You know a lot of people forget that Hugh Chavez let Russia build plants in his country to make a lot of AK47s and other armament's for his view of revolution in South and central American. I would say that his plants are the ones supplying a lot of these so called illegal weapons to the drug lords.
Reflex, more time spent on this angle you mention, would in my opinion, be time not wasted.
Of a sudden, when just recently Yugo Chavez was announcing a Russian deal to bring create a Russian/Venezuelan cooperative for AK-47s and such?