Mexican law makes room for citizens to have and use registered firearms but only on their own property. But current US permissiveness about guns and assault weapons on our side of the border means we -- and Mexicans -- are engaged in an illicit trade in assault weapons and unregistered guns between the US and Mexican drug cartels.
In other words (nothing new here), we are enabling those cartels not only with our elevated drug use but with our gun trade. The US gun lobby is engaged in a long term effort (check out the Through-The-Looking-Glass madness of all this!) to change Mexican law so that it parallels our current permissive approach.
That way US gun dealers can sell weapons to "good Mexicans" to protect themselves from the guns US gun dealers are selling to the criminals and the cartels. What we have here is a maze of ideologically-driven paranoia surrounding blatant profiteering.
The BBC interviewed a Mexican legislator as well as Robert Farago, founder of the pro-gun online magazine The Truth about Guns, about these issues.
Asked whether greater gun control north of the border would improve security in Mexican communities, PRI Senator Arturo Zamora was emphatic: "Definitely it would, yes. In June, the Defence Ministry stated that in the last six years, it confiscated more than 12 million cartridges of different calibres."
Tighter US gun laws, he says, would immediately help to curb the illegal traffic of so many bullets and weapons into Mexico.
Needless to say, US gun enthusiasts vehemently disagree.
"It's absolutely laughable," says Robert Farago of the senator's argument.
"If anything, Mexicans should be copying our gun laws and Second Amendment rights. What Mexicans need are more magazines, more guns, more bullets in the hands of law-abiding citizens."
Most law-abiding Mexicans, however, believe more guns are the last thing the country needs. ...BBC
Why aren't we as smart as the Mexicans are?
___
An ad at the "Truth About Guns" website confirms the observation that many gun enthusiasts also depend on selling paranoia. When you click on "Read More," you get what I call a "sticky" website. It's interesting, worth a look, but a bit annoying when you want to leave it!
Comments