Voices: Guns to Mexico

June 21, 2009 08:29 pm

— In a recent Parade Magazine, it was reported that the Mexican drug lords are being armed by coming into the United States and buying easily attained automatic weapons.
Most of the traced assault weapons used by the narco-traffickers had been smuggled from the United States. The Mexican government has requested the U.S. assault-weapons ban that expired in 2004 be renewed to control gun traffic. It was reported the U.S. government is spending $400 million to step up efforts to block the flow of guns south. Now here is the problem with this report. The firearms being used by the narco-traffickers are automatic weapons — illegal in both the U.S. and Mexico. No, you cannot buy them at your local gun show.
The assault-weapons ban does not address automatic weapons — they are already illegal. Semi-automatic firearms are available and completely legal in the United States, but are too expensive to be purchased and smuggled south. The difference between the automatic weapons the narco-traffickers are using and semi-automatic firearms is that semi-automatic means one shot each time the trigger is pulled. Automatic means the trigger is pulled and the firearm fires continually until it runs out of ammunition.
The Mexican government is extremely opposed to the private ownership of any and all firearms and would like the Obama administration to push that position on the United States. By the way, the narco-traffickers support this opinion also — then we could be unarmed sheep like Mexicans.
David Pritchard
Carthage