Here is when I bought my first gun

[nadinbrzezinski]

320. Private market

As far as Mexico is concerned, a lot comes from four border states.

Fast and furious, as badly conceived as it was, came from a demand from Mexican officials to stop this. The last time I looked at the figures, the camino de hormigas, which is from straw purchases, accounts for about 70% of them. The other thirty comes from internal black market or black market through Central America.

And fast and furious was extremely badly conceived. This was fantasy, that they'd be able to follow 'em after they were bought, let alone they crossed the border. Whoever conceived of it should have been fired.

Here, some more info

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/12/qa-inside-the-murky-world-of-arms-dealing/

http://gizmodo.com/5927379/the-secret-online-weapons-store-thatll-sell-anyone-anything

A tad more academic.

http://www.fpif.org/reports/small_arms_trade

This is the clean weapons trade

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/world/middleeast/us-foreign-arms-sales-reach-66-3-billion-in-2011.html?_r=0

We really need to deal with this.