US source of guns flowing into Mexico, Caribbean states.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: The flow of guns into Mexico and other Caribbean nations has increased tremendously in the last several years. The source of all this weaponry is America.
A report compiled by the Council on Foreign Relation’s (CFR) Julia Sweig, shows an alarming increase in the number of guns seized and recovered by law enforcement in these countries that have been traced back to retailers and manufacturers in the United States.
While Congress continues to fight about maintaining border security in the interests of immigration reform and management, gun control seems to have slipped under the radar.
An excerpt: Sweig outlines action—consistent with the Second Amendment—the Obama administration should pursue to reduce the trafficking of firearms, such as expanding reporting requirements for assault weapons and continuing support for federal, state, and local initiatives to improve regulation of the U.S. civilian firearms market.
Such steps, she concludes, “will offset widespread regional views that the United States remains indifferent to its own role in exacerbating one of Latin America’s most significant challenges.”
Facts and figures courtesy of How to Reduce Gun Trafficking in the Americas, from CFR’s Julia Sweig:
70 – percentage of the weapons seized in Mexico since 2007 that have been traced back to American manufacturers.
99,000 – number of weapons seized in Mexico since 2007.
90 – percentage of weapons recovered in Bahamas in 2011 that were traced back to United States. Some say the percentage is even higher, though slightly.
80 – percentage of weapons recovered in Jamaica that were traced back to United States in the same year.