U.S. Targets American Gun Cartels

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)’s Office of Field Operations has devised a new strategy, according to NBC News, that will have agents focus on monitoring the activities of gun stores. It’s these gun stories that could hold the key to breaking the cycle of illegal gun sales, especially since some of them are corrupt.

We’ve known for a long time that one of the principal suppliers of weapons to the the Mexican drug cartels were, well, us. U.S. gun laws are much more lax than Mexican laws, as far as I know you can’t just have a gun because you want to in Mexico. Thus, as the drug war escalated in Mexico, the need for more firepower did, too, and that was easily supplied by people in the U.S.

The way it usually works is like this: Person goes to buy a high-powered assault rifle, person can legally do so in Texas, person takes gun and drives across the border and sells the gun to someone else. Finally, U.S. officials are doing something substantive to address this problem.

In all likelihood these types of operations will be shut down by the NRA and its lobby, but the truth is this is the best way to get to the heart of the matter. The guns are coming from gun shops and doing things like analyzing financial and telephone records can help lead to people who are abetting (what I would call) narco-terrorists across the border.