Anyone who needs convincing that our nation’s gun laws are dangerously inadequate should consider the devastating impact those laws are having on our neighbor to the south, Mexico. Firearm-related violence across the border has skyrocketed recently in bloody battles between Mexican drug cartels and Mexican authorities, resulting in the slaughter of police officers, soldiers, judges, prosecutors, reporters and innocent bystanders. Because Mexico’s strict gun laws make it extremely difficult for civilians to purchase firearms, the increasing gun violence raises an obvious question: Where are the drug cartels buying their guns? Unfortunately, they’re buying them right here in the United States.
According to a report issued by the U.S. State Department on Feb. 27, more than 5,000 people were killed in the Mexican drug wars in 2008. The report states that Mexican authorities seized nearly 40,000 illegal firearms in 2008 and that 95 percent of the guns traced were purchased in the United States. Not surprisingly, the escalating violence has begun to spill over into this country.
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