It’s hard to get a gun in Mexico, unless it comes from the U.S.
There are at least three gun shops in downtown Manhattan and only one gun shop in all of Mexico.
By INGRID ROJAS
The U.S. and Mexico share many things: the border, love for Mexican food but gun control isn’t one of them. While the U.S. has 49,762 licensed gun shops, Mexico has only one legal gun shop, according to a just-published New York Times story.
In stark contrast with the U.S., obtaining a gun in Mexico is purposefully difficult: the approval process takes months, guns must be kept at home, and the options are limited. Only police and military personal are allowed to carry semiautomatic rifles like the one used by the shooter in Aurora, Colorado, and handguns for home protection can be no greater than .38 calibers, reports Damien Cave.
“Each has its own vastly different approach for controlling firearms, and while neither the restrictive gun laws in Mexico nor the more permissive model in the United States has stopped bullets from flying, people on both sides of the border always ask why the people next door are so terribly violent,” writes Cave.
Even with tight gun laws, the murder rate in Mexico is almost double that in the U.S., especially with Mexico’s war on drug cartels which have left 60,000 people dead in the last six years. But guns that are easily obtained in the U.S. are making their way across the border. A study published by the U.S. Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agency found that that 68,000 of 99,000 guns recovered by Mexican authorities could be traced to the United States.
It’s estimated that one in four adult Americans own a gun, and after the Colorado shooting, many more will. Firearms sales in that state have surged 25 percent since the shooting last week.
(Photo: Flickr.com/Josepha)
