Keeping Weapons Away from Mexican Drug Cartels

Pajamas Media ^ | August 29 | Todd Bensman

[AJKauf]

Kenneth Melson, acting director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives, was in San Antonio, Texas, on August 12 for the signing of a new agreement with ranking Mexican counterparts to more effectively interdict gun smugglers moving weapons into the hands of Mexico’s drug cartels. The pact, which is designed to allow for a far greater number of serial number traces of captured weapons long kept off limits in Mexican military vaults, is part of President Barack Obama’s new push to address the problem. Controversy has erupted between Second Amendment rights advocates and gun ban advocates over exactly how many weapons captured in Mexico actually originate from U.S. firearms retailers — and thus whether the Democratic Congress and White House might deem more sales regulation to be necessary.

In an exclusive interview with me, Melson discussed his agency’s supercharged efforts in Texas, the nation’s top source state for weapons recovered from cartel gunmen and later traced to U.S. firearms dealers...

[SpaceBar]

There is a willful disconnect between the government spokesmouths and the porous southern border which has allowed our country to be overrun by millions of Mexican nationals who procure firearms through criminal means. According to them, we are the problem.

[hitkicker]

I wonder how many of the weapons in question were given to the Mexican army or police by the U.S. government, and then found their way into criminal hands via criminal corruption.

If it is a substantial number I rather suspect that the Obama administration will cover it up or downplay it. We can’t have inconvenient facts getting in the way of a gun control meme, can we?

[Skibane]

Mexico is a crime-ridden nation of 110 million people with no legal means to acquire firearms - And yet we're supposed to believe that a few hundred drug thugs are the only Mexicans who buy smuggled guns?

Why are we assisting the Mexican government in denying its own citizens the God-given right of self-defense?