Gun Smuggling on the United States – Mexico Border For over 200 years, the United States and Mexico have both had an important role in controlling one of the longest borders in the world. The United States is known as “the land of opportunity,” and in recent years, powerful drug cartels have taken the opportunity of firearms laws in the United States and purchased hundreds of thousands of weapons to use in their drug wars. The border states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas have differing laws to control the populations access to firearms. For example, California has an outright ban on weapons with a detachable magazine holding more than ten rounds of ammunition and limited sales of the number of weapons bought at one time (Sabalow,
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Operation Fast and Furious focused on Phoenix area gun dealers and allowed cartel members to purchase over 2,000 firearms. None of the weapons were fitted with tracking devices and were moved quickly out of the area and into the hands of members of the Mexican drug cartels. The operation began two years after the end of Operation Wide Receiver and only lasted for approximately two years, from 2009 through 2011, when news media exposed that two of the weapons from the operation were found at the scene of agent Terry’s murder. The US Attorney General’s Office in Phoenix announced that they had issued 34 indictments for gun smuggling as a direct result of Fast and Furious. However, in 2011, AG Eric Holder denied he knew of the operations existence in a House Judiciary Hearing (CNN, 2017). Of the 2,000 weapons sold to suspected drug cartels during the operation, the ATF recovered only 94 (Egger, 2016). A government watchdog group, Judicial Watch, stated that at least one of the weapons were reportedly used by Islamic terrorists in the horrific attacks on the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, in 2015 (2016). Other weapons in the attack were traced to a Slovakian arms dealer, where they were sold as non-functioning “prop” or display weapons (Samuel, …show more content…
Over half of the weapons illegally smuggled from the United States into Mexico between 2010 and 2013 were AR-15 and AK-47 variants, while semi-automatic pistols and revolvers accounted for a majority of the rest (Salcedo-Albarán & Santos, 2017). Mexican drug cartels have been held responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in a campaign of terror and violence following the election of President Felipe Caderon in 2006 (Young, 2012). By far, the United States contains the largest and most affluent customer base for the Mexican cartels, creating a strong bond between the two countries in illegal narcotics trafficking from Mexico to the United States and weapons trafficking in the opposite direction. The weapons of choice for the drug cartels are the AR-15 and its variants, as well as AK-47 style rifles. Both types of firearms can be purchased for modest sums of money at any number of legal gun shops, sporting goods stores, or licensed pawn shops across the
Operation Fast and Furious focused on Phoenix area gun dealers and allowed cartel members to purchase over 2,000 firearms. None of the weapons were fitted with tracking devices and were moved quickly out of the area and into the hands of members of the Mexican drug cartels. The operation began two years after the end of Operation Wide Receiver and only lasted for approximately two years, from 2009 through 2011, when news media exposed that two of the weapons from the operation were found at the scene of agent Terry’s murder. The US Attorney General’s Office in Phoenix announced that they had issued 34 indictments for gun smuggling as a direct result of Fast and Furious. However, in 2011, AG Eric Holder denied he knew of the operations existence in a House Judiciary Hearing (CNN, 2017). Of the 2,000 weapons sold to suspected drug cartels during the operation, the ATF recovered only 94 (Egger, 2016). A government watchdog group, Judicial Watch, stated that at least one of the weapons were reportedly used by Islamic terrorists in the horrific attacks on the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, in 2015 (2016). Other weapons in the attack were traced to a Slovakian arms dealer, where they were sold as non-functioning “prop” or display weapons (Samuel, …show more content…
Over half of the weapons illegally smuggled from the United States into Mexico between 2010 and 2013 were AR-15 and AK-47 variants, while semi-automatic pistols and revolvers accounted for a majority of the rest (Salcedo-Albarán & Santos, 2017). Mexican drug cartels have been held responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in a campaign of terror and violence following the election of President Felipe Caderon in 2006 (Young, 2012). By far, the United States contains the largest and most affluent customer base for the Mexican cartels, creating a strong bond between the two countries in illegal narcotics trafficking from Mexico to the United States and weapons trafficking in the opposite direction. The weapons of choice for the drug cartels are the AR-15 and its variants, as well as AK-47 style rifles. Both types of firearms can be purchased for modest sums of money at any number of legal gun shops, sporting goods stores, or licensed pawn shops across the