Pirate's Cove

Opinion writer Nicolas Ortega is rather upset about guns purchased in America ending up in Mexico, and he has a point. But, he very much forgot something

The Other Border Problem: American Guns Going To Mexico

On a sun-scorched prison patio in this sprawling border town, a 23-year-old inmate calmly explained to me how he trafficked hundreds of guns a year from the United States to Mexico. He never bothered paying American citizen straw buyers to purchase the weapons for him, he said. Instead, he would go to one of the many weekend gun shows around Dallas and take advantage of the so-called gun show loophole to buy firearms from private sellers without a background check or proof of citizenship.

He would drive back to Mexico with about a dozen guns hidden in refrigerators and stoves in the back of his truck, and sell the weapons in his hometown, a few hours south of the Rio Grande. His most requested weapon, he told me, was the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, which he could buy for as little as $500 and sell for five times that. He became richer than he had dreamed, buying a house and new trucks and motorbikes.

“At the beginning I felt bad, but you get used to it,” he said. “It’s the way you can have a good time. You sell weapons, you earn money and you have fun.” He got caught only because his cousin informed on him after an argument, he said, and he is now serving a nine-year sentence.

Guns from America inundate Mexico, arming the brutal cartels that have drowned this country in blood, destroyed families and driven people from their homes. Over a six-year period, the Justice Department traced more than 74,500 firearms seized from criminals here to the United States, where they were either manufactured or sold on after being imported from other countries.

When I see something like this, I have to wonder if the person is manufactured out of thin air. Once again, an anonymous source, who just happens to perfectly encapsulate the gun grabbers talking points on the “gun show loophole”.

As President Trump rages about the dangers of drugs and criminals seeping north from Mexico, he should consider how America exports its own deadly products and the devastation they cause. He announced last week that he would send the military to the Mexican border, and states have begun deploying National Guard troops. If there is going to be a buildup of forces, more resources should be used to stop gun smuggling — operations against the firearms traffickers and searching of southbound vehicles.

In states such as Texas, an undocumented migrant is not allowed to get a driver’s license. But anyone — even a member of the MS-13 gang without papers — can potentially walk into a gun show and buy a semiautomatic rifle. Organized crime groups are taking advantage of this every day.

And, if that is happening, it is illegal. Regardless, Ortega does have a point that Trump should work to stop the trafficking going south with illegal firearms. Unintentionally, he makes that point that the National Guard should be used to stop these criminals coming across the border illegally in the first place, along with building a border wall.

Funny how that works, eh?

But, if you want to talk gun trafficking, you have to mention Barack Obama and Eric Holder, who allowed over 2,000 rifles to disappear into Mexico through Operation Fast and Furious. Guns which injured and killed hundreds of Mexicans (that we know about), including children, and killed two U.S. Border Patrol agents. Law enforcement stated that guns used in the Paris Islamist attack came from this gunwalking program.

Why are these two not mentioned?

The problems of gun violence, drug trafficking and immigration are international in our interconnected world — and we need to work across borders to solve them. Just as Mexico needs to fight the brutal cartels that drive people to flee north, the United States needs to slow the southward flow of this devastating iron river.

OK, let’s build the wall and have lots and lots of government agents on the border, who do not detain and release while awaiting a hearing. Let’s detain and immediately deport.