“Most of the weapons used by criminal groups in Mexico (40 to 60%) comes from the United States. According to the Department of Homeland Security U.S. government, 40% of the weapons introduced in Mexico fall into the hands of drug traffickers.” That’s forty percent of ALL the weapons introduced into Mexico, including those sold to Mexico by our good friends at Bushmaster, Colt, etc. The first stat also includes U.S. weapons sold to other South American governments which find their way north. Including some very heavy weapons indeed. Yes, I know the MGL grenade launcher above is made in South Africa. Read on . . .
Even with the ATF practically hand-delivering assault rifles and FN handguns to Mexican drug lords, the U.S. government hysteria about the so-called “Iron River” of guns smuggled from Bob’s Gun Store to the Sinola Cartel is, was and will be nothing but a smokescreen.
Like so many media outlets, eldiariodechihuahua.com would have us believe that Mexico’s porous borders, manned by deeply corrupt customs agents, are enabling smuggling from weapons bought at U.S. gun stores. I don’t think so . . .
“Notable anti-tank rockets of the type M72 and AT-4, RPG-7 rocket launchers, 37 mm caliber grenade launcher MGL. Grenade launcher attachments 37 and 40 mm caliber, 37mm and 40 mm grenades, fragmentation grenades and .50 caliber Barrett rifles, Firearms of the new generation, such as submachine Belgian FN Herstal 5.7×28 mm caliber, known as “five-seven “or” cop killers “, which for subsonic ammunition, tracer and can pierce the armor penetration of kevlar or CRISAT.”
The RMP considers the Arellano Felix cartel as a user of ”conventional” firearms: they have seized a lesser extent “some Barrett rifles, rocket launchers and submachine FN Herstal 5.7?. From the Pacific cartel, PGR has seized handguns and assault rifles with conventional features and exceptionally grenade launchers and .37 mm.
Here’s the kicker:
PGR Documents in which the commission was based were made in 2008 and 2009, when prosecutor Eduardo Medina Mora era, since the arrival of Arturo Chávez Chávez there has not been more reports on smuggling of weapons into Mexico.
Consider this: Mexican firearms data—including U.S. government-approved sales to the Mexican military and police—disappeared at the exact same time that the ATF launched Project Gunrunner (January 2008). The same time the feds and the federales started to make noises about all the guns flowing down the so-called Iron River.
Just as the real stats about cartel weaponry went bye-bye, misleading and fake stats on confiscated guns—”90 percent of Mexican drug cartels’ guns come from the U.S.”—started showing up in Congress and the media, via the increasingly-discredited ATF. Both the U.S. and Mexican governments have suppressed useful firearms data, working to subvert the truth about guns in the hands of the drug cartels for political ends.
In truth, the vast majority of drug cartels’ U.S. weapons come from mainstream manufacturers via “official channels” (corrupt military and police) or from foreign sources, in large shipments flown straight into Mexico from Eastern Europe, China and elsewhere. We are doing nothing to stop that trade. Nothing.
There’s a reason Germany’s Heckler & Koch have stopped selling machine guns to the Mexican government. Perhaps that’s something that American manufacturers should consider, as well.
Robert Farago is the Publisher and Managing Editor of The Truth About Guns (TTAG). He started the site to explore the ethics, morality, business, politics, culture, technology, practice, strategy, dangers and fun of guns.