US-made guns are ripping Central America apart and driving migration north
Ioan Grillo
An iron river of illegal guns flows from the US to Mexico, Central America, and across the hemisphere
Fri 16 Apr 2021 06.23 EDT
The stray bullet from the gang fight struck Katery Ramos when she was 12 years old, playing on the dirt street in the poor Planeta neighbourhood of San Pedro Sula, Honduras. “I was standing up for a moment, afterwards I fell,” she told me, sitting with her mother in a scrubby field near her home.
The bullet entered just above her waist and didn’t hurt, she said. But when she arrived at the hospital, the doctor announced that it had cut through her spine. She was paralyzed from the waist down and would never walk again. Her school had no wheelchair ramps, so she left and spent her days at home lying down and watching television.
I interviewed Ramos in 2017, two years after she was shot, while researching the wider effect of gun violence in Central America. In April last year, she got ulcers linked to the paralysis, which caused blood poisoning, and she died.
Her tragedy cuts to two polarizing issues in the United States: guns and refugees. These debates are not normally connected, but the Biden administration needs to look at them together to find solutions.
An iron river of illegal guns flows from the US to Mexico, Central America, and across the hemisphere, helping make the Americas the world’s most homicidal region, with 47 of the world’s 50 most murderous cities. Thousands flee violence in the Northern Triangle of Central America - Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala – and seek asylum in the US, adding to the pressure of undocumented migrants.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/16/us-made-guns-central-america-migration
From Twitter:
Ioan Grillo
@ioangrillo
·
Feb 20
The girl in the wheelchair is Katery Ramos in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. She was hit by a stray bullet when she was 12 and paralyzed from the waist down. I talked to her looking at the broader effects of gun violence in Latin America. I was devastated to learn she has now died.
Link to tweet
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can sell an unlimited amount of guns to one individual, you're paving the way for gun runners to ply their illegal trade.
I hate these rotten bastards, I truly do. 
They don't care how many people die, as long as their bank accounts are fat. 