Posted on 11/02/2019 11:31:00 PM PDT by familyop
But there’s a problem: boycotting Mexican avocados is probably not a good way to fight the cartels...If we want to sap the cartels’ strength, there are better ways to do so.As Rolling Stone reports, a 2013 University of San Diego study found that "nearly half of all gun stores in the United States would go out of business were it not for the sales boost provided by the carnage in Mexico". Trump’s border wall and tightened immigration policy have also been a boon to cartels, who are able to charge more for complicated, high-stakes human smuggling operations.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
“University of San Diego study found that “nearly half of all gun stores in the United States would go out of business were it not for the sales boost provided by the carnage in Mexico”. “ Fake premise, fake reporting. Prove it.
They seem to be implying either drug gangs buy their guns in the US or that Joe Average citizen buys guns because they are worried about Mexican gangs in Mexico.
Neither can be true. Gun dealers are not selling guns to Mexican gang members because they don’t pass the background check.
Allow the shipment of Hawaii avocadoes to the Mainland .
Right now the USDA , under pressure from the California CALAVO
organization keeps them out .
US avos for US markets !
Stop buying cocaine and the cartels will dry up.
Mexican narcorterrorists only got guns from US gun stores when Obama and Eric Holder forced those stores to permit those sales.
It’s a good and humorous start.
"Cartels reportedly collected over $154m of Michoacán’s annual avocado profits between 2009 and 2013, extorting local farmers through threats of kidnapping, rape and gruesome violence, which continues to escalate. Gangs have been known to charge farmers a $60-per-acre tax on their own farms and a fee for every box of fruit they produce; sometimes they even seize their land. Periodically, vigilante groups organize to fight back, but the region’s local institutions are weak and the cartels are strong.Boycotting Mexican avodados would hurt the farmers a lot more than it would hurt the cartels."As you’d probably expect, avocado enthusiasts, not wanting to inadvertently fund violence, have begun to have second thoughts about the ethics of their favorite toast-topper. The Guardian reported last year on the decision of several restaurant owners and chefs, including the Michelin-starred Irish chef JP McMahon, to drop Mexican avocados from their menus. McMahon likened the fruits to blood diamonds, and the London chef Joseph Ryan has welcomed a 'post-avocado era'."
I probably could have excerpted the piece in another way to make it more clear. Sorry about that.
The claim from the writer is that the Mexican drug cartels are getting their firearms from the U.S. through straw purchases (otherwise legal buyers making illegal purchases, that is, buying with intentions to distribute to others).
I’m sure that such purchases and distribution happen, but other foreign actors are probably heavily involved. Most of the photos of cartel members show AK-47s and other weapons that are designed outside of the U.S.
There’s one such photo here, probably of cartel thugs in Mexico or south Texas.
Besides, better border security would stop weapons from illegally getting to Mexico from the States.
Mexican avocados don’t taste as good. That’s why I don’t buy them
I don’t buy any fresh produce from outside the US....meat either
Chinese Organized Crime in Latin America
Prism
National Defense University
The Journal of Complex Operations
By R. EVAN ELLIS
PRISM 4, no. 1 - Features 71
[Excerpt:]
Arms trafficking
“Although much attention is given to flows of firearms from the united States into Mexico, the PRC, through the black market, is one of the principal providers of military-grade munitions to the region.59 A particular problem is Chinese arms smuggled into Mexico, often through the united States.60”
[As accessed November 3, 2019 by familyop by way of a link from another publication here:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-is-supplying-a-drug-war-against-the-united-states_1915904.html ]
That was linked from here.
China Is Fueling a Drug War Against the US
By Joshua Philipp, The Epoch Times
December 18, 2015 Updated: January 4, 2018
https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-is-supplying-a-drug-war-against-the-united-states_1915904.html
Scroll down to “The Origin of Illicit Firearms.”
Oops. I forgot to include the University link. Here it is with the link.
Chinese Organized Crime in Latin America
Prism
National Defense University
The Journal of Complex Operations
By R. EVAN ELLIS
PRISM 4, no. 1 - Features 71
https://cco.ndu.edu/Portals/96/Documents/prism/prism_4-1/prism64-77_ellis.pdf
[Excerpt:]
Arms trafficking
“Although much attention is given to flows of firearms from the united States into Mexico, the PRC, through the black market, is one of the principal providers of military-grade munitions to the region.59 A particular problem is Chinese arms smuggled into Mexico, often through the united States.60”
[As accessed November 3, 2019 by familyop by way of a link from another publication here:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-is-supplying-a-drug-war-against-the-united-states_1915904.html ]
Smuggling of firearms into Mexico
Wikipedia
Gun origins
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smuggling_of_firearms_into_Mexico#Gun_origins
[Excerpt:]
The US Congress has been informed that ATF agents working in Mexico routinely instruct Mexican authorities “to only submit weapons for tracing that have a likelihood of tracing back to the U.S .... instead of simply wasting resources on tracing firearms that will not trigger a U.S. source.” This policy skews the pool of weapons submitted for tracing to weapons already suspected of being US origin.[39] Gun-rights groups use the absolute number between seizures and traces to question whether the majority of illegal guns in Mexico really come from the United States.[40] Gun control advocates use the 48% to 87% successful US origin trace rate to call for re-enactment of the sunsetted Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994-2004.[41]
A significant source of Mexican cartel weapons is legal sales by U.S. gun companies to the Mexican military and police, sales approved by the U.S. State Department which after they arrive in Mexico end up in cartel hands. In 2011 CBS News reported “The Mexican military recently reported nearly 9,000 police weapons “missing.”” A 2009 U.S. State Department audit showed 26 percent of guns sold legally to governments in Mexico and Central America were diverted to the wrong hands.[42]
Adrienne doesn’t really understand economics, does she?
And charging more never costs you customers... because the people who scraped and saved for years just to hire the cheapest coyotes are simply going to hire these experts now who do more complicated, high-stakes human smuggling operations which amazingly enough, don't cost the smuggler any more time and effort than simple ones..../s
How about getting street drugs out of the neighborhood? That would hurt the cartels.
Too much tolerance of criminality is hard baked into some cultural mindsets.
So good news that the guns are not ending up on our streets and we get profits.
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