Feinstein Urges Tougher Gun Laws to Prevent Mexico Violence...

[spin]

Senator Dianne Feinstein wants to toughen U.S. gun laws to prevent violence in Mexico. Tanya Snyder reports.

At a Senate committee hearing Tuesday, Feinstein recounted a recent meeting she had with the Mexican ambassador to the U.S.

"I have never seen deeper concern on an ambassador's face," she said.

At the ambassador's urging, Feinstein sent letters last week to President Obama and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urging them to take action against illegal arms trafficking. More than ninety percent of the weapons seized by law enforcement in Mexico come from the United States.
http://www.kpbs.org/news/local?id=14130

It easy to see the future path of the gun control advocates. Here is an interesting column dated Thursday, March 19 from conservative columnist George Will:

PHOENIX -- X-Caliber, a gun store in a nondescript neighborhood in this city's northern section, has become embroiled in Mexico's turmoil. The chaos in Mexico is the result of its government's decision to wage war against rampant drug cartels that are fighting mostly against each other but also against the portions of Mexican law enforcement they have not corrupted. Operating in that nation's north, they are serving this nation's appetite for illegal narcotics and illegal immigrants.

The gun shop's proprietor, the name of whose shop might indicate familiarity with Arthurian legend, is on trial here, accused of selling at least 650 weapons, including AK-47 rifles, in small lots to "straw buyers" -- persons who illegally pass on the weapons to the cartels, thereby fueling the violence that killed more than 6,000 Mexicans last year. That was more than 2,000 above the 2007 toll and fewer than will die if the rate of killing so far this year continues. (U.S. military fatalities in Iraq in six years number 4,249.) Fortunately, most of the dead are members of the warring cartels.

The prosecution of the proprietor is part of the U.S. attempt to stop the southward flow of weapons and bulk currency while Mexico combats the northward flow of drugs and of human beings brought by "coyotes." Although almost all the cartels' weapons come from the United States, the cartels are generating upward of $15 billion annually from drugs, human trafficking and extortion. So they will find ways to get guns -- and grenades and other military weapons -- for their internecine disputes about control over routes for smuggling drugs and people.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/18/AR2009031802930.html

However it looks like the case against X-Caliber and the owner has a major problem:

PHOENIX, March 18 (Reuters) - An Arizona judge threw out criminal charges on Wednesday against a gun dealer accused of knowingly selling weapons to smugglers shopping for Mexican drug cartels, after he ruled the prosecutor's evidence was flawed.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Robert Gottsfield issued a directed verdict of not guilty in the trial of George Iknadosian, 47, the owner of X-Caliber guns in Phoenix.

*********snip********

Gottsfield dismissed the case on the grounds that the prosecutors had not proven the third-party buyers, or "straw purchasers," had misrepresented their identities when buying the guns.

"There is no proof whatsoever that any prohibited possessor ended up with the firearms," he said in a ruling.
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN18511074

So as violence caused by Mexican drug gangs increase in this country, the government's solution will be to ban semi-auto weapons from honest American citizens.

I expect to see an endless stream of propaganda emanating from the anti-gun groups saying the American "assault weapons" are the problem.