The Results Are Clear!
By John Lindsay-Poland*
The uncontrolled flow of guns from the United States to Mexico is a root cause of the high levels of murders, extortion, forced migration, and other kinds of violence that assault Mexico and the region.
The Availability of US Guns
The violence has numerous sources: the “war on drugs,” the extortion business, trafficking in people, toxic masculinity, political repression, and more, but the thread running through them all is the massive number of U.S.-sourced firearms. The availability of so many weapons complicates Mexico’s path to resolving its most urgent challenges. Easy access to firearms reinforces the power of criminal organizations and corrupt military and police officers, who are dependent on the continuing flow of weapons.
The U.S. gun market is enormous, militarized, and permissive, with thousands of gun shops in border states such as Texas, Arizona, and California. In Mexico, on the other hand, the legal purchase of guns is very restricted, with a single gun shop operated by the army.
At least 70% of all guns recovered in Mexico and traced come from the United States. The open sale of assault weapons and sniper rifles represents a prominent market for organizations that use violence in Mexico to fight over markets for drugs, extortion, and fees for the passage of migrants seeking asylum. An estimated 250,000 guns are trafficked illegally over the border from the United States into Mexico each year.
The Results are Clear
The results are clear: A dramatic increase in homicides in Mexico in the last two decades. Enormous power of both criminal groups and military agencies that rely on weapons. Displaced communities and migrants seeking refuge encounter both state agents armed with U.S. weapons as well as criminals who rob and even disappear from them. Gun possession in homes with growing violence and coercion against women. Families and communities destroyed.
The Mexican government’s lawsuit filed in 2021 against 11 U.S. gun companies for their negligent practices that promote illegal trafficking of these weapons is an important step and was affirmed by an appellate court last month (January 2024). It puts the onus of responsibility on those making profits from the weapons used in so much violence and can have significant outcomes.
But weapons from the United States and other countries also flow to police and military forces that have committed atrocities, including police in Guerrero state which forcibly disappeared 43 students from Ayotzinapa using assault rifles imported from the United States, Germany, and Italy. State police in the northern state of Tamaulipas have acquired hundreds of rifles imported from the United States via the Mexican army (SEDENA), both before and after massacres committed by those police in 2019 and 2021. Neither the United States nor SEDENA stop deadly weapons from going to such police.
Mexico is the only country in the world where the army is responsible for practically every process related to firearms at the national level, including their production, importation, registration, licenses to carry, and sale – to police, individuals, and private security companies – and destruction. Soldiers also deploy firearms in operations and recover a large part of crime guns in the country.
SEDENA’s monopoly on firearms in Mexico has severe consequences for civilian control of guns, transparency, and access to information.
Parkland father Manuel Oliver narrates this powerful account of gun violence in Mexico with U.S. guns, the people affected by it, and what must be done.
Raise a Voice Against Gun Violence!
The ARMAS Act, proposed by Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas, would put controls on legal gun exports in the hemisphere and create a U.S. strategy for addressing illegal trafficking. Communities in Mexico and the United States have the chance to raise a united voice against the violence. The future of peace and well-being in both countries is inevitably linked.
*John Lindsay-Poland coordinates Stop US Arms to Mexico, a project of the Global Exchange Organization: stopusarmstomexico.org. Contact: johnlindsaypoland@gmail.com
Photo credits:
Two women grieving loss from gun violence. Credit: DasFilmBuro
Table with seized firearms in Mexico: Associated Press