugglers were using stolen military equipment and uniforms. Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Derbez had the chutzpah to say the smugglers may have been U.S. military disguised as Mexicans.
The US Arms Both Sides of Mexico's Drug War
Mexican narcotraffickers and other criminals easily obtain their firepower north of the border. Effectively reducing the flow of illegal arms would mean tightening laws on gun sales and ownership in the US. (check the date below)
Snip...It was not the first time Mexico had protested the flow of weapons. For several years now, that government has pointed out that Mexican drug cartels (and other criminals) are getting their arms north of the border; for several years, Mexico City has asked that Washington take effective steps to address this issue.
Snip...Many of the arms used by Mexico's insurgencies were supplied by Washington either through massive military aid programs or as part of US covert operations that left enormous arsenals behind.
That last link was dated Summer 1997, when the Assault Weapons Ban was in effect.
Yeah, the weapons are U.S.-purchased or stolen firearms. Purchased by the Mexican government in legal arms sales from the US and then stolen from the same Mexican government. A licensed gun dealer in the US isn't going to risk his livelihood by selling weapons to suspect customers. They're already under enough scrutiny.
There are some great problem solvers in D.C., aren't there.
There are problem solvers in DC ?
The only ones I have heard of want to keep the problem ongoing, it is called job security.
"I am here from DC and I am here to help you." This phase should carry a warning label.
We need to start trading ammo at the border.
You asked
Where else but........
Target?
(I am truly sorry for that, but I just had to.)
To make other nations safe we must give up or rights?
First execute every democrat wait ten years then re assess.
Agreed. If marijuana alone were regulated like alcohol, it would be a severe blow to the cartels. It is THE money maker:
John P. Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said marijuana, not heroin or cocaine, is the "bread and butter," "the center of gravity" for Mexican drug cartels that every year smuggle tons of it through the porous U.S.-Mexico border. Of the $13.8 billion that Americans contributed to Mexican drug traffickers in 2004-05, about 62 percent, or $8.6 billion, comes from marijuana consumption.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/022208dnintdrugs.3a98bb0.html
I just checked, I didn't put /sarcasm after my reply.
Since Jan 20, 2009 perhaps we should just do away with /s and just assume it is a given on all replies.
A little money and nothing in Mexico is restrictive.
Mexico is more corrupt than Chicago,,,, well maybe
I think if a little research was done on this, one would find most of the weaponry is Chinese.
Missile launchers, machine guns and grenades haven’t been popular around my neighborhood in years....
What a bunch of garbage...
That IS pretty outrageous !!
Think of the damage taking such a claim seriously could do to gunshops !
Claro que si.
Please write your best snarky comments in their Comments section below the article.
Mock the idiot writer/writers in the Comments section. Time to call these folks on the obvious holes in their arguments.
Fried Chicken And Gasoline?
GI Joe version?
Here we have some folks with mucho billions in cash on hand. Then we have some folks representing Norinco and several other weapons manufacturers with offices right there in Mexico. The last part is we have a total idiot Holder telling us that the Mexican drug lords are buying guns at US gun shows. I was at the gun show in Biloxi yesterday. Didn’t notice any grenades or rocket launchers for sale. Actually in spite of the buying panic that seems to have taken the rest of the country, here in MS prices were actually about the same as they were awhile back but there was less ammo available.
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