No court win, but Mexico pressures U.S. on southbound guns

Mexico City – More than ten years ago, the Mexican officials built an advertising board on the Ciudad Juárez border opposite Rio Grande of El Paso.

“No more weapons” was a sharp message prepared in English and seized and prepared from 3 tons of crushed firearms.

In Mexico, it was a desperate treaty for US officials to balance Iron River, a weapon flow to the south, which fueled record massacre levels in Mexico.

But the weapons continued to come – and blood intake and turmoil grew.

Finally, with a record -breaking murders, bored authorities turned into a new strategy: Mexico filed a $ 10 billion in the US Federal Court, Smith & Wesson and other signature manufacturers to be held responsible for the death epidemic of the country.

The uphill against the powerful weapon lobby survived the struggle of the Court of Appeal, but last week the US Supreme Court fired the case of Mexico last week, and unanimously decided that federal law maintained weapons producers from almost all responsibility.

Although cases stop, advocates say that high -profile gambitin notes a significant success: to dramatize the role of Mexico’s daily assassination, massacres and disappearances.

“Regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision, Mexico’s case has achieved a lot, Sür

Lowy, a joint partner in Mexico’s case, said, “Weapon smuggling-and the industry’s role in facilitating the weapon pipeline-on-the-art and international agenda,” he said.

A few hours after the Supreme Court decision, the US Ambassador to Mexico City, Ronald Johnson, wrote on the X on the X, the White House intends to olmak stopping arms to the south and dismantling nets that fueled cartel violence ”.

President Claudia Sheinbaum said that Washington, who first had Mexico for the first time in Mexico to reduce the traffic of Fentanil and other illegal drugs to the north, said that he accepted a mutual responsibility for south of Mexico. He greeted this as a breakthrough for years.

“This is not only about the transition of narcotics from Mexico to the United States, Shein said Sheinbaum said in a statement on Friday. “But there [must] In addition, there will be no arms pass from the United States to Mexico. ”

Sheinbaum said that after the rejection of the Supreme Court of Mexico, he said. A separate case by Mexico, who is still on alert, accusing five arms sellers in Arizona of smuggling weapons and cartels in the US Federal Court of ammunition.

In the meantime, US officials, Trump administration as foreign terrorist organizations of the six Mexican cartel recently, arms smugglers may face accusations of terrorism, he says.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a congress panel last month, “In essence, the cartels that operate in Mexico and threatening the state were armed from the weapons purchased and sent there in the US”. “We want to help stop this flow.”

On Monday, the federal agents gathered on an international bridge in Lareredo, Texas, before a series of seized arm from SNUB -nosed pistols to machine guns mounted.

“This is not just a weapon to Mexico,” he said, a special agent Craig Larrabe, responsible for internal security investigations in San Antonio. “He will armed the cartels. He will fight and create terrorism in Mexico with police officers.”

In the documents submitted to the Supreme Court, Mexican officials claimed that US weapons manufacturers admit that they were unaware that their products were condemned to Mexican cartels – an accusation rejected by the producers.

The arms industry also discussed the claim that Mexico produces military -style attack rifles and other weapons that appeal to mafia for both practical and aesthetic reasons. Mexico referred to a few .38 caliber Colt offers, including gold -plated. Jefe de Jefes (“Boss’s boss”) Pistol; And a pistol called “Emiliano Zapata, was adorned with an image of the reputable Mexican revolutionary hero and the famous slogan:“ It is better to die on your knees than to live. ”

In Mexico, a soldier from the Directorate of Weapons and Münmunat, one of the two stores where people can buy weapons legally.

(For Meghan DHALIWAL / The Times)

Compared to the United States, Mexico has a much more strict approach to firearms.

As the second amendment, the Mexican Constitution guarantees the right to carry weapons. At the same time, he predicts that the ownership of the federal law will “determine their cases, conditions, requirements and locations”.

There are only two stores around the country, both of which were operated by the army where people can buy weapons legally. In the larger store in Mexico City, less than 50 weapons are sold every day.

In a process that can drag for months, buyers need to provide names, addresses and fingerprints. And unlike the United States, Mexico continues a national registry.

However, the US-Origin’s great existence, black market weapons weakens the strict rules of Mexico.

In 2012, thousands of weapons were destroyed in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. At least 6,000 rifles and pistols seized from drug cartels were destroyed by the Mexican army.

(Through Getty Images, Isa Alcazar / AFP)

According to Mexican officials, 200,000 to half a million weapons are kidnapped to Mexico annually.

Data collected by the US Office of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives show where criminals in Mexico have achieved the fire forces.

From 2009 to 2018, 70% of the 132,823 weapons gathered in the crime scenes in Mexico were caused by the US – mostly in Texas and other southwest border states.

In their case, Mexican officials stated even higher numbers: Almost 90% of the weapons seized at the crime scene came from the north of the border.

Experts say that most of the firearms in Mexico were legally purchased by the hay buyers who missed the border weapons from US arms shows or retail points. This is a surprisingly easy job: more than a million people and about 1.8 billion dollars of goods are legally exceeding the border every day, and Mexico rarely examines the vehicles going to the south.

In recent years, the flood of arms from the United States has accelerated and has caused violence at record levels. The Mexican organized crime groups expanded their grass and moved to rackets, including the exploitation of extortion, fuel and timber, minerals and other natural resources.

In 2004, the weapons formed one quarter of Mexico’s murders. Today, weapons are used in about three quarters.

Mexican leaders have been giving alarms for a long time.

With our support, former President Felipe Calderón, who started Mexican drug smugglers as a catastrophic “war, in late 2006, personally begged the US deputies to make a ban on the purchase of high -power attack rifles. The end of the ban in 2004 meant that most of the adults with a clean recording could enter a store in the state in the state and that most of the world could walk with weapons reserved for military use.

In Mexico City, a weapon seller who wants anonymously sells the illegal weapons he bought in the black market. Firearms trafficking in Mexico are legally purchased in the USA and easily moved to the south.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

In 2010, Calderon said, “Many of these weapons will not go to their honest American hands,” said Calderon. address US Congress. “Instead, thousands of people get into the hands of criminals.”

It was Calderón entering the northern border towards the end of the period to reveal the gigantic advertising panel that called for US officials to stop the flow of arms.

The objections and the appeals of subsequent Mexican leaders were not largely ignored. The decision is still about whether Washington will follow the latest oaths to cut arms traffic.

“Trump administration, Mexican organized crime groups, said that a political scientist who read violence in Mexico at the University of San Diego said very clearly. “And if you are serious about Mexican cartels, you should take your weapons.”

Special reporter Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.