The country of Mexico has never exactly been as prosperous as the United States. There are few geographical reasons it shouldn’t be, mind you, it just isn’t. They have abundant natural resources including oil, silver, copper, gold, lead, zinc, and natural gas. They also have robust agriculture.
They have the recipe for success.
Unfortunately for everyone there, Mexico isn’t a success story. It never has been, but now, you see, it’s our fault.
More than 112,000 people have been forcibly disappeared in Mexico. Internationally renowned human rights activist María Herrera Magdaleno spoke at a recent Center for American Progress event about the role of U.S. guns in both these disappearances and the high levels of gun violence in Mexico.
Mexico has very restrictive gun laws, and its only legal gun store is on a Mexico City army base. The United States is the main supplier of guns used in crimes throughout Mexico, especially U.S. states with weak gun laws, such as Texas and Arizona. These U.S. guns are frequently used in mass kidnappings by organized crime in collusion with local police. In 2014,for instance, six people were killed and 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ School were forcibly disappeared as a result of Colt assault rifles exported from the United States.
No, that happened because local police were in bed with organized crime. That kidnapping was committed under the guise of a mass arrest, those rifles issued by the Mexican government.
You know, just to keep things straight.
Now, about Magdaleno. She’s been touched by the kind of violence few of us can fathom. I get her being upset and begging for help.
That doesn’t mean she has some intimate knowledge of what’s happening with regard to guns in Mexico, though, and based on bringing up the incident with the teachers’ school shows no one else at that publication does either.
First, understand that it’s illegal under federal law to ship guns outside of the nation without government approval, and that generally only happens when there’s a very good and very legal reason for it, such as selling guns to a friendly power.
It’s also illegal to import them into Mexico.
So those are two laws right there that are being ignored.
Further, straw purchases are illegal, which is what is happening when someone buys a gun with the intention of providing it to someone who couldn’t buy one lawfully in the first place.
That’s another law being ignored.
See, what people upset about what’s happening in Mexico need to understand is that no, it’s not the United States’ fault.
Mexico was never as prosperous as it probably should have been. The cartels rolled in and took advantage of the corruption that has long been in place and yes, they brought guns in from the United States. Then again, the Obama administration openly assisted them to do so in Operation Fast & Furious.
But the problems that created the situation were there long beforehand.
Let’s say the US made guns disappear here overnight except those in police and military hands. Just a Thanos snap, but instead of making people disappear, it’s firearms.
Is Mexico going to be safer going forward?
Not likely.
The incident brought up in the above quote were police; people employed and armed by the government. Do you think the Mexican government will go without guns? Of course not.
What’s more, the cartels have access to a lot of stuff you and I can’t get. They’ll just find another source for guns and keep going about their business.
That’s because the underlying problem is criminality in Mexico. Take that away and the guns are irrelevant. Don’t take that away and you’ll never gun control your way out of it.
