American Corporate Greed, 50 Lawful Gun Permits a Year, One Gun Store in Mexico

US made guns confiscated in Mexico   

    Colt’s El Jefe pistol 

 

  Colt’s El Grito pistol

Barrett’s .50-caliber sniper rifle

“When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” Donald Trump campaign speech, June 2015

The tragedy of rising and seriously out-of-control corruption in Mexico (and points south), where billions and billions of dollars of profits from the narco-trade have enriched and empowered the drug cartels, has only been possible because of the proliferation of guns, including lots of semi-automatic assault rifles, purchased in the United States and smuggled across the border. America’s insatiable demand for illicit narcotics, evidenced by a record-breaking 100,000 overdose deaths in 2020, has generated the cashflow that fuels it all. There are just so many such drugs shoved illegally into the US across our southern border, protected by Mexican and other Latin American cartels and distributed through local cartel bosses here in the United States working with local US gangs almost everywhere, which have also grown stronger from this massive flow of cash. 

Indeed, when Donald Trump was trying to find money to build his “wall” to protect the United States from all those nasties south of the border (as referenced in his campaign rhetoric), I thought it ironic that it may indeed have been Mexico that was the victim of a porous border. I facetiously posited that perhaps there should be a wall – to protect Mexico from the flood of illegal guns flowing south – but that the United States should have to pay for it. See my May 31, 2018 Donald Wants a Wall with Mexico, but Mexico Needs One! blog.

Writing for the November 26th Los Angeles Times, Jean Guerrero (who lost a cousin to cartel gun violence), explains the magnitude of the problem from Mexico’s perspective: “With only one gun store in the country and fewer than 50 gun permits granted a year, Mexico has some of the strictest gun laws in the world… Between 70% and 90% of guns found at crime scenes in Mexico come from the U.S., including guns designed to appeal to the Mexican market such as a Colt .38-caliber pistol featuring an image of the Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata and the phrase: ‘It is better to die standing than to live on your knees.’

“Earlier this year, the Mexican government filed a lawsuit against several U.S. gun companies, accusing them of knowingly flooding the country with illicit firearms, which have brought horrific levels of bloodshed… In a brief filed on [November 22nd], the gun companies asked a federal judge in Boston to dismiss the lawsuit… The companies — Smith & Wesson, Glock, Ruger & Co. and others — postured as the good guys, invoking stereotypes of Mexico as a lawless place. ‘At bottom, this case implicates a clash of national values,’ their attorneys wrote. They characterized Mexico’s lawsuit as a threat to ‘America’s constitutional freedoms.’

“Marcela Celorio, Mexico’s consul general in Los Angeles, said this lawsuit has nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment. ‘This is against the gun companies,’ she told me. ‘We would like the federal courts to hold them accountable for all these negligent commercial practices that have actively facilitated unlawful trafficking of their guns into Mexico.’… Mexico is seeking billions of dollars in damages and demanding that the gun makers adopt new sales and marketing practices, including smart-gun technology to prevent unauthorized use.

“The complaint also mentions other anti-trafficking strategies such as hidden serial numbers, a ban on multiple simultaneous sales of assault weapons and cutting off supplies to dealers known to inundate the Mexican market. All of these ideas could be carried out readily… The complaint describes in sickening detail the weapons that appeal to drug cartels: pistols such as Colt’s ‘El Jefe’ (The Boss) and ‘El Grito’ (The Scream), as well as Barrett’s .50-caliber sniper rifle marketed as ‘battle proven’ — used to shoot down helicopters and penetrate armored vehicles in Mexico… ‘They are trying to accommodate these guns for the Mexican market,’ Celorio said.

“One University of San Diego study found that 47% of licensed gun dealers in the U.S. would go out of business without Mexico’s demand for trafficked guns. David Shirk, the study’s co-author, said Mexico’s lawsuit could be a turning point because it comes amid other lawsuits, including from families of children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting.” Effectively, anyone in America can buy a gun, usually legally, and most red states are actually making buying and carrying guns much easier even as US gun homicides escalate.

The May 29, 2018, LA Times presents the details of what Mexican guns laws are supposed to accomplish: “Like the 2nd Amendment in the United States, Mexico’s Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms, but it also stipulates that federal law ‘will determine the cases, conditions, requirements and places’ of gun ownership. For many Mexicans, even those who love guns, the thought of an unfettered right to owning one is perplexing… 

“[The permitting application process takes months and] would-be gun owners in Mexico must offer a birth certificate and proof that they are employed, and have no criminal record. The atmosphere at the directorate is more sterile than at a U.S. gun store or pawnshop. There are no moose heads on the wall and no promotional specials. Guns stamped with the army’s logo are kept in locked cases and customers aren’t given the chance to heft a rifle to their shoulder to see how it feels.

“Buyers spend hours shuffling between different counters to get their paperwork processed, waiting for long stretches under fluorescent lights in uncomfortable chairs. It feels a bit like the Department of Motor Vehicles, until one notices the no-nonsense army colonel running things and the machine-gun-toting soldiers patrolling the aisles.

 

“The store manager, Col. Eduardo Tellez, said he believes gun ownership is a privilege. He sees his job as making sure firearms end up in the hands of ‘moral and responsible’ people only… Current law allows citizens one handgun and up to nine rifles if they can prove they are members of shooting or hunting clubs. A separate permit that is difficult to obtain is required to carry the guns in public.” Los Angeles Times, May 29, 2018. It’s so American to blame others for sending narcotics to the United States – since we are unable to control our own consumer demand – while protecting American corporations from their most and clearly-intended villainous drug-smuggling-enabling activities. 

 

I’m Peter Dekom, and too often in the United States, when justice confronts corporate greed, corporate greed is the most consistent victor.