The Drug War in Mexico: Police with pistols vs. American AK-47s
The Washington Post today published an article detailing the enormity of weapons smuggling out of the U.S. into Mexico. While Americans are focused on keeping Mexicans out, Mexico is struggling to control the surge of firearms being brought into its country by drug lords. The guns earn smugglers around $1 million per shipment and are often purchased legally in border states like Arizona where background checks are not required. American agents frequenting gun fairs in Texas and other border states find that smugglers are able to walk up and purchase "personal collections" with no background check.
"You're looking at the same firepower here on the border that our soldiers are facing in Iraq and Afghanistan," Thomas Mangan, a spokesman in Phoenix for the ATF, said in an interview.
This influx of weaponry has shifted the power out of polices' hands and into the claws of powerful drug cartels. Since Mexican laws limit most local police to small arms, they are often grossly outmatched by the high-powered assault rifles wielded by the competition. The WP article recounted a recent attack on police officers:
...a small army of cartel hit men descended on a federal police office and bunkhouse in this crowded city at one of the world's busiest border crossings. None of the officers, who had recently been sent here to crush the drug gangs terrorizing the city, were killed in the hail of more than 1,200 bullets, authorities said. But police veterans understood the message delivered to the newcomers: "Welcome to Tijuana. Our guns are bigger than your guns."
It has been estimated that 2,000 weapons cross the border each day, but while the illegal gun trade is nothing new, the level it has reached recently has caused great distress in both Mexico and the U.S. So distressing is the situation, in fact, that over 4,000 deaths have been attributed to gun violence in the past two months alone.
The reality is that American gun policy does not just affect domestic issues, but carries repercussions across borders. So what does the Mexican drug war being fought with American guns mean for U.S. policy? How do you think this should be handled? guns, illegal arms, drug war, mexico, border
