United States is supplier of drug cartel funds, weapons

[Judi Lynn]

Source: St Petersburg Times

United States is supplier of drug cartel funds, weapons
In Print: Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton caused a stir last week by suggesting that Mexico's drug-trafficking gangs were beginning to resemble an insurgency, like that which has plagued Colombia. She's right in the sense that the cartels have come to effectively control parts of the country, where they "attempt to replace the state," as Mexican President Felipe Calderón put it last month. Like most insurgencies, the Mexican drug armies also have an external source of funding and weapons. Shamefully, that is the United States.

A new report details the abundance of U.S. weapons delivered to the cartels — and the inadequacy of U.S. efforts to stop the illegal trafficking. According to authors Colby Goodman and Michel Marizco, at least 62,800 of the more than 80,000 firearms confiscated by Mexican authorities from December 2006 to February 2010 came from the United States. Guns are being smuggled across the border at a rate of up to 5,000 per year. The top two varieties are assault rifles: Romanian-made AK-47s and clones of the Bushmaster AR-15.

The traffickers have used these weapons to inflict appalling casualties on Mexican police and other security forces, which frequently find themselves badly outgunned. More than 2,000 police and federal agents are among the 28,000 killed in drug-related violence in the past four years. According to Goodman and Marizco, whose work was sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Center and the University of San Diego, just one gun store in Houston supplied 339 assault weapons, rifles and pistols to cartel buyers in just 15 months — which were responsible for the deaths of 18 Mexican law enforcement officers and civilians.

Some 7,000 gun stores operate along the U.S.-Mexican border. Most are not required to notify authorities even if an individual buys dozens of assault weapons in a short period. In fiscal 2009 U.S. agents revoked the licenses of just 11 stores for violations. Once the guns are purchased — usually by "straw" buyers acting on behalf of cartel middlemen — they are easily trafficked across the border.

Read more: http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/article1121505.ece

[Pavulon]

1. Secure the border.. Left handed gun control approach

will not win friends or votes. The math in the article does not add up. 5000 a year 4 years != to 62,800.

[Prometheus Bound]

2. Read it more carefully.

[Pavulon]

5. Which part.. clip?(nt)

[Prometheus Bound]

18. Paragraph 2

"...at least 62,800 of the more than 80,000 firearms confiscated by Mexican authorities from December 2006 to February 2010 came from the United States. Guns are being smuggled across the border at a rate of up to 5,000 per year."

- At least 62,800 firearms confiscated from Dec 06 to Feb 10 came from the US.
- 5000 per year being smuggled from US.
- Therefore this smuggling has been going on for at least 12 years (likely for many decades)

[quakerboy]

16. You need to read more carefully

62k guns that originated in the US *Confiscated* in 4 years. Not smuggled across the US/Mexico Border in 4 years, confiscated within Mexico. The 5000 across that border is a Seperate number.

So, 12 years of smuggling would account for those confiscated, although that would not make good sense given this is only what was found, and there are surely more out there.

Alternately, not all of them were smuggled, but rather were imported legally.

Or they were Smuggled, but not Via the northern border. Seeing as there is a fair amount of US military surplus out there around the world, that would not be overly shocking.

Do you see a black market trade of guns across the border as a good thing?

[timo]

3. ???

at the rate of 5000 a year it took 12 and a half years to smuggle in the 62,800...the math in this article doesnt jive....12 years ago some of the cartels werent even around.

[ManiacJoe]

4. The vast majority of the guns are not smuggled.

The US government sells them to the Mexican government. Some end up in the wrong hands via theft or other illegal methods.

[slackmaster]

6. That, and probably a lot of them enter Mexico from its southern border

The US civilian sporting arms market is by no means the biggest source.

[timo]

10. I agree

I am in agreement, but it sure is easy to make headlines and try and demonize semi auto rifles of all makes and models...I am an ar 15 fan ...just got a suppressor for mine!! :)

[ManiacJoe]

11. Anything to sell more advertising space.

That silenced AR15 - takes some pics and post them in the Outdoor Life forum!
:evilgrin:

[Prometheus Bound]

19. Bushmaster's been making the AR15 for over 3 decades.

It's not unreasonable to assume a few thousand a year would have found their way across the border during that time, moving up to 5000 a year more recently.

[rabs]

7. Here is the report, unfiltered by the media

Saw the report issued a few days ago by the Wilson Center at the University of San Diego. It is longish, in PDF form; fully sourced, with charts, foot notes etc. So there is no media pick- and-choosing of certain facts or any taking out of context here.

