Mexico's Drug Cartels & Their Weapons

Mexico's Drug Cartels & Their Weapons

I'm pleased to see that this March 15, 2009 Los Angeles Times article admits that the escalation of the fight in Mexico involves weapons that aren't coming from U.S. gun stores:

It was a brazen assault, not just because it targeted the city's police station, but for the choice of weapon: grenades.

The Feb. 21 attack on police headquarters in coastal Zihuatanejo, which injured four people, fit a disturbing trend of Mexico's drug wars. Traffickers have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals.

Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semiauto- matic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

The proliferation of heavier armaments points to a menacing new stage in the Mexican government's 2-year-old war against drug organizations, which are evolving into a more militarized force prepared to take on Mexican army troops, deployed by the thousands, as well as to attack each other.

These groups appear to be taking advantage of a robust global black market and porous borders, especially between Mexico and Guatemala. Some of the weapons are left over from the wars that the United States helped fight in Central America, U.S. officials said.

Now, the article does say that more conventional weapons are coming in from the U.S., but it is pretty clear what the real danger is:

Grenades or military-grade weapons have been reported in at least 10 Mexican states during the last six months, used against police headquarters, city halls, a U.S. consulate, TV stations and senior Mexican officials. In a three-week period ended March 6, five grenade attacks were launched on police patrols and stations and the home of a commander in the south-central state of Michoacan. Other such attacks occurred in five other states during the same period.

At least one grenade attack north of the border, at a Texas nightclub frequented by U.S. police officers, has been tied to Mexican traffickers.

How many weapons have been smuggled into Mexico from Central America is not known, and the military-grade munitions are still a small fraction of the larger arsenal in the hands of narcotics traffickers. Mexican officials continue to push Washington to stem the well-documented flow of conventional weapons from the United States, as Congress holds hearings on the role those smuggled guns play in arming Mexican drug cartels.

It would be silly to claim that there are no weapons being smuggled into Mexico from the U.S. I don't doubt this at all. But the great escalation involves weapons that aren't even legal to sell in the U.S.--like grenades!

If Mexico has a problem with "undocumented weapons" (no weapon is truly illegal) entering Mexico, then they can do what we need to do: make this into a real border, where we stop smuggling and unlawful entry. Fewer illegal drugs moving north means less money for the drug cartels to use to buy weapons moving south. Having a real border is a win-win situation.

Thanks to Arms and the Law for bringing this to my attention.