A report released today by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) concludes American firearms are arming Mexico’s brutal drug trafficking organizations at an alarming rate.According to the
report, issued with data sourced by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives (ATF), the vast majority of weapons traced by Mexican officials and discovered at crime scenes originate in the United States. In a recent letter to Feinstein, the ATF’s Acting Director, Kenneth Melson wrote that in 2009 and 2010, of the 29,284 weapons recovered in Mexico and submitted for tracing, 20,504 (70 percent) were U.S.-sourced.
An additional study by the Violence Policy Center (VPC) documents the increasing militarization of the U.S. civilian gun market. Militarized firearms, which today include weapons like semiautomatic assault rifles, 50 caliber anti-armor sniper rifles, and high-capacity pistols including armor-piercing handguns, are identified as the ‘weapons of choice’ of the traffickers supplying drug organizations in Mexico. The study finds that a gun industry design and marketing strategy, begun in the 1980s, has made such weapons more easily available to civilian consumers.
Senators Feinstein, Schumer, and Whitehouse have proposed several recommendations, including proposed legislation to require background checks for all firearms purchases. Additional recommendations include the reinstatement of an assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 and a ban on the import of military-style firearms.
About the Author
Erin Brodwin
Erin Brodwin is a freelance multimedia journalist specializing in urban and environmental reporting. She currently works for the NYCity News Service, a student-powered initiative of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.
A Southern California transplant to New York City, Erin has worked as a Student Director of the Student Sustainability Center at the University of California, San Diego, where she was instrumental in writing policy which made UCSD one of the first Fair Trade Certified campuses in the nation. Erin’s eye for design, her background in critical race and gender studies, and her passion for all things sustainable has taken her to places like the City of Los Angeles Workforce Investment Board, where she lead their Communications division, and Goodwill Industries International, where she worked as a grant writer and provided vocational services to low-income residents of East Los Angeles.
Erin speaks English and Spanish and has lived and studied in Southern California, Morelia, Mexico, Tarragona, Spain, and Salvador, Brazil. She currently resides in New York City.
You can view her portfolio (although it's still a work-in-progress!) at erinbrodwin.journalism.cuny.edu
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