A ton of people, mostly in the media but not just them, think that the attempt on the life of former President Donald Trump should result in gun control.

I've addressed a number of those claims, including several today alone. There's no need for me to keep recounting these over and over again. Not if they people screaming aren't saying anything different.

Or unless there's something interesting about the people doing the screaming.

It seems that Mexico has joined the gun control choir, using the assassination attempt to justify it.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday called on the United States to tighten firearms control following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.

"It's something that needs to be done urgently," said Lopez Obrador, whose government blames firearms trafficking from its northern neighbor for fueling drug cartel-related violence.

The outgoing leftist urged US President Joe Biden and his predecessor and election rival Trump to sign a pledge to regulate weapon sales.

The United States was experiencing a "social decomposition" that must be tackled at its roots, Lopez Obrador, who is due to leave office on October 1, said at his daily news conference.

About a third of adults in the United States own a firearm and regulations on purchasing powerful, military-style rifles are lax.

In contrast, Mexico tightly controls weapons sales, making them practically impossible to obtain legally.

So, of course, there aren't any assassination attempts in Mexico.

Except, of course, there are.

On Tuesday, I talked about how there seems to be a growing trend of assassination attempts throughout the world. That came from a report at Foreign Policy, that included this little tidbit:

One key example is Mexico, which recently reached a bleak new political milestone in holding its deadliest election season ever. During the country’s 2024 election cycle, 37 political candidates were assassinated, many of whom were vying for local office. In the country’s 2021 midterm election, 36 candidates were assassinated, according to Integralia, a security consultancy. 

Beyond the issue of assassinations, other violence against candidates was also more pervasive in Mexico this year. Integralia logged 828 nonlethal violent incidents during the 2024 election season, eclipsing the 389 attacks recorded in 2018 during the country’s previous presidential election. 

Now, as noted in the first block quote, guns are very tightly controlled in Mexico. While it's possible to obtain one legally, it's so difficult that it might as well be impossible for most people. I mean, there's only one gun store in the entire country and it's located on a military base, which means there are a ton of hoops to jump through before you can even set foot in the store.

And yet, in 2024, 37 political candidates in Mexico alone were assassinated. 828 others were attacked and survived.

We've had one.

Yes, it was a high-profile one, but there has been exactly one attempt on the life of a political candidate in 2024. 

It seems to me like Mexico's gun control efforts aren't doing jack squat to curb political assassination attempts inside their own borders, so why should we assume it would do anything here?

Honestly, I find it hilarious that Lopez Obrador is suggesting gun control in the wake of an assassination attempt considering they're so freaking common in his country they don't even make the news outside of local reports, if even that.

No, we don't need gun control.

The last thing anyone should want is to be anything like Mexico.