Who is buying the guns in Mexico?

March 29, 7:34 PMDenver Gun Rights ExaminerDan Bidstrup

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Guns and jewels seized during a military operation against organized crime are displayed to the media in Tijuana, Mexico, Monday, March 9, 2009. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)

I spent Sunday afternoon combing the internet for articles on guns going to Mexico.  I wanted to know exactly what the Border Patrol was actually intercepting.  I read local news accounts from Californian and Texan border towns, blogs from folks who said they had lived in Mexico, and Bureau of  Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms reports. The BATF says 90% of the guns found in crime scenes are traceable back to purchases in the US.  OK.  That means a gun used in a convenience store stick-up in southern Mexico is lumped in with shoot-outs with the drug cartels in northern Mexico. I looked and looked for pictures of confiscated weapons and most of the weapons were handguns. A lot of the rifles looked like AR-15s. It's hard to distinguish models when they are stacked up in a pile. They often included some full automatic weapons and some grenades, indicating sources in addition to a Wal Mart in Waco.  One photo had six bolt action hunting rifles and a flock of pistols. I will admit that there is and has been a market in Mexico for guns from America.  Another report said that 2,000 guns a day are coming into Mexico from the US, a bald assertion since nobody is standing at the border counting them in.  Even if we accept that figure, with a population of 110 million in Mexico, that isn't a staggering number.

Who is buying?  Just like the drugs that flow into America, there has to be a market for these weapons in Mexico and it didn't start a month ago.  One blogger told of his years living in Mexico.  He said most everybody had at least one gun, and several had quite nice arsenals, even though anything over .22 caliber is illegal for most folks in Mexico.  To me, this makes sense when you have a government that is viewed as mostly corrupt, especially at the local level.  When your police force is perceived as inept and corrupt and you see rising levels of drug war induced violence around you, are you willing to be caught with an illegal gun by the police when they come to your house after an attack?  I think I would.  My desire to protect myself and my family might cause me to seek out an illegal gun. Just like in the United States, I would want to defend myself and not depend on the police to protect me.

If the majority of guns entering Mexico are handguns and AR-15 derivatives, I suspect that the majority of the buyers are not the drug cartels.  I suspect it is regular folk going illegal in order to defend themselves, all across Mexico.  If this is even close to accurate, I have a suggestion for Mexico.  Change the laws, making ownership of guns by regular citizens legal.  This will dry up the demand for illegal guns, robbing organized crime of huge profits.  Gun stores in Mexico would open up and legally import weapons for sale.  I further predict that if that were done, the lives of ordinary criminals and the drug cartels would be vastly complicated. Way more than local police and the military will be shooting back.  If the history of the U.S. is a guide, more guns equals less violent crime over time.