A careful read will clear up the confusion of some over the numbers of weapons going to Mexico in recent years.



http://www.wilsoncenter.org/news/docs/U.S.%20Firearms%20Trafficking%20to%20Mexico-%20Goodman%20Final.pdf

[The abyss]

15. Rabs

I see a whole lot of ATF political “agenda” in that report.

Frankly – I wouldn’t trust ATF stats any further than I would trust DEA stats.

Think about it – there is always an “agenda”.

consider it…

[gtar100]

8. To hell with human life when there's money to be made!!

Damn, guns and drugs sure are the shit these days! And if you try to hassle me, I'll just stand a little closer to this here 2nd Amendment and call you a liberal, pinko, terrorist sympathizer. Never mind the rape, torture and all those mass graves. This drug war in Mexico smells of opportunity... I didn't start it. Not my problem, right Hoss? Ye-ha! American ingenuity at work! Ain't suffering grand when it ain't you or me!

[Stumbler]

9. Bear with me now, but how about this:

Decriminalize marijuana. Hell, outright legalize it and tax it.

Not only will it generate budget surpluses from reducing our domestic prison population as well as creating a profitable tax-revenue source, it would greatly diminish the size and power of drug cartels and traffickers internationally and regionally. Yes, they'll still exist to smuggle cocaine and heroine, but marijuana is in much higher demand than either of those two, and quite a bit safer by comparison (arguably safer than alcohol or tobacco, even).

I know it's not perfect, and could possibly lead to unforeseen consequences, but the War on Drugs has been a dismal failure so far. So let's give it a try, why not? Aside from the fact that every single government agency will lose funding, the pharmaceutical, alcohol and for-profit prison industries will all suffer from competition and possible lost revenue. And hemp will have to be legalized as well, offering competition to textile/cotton producers, logging companies, the petroleum industry, weapons manufacturers, etc....

Oh, that's right. That's why we can't decriminalize it. Weapons are the one thing we still export, and imprisoning our own citizens is one of the remaining fields in which the US is still #1.
:banghead:

[glinda]

12. There is a gun auction in Mid-MN with about 500 guns for auction. Wonder

how they keep track of where those go to. NOT!

[PavePusher]

13. Well, if you did a little basic research...

you would know that transactions like that must go through a licenced FFL dealer. Often, auctioners have such a licence, or an agreement with a licence holder. This means that said transactions are subject to a NICS background check, and whatever restrictions apply via state law.

Or did you only mean to cast aspertions and insinuations?


P.S. Cite for your claim?

[glinda]

24. Should have clarified. Have seen some guns moving at Auctions and do not see

how they can really track where these are going since similar people buy up a ton of them. Sure, maybe these people clear checks but personally, I think they drive them somewhere to sell them.

[PavePusher]

14. FYI...

Any U.S. legal AK or AR rifles smuggled across the border are not "assault rifles" (do you know what the definition of "asault rifle" is?), nor are they high in number. Why pay U.S. retail prices for non-automatic weapons?

Whole lot of mis-information in that "article".

[quakerboy]

17. How hard are they to convert?

Do you know the parts that are required to make that conversion, and how hard they are to acquire?

[PavePusher]

20. Machine shop time ranging from a few hours to days....

depending on operator skill, and fairly difficult.

If it's easy to convert, it is classified as a machine gun and so regulated. Ditto for the parts.

It's relatively easy to make a primitive machine gun from scratch, (see "Sten gun"), but modern designs are rather more complex. All are highly regulated.

Note that the vast majority of crimes commited with full-auto weapons (not simple possesion) are done by... Law enforcement agents. Oops.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://www.fmft.net/archives/002710.html&h=462&w=758&sz=37&tbnid=AeelixNLSjD8FM:&tbnh=87&tbnw=142&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsten%2Bgun&zoom=1&q=sten+gun&hl=en&usg=__shEL1O30eA4l_D9TUO8FU9Yarws=&sa=X&ei=NuuQTIHjIYTCsAPVjJGyDg&ved=0CCkQ9QEwBA

[Uncle Joe]

21. Not to mention our insane War on Drugs policies; are directly responsible for funding the purchase

of these weapons.

Thanks for the thread, Judi Lynn.

[Karenina]

22. Adding this to the "well, duh" file...

[bemildred]

23. Yup, no drug war, no national security state, or at least much reduced. nt

[Kringle]

25. 5000 smuggled guns per year... US annual gun sales, 13 million

this story has got to be a joke