Estimates of around 2,000 guns a day, a lot of weapons by any standard, have been made by several different sources in both the US and Mexican governments. The question is, can the US gun market really supply 2,000 guns a day to Mexican drug traffickers, a recent claim made by Auturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the U.S;
In a remarkable claim, Auturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the U.S., said Mexico seizes 2,000 guns a day from the United States -- 730,000 a year. That's a far cry from the official statistic from the Mexican attorney general's office, which says Mexico seized 29,000 weapons in all of 2007 and 2008. [7]
Gun shows and straw purchases, a few truck loads here, a semi load there, is that how the Mexican cartels are smuggling so many weapons into Mexico.
In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced -- and of those, 90 percent -- 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover -- were found to have come from the U.S.
But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.
In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S. [7]
Another claim that has been made recently is that 90% of the weapons smuggled into Mexico are from the U.S.
In an April FactCheck.Org article, they could not verify whether or not that is a true statement;
There's no dispute that thousands of handguns, military-style rifles and other firearms are purchased in the U.S. and end up in the hands of Mexican criminals each year. It's relatively easy to buy such guns legally in Texas and other border states and to smuggle them across.
But is it true, as President Obama said, that "[m]ore than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States?" Government statistics don't actually support that claim.
The figure represents only the percentage of crime guns that have been submitted by Mexican officials and traced by U.S. officials. We can find no hard data on the total number of guns actually "recovered in Mexico," but U.S. and Mexican officials both say that Mexico recovers more guns than it submits for tracing. Therefore, the percentage of guns "recovered" that are traced to U.S. sources necessarily is less than 90 percent. Where do the others come from? U.S. officials can't say. [1]
Are defense contractors selling these weapons to the Mexican cartels, or maybe they are being sold to the Mexican Army and they transfer those weapons to traffickers. US and foreign military contractors are also operating in Mexico, they have access to heavy weapons and a violent narco state next door has to be good for business.
Are local gun shops and private sellers at gun shows capable of supplying truck loads of weapons across the border?
About the only thing that is not in dispute is that some of the weapons recovered are made in the U.S. and those weapons are being shipped from the U.S. into Mexico. In a March CBS article "The U.S. Guns In Mexico's Drug War", an El Paso ATF Agent had this exchange;
"They have high quality weapons," Golson said, referring to the powerful cartels. "I won't necessarily say they're better than what the Mexican soldiers have, but they're compatible. They have pretty heavy fire power, military style weapons."
Enough to threaten the Mexican military?
"Sure," Golson said. "There are enough weapons going in. It could be a definite challenge for the Mexican military." [2]
Some people say it's the 2nd amendment that is making it very easy for the cartels to buy weapons in the United States. Kristan Rand, legislative director for the Violence Policy Center, in a comment to the Arizona Star emphasized that point;
"If you wanted to design a system to supply gun traffickers, you would be hard-pressed to design one that would be easier than the U.S." . [3]
If we are going to assist the Mexican government in its effort to crack down on weapons trafficking, this country is going to have to except the fact that some record keeping changes are required. The NRA has consistently voiced opposition to any long term record keeping and congress has shown no desire to push for better record keeping laws.
The federal system for tracking gun sales, crafted over the years to avoid infringements on Second Amendment rights, makes it difficult to spot suspicious trends quickly and to identify people buying for smugglers, law enforcement officials say. [4]
There doesn't seem to be one consistent source of weapons, the Mexican cartels are using a combination of sources to purchase them. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has started to see some evidence that some of these weapons are larger caliber machine guns, a recent arrest in Houston may signal that weapons once beyond the reach of an average buyer may be more available and has ICE rethinking their previous assessments about what is heading south. Some people have argued that the fully automatic weapons can't be coming from the US in any large number, but for larger caliber weapons, large numbers aren't require, a few of these weapon make a tremendous difference on the street and against lightly armed police officers;
A U.S. citizen was sentenced to prison Wednesday for attempting to smuggle a .30-caliber, belt-fed rifle capable of accurately firing for nearly a mile.
Michael Hinojosa, deputy special agent in charge for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's regional office in Laredo, said he hasn't seen such a weapon previously snared along the South Texas-Mexico border in his 31 years in the region.
The tripod-mounted weapon, a semiautomatic Browning M1919, marked a step up in the lethality of armaments being smuggled south of the border into Mexico. The gun is believed by federal authorities to have been bound for drug cartel soldiers to fuel an ongoing narcotics war. [6]
There is no consensus as to where the weapons are coming from, but until it can be brought under control the Mexico government will have a difficult time stemming the violence.
I found an interesting blog by Ralph Weller that gives somewhat of a first hand account of the state of gun smuggling in Mexico. He is right in one point for sure;
Cartels buy their arms from countries around the world, most any place where military weapons can be purchased on the black market, or from countries wishing to destabilize North America. They arm themselves from a worldwide black market of full auto military weapons including grenades, land mines and RPGs. They also "procure" their weapons from the less than savory from within the Mexican military.
The drug cartels can easily afford to fly their weaponry into Mexico using their own fleet of aircraft on to remote airfields, or land them on remote Mexican shores from their fleet of vessels. They do it with drugs all of the time. Drug cartels buying semi-auto AR15 or AK rifles from U.S. gun dealers is viewed as a joke by Mexico's drug cartel, most Mexicans, and unfortunately by the Mexican government. The only people fooled by all the political rhetoric are Americans listening to the likes of Attorney General Eric Holder and other anti-gun politicians. [5]
So, what's the truth...there is truth to all of it. It's true that some weapons are coming from the US gun market but that is not the only source. It's impossible to determine what percentage of illicit weapons originate in the US because the Mexican government is not allowing US officials to inspect all of the guns they recover and the US can't determine what is being smuggled out of the country because of the lack of record keeping requirements of private buyers and sellers. It appears, by all reports, the cartels use all means at their disposal to arm their armies and part of that is exploiting the US gun market and gun purchasing laws, along with other sources, in every way possible.
The bottom line is this, if weapon smuggling from the United States dried up today, it would have very little affect on the cartel's ability to supply weapons to its members, the proximity of the U.S. and the liberal gun laws of the border states make it a convenient source, but by no means is it their only source.
Sources:
[1] Counting Mexico's Guns, April 17, 2009 - Corrected: April 22, 2009 http://www.factcheck.org/...
[2] The U.S. Guns In Mexico's Drug War, March 26, 2009 http://www.cbsnews.com/...
[3] US makes it easy for gun traffickers, Arizona Daily Star Published: 06.28.2009 http://www.azstarnet.com/...
[4] U.S. Stymied as Guns Flow to Mexican Cartels, Published: April 14, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/...
[5] You and I Can't Buy the Guns Mexican Cartels Own, by Ralph Weller http://www.ncc-1776.org/...
[6] Man gets 4 years for trying to smuggle powerful gun, Aug. 27, 2009 http://www.chron.com/...
[7] The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S., April 02, 2009 http://www.foxnews.com/...