America vs Fentanyl & Mexico vs Guns

By Suha Abrahim

Earlier this week the US and Mexico reached a deal to pause tariffs. Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum agreed to send troops to combat drug trafficking while Trump promised to “prevent the trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexico”. With only two legal gun stores in Mexico, cartel violence has continued to rise over the past 20 years. The high caliber guns found at crime scenes are not legally sold to civilians in Mexico.  It’s been found that American guns have been used in several attacks throughout the country.

Of the guns retrieved from Mexican crime scenes, between 2014-2018, seventy percent of these could be traced back to the U.S. The trafficking of American weapons, otherwise called the “Iron River”, has allowed 250,000 guns across the border yearly.  To combat gun smuggling, the Mexican government has begun launching lawsuits towards American gun manufacturers like Barret Firearms Manufacturing. Companies have argued that they are not to be blamed for the cartel violence and are just following the law which allows them to make and sell guns in the US.

The process of gun smuggling isn’t a hard crime. The ease of buying a gun in the US, by only needing to clear a background check, allows people to do quick jobs for smugglers and make some money. After traffickers obtain the guns, they then pay straw buyers and drive these guns to Mexico. Mexico could start screening cars that cross the border, but agents fear the cartels if shipments are stopped.