Mexico City – Authorities are sounding the alarm about an influx of assault rifles, armor-piercing pistols and fragmentation grenades from the United States, weapons that they say are increasingly being used to kill police and soldiers fighting drug cartels.
U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials report a sharp increase in the flow and firepower of U.S. weapons across the border. Particularly worrisome are assault rifles and “cop-killer” pistols.
Mexico has strict firearms laws, few gun stores and a mere 4,300 private licensed gun holders among its 105 million people. The United States, with nearly as many guns as people, has more than 100,000 licensed gun sellers, an industry that makes about 2.8 million small arms a year, and gun laws so loose that arms traffickers easily pick up any weapons they need.
Despite Mexico’s gun-control laws, criminals have long smuggled guns in from the U.S.
“The problem is getting bigger because the illegal possession of arms, and their clandestine introduction to our country, combines with narcotics trafficking,” said a government report to Mexico’s Senate in June. It said 99.4 percent of the weapons in the hands of Mexican criminals are suspected of coming from the United States.
At least 11,752 U.S.-sold guns have been found in Mexico since January 2003 – a tiny fraction of what remains on the streets, according to the report.
It did not give figures for previous years. But one indicator of a new gun glut is the fact that hit men drop their guns at crime scenes rather than be caught with them afterward, knowing they are easily replaced, a senior U.S. law enforcement official in Mexico said on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
Particularly worrisome are U.S. sales of Belgian-made FN-57 pistols. These fire bullets that “will defeat most body armor in military service around the world today,” according to the Remtek weapons site on the Internet.
It’s particularly easy to buy weapons at the thousands of U.S. gun shows held each year, where the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives stopped checking addresses of gun buyers after the National Rifle Association complained that sales had plummeted.
Mexico also wants lawmakers in Washington to loosen restrictions on who can see gun-purchasing data, but that’s unlikely given the strong opposition from the NRA.
The ATF says it is fighting the problem by sending more agents to the border and giving Mexico a pack of gun-sniffing Labrador retrievers this year.
U.S. officials also put blame on Mexico, saying officials rarely search southbound traffic along the border. But Mexican customs agents who do are often given a grim choice: “plata o plomo” – the silver of a bribe or the lead of a bullet.